Source: UK gaming magazine Edge.

What we heard: Microsoft isn't likely to make any official statements regarding the launch of Project Natal for the Xbox 360 until June 13, when it will hold a "world premiere" for the device as part of the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo. However, thanks to seemingly unauthorized statements made by Microsoft's Saudi Arabian marketing manager, the current plan appears to be to launch the camera-based motion-sensing add-on in October.

Would you be interested in a $150 Natal?

Today, that launch window seems to have gained a bit more support, along with a potential price point. Citing an industry source, Edge reported today that Microsoft intends to roll out Natal worldwide on October 26, a Tuesday. Edge's source noted that the date has yet to be 100 percent nailed down and may be advanced or retreated by a handful of weeks.

Interestingly, the source also stated that Microsoft intends to sell the peripheral as a stand-alone unit for $150 in the US. However, that figure clashes with a previous rumor, which indicated that Microsoft planned to position Natal as an "impulse buy" with a £50 ($72) price point.

As for bundles, Edge's source said Microsoft also intends to pack in Natal with the hard drive-less Xbox 360 Arcade SKU for $299, a $100 premium over the console's current price point. However, this tidbit of information is also questionable, considering analysts are expecting a new, slimmer 250GB Xbox 360 to ship out later this year at the $299 price point--with Natal included.

The official story: Microsoft had not responded to requests for comment as of press time. However, it is unlikely the publisher will deviate from its tried-and-true mantra, "Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation."

Bogus or not bogus?: Leaning not bogus. Considering that Natal will include such complex technology as voice recognition, facial recognition, and three-dimensional real-time motion sensing, it seems more likely that the $150 price point is more accurate than the essentially giveaway £50 speculative MSRP. However, don't expect it to be priced much higher, as Microsoft must keep the price down if it hopes to attract mass-market consumers, a primary target of the new device.

Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group of companies, is being tipped to return to games with an announcement next month. According to a report by British industry trade magazine MCV, the entrepreneur will attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June to launch a new product: an online-only service that is set to partner with leading publishers and content owners.

MCV reports that Branson's new business is expected to run across the "leading console formats," including "Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, as well as multiplayer PC gaming." The new venture will also feature the "most popular games on the market," according to the magazine, and will be "challenge-based." The service described by MCV sounds similar to the one Branson announced in 2007 called A World of My Own, which sells downloadable games and is currently remains in beta.

Branson is chairman of the Virgin group and could be making a return to the games industry.

Branson's Virgin Games label was a successful venture in the mid-to-late 1980s, publishing games across the majority of major PC and console platforms. The brand was renamed Virgin Interactive in 1994 and published Disney games, such The Lion King and The Jungle Book, as well as the original Command & Conquer.

Virgin's assets were sold off to various companies in the late 1990s, with its British studios acquired in a management buyout, US developer Westwood going to EA, and the remaining assets snapped up by French publisher--and bankrupt Interplay parent--Titus Software. The Virgin Games brand now exists in the form of an online casino, poker, and bingo portal. With BT teaming up with OnLive in the UK, and Virgin Media offering similar services in that market, there's plenty of scope for Branson to want to get back into the industry.

Source: A report on VG247.

What we heard: The VG247 article cites "a highly placed source" with the tidbit that Sony will unveil a PlayStation Network subscription plan at next month's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. According to the article, the service will carry an annual cost less than £50 ($72). For that money, subscribers will get a premium package apparently centered on one free PSN game per month (from a choice of up to four different titles) and access to a streaming music application that will also be unveiled at E3.

A subscription-based premium service could significantly change the PSN landscape.

Speculation in the article suggests that the streaming audio service would be able to run in the background while users played games. One feature that will apparently not be exclusive to subscribers is cross-game voice chat. The VG247 source emphasized that Sony won't "gimp" its free PSN service in order to attract subscribers to the premium offering.

Sony first revealed its plans for a subscription-based PSN service last November. At the time, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai released a statement confirming that the current level of PSN service (including online multiplayer and connection to services like Netflix and Facebook) would remain free.

