Valve’s Steam service hasn’t received much criticism over the years, despite it being the number one digital distribution platform, which fact, when you’re numero uno, usually comes with some criticism. Not Steam.

Now Randy Pitchford, Gearbox boss, has stated in an interview with Maximum PC that “Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it’s providing. It’s exploiting a lot of small guys.”. Another point Pitchford made, is that Valve is in essence, a competitor, which owns the platform the competing developers are publishing on. He suggests that Valve simply spin off Steam into a separate company, thereby removing the obvious conflict of interest.

It seems that the head honcho of independent game retailer Chips isn’t too confident in the future of the PSP Go in fact, he thinks its going to hit rock bottom faster than Sony expects.

During an interview with GI.biz Don McCabe went on record as saying:

I’m 99.9 percent sure it’s going to fail miserably, in which case it’s going to put back other potential people coming into the digital space

Well, if we’ve learned anything from Sony’s past hardware (PS3) we know that they sometimes have some pretty slow launches. Perhaps the PSP Go will defy the odds and come out on top? Only time will tell.

Rockstar has recently released the above trailer showcasing Grand Theft Auto IV‘s latest expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony. This trailer does an amazing job showcasing what an action packed title The Ballad of Gay Tony is going to be; jumping off motorcycles onto moving airplanes, jumping off dirt bikes and parachuting to the ground and of course cruising down the streets in an armored vehicle. What could be better?

The Ballad of Gay Tony will be out as part of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City on October 27th, 2009.

If you’ve been following Left 4 Dead 2 you may know that the game was denied classification in Australia due to “living humans with a rabies-like virus” and “realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence” which smells like a typical zombie shooter to me, right?

Well, Valve has submitted the paperwork to appeal this decision but just in case the appeal doesn’t work they have also submitted a second, toned down version of Left 4 Dead 2 that reportedly meets all of the requirements to get a MA15+ rating.

Valve hasn’t said what they have edited as they do not even want to release this toned down version but chances are, it’ll just be a hallow shell of a great game that could have been.

via thatvideogameblog

Music based video games are exploding at the moment, with Rock Band and Guitar Hero leading the way, making ordinary folks feel like rock stars, even though the plastic guitars and drum sets are as far from the real thing as they can get. With the new The Beatles game taking it a step further, and moving a ton of units, Irish giants U2 want a game of their own.

It appears that U2 was to be included in the last version of Rock Band, but the band pulled out at the last second. Now, they want their own game, to be the exclusive band, and not just add a few songs to something like Rock Band. U2 bassist Adam Clayton is quoted saying,

We definitely would like to be in there, but we felt some of the compromises weren’t what we wanted. That could change. I love the idea that that’s where people are getting music, and we’d love to be in that world. We’ll figure something out. What The Beatles have done, where the animation is much more representative of them, is what we’re interested in, rather than the one-size-fits-all animation. We didn’t want to be caricatured.

With such a huge name like U2 and all the albums they’ve made (not to mention their fan base), it shouldn’t be difficult getting a deal together. After all, they’re U2.

Microsoft and Turn 10 aren’t keen on folks waiting by GameStop or BestBuy (or eBay) to get a used copy of the upcoming Forza Motorsport 3, usually coming at a discount. To combat that sort of “cheapness”, they’re offering an exclusive DLC to those who buy the game new on launch day, as opposed to used. The DLC will include a bunch of classic cars, from the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 Vantage (the original 007 car) to the 65 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, among other classics. A great incentive to increase launch sales, but we can’t help but feel with the folks who’d buy used, especially during these tight economic times.

When you think of the fastest selling sports game what is the first title you think of? Madden? Wrong. FIFA 10? Correct, according to EA that is.

The mega publisher has announced today that the latest addition to the FIFA franchise has sold 1.7 million copies in Europe during its first week alone effectively making it the fastest selling sports game of all time.

Peter Moore, EA Sports prez, comments:

“We were confident that FIFA 10 would be a hit, and this week fans across Europe have shown just how much they love this game. We are incredibly proud of FIFA 10 and this kick-off for great, authentic football competition.”

via kotaku

Sony has recently announced via the Playstation Blog that they will be teaming up with Amazon.com to offer Playstation Network content on the retailer’s website.

This means that you will be able to purchase games such as Flower, PAIN, Pixel Junk Eden, SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo and WipEout Pure on Amazon.com and then you will be given a code to redeem on your Playstation 3.

We’re not exactly sure of the benefits of such a partnership other than there being another place to digitally buy your games at but this also opens up a whole new door for gift ideas.

Pretty much ever since the Wii and Nintendo DS hit store shelves retailers had trouble keeping the consoles in stock. In fact, trying to get one of the two around the holidays was close to impossible unless you got extremely lucky. However, according to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, this year should be different.

Below he comments:

We have a tremendous amount of product in inventory. We’ve been flowing product into retail. We do not expect to have shortages on our products. Now, if we do experience them, I’d love to have that problem, but we’re not seeing that happening this year.

So, if one of your loved ones was wishing for a piece of Nintendo hardware under the tree, their wishes may now be able to come true.

Read (MSNBC) via kotaku

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising just hit store shelves today for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC and in lieu of this Codemasters has released the above launch trailer for the game.

The trailer does a good job showing what an action packed FPS Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising will be with awesome looking multiplayer complete with head shots and explosions.

Like I said before, this game is out now so if after watching the above trailer you feel the need to buy it, go right ahead.