On Saturday, November 14th, Nintendo will be holding a launch event for New Super Mario Bros Wii at the Nintendo World store in New York City.

As probably the single most iconic video game character in history, Mario has some serious star power (in b4… ah, never mind). In addition to the store being transformed into a fully decked-out Mushroom Kingdom motif , there will be a life-sized Warp Pipe to walk through, competitions, a DJ, and a Mario Museum which covers almost 30 years of Mario history.

We got to play New SMB Wii at E3, and came away impressed with the co-op play. The game hearkens back to the roots of what made Mario so wildly popular. As CB Droege said in his article about Nintendo’s new direction back in June:

I’ve got to tell you: playing through a classic Mario platforming adventure co-operatively with my buddies sounds like just about the best thing ever.

The launch event is from 3pm – 7pm EST at the Nintendo World store

Steam, the leading game distribution system for PC, is becoming more and more widely known for their great game sales, which usually take the form of either free games or major sales on weekends. This weekend, they are offering their Overlord Complete Pack for $8.75. The package includes the original Overlord, Overlord II, and the newly released Overlord: Hell Raising.

If you have never taken the time to try Overlord, this would be a great time to get in on an awesome series. Check out Icrontic’s own review of Overlord II here if you are still hesitant.

Look at all those pretty modified Xbox 360s

Earlier today we reported that Microsoft was banning modded Xbox 360s from the Xbox Live network. Now, in reaction to this news, Craigslist has become flooded with modded Xbox consoles for sale.

For anyone looking for a modded console or who doesn’t care if they can connect to Xbox Live, there’s no better time to be purchasing a used Xbox. The consoles are going for as low as $90, which isn’t a bad price for something that normally retails for $200.

On the other hand, anyone wanting an unmodded console might want to avoid Craigslist, or any secondhand Xboxes right now. Some people are reporting that they purchased supposedly unmodded Xbox 360’s off of Craigslist very recently and found that they actually had been tampered with.

Microsoft is reporting that they will not extend the warranty to used Xbox 360’s, and anyone finding that they have accidentally acquired a modded Xbox are on their own. As a result of this, and of the many players that must now be looking for new consoles to replace their banned ones, Xbox 360 sales will most likely rise in the near future, especially at the holidays.

DETROIT, MICHIGAN (ICG)—Today in the streets of Detroit and surrounding suburbs, mass riots took place as Xbox 360 fanboys left their homes, their jobs, and their vehicles to wildly celebrate the “crash-heard-round-the-wibbles,” as Playstation 3 owners silently brooded and plotted their revenge. The reason for celebration? Modern Warfare 2 dedicated servers for the Playstation 3 are currently down, with no solid ETA for recovery.

Joystiq confirmed the outage on their own internal PS3, and found a Tweet from Activision support that claims, “We don’t have a hard ETA on the servers coming back up, but the outage is totally unrelated to the patch.”

Xbox 360 fanboys were seen to descend in hordes upon Playstation forums, gaming news sites, social sites, and even town squares, cheering wildly, chanting things like “PWNED!” and “LOL PS3 SUXX”. No violence has been reported yet, but we’ll keep an eye on this developing story.

Microsoft has claimed before that players who modify their Xbox 360s will be kicked off of the Xbox Live network, and today, followed up on that promise.

Modifying the console is against the Live terms of use and a number of subscribers have been banned for it.

Microsoft refuses to reveal how many of its 20 million Xbox Live player base has been given the boot, but rumors from the internet speculate it to be about 600,000 people, or 3%.  The company also refused to note if the kicks had been made over time or very recently.

So let this be a note to anyone considering modifying their consoles: Microsoft, at least, truly will not stand for it.

Encleverment Experiment

The latest game in the brain-trainer genre, Encleverment Experiment, is coming to the Xbox 360 this week. As in other games of its type there will be a myriad of puzzles to choose from to help you develop your puzzle-solving skills, as well as a “game show” mode that allows you to play with up to 3 of your friends. One interesting feature of this game that stands out from the rest of the genre is the addition of AI opponents, allowing one to face off against 15 different AIs, each with different strengths and weaknesses in the puzzle games. One reason that games of this sort usually avoid AI players is because it is seemingly very difficult to balance such an experience. Often the AI must be made to either always win or always lose, and the player’s actions have little to do with the results. Anyone who has tried to play with AI characters in Mario Party will know exactly what I mean. Hopefully this game has found a way to do it right. (more…)

An anonymous source within EA today informed us that in the coming weeks, a huge number of EA staff will be laid off, and some of the layoffs have started today.

No word on exact numbers or where the layoffs will be coming from, but our source stated “15%-20%. I would guess 1500+”

From what we have heard, layoffs are coming across the board, from every studio, in every department.

An internal memo states,

First, we announced a cost restructuring that involves reducing the number of titles for FY11, enabling us to focus and invest more in our most important franchises and our most promising new IPs. This restructuring involves the elimination of approximately 1,500 jobs across EA. Cuts are being made for titles we are eliminating and in support and corporate areas.* Some team sizes are being reduced and programs that are not working as we’d like are being cut. This is a tough decision that comes with a heavy price for our colleagues – but it is the right decision for EA.* We are sympathetic to everyone that is affected and appreciate everyone’s help as we regroup and move forward.

UPDATE: 4:36pm EST

Financials posted on EA.com

MACHINE Studios announced their first effort, Bittos+, an arcade puzzler coming soon for iPhone and WiiWare.

Today Playlogic released the first of three Developer’s Diaries explaining the story behind the Fairytale slasher “Fairytale Fights”

You can purchase Fairytale Fights from our Amazon affiliate store for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Whoa, wait. what? Seriously?

Epic Games is giving away the full Unreal 3 engine SDK for free. The entire professional development framework is being offered for free to give users real tools for developing cutting edge games. This is an incredible move by Epic Games. And here we thought they wanted to abandon the PC platform…

Epic has launched a web portal for the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) where you can download the toolset, read documentation on the engine, see examples and showcases, and access the community, among many other things. The UDK comes weighs in at 563MB and comes with… well, everything.

The UDK is meant for non-commercial use, and is aimed at professionals and students alike who don’t have access to high-level game development toolsets. This is music to the ears of anyone who wants to dig into the likes of game development, character animation, digital filmmaking, 3D viz, asset creation, shader programming, and who knows what else—the possibilities are incredible.

If you’ve been wanting to dig into a high-end game engine and learn the trade of video game development, this is an excellent place to start. Everything you need to get started can be found at the portal. Now is your chance to make something Unreal.

GG Epic, GG.

Blizzard Entertainment, long opposed to the exchange of real currency for in-game items, has added World of Warcraft mini-pets to their online store for $10 a piece.

A mini-pet in World of Warcraft, for those who don’t play the game, is essentially a cute little companion. These non-combat pets offer no practical advantage to the user; they simply follow the player for vanity’s sake. However, now that Blizzard has established that they’re willing to take your money for a useless in-game pet, who knows where they might end up going with this?

Careful, Blizzard. Your zero-tolerance policy on gold sellers is now on awfully shaky ground.

Atlus has announced today an impending replacement program for the official strategy guide included with the deluxe edition of the publisher’s Demon’s Souls title.

The program comes after reports of unusual wearing or fading of the ink used in the guide’s cover.

“While it seems that not every copy of the guide is affected, and the specific cause of the issue remains unclear, Atlus always strives for nothing less than the full satisfaction of our customers. Therefore, we will soon launch a program to replace defective strategy guides,” reads the official release.

Atlus says users will be asked to ship the first page and cover of their strategy as proof of purchase, leaving buyers with a usable book while the replacement claim is processed.

The publisher advises affected users to visit their official forums where full details regarding the program will be posted next week.