It's my birthday and I owe the government $700 I don't have. Keep on rockin', Roast Beef.

Industry and multi-console news:

• Harmonix has announced their next big project now that they've moved on from Guitar Hero. Rock Band is coming for the PS3 and 360, and it allows people to play in a virtual band together, in person or online, with three different controllers: guitar (one for lead and one for bass), a drum kit and a microphone. Gamespot has an interview with people from Harmonix and EA about just how the hell they plan to pull this off.
• Officials in New York are upset about GTA4 being set in "the safest big city in America" (which it's not; some of them seem confused as to whether the game is actually set in the real NYC). Of course, having 5000 Law & Orders and other crime shows set in New York isn't a problem.
• IDG has announced that tickets for the E for All Expo will go on sale in June. Advanced tickets for Thursday and Friday will be $45, Saturday and Sunday will be $65, and $90 will cover all four days.
• A new study conducted by the Swinburne University of Technology finds that video games only have an adverse effect on children who already have a tendency toward aggression.
• Sega of Japan has beaten the last twitching finger of its hardware division with an oar by ceasing its internal repair service for Saturns and Dreamcasts.
• Racketboy lists the cheapest Genesis games worth your time.
• RosenQueen.com is an American online store for Nippon Ichi products. They're selling a number of things you'd normally only get ahold of in Japan, like a Japanese audiobook chronicling the adventures of Etoile Rosenqueen from the Marl Kingdom series, and a Prinny plushie. oh god there's a third Atelier Iris game coming out I need money
• Apparently tea stores in Montreal use Mega Man wall art to advertise.
• The 2006 Game Developer Salary Survey reveals the average earnings for various jobs in the industry.
• The Daily Mail has an article about how today's kids are playing Playstations instead of climbing trees. They lament that the number of children treated for falling out of a tree dropped 36% between 1999 and 2006, so please, do your part and throw a child out the window.

Nintendo news:

• This week's Virtual Console titles: Star Fox 64, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Dragon's Curse.
• Okay, you can really stop making Photoshop claims now: Sega has officially announced NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. I always knew it was Steve Perry in that harlequin costume.
• Kotaku has a big gallery of photos from the Nintendo Museum.
• IGN has information on Ninja Gaiden DS from a recent press conference. Is this the first action game to orient the DS book-style?
• The director of Mario Strikers Charged has discussed how online play will work.
• Miyamoto has suggested that third party developers might have trouble competing with Nintendo because they assign their fourth-string teams to work on Nintendo consoles.
• The Mother 3 soundtrack has been released on iTunes.

Sony news:

• A new version of an N64 emulator for the PSP can run Mario 64 at full speed.
• Sony has denied that Lair and Heavenly Sword are due out in May, despite the dates appearing on the official Playstation site.
• Gamasutra has a summary of Hideo Kojima's GO3 speech about the history and future of Metal Gear.
• MTV's Stephen Totilo has an archive up of a 12,000 word discussion/debate about God of War II he had with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal.
• Mr. Biffo has posted online a column he wrote that was pulled from Edge magazine for being "too much of a personal attack on a certain individual." It's not really an attack, though; just a recounting of an unfortunate PR stunt gone wrong (which would make this number 873 for Sony, I believe) starring one Mr. Phil Harrison.
• The PSP core pack will be dropping to $169.99 starting tomorrow.
• A trailer has been released for Super Rub a Dub, because Sony simply cannot get over their obsession with rubber ducks.
• Amazon has Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the PS2 marked down to $16.99.

Microsoft news:

• This week's Live Arcade title will be Luxor 2.
• An Armored Core 4 demo is now available on Xbox Live.
• A Gears of War update that fixes glitches and adds the new Annex gametype is currently in the certification process.
• Epic's Rod Fergusson has defended Gears against claims of unoriginality, saying "there's no mandate in the games industry that we have to make games that are totally innovative--the mandate is to make games that are fun."
• Toshiba has cut the prices of its HD-DVD players in what it calls a "strategic reduction." The entry level HD-A2 model now retails for $399.
• According to OXM, a Forza 2 demo will hit Live sometime in April.
• Microsoft will be bringing Project Sylpheed and Vampire Rain to the US.
• The instructions for Guitar Hero II on the 360 reveal that the port on the bottom of the X-plorer guitar is for an effects pedal to be sold seperately in the future.
• A high school Halo 2 tourney was cancelled after officials finally figured out that sponsoring a bunch of under 17 kids playing an M-rated game might not be the best play. Unfortunately, they didn't figure this out until the kid organizing the tournament had spent nine months and $650 planning it.