Things get intense this week, as move yet one week closer to the inevitable rollout of the full blown console war this holiday season. Sony has basically sold out most of all their bundle packs of the PS4 and they haven't even started manufacturing yet! China could make some monumental steps in lifting sanctions on banning imports of consoles from the big three console manufacturers – which would be a huge win for gaming in general, as well as our gaming comrades over in mainland China. And in the strangest twist of fate ever, some fanboys have decided to petition Microsoft to bring back the Xbox One's DRM. These bizarre stories and more in this July 13th, 2013 edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.
Sunday
Why Nintendo Killed Wii Vitality Sensor Find out what happened to the thing that would make you healthier.
Microsoft Beta Testing Xbox Live Local Currency And You're Invited No more Microsoft Points...the company is exchanging the fake currency for something a little more literal.
Crunchyroll Coming to PlayStation Vita Anime-watching just got a lot more...mobile? The streaming service is being made available for Sony's PS Vita.
SOCOM Successor H-Hour Hits Kickstarter Goal The crowd-funded SOCOM sequel manages to garner enough funds to become a reality for the hardcore, dedicated SOCOM audience.
Call of Duty Ghosts Co-op Confirmed By Infinity Ward The team is bringing back the beloved co-op mode from the previous CoD titles.
Bungie Day Celebrated With HD Destiny Demonstration The team is unveiling more footage and goodies for their upcoming next-gen shooter.
How Depressing: Star Wars Republic Celebrating KOTOR 10th Anniversary The 10th anniversary isn't even celebrated with a new game, just some cash shop stuffs... oh whoopie.
Monday
Rejected Xbox Names Included CyberPlayGround, Optical Odyssey XCPG? Sounds like some sort of respiratory device.
PS4 Takes 75% of the Vote in Worldwide Voting Poll Sony's machine continues to deflate any hopes that Microsoft has in winning the first round of the console war.
Dragon Crown Takes 20 Hours To Complete With Each Character The game is quite lengthy compared to some other titles out there.
Fighter Attitude Brings Naruto-Style Flair to iPhones, iPads The gesture-based mobile fighter offers players a brand new way to play on their iPhone or iPad using swipes and slides instead of button mashing.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Overhaul Mod MISERY 2.0 Coming This Month New visuals, enhanced visuals, new gameplay, enhanced gameplay and... well... better everything for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Tech Gadgets Include Nvidia SHIELD Controