Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, today announced the full list for the upcoming release of “Fan Pack” – an all-new downloadable content (DLC) package for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Vegas 2 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Windows PC and the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. Scheduled for release in July via Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360®, PLAYSTATION®Network and ubi.com, this content package will enrich and extend the original game by offering three new multiplayer maps. Also included is a new High Stakes setting that allows players to play their favorite online modes in an exciting new way, along with the ability to attain new ranks and A.C.E.S. Ubisoft has decided to offer this additional content for free to all Rainbow Six fans. Until then, please click Full Story for the full information on the downloadble content.

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Microsoft and Take-Two made headlines when they announced last year that they’d be joining forces to release Grand Theft Auto IV downloadable content exclusively for the Xbox 360. That content was supposed to arrive this fall, sometime between August and October. But GTA IV publisher Take-Two Interactive said in its quarterly financial statement today that the DLC has been pushed to the start of company’s next fiscal year, which runs from November 2008 through January 2009.

The decision was made to “provide a better balance in Take-Two’s release schedule,” company officials said. Midnight Club: Los Angeles, another upcoming Rockstar Games title, is set for release on Sept. 9 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Take-Two and Rockstar are still mum about what exactly gamers can expect from the GTA IV downloadable content, although the company does officially refer to it as “episodic.”

In an exclusive interview with Next Generation, Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten announced the rather disappointing news that they will not be releasing a Spring update this year. This of course means that the rumored Spring update feature set that was leaked last week was complete bologna. Whitten says that instead of putting their resources into a Spring update, they decided to focus their energy into “building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service” (ahem, more reliability). But all is not lost in the land of updates, as Whitten confirmed Microsoft will be rolling out a change to their DRM policy in June that’ll allow content owners to re-license XBLA and XBLM content to a single console. This move will make said content available when disconnected from Xbox Live.

Finally, we learn that the Xbox Live Arcade will get a metaphorical Spring cleaning as Microsoft plans to remove under-performing Arcade titles. Games that have been on the market for over six months, have a Metacritic average lower than 65% and a conversion rate below 6% will be targeted for de-listing. A move that Microsoft hopes will streamline the service and open it up to bigger and better things.

Codemasters announced today that the Race Driver: GRID™ playable demo has been downloaded one million times across the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Games for Windows formats since its launch on May 8th. If you’re a GRID fan, and live in the US and Europe, make sure to keep on going for that fastest lap so you can have a chance to win an actual, real-life vehicle! For more information, and for the full official press release, please click Full Story. Full Story »

After being announced at GDC 08 the only questioned that lingered about Microsoft’s new Community Games initiative was when the program would officially begin. Today Microsoft inched the program closer to launch by announcing the Beta test for Community Games is available to premium XNA membership owners and the new XNA Creators Club Online community site.

The beta allows creators to submit games for review to the newly formed creators site and once reviewed and approved the game is made available on Xbox Live.

According to Microsoft during GDC, Community Games will land on all Xbox Live connected consoles this holiday season and hopefully the early beta means we can have a healthy catalog of titles to choose from.

Make sure to check out the XNA Community Games tutorial video below.

Even earlier then promised, here she be in all her glory! Embedded above is the just released and very first in-game footage of Epic’s Gears of War 2 thanks to the fine folks over at GameVideos. We don’t want to spoil the video experience for you, so we advise just jumping in head first. But if you have to know, there’s bunch of sexy gameplay, some story talk, chainsaw duels, hostages and neck snapping … FREAKIN’ DELICIOUS. Click play, take it in, discuss and commence your drooling mechanisms.

Remember, you can also download the video via Xbox Live Marketplace in HD. Enjoy.

You’ve been drafted to ‘B’ Company! DICE, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that a demo for its highly anticipated summer release, Battlefield: Bad Company™ will be available on Xbox LIVE™ Marketplace* and PLAYSTATION® Store* on June 5. Players will land on the battlefield as part of the ‘B’ or Bad Company, a wayward band of soldiers more interested in the pursuit of gold and personal financial gain than following the rules. Gamers will get a sneak peek at how tactical destruction changes the way shooters are played, both offline and online in the single player and multiplayer demo.

Players can also gain early access to the demo by pre-ordering the game through participating retailers in North America and Europe. More details on this special pre-order campaign can be found at www.battlefield.com/badcompany.

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Codemasters just released a new demo to the Xbox Live Marketplace for their upcoming street racer Race Driver GRID and yes, this demo surprised us too.

The 795MB GRID demo allows gamers to race around in and experience three different regions including Europe Touring Cars at Jarama Circuit, U.S Muscle cars at San Francisco and Japanese Drift Racing at Yokohama Docks. We’re also told that GRID demo players in Europe will have a chance to win a BMW 3-Series, if they can log the fastest lap time in the Jarama Euro Touring cars championship. So, no more complaining that European Live gamers don’t get any exclusive offers. Mmkay? Download the GRID demo, see if it’s your cup of racing tea and try and win team X3F a new BMW. Dibs on riding shotgun.

Wired has made a post that rounds up some of the GTA Numbers following Take 2’s $500 Million dollar announcement earlier today. A lot of you have asked for some GTA LIVE numbers, so let’s take a look a what we have so far:

• In the first week, more than 2.3 million people played Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox LIVE
• GTA IV is now the number one played game on Xbox LIVE (as you already know)
• Over the weekend, we saw the Xbox LIVE service reach 1 million concurrent users
• Gamers have unlocked more than 12 million achievements worth over 100 million gamerscore points in GTA
• Grand Theft Auto IV set a new record for time played, with the average gamer spending more than four hours playing the game on LIVE in the first week alone

Not bad for a week, huh?

Since gaming out sold music last year (2007) and even before that, gaming was a multi-billion dollar industry and the popularity is growing immensely. And, I guess Guinness has a special interest in the gaming industry because they have their own online book and site dedicated to gaming world records. To view the article from Popsci.com, please click Full Story. But, if you want to get right into the action and view the website with all of the record, please click HERE.

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