So if Sony isn't charging for online play, what can it expect gamers to shell out for, especially with an annual £50 fee? At a price like that, something amounting to a Game-of-the-Month club might be the only real option Sony has. Even then, without must-have features and assurances that gamers will get their money's worth, a premium PSN subscription sounds like the sort of option that's easily ignored. And if Sony actually comes through with those killer features, won't standard PSN users feel like their service has been gimped regardless?

The official story: "We don't discuss rumors or speculation."--A Sony representative.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus that Sony's already said it would have a premium PSN subscription and that it will be less than £50 annually. As for the rest, Sony should shed a little light on that at E3.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter is famous for making bold predictions--not all of which come to pass. However, in an interview with Eurogamer this week, the outspoken analyst shed some light on a major gaming event of the past.

"Microsoft paid Take-Two [Interactive] to make Grand Theft Auto IV non-exclusive," he told the publication. "GTA IV was going to be a PS3 exclusive, but Microsoft paid Rockstar and Take-Two to make it a non-exclusive, and they paid them a lot."

When Microsoft announced that Grand Theft Auto IV would launch simultaneously on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at its 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo briefing, there were audible gasps in the audience. It was a major coup for the software giant, as the three previous iterations of Rockstar Games' wildly popular open-world crime series had debuted on the PlayStation 2. After several months, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas did eventually make their way to the original Xbox and PC.

According to Pachter, Microsoft paid a massive premium to bring Grand Theft Auto, which has sold over 15 million units, to the 360 on day one. "The number I've heard, and I'm sure this is right, is $75 million, and that probably includes the funding for the first DLC packs too," said the analyst. "It's more than the $50 million that people talk about."

GTAIV protagonist Niko Bellic was a $75 million man, according to Pachter.

The downloadable content packs Pachter mentions are the two GTAIV expansions, the Lost & Damned and the Ballad of Gay Tony. During a June 2007 conference call with analysts, Take-Two executives revealed that Microsoft had paid them $25 million for each episode to make them 360-exclusive permanently. However, that presumption was dashed when Rockstar announced they were bound for the PC and PS3 in January. The pair launched just last week for the latter two platforms as a la carte DLC or as part of the Episodes from Liberty City compilation (see video review below), which does not require Grand Theft Auto IV to play.

Pachter also shared some second-hand information on Agent, the forthcoming PlayStation 3 exclusive from the GTAIV team at Rockstar North. He explained it thusly: "Sony…said to Take-Two, 'You've got to give us something else,' and the 'something else' was a zombie game that Rockstar wanted to work on. But while Rockstar was in the planning phase, Dead Rising came out and Left 4 Dead was announced. Rockstar realized they were up against a saturated market and said, 'What can we possibly do that will be any better than what Valve's done?' They started again, and that's when they came up with the idea of Agent, [but] nobody actually knows what it is."

Last Thursday, the game-industry's collective consciousness was coldcocked by the announcement that Activision had signed a 10-year publishing deal with Bungie. Specifically, the agreement gave the Call of Duty publisher exclusive rights to distribute games based on the Halo-maker's all-new property through 2020.

Few details were made available about the new game other than it would be an "action" title. Now, job listings on the official Bungie Web site have revealed its storyline will be more complex than the Halo series. The studio is currently hiring a writing lead to help craft its "next game universe" and is especially interested in scribes with "branching or nonlinear narrative experience."

Job listings point to Bungie's next project being an action RPG.

Though Halo 3: ODST experimented with flashbacks, all Halo games have had a fairly linear storyline. The fact Bungie's next title will have a branching plot indicates it could be an action role-playing game along the lines of Mass Effect 2 or the original Deus Ex.

Another sign pointing toward an action RPG is the fact Bungie is also hiring a "Player Investment Designer" to create "worlds imbued with real value and consequence" and "give players long-term goals to invest them in the world and their character." Long-term character development and storylines that deliver consequences for a player's actions are hallmarks of role-playing games.

Unfortunately, during an interview with GameSpot last week, Bungie reps didn't elaborate on the game's story or subgenre. However, the studio has made it clear that the game will be available on "all platforms," meaning the developer is abandoning the Xbox exclusivity it has maintained since 2001. (The PC ports of Halo and Halo 2 were handled by other developers.) The last game Bungie developed for a PlayStation platform was 2000's Oni.

