We were uncertain how Nintendo’s new 3D handheld console, the 3DS, would sell, given that it’s quite new technology, but mainly, that it retails at $250 bucks. Now Nintendo has revealed that they’ve sold 400,000 3DS console during its first week on the market in the US, which pretty much mirrors the Japanese sales numbers.

Nintendo has previously said that the 3DS was the best selling handheld launch ever, but declined to give any specific sales numbers. While the 3DS sold 400,000 units, Nintendo made sure to have enough consoles on launch, and didn’t offer the entire inventory up for sale on day one, in order to make sure it wouldn’t sell out.

Those who purchased a copy of the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm 3 will be getting access to the much talked about Gears of War 3 beta today. Access to the Gears 3 beta was one of the selling points for Bulletstorm, but there are other ways of getting into the beta. One is to beg Epic for a beta code. Another, easier way is to simply pre-order Gears of War 3 on GameStop. Those who pre-order get beta access on April 25.

The Gears of War 3 beta runs until May 15, and has four maps designed to test many aspects of the multiplayer part of the game. If you participated in the beta, you’ll get a chance to unlock new gun skins which can be used in the retail game, in addition to a bunch of other unlocks you can get.

Battlefield 2 is a classic FPS game that will surely be inducted into the videogame hall of fame at some point as one of the best team multiplayer shooters ever made. Despite its bugs and glitches, its addictive gameplay kept players glued to screens for years after its release. In fact, there are still tens of thousands of players playing online, over 6 years after the game was released back in June 2005.

Now EA is releasing a stripped down, free version based on Battlefield 2, called Battlefield Play4Free. It’s a free, downloadable title much like Battlefield Heroes, only that it takes the realistic FPS approach to Battlefield. Battlefield Play4Free offers 4 maps from BF2, including classics such as Strike at Karkand and Gulf of Oman. The maps have been remade to fit the new gameplay style, which is simplified quite a lot — there are only four classes, the same four classes featured in Bad Company 2. However, unlike previous Battlefield games, you cannot change class during a game, which is a striking omission from the Battlefield gameplay. After all, the freedom to pick a class suited for the gameplay was what Battlefield relied on. In Battlefield Play4Free, not so much, and as a result, the game suffers tremendously.

The gameplay itself is rather tame and doesn’t seem to run as fluidly as Battlefield 2 or any other BF game. Something just doesn’t feel right, and when you throw in a considerable amount of bugs into the mix, the experience is disappointing, to say the least. What makes the experience worse is that the micro-transaction system is almost designed to nickle and dime players. You have your standard weapons, with the ability to purchase new ones. But weapons and gadgets you purchase for one class aren’t available to all classes. You can earn in game credits and spend them on the new weapons, but you can’t buy the new gun, you can only rent them. And in order to rent them, you have to play at least a few hours to amass the points needed to unlock a gun that stay unlocked for only a short while. This system is downright insulting, as in order to get a decent soldier, you’ll have to spend $10 to $20 bucks. If you you want the top of the line gun for all your classes, it’ll easily set you back $30, and that’s for just one gun.

It gets worse. As we mentioned, you cannot switch your kit in game, but the game lacks another feature: you cannot chose which map to play — the game automatically selects a map and server. Visually, the game looks quite dated, looking even worse than the 6 year old Battlefield 2. There aren’t many social features, not even basic ranking structure — a stable of the Battlefield franchise.

Honestly, we cannot see whom Battlefield Play4Free would appeal to. In order to get something decent out of the game, you need to spend more money than a copy of Battlefield 2 or Bad Company 2 costs, and those are real retail games. Sure, Battlefield Play4Free is a free game, but to be honest, it’s a waste of time. EA could have attracted a lot more Battlefield fans by offering Battlefield 2 for free instead of wasting money and effort on Play4Free.

The Good:
Brings back old Battlefield 2 memories
Free

The Bad:
Dated visuals
Clumsy gameplay
Lack of common sense features
Nickle and dime micro transactions
No social features or online ranking

Overall score: 1/10

If it wasn’t clear by now that Nintendo was dropping the price of the Wii down in preparation for launch of a new console, well here’s all the evidence we need: a rumored price drop which is set to take effect this Monday will lower the price of the Wii to $170, but that hasn’t stopped several retailers from already dropping the price — chief of which is Best Buy.

The retail giant has lowered the price of the Wii to $170, selling the regular bundle in white or black, both including Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and a Wii Remote Plus. Other retailers like Toys R Us have been selling them for $170 in retail stores, while their online prices have yet to be updated. Expect GameStop and Amazon to follow suit very soon.

In case you’re interested in a Wii, you can find one on Best Buy’s site for the all new, low price of $170.

Valve has released what seems an infinite amount of Team Fortress 2 updates over the past years, with most of the recent ones being centered around their hat fetish. Now, for once, we get a hat-less update, which doesn’t include any hats or items or maps, but a few other interesting things.

For one, the new update fixed a number of bugs and addresses several gameplay issues, and on top of that, adds several new features. Dedicated servers can now be associated with a Steam ID, in order to make it easier to track favorite servers. A new vote system has been added, that makes it easier to vote for the next map, vote to kick a player, among other things.

In addition, the new update adds new training levels for the Demoman, Engineer and Spy. There’s also a new system for coaching players, where players are given a few tips on how to attack the various enemies etc. The new update is live now and will update automatically over Steam.

With such high definition graphics featured within just about every new title to hit the market it’s no surprise that it takes developers quite some time to push out brand new games. Unfortunately, sometimes this high tech development results in delays that cause developers to push back the release of their latest work. It seems that MotorStorm Apocalypse is the latest game to suffer from this.

Originally planned for release sometime this month, word has it that the new release date for the game is now May 3rd. However, Sony is looking to sooth the pain just a bit by letting us know that a DLC pack will be bundled with new copies of the game dubbed the Premier Pack. Included in this pack are two new vehicles for use within the game that are sure to make you forget that it was ever delayed.

Will you be picking up MotorStorm Apocalypse on May 3rd?

While there is a ton of hype circulagint regarding 3D displays and the conosoles that utilize them, motion controlled gaming is still largely the center of attention. Currently, all three consoles have a motion controller on the market including the Wii, Kinect and PlayStation Move. While the Kinect is something entirely differen the PlayStation Move is largely a refined version of the Wiimote. Of course, seeing how the PS3 is priced quite ab it higher than the Wii and always has been, sales are sure to be much smaller, right?

Yes, but that doesn’t mean the PS3 isn’t selling by the boatload. In fact, it was just made known today that to date Sony has shipped over 50 million PlayStation 3s and 8 million PlayStation Move units. These are very noteworthy numbers especially for a console who many claimed was dead in the water when it hit store shelves years ago.

Each console on the market has their fair share of exclusives. Nintendo is obviously leading the pack with an expansive line up of exclusives including Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong and much more. However, the Xbox 360 and PS3 have their own exclusives including Gears of War and Halo on the Xbox side of things and Killzone and LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 side of things. LittleBigPlanet, in particular, is a very unique game largely thanks to the expansive customization tools the developers have provided gamers.

In fact, it seems that these tools were so popular that Sony has just announced today that LittleBigPlanet 2 has now surpassed 4 million levels. Pretty incredible. If you’re not aware, gamers have made everything from playable Wolfenstein 3D levels to full fledged computers completely utilizing the in game tools.

Minecraft is a text book example of just how popular an independently developed game can become. If you weren’t aware the game itself started out as a one man operation and eventually going on to spawn a independent development studio headed by the original creator Notch dubbed Mojang Specifications. In fact to date the game has sold nearly 2 million copies doing so with little to no marketing.

The beauty of this is that Minecraft is still in beta when it managed to garner all of this interest. This means that there are still some bugs within the game but it also means that there is still a ton of room for the game to grow. In fact, if you’ve been following the game, you may know that Mojang had planned to get a patch out this week updating the game to version 1.5. This version was set to include things such as achievements, weather effects, stats and even wolves. However, ti seems that things didn’t go as planned as Notch has updated his blog letting us know that they won’t be getting it out this week and instead shooting for next week.

Luckily, it seems that the studio will be packing some additional features into the patch now that they have a bit of extra time so we’ll have to wait and see what’s in store.

With just about every release modern video games are getting more graphically advanced than ever before. Luckily, game console have largely kept up with the rush thanks to high powered hardware but unfortunately due to their mass some games on the Xbox 360 feature several DVDs. Luckily, the PS3 introduced the gaming community to the Blu-ray drive but considering Microsoft and Sony are rivals in this sector it’s unlikely we’ll see a Blu-ray drive in an Xbox anytime soon – but what about the Wii?

As you’re sure to know there has been a ton of talk circulating regarding the possible announcement of a second generation Wii during this year’s E3. This console has sometimes been referred to as the Wii 2 and other times the Wii HD. Unfortunately there’s pretty much no way to know for sure what it will include or if it’s even real until Nintendo comes forth to announce it but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate, right?

The latest set of rumors regarding the the Wii HD/Wii 2 say that the console will feature a built-in Blu-ray drive. If Nintendo is really looking to compete with the Xbox 360 and PS3 in terms of graphics this wouldn’t be too far of a stretch but seeing how Nintendo has never really put an emphasis on graphics in the past, rather focusing on gameplay, it’s a bit strange to ponder.

What do you think Nintendo’s next generation console will include? What are you hoping for? Let us know.