Harmonix and MTV Games announced the release date for Green Day Rock Band this morning for a worldwide simultaneous release of June 8th, 2010 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Introduced in The Beatles: Rock Band, Green Day Rock Band will feature the three-vocal harmony technology to a track list of 47 songs to start you off that span the entire career of the hit rock band. You'll also be able to unlock collectible images and rare, unreleased video interviews, outtakes and performances. Here is how the pricing sturcture will work.

Also, the 6 tracks that are available now from the band now on the Marketplace will be playable with this game and the added features. The game will be shipping simultaneously in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand as well as other territories. The game is also playable with original Rock Band instrument controllers as well as Guitar Hero and other third-party controllers.

Sony currently has its press conference going on now over at the Game Developers Conference. They have officially named their motion controller, Playstation Move. The Move will also be avaialble in store shelves for what everyone wants to hear; under $100!!

"The Move is fast precise and accurate. From the tiniest twist to the strongest punch, you can express yourself. This is the next generation of motion gaming," said Peter Dille, Senior Vice President of Marketing and the PlayStation Network. "Nothing has been this precise."

The system uses the PlayStation Eye, the Move wand and the PS3 itself to register player movements and translate them into on-screen actions. Dille said Sony plans to launch the system this fall. A bundle will be available that includes the Move controller, the PlayStation Eye and an unnamed game.

Via IGN, more news to fcome as it develops.

All this week, the Game Developers Conference will be taking place in San Francisco and we got some news for you PC gamers out there. The OnLive team has announced tha the OnLive service will be available starting June 17th and will require a 15 dollar per month service fee. However, if you are one of the first 25,000 people to sign up, they will waive the frist three months free of charge for you. Any game purchase or rental will carry a seperate charge, however, on top of the service fee.

If you want to get a leg up on the registering, you can pre-register to qualify for the first 25,000 by going here.

Source: Joystiq

Are you an aspiring producer? Then you might want to check this deal out that 2k Sports is sponsoring. Starting on March 3rd, any aspiring producers will have 3 weeks to create a sample-free instrumental. All submissions must be emailed too nba2k11@duckdown.com by March 22nd. Now that's only phase one of the contest.

For phase 2, all MC's starting on April 6th will have 4 weeks to submit one clean track using the winning producers instrumental from this month. For those entries you can also send them on over too nba2k11@duckdown.com by May 4th. The top ten songs will be determined by Duck Down and 2k Sports and be posted on the official website listed at www.XXLMag.com for fans to hear the tracks and the winner will be announced on May 11th.

The grand prize winners of the contest, which will consist of one producer and one MC, will have their song placed in the music soundtrack for NBA 2K11.  In addition, each winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to New York City, where they will have the special opportunity to perform the song live at Duck Down's CMJ Showcase in October 2010.

You can get more information about the contest over at www.duckdown.com/nba2k11

2K Games has announced that they have signed a licesnse agreement with Playboy magazine for implementation of more than 50 of their vintage covers and centerfolds in Mafia II. The game, set in the 1940s and 1950s, will make use of these vintage covers which will further deepen the "compelling narative that is embellished with a sophisticated, era-evoking atmosphere," states Chirstoph Hartmann, President of 2K.

"For more than 55 years, Playboy has been a part of America's pop culture landscape, engaging its readers with insightful features, interviews and fashion spreads, as well as pictorials of some of the world's most beautiful women," said Playboy magazine's Editorial Director Jimmy Jellinek. "Mafia II is set when Playboy first came into vogue and features characters whose style and attitudes mirror content from our early issues.  We're excited to bring an element of authenticity to the game that is unmatched in the men's publishing category."

Mafia II is currently being developed by 2K Czech for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC. For more information, head to www.mafia2game.com.

The highly anticipated and beloved Final Fantasy series returns with the release of Final Fantasy 13. I'm heading straight towards Final Fantasy 13 as I can't ignore my childhood playing through just about all the Final Fantasy's so far. Anything else striking your fancy? As you may have noticed from the Nintendo Download: Max & The Magic Marker became available today so that's something else to think about. Here's the lowdown on other releases.

MARCH 8, 2010
Max & the Magic Marker--WiiWare--TGC

MARCH 9, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII--360, PS3--Square Enix
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition--360, PS3--Capcom
Yakuza 3--PS3--Sega
Foto Showdown--DSi--Konami
Racquet Sports--Wii--Ubisoft
Assassin's Creed 2--PC--Ubisoft
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger--PSP--Aksys Games
Sam and Max 2: Beyond Time and Space--Wii--Atari
Calling--Wii
The Daring Game for Girls--DS--Majesco

MARCH 10, 2010
Scrap Metal--360--Slick Entertainment

MARCH 11, 2010
Mega Man 10--PS3--Capcom
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising--PC--THQ
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II: Gold Edition--PC--THQ
Spectral Force Genesis--DS--Ignition

Those of you Mac users out there who are strained about getting your PC gaming on will have a much easier time now that Valve Software has officially announced that Steam will be heading to your Macs. Their library of titles include the likes of Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series will all be available starting in April. 

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

 

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play." 

 "We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

 

Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for both Mac and PCs.

Yes, Final Fantasy 13 may be releasing on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 tomorrow, but Nintendo has part of that Final Fantasy craze all covered here. Final Fantasy II, which is actually Final Fantasy IV in Japan, makes its debut on the Virtual Console this morning. We also see the release of Max & the Magic Marker, which after doing a little search was a web-based flash game that was brought and expanded for Wii Ware gamers. Here are some of the other releases for this week.

DSi Ware

Elemental Masters (800 DSi Points, 1-2 Players)
4 TRAVELLERS™ - Play Spanish (800 DSi Points, 1-4 Players)
Dracula - Undead Awakening (500 DSi Points, 1 Player)
Flips: The Bubonic Builders (500 DSi Points, 1 Player)

Wii Ware

Max & the Magic Marker (1,000 Wii Points, 1 Player)
Dracula - Undead Awakening (1,000 Wii Points, 1 Player)

Virtual Console

Final Fantay II (SNES, 800 Wii Points, 1 Player)

Check out the full descriptions below....

Activision revealed the announcement of 10 Minute Solutions for the Nintendo Wii this morning. Based off of the DVD set which brings users a unique fitness experience. 

“10 Minute Solution DVDs give users a unique fitness experience: customizable routines that fit into any lifestyle,” said David Oxford, Activision Publishing. “We’ve taken this concept and combined it with the interactivity of the Wii, creating a new kind of workout that gets results.”

10 Minute Solution combines the ease of the popular fitness DVDs with casual gaming fun. The game allows players to construct regimens from a wide variety of 10 minute routine blocks, organized into three main categories: cardio boxing, mixed games and aerobics. 10 Minute Solution is designed to captivate fitness enthusiasts and gamers alike with intense routines that play as a game, unlike other fitness games that simply have the player following a trainer on screen. The game is enhanced when played with the Wii Balance Board™, but still offers a fantastic workout without it.

The game will be available for a retail MSRP of $19.99 and the game has not yet been rated by the ESRB. More screenshots below.

A new Nintendo patent was discovered today showcasing a new catridge slot for the Nintendo DS. Could Nintendo be planning on ressurecting the Gameboy Advance slot they killed off from the first DS? Or could this be used for a new Micro SD Card slot? one can only guesstimate at this point. The application read:

"The broken lines showing of an electronic game machine is for illustrative purposes only.”

What are your guesses? Check out more info on the filing page here....