Source: A post on Duck and Cover that cited an Interplay investor, parroted endlessly throughout the gaming news sphere.

What we heard: Ever since September, Interplay and Bethesda Softworks have been tangled in a legal dispute over the rights to make a massively multiplayer online game using the Fallout brand. When Bethesda acquired the rights to the series from Interplay in April of 2007, one of the conditions was that Interplay be allowed to continue working on its own Fallout MMOG, provided it begin full-scale development within two years.

Interplay has released little info on its Fallout MMOG aside from concept art like this.

The day before that two-year window was up, Interplay announced a deal with Bulgarian developer Masthead Studios to develop the game. Unmoved, Bethesda terminated Interplay's license to make the project that same month. The pair brought their dispute into court when Bethesda filed suit against its partner last September, and Interplay responded in kind the following month.

That fight has been simmering for a year, but today's news from Duck and Cover suggested it had finally come to an end, with the two parties reaching a settlement that would clear the way for Interplay to make the Fallout MMOG. An examination of the court filings confirmed that the only movement on the case this week was a dismissal that both parties agreed to.

However, it wasn't a dismissal of each other's claims; it was a dismissal of a Bethesda appeal on the judge's refusal to issue a preliminary injunction against Interplay. The injunction, originally denied by the judge in December, only sought to stop Interplay from trading on the Fallout brand, specifically through the continued sale of the original Fallout, its sequel, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.

So Bethesda and Interplay have come to an agreement on that one aspect of the case, or possibly Bethesda just didn't want to continue fighting for an injunction. But nothing has been filed in the case to suggest that the larger dispute over the Fallout MMOG has been settled.

The official story: Lawyers and representatives with Interplay and Bethesda had not returned GameSpot's request for comment as of press time. However, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made yesterday by Interplay acknowledged the dismissal of the appeal. It also clearly states, "Interplay will continue to defend its rights and to pursue its Counter-Claims against Bethesda, for among other things, Breach of Contract and Declaratory Judgment and an award of damages, attorney fees, and other relief."

[UPDATE] "Bethesda Softworks voluntarily dismissed its appeal as that related only to a preliminary injunction, not a complete resolution. All claims in Bethesda's complaint against Interplay remain pending in their entirety and will be pursued actively." -- Bethesda rep.

Bogus or not bogus?: It's not over yet. Bogus.

Source: UK gaming site CVG.

What we heard: Nintendo timed the announcement of its upcoming 3DS at a weird hour. Preempting the launch of the DSi XL by a launch in March, Nintendo said the system's glasses-free, 3D-capable successor would arrive a year or less later. Analysts quickly speculated that the announcement was a proactive measure to get ahead of unauthorized media leaks.

It remains unclear what the 3DS will even look like.

Now, it appears as if Nintendo has selected an equally unexpected launch window for its newest handheld. UK gaming site CVG reports today that Nintendo plans to launch the 3DS this October, a move that will allow it to get a two-month jump on the busy holiday shopping season. CVG noted that its information came by way of "UK industry sources," that were apparently caught off guard by Nintendo's release strategy.

"It's a surprise--we were expecting it much closer to Christmas," a source reportedly told the site. "But I suppose it gives Nintendo the opportunity to get it front and centre in people's minds nice and early. In my experience, you don't launch a product that early to Christmas unless you're confident in it--and going to spend a lot of money on it. We're reassured that Nintendo is going to give it some decent backing in Q4."

Nintendo is said to be planning on announcing the system's release date during its Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference on June 15. Also, CVG's report did not indicate whether the October launch was a worldwide rollout. While the publisher has in the past clumped together the European and North American releases for DS-branded systems, the Japanese launch often happens several months earlier.

If the release schedule for the DS line of handhelds is any indication, Nintendo has no proclivity toward launching in a particular month. The original Nintendo DS landed in North America in November 2004. That release was followed by the DS Lite in June 2006, with the DSi following in April 2009. The DSi XL arrived stateside in March 2010.

Also, an October launch window would make sense for Nintendo, were it to want to get ahead of high-profile hardware releases from Microsoft and Sony. Both companies have scheduled the launch of their heavily hyped camera-based motion-sensing add-ons for the holiday window.

The official story: Nintendo had not responded to requests for comment as of press time.

Bogus or not bogus?: Leaning toward not bogus. Even though Nintendo saw a significant bump in DS sales during March in the US due to the XL, interest in the system has significantly waned in the past few months. Staying ahead in the handheld market is key to the publisher, and an early October launch would have the fringe benefit of preempting--or disrupting--Project Natal and PlayStation Move's fall debuts.

Source: See below.

What we heard: Someone at Xbox Live is getting fired. At least, that appears to be the case if a leaked screen that has surfaced on the blog All Games Beta is legitimate.

Whoops?
Image credit: AGB

Yesterday, the self-described "11th-hour delay" pushed Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski's mystery game announcement on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon until Monday, April 12. The title in question had widely been assumed to be Gears of War 3--so assumed, in fact, that Edge magazine has already posted leaked details about the title.

However, it looks like a staffer at Xbox Live didn't get the memo. AGB is displaying a screen, which it claims appeared on the online service last night. "Gears of War 3 announced," trumpets the image on the Xbox Live menu bar, "the epic story concludes April 2011." Currently, the image is no longer visible.

The official story: "We have made no official announcements, but please stay tuned."--Microsoft rep.

Bogus or not bogus?: Probably not bogus. Sure, the image could be easily faked, but plans about a third installment in the series have been around for years. As far back as November 2006, Microsoft has been making references to a "Gears of War Trilogy."

Reportedly leaked details say Gears of War 3 will feature mechs, undersea levels.

Also, Edge reported back in March that Microsoft plans to release Gears of War in April 2011. The company apparently pushed the game out of 2010 so it wouldn't divert consumer dollars from the fall launch of Project Natal, the Xbox 360's camera-based motion-sensing system.

However, the first quarter of 2011 is when Electronic Arts will publish a still-untitled shooter from Epic Games' Polish studio People Can Fly, maker of the Painkiller games. Releasing Gears of War 3 during that quarter would pit one Epic game against another--something the cash-flush North Carolinian studio and Unreal Engine 3-maker wouldn't tolerate.

Last but not least, not making Gears of War 3 would be economic folly for Microsoft. The first two games have been massive hits, with Gears of War 2 topping 5 million units sold worldwide and the original selling over 3.2 million copies in the US alone.

There's also the matter of ancillary revenue from Gears of War novels, comic books, and a film adaptation, although the latter has apparently run into production issues of late. To quote Danny DeVito in the David Mamet film Heist, "Everyone needs money. That's why they call it 'money.'"

[UPDATE] Following the publication of this report, numerous GameSpot users have reported seeing the same announcement on Xbox Live this morning. So, not bogus!

Source: British site Computerandvideogames.com, the online home of Sony-centric PSM3 Magazine.

What we heard: Last month, Valve Software revealed it was readying Portal 2, a full-fledged sequel to its award-winning first-person puzzle game, for a holiday release. However, while the first Portal was released for the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 as part of the 2007 Orange Box compilation, its follow-up was announced only for the latter two platforms and the Mac, which Valve is now supporting wholeheartedly.

That's either confirmation of Portal 2 for the PS3 or one major typo.

Given that Valve's last two games--Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2--were released only for the PC, Xbox 360, and (now) Mac, it looked like Portal 2 would not be released for the PS3. Bolstering that assumption was Valve Software CEO Gabe Newell's vocal criticism of Sony's console. The veteran developer, who was recently honored with a Pioneer Award at the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, has repeatedly complained about how the platform's Cell processor is difficult to work with and outsourced PS3 porting duties for the Orange Box to publisher Electronic Arts.

Now, it seems that EA may also be porting Portal 2 to the PS3. The cover of next month's issue of PSM3 clearly lists "Portal 2" as featured in the magazine, which covers only PlayStation 3 and PSP offerings. Though the announcement is not official, the upcoming game--which will introduce co-op play in a mode separate from the main storyline--has its title listed under "36 must-play PS3 games" along with Fallout: New Vegas, Brink, Crysis 2, and the Medal of Honor reboot.

The official story: (Sound of crickets chirping) -- Valve spokesperson.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus…unless PSM3's copy editors let a doozy of a typo slip through.