Now that Square has got a hold of the GBA, it needs to release special edition sets all over the place. See what color it is this week!

Sword of Mana comes out in the homeland on August 29, and to annoy more people who already own a Game Boy Advance SP, Square-Enix is offering up a special bundle set with a limited edition color system along with the game. Check it out:

The official name for the color is "Mana Blue." It'll set Japanese gamers back 16800¥ ($150), and is only available in game+system bundle form. If you don't want the new color, you can always get the game alone, or you can wait until the end of the year for the game to come out in English over here in the States.

Max Roivas rumored to believe "this isn't happening."

Hypnotic, a Hollywood production company, has acquired the TV and feature rights to Nintendo and Silicon Knights' critically acclaimed 2002 title, "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem." The three companies have worked together in the past, as Hypnotic was responsible for overseeing the Eternal Darkness Films contest last summer.

Here's a little snippet from the Variety.com article:

What are you waiting for, Go Play Games!

THIRTY GAMES… ONE WEEK… EIGHT FINGERS… TWO THUMBS… NO BRAINER

Edinburgh International Games Festival’s ‘Go Play Games’ event to offer visitors a unique opportunity to enjoy hands-on experience of the best of contemporary gaming.

Visitors to Edinburgh's Royal Museum during the month of August will find themselves in the unlikely position of being asked to touch the exhibits, as the world-famous visitor attraction throws open its doors to the 'Go Play Games' exhibition.

Parents will have an easier time of making the right game choices for the kiddies who shouldn't be playing all those violent games.

We all know and love the Entertainment Software Ratings Board for informing uninformed parents about what's in the games they buy for their children. Game ratings and content descriptors give an idea of what a game is like without actually needing to buy it.

However, the ESRB has realized that the "Violence" content descriptor was a bit too vague, so they have remedied the situation with the introduction of four new ones, as listed below:

Cartoon Violence - Violent actions involving cartoon-like characters. May include violence where a character is unharmed after the action has been inflicted.

Games might still be $50, but the costs to develop them aren't what they used to be.

Ever since the PlayStation came around, gamers have been used to paying $49.99 for a brand new videogame (save for us hardcore $59.99 N64 guys). Publishers felt that this was the right price point to cover all the costs to develop a game, make some money off it, and still make the consumer happy.

That was then, and this is now. Back in the 32/64-bit era, a game cost in the 1-2 millions of dollars range to develop. That's not so true with the current breed of consoles, where most games cost five times as much to make or more, and while more people are playing videogames than ever, that still doesn't justify the cost of a game being the same price, $49.99. At least, according to one analyst. Here's a snip from the article, with comments from Shiny's Dave Perry:

Our News Editor and Trivia Guru, Steven Rodriguez, is turning the big 21 today!

His slogan says something about things coming to an end, but Mr. Steven "WindyMan" Rodriguez is going strong today. He's turning 21 years old, and our spies say he'll be spending the first weekend of his manhood in the crazy town of Las Vegas. Whoa, watch yourself there buddy. But have a great time!

Jump into Talkback to give your own b'day wishes to Windy.

They've been doing it with N64 games, now LodgeNet and Nintendo will be offering up GC games directly in hotel rooms across the country.

LodgeNet to Introduce Nintendo GameCube Through Its All-New SIGNETURE TV System

Largest Hotel Broadband Provider and World's Most Successful Video Game Manufacturer Mark Ten Years of Strategic Alliance

NEW ORLEANS, June 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- LodgeNet Entertainment Corporation, the world's largest provider of broadband interactive television services to the lodging industry, and Nintendo of America Inc. today announced LodgeNet will deliver Nintendo GameCube(TM) games through its all-new SIGNETURE TV(SM) marketing and entertainment system, being introduced at Booth 1202 of the HITEC show today through Thursday, June 26.

It's not a racing game, it's the most tricked-out freestyle moto game ever.

Midway Sports Asylum ``Frees Your Mind'' with Ship of First-Ever Free-Roaming Freestyle Motocross Videogame -- Freestyle MetalX

Freestyle MetalX(TM) Allows Players to Pull Endless Eye-Popping Stunts in Spectacular Open Environments with Nine of the Sickest Pro Riders

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 2003-- Midway Sports Asylum®, the action-sports brand of leading software industry publisher and developer Midway Games Inc., announced today that Freestyle MetalX(TM), the first true freestyle motocross game, has shipped for the PlayStation® 2 computer entertainment system with the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft and the Nintendo GameCube(TM) versions to follow.

Nintendo has posted the info on this year's Camp Hyrule!

Every year, Nintendo holds a virtual "camp" for online gamers to get together and play mini-games and generally pal around in an informal setting. They call it "Camp Hyrule", and it's usually a pretty good dose of fun.

Nintendo has updated it's Camp Hyrule website with the dates of registration, and the week of the camp itself. Registration will take place July 29th through July 31st, with the camp taking place the week of August 11th.

We contacted the publisher to check up on this rumor.

Rumors on the Internet today suggest that Acclaim's new CEO has decided to completely drop support for Nintendo systems. The rumors say that upcoming games like XGRA and Legends of Wrestling III will be finished for GameCube, but no new projects will be started for the system.

We contacted Acclaim about the rumor. They say that quotes in the rumor have been taken out of context, and that the publisher is not actually dropping GameCube or GBA support. Rather, in contrast to their former policy of releasing every title on every system, Acclaim will now evaluate each title and decide which system(s) it best fits. This new publishing strategy goes for GameCube, GBA, PS2, and Xbox. Acclaim is NOT dropping support for Nintendo systems, although it's entirely possible that GameCube will see fewer of the company's games than it previously has.