In Japan, Club Nintendo members get a Super Famicom classic controller for their Wiis. Once again, you get nothing.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Team Fortress 2 Goldrush screenshots and video, NCAA Football 09 trailer, NFL Head Coach 09 screenshots and video

• The FTC has again requested information from EA regarding their buyout offer for Take Two.
• The video game BAFTAs are skipping a year, and will next be held on March 10, 2009. One of the reasons for losing the awards this year is "to improve the judging process to make sure these are the best and most democratic recognising the UK games industry."
• Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway has been given an August 2008 release date. There's a trailer at the link.
• A man in prison for wire fraud is seeking a restraining order against Activision, Atari, and Take-Two Interactive for making games that "offends me and contributed to my identity theft." He also expresses concern about "imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross." Bear in mind this man has previously sued Christian Slater, St. Patrick's Day, and the 9-11 Commission Report.
• Both Gamasutra and Next Generation have interviews with Pandemic's Cameron Brown about Mercenaries 2.
• The new Japanese sales charts have Mario Kart Wii debuting in first place with 594,000 units sold in its first week, while the Australian charts show GT5 Prologue holding on to first place.
• The ESRB has declared that downloadable content can't go out of the bounds of the original game's rating.
• Namco will be releasing top-down shooter PowerUp Forever on Live Arcade and Playstation Network.
• The Ace Combat series has surpassed 10 million units sold worldwide.
• Ricky Gervais has revealed he has a cameo in Grand Theft Auto IV.
• Activision has announced Spider-Man: Web of Shadows for all major systems.I think a web of shadows is what emo Peter from Spider-Man 3 shoots.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children limit total screen time to two hours a day. Also, boys should take at least 11,000 steps a day; for girls, 13,000. You know what fights obesity? Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• Variety's Cut Scene blog talks to people in the game and movie industries about the recent "games don't need writers" debate. "As a film producer I have drawn and quartered many a writer so usually I leap at the chance to jump on any bandwagon that is founded on lynching the writing community. Unfortunately this retard doesn't know his ass from his elbow."
• Game Politics notes that the episode of Tanya Byron's show about game addiction that people are up in arms about was recorded before she started work on the Byron report, so it doesn't really represent a change in stance. Not negatively, anyway.
• The authors of Grand Theft Childhood say that there is "absolutely no evidence" that playing violent games leads to real-life violence.
• The American Library Association have declared tomorrow Gaming & Your Library Day.
• 1up looks back at the worst console launch games ever. Blue Storm gets too much hate.
• All Game Crazy locations will be having a midnight launch for GTA4, but 10 stores will also be hosting "Extreme GTA IV Experience" events.
• Ryan Davis over at Jeff Gerstmann's new site Giant Bomb plans to "watch and assess every video-game movie ever made."
• GameTrailers has uploaded part 3 of their Star Wars game retrospective.

PC and mobile news

New GameTap titles: Alien Shooter Vengeance, Dark Matter, Dracula Twins
New content: Kung Fu Panda demo, Savage 2 1.47 patch, Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath and Tiberium Wars unofficial Windows 2000 patches

• An update to the Folding@home GPU client has been released.
• Following the news that several of the game's servers are being shut down, the CEO of Flying Lab talks about what went wrong with Pirates of the Burning Sea.
• GameSetWatch looks at the backgrounds of the five Alliance races in World of Warcraft.
• Square Enix has announced a new RPG for mobile phones in Japan called Ellark.
• TokyoPop will be publishing 22 new Warcraft and Starcraft manga. That isn't manga you jackasses.

Nintendo news

• A Build-A-Bear Workshop game is coming to the Wii, containing all the fun of building a bear without all the.. getting a bear at the end.
• This is really pointless by now, but just for the record, Enterbrain says their president never claimed a new DS model was in the works to begin with.
• Ignition Entertainment and SNK will be co-publishing Metal Slug 7 in America.
• Namco has announced We Cheer for the Wii, a cheerleading game featuring "30 smash-hit master recordings" from the likes of Hilary Duff and Natasha Bedingfield.
• 4 color rebellion points out the movie that helped inspire Giygas from Earthbound, a Japanese film called The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty. "When I was a kid, I accidentally saw the wrong movie at a theater. ... After I saw it, I went back home and was silent and just really out of it. I had received such a big shock that I worried my parents."
• Miyamoto sez: Cheer up, hardcore gamers, Nintendo hasn't dumped you. "Rather than the core gamer being concerned that we're abandoning them, I hope they'll realize that really what we're trying to do is to create a better environment for their hobby. ... For me, I'm trying to entertain as many people as I can, creating games that the widest number of people can enjoy. Of course, that being said, we do have the existing teams at Nintendo working on the kinds of products we've always made over the years. The Zelda team is forming again to work on new games! But to me, it's about finding these new interactive experiences and bringing them to people."
• Amazon's deal of the day is Trauma Center: New Blood for $32.99. There's also House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return for $19.99.

Sony news

New game: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
New demo: UEFA EURO 2008
New content: Warhawk Broken Mirror pack and Booster combo, Rock Band tracks

• Despite a government ban of the game, United Arab Emirates has still had to crack down on distribution of God of War.
• Some people are reporting their Metal Gear Online beta keys are missing letters, so they can't get in.
• PS3 Call of Duty 4 will be getting the Variety map pack along with a Double XP Weekend next week.
• Amazon has Unreal Tournament III for $39.99 and Hot Shots Tennis for $11.88.

Microsoft news

New content: Kane and Lynch - The Dope Bag (free)

• The Dreamcast version of the first Soul Calibur is coming to Live Arcade this summer. Just a guess here, but I don't think that's going to be under 150 megs.
• The recent console price cut has doubled 360 sales in Europe.
• Microsoft's marketing push for GTA4 in Europe will match what they spent on Halo 3.
• A demo for Iron Man should be coming tomorrow.
• Tales of Vesperia will be the first Tales title with a theme song sung in English and Japanese by the same artist -- in this case, J-pop singer Bonnie Pink.
• Major Nelson has put up a few top 10 charts for Video Marketplace content around the world.
• CVG seems to think that the DLC for GTA4 could be whole cities.
• The official Capcom blog provides an update on changes to characters in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.
• The 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 will include five new maps, two new characters and two-player splitscreen.
• A top rated Ikaruga player calls the Live Arcade version of Ikaruga "horrible". Basically because they changed the enemy patterns (that he no doubt wasted countless days memorizing) in a few places.
• Amazon has the Darkness for $24.31.