The idea of "hygienic panties for female dogs" is odd enough without having to wonder why it has part of a Compatible With Gameboy Color logo on it.

Industry and multi-console news

• The UK government has published the Bryon Review, a six month long review of the effects of video games and the Internet on children. The report calls for the industry to better educate parents on game ratings and how to use family settings, and finds "the arousal brought on during some game play may have the same impact on children as high levels as stress," although "there is no clear evidence of desensitization [to violence] in children." In the future, the BBFC will rate all games for those 12 and older, with PEGI remaining to rate games for children. In addition, retailers could now face criminal sanctions for selling inappropriate games to minors.
• As long as we're Over There, Next Generation has the newest European sales chart. Gamasutra has the Japanese chart.
• Atari has received yet another delisting warning from Nasdaq.
• The new map and weapons for Team Fortress 2 are coming in the week of April 20.
• The next 50 Cent game is officially known as 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and will follow the story of Fiddy getting his first period during a beach party.
• Developers The Collective and Shiny Entertainment have merged to form Double Helix.
• InfoAddict has a list of top ten things that suck about Rock Band, though it's really more like things that suck about online multiplayer Rock Band.
• Next Generation talks to Peter Moore about implementing change in the EA Sports brand. “We’ve got to bring more people in. We’ve got to grow the sports business…you know, the interface on our games is just too complicated for [non-gamers] and we have to change that, and we’re doing a lot of work to do that without dumbing down the games.”
• Elsewhere, EA audio director Aubrey Hodges mentions "We are making a change in the Madden commentators."
• Be ye forewarned: Take Two officially considers BioShock and Civilization MMOs to be "potential untapped opportunities."
• Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen has reportedly confirmed that three of the band's songs are appearing in Guitar Hero IV, those three being Photograph, Rock of Ages and Animal.
• MTV talks to Christian Svensson about how Capcom predicts game sales and determines how many copies of a game to produce.
• Similarly, they talk to Atlus about the need to remain conservative when producing niche games (which is why their titles are so often hard to find).
• Gameplayer talks to the people at Traveller's Tales about their past and future Lego games.
• GamePolitics' coverage of the Jack Thompson Bar trial begins to wrap up with Jack's closing statement. "I have a right - in fact, I have duty, as Jesus did, the confront the Pharisees and say: 'You are hypocrites. You are liars. You are whited sepulchers. You’re in a den of thieves,' and so forth…"
• Millions of Us talks about the experience of creating an Alternate Reality Game for the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
• Midway has revealed the full roster of players in NBA Ballers: Chosen One.
• The console version of World in Conflict has been re-titled World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, and will contain a new campaign and multiplayer maps.
• Rockstar has announced the Rockstar Social Club, a leaderboard website combined with "performance-based competitions and awards."
• I hate to have to phrase it this way, but another teenager has been killed over whose turn it was to play a video game.
• Collider has an interview with Mike De Luca in which he talks a bit about the Metal Gear Solid movie. "When you’re in your theatre seat, you’re stuck with these subjective versions of the story and the game from a director or the writer’s point of view. You can’t interact with what’s going on so whatever turns you on about the game, you’re immediately disadvantaged in the theatre because you’re not feeling anything which I think ups the ante for how good the story has to be and how good the movie has to be because we’re going in at a disadvantage that you’re not going to get the excitement or the adrenalin rush of doing it yourself, so we have to do it for you in a way that makes up for that."

PC and mobile news

New GameTap titles: Baseball Mogul, Daemonica , Hot Dog King
New content: Unreal Tournament 3 map pack, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire 1.5 patch
New media: Sam & Max Episode 205: What's New, Beelzebub? trailer

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky has been given an Augst 29 worldwide release date.
• Stardock has announced The Political Machine 2008, a game in which you go through the 2008 US elections as campaign manager for any of the major candidates or make one of your own.

Nintendo news

New media: Deca Sports trailer, Super Dodgeball Brawlers gameplay footage

• This weekend, Best Buy locations will be hosting a Wii for Women event.
• Gamasutra has a Games Demystified feature looking at how Super Mario Galaxy's gravity works.
• GameTrailers has a video preview of Mario Kart Wii.
• Animal Boxing is a DS game you play with the system upside down so you can use the stylus on the upper screen (where your opponent's face is).
• Japanese Club Nintendo members get an SD card filled with Nintendo game music. Everybody else gets nothing.
• OMG Nintendo looks at seven Game Boy games that deserved better. Which is to say, could've been more if they hadn't been confined to the Game Boy.
• Amazon's deal of the day is Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity for $29.99. They also have Crash of the Titans for $22.05.

Sony news

• Marking the third anniversary of the system, IGN talks to Sony's John Koller about the past, present and future of the PSP.
• Sony will soon be adding video support for High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition.
• Despite being "confirmed" by SCEE, Guerrilla Games warns that the September release date for Killzone 2 "is not gospel."
• Sony has announced a September 16 release date for SOCOM: Confrontation. In addition, the game's community site is up now.
• Haze is coming sometime in May, they just can't figure out when.
• Likely spurred on by the success of Persona 3, a fan translation of Persona 2: Innocent Sin is in the works. The Persona 2 that was released in America was Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, an alternate universe story made afterwards.
• Amazon's deal of the day is Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity for $25.00.

Microsoft news

New content: UEFA EURO 2008 demo, Forza 2 car, Ace Combat 6 planes, Chessmaster Live Egypt Chess Set
New media: Operation Darkness trailers -- it's the game about Nazis and vampires and werewolves. Yeah, that one

• A Ninja Gaiden 2 demo has been confirmed for May.
• Rare says Banjo Kazooie 3 is still on track for a holiday 2008 release.
• In response to the people at Metanet complaining about the low quality of Live Arcade games, Klei Entertainment argues that bad games aren't the problem, it's a matter of "control and visibility."
• The people at Metanet themselves are trying to avoid continuing negativity - "which apparently only works if you’re a fast-talking British bloke" - by talking about the positives of developing for Live Arcade.
• Gaming Nexus offers suggestions on how to make the achievements system better.
• Xbox 360 Fanboy has a walkthrough of the redesigned Xbox.com.
• Microsoft's lawyers have no problem with the Master Chief character mod recently made by fans for Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3. "It's a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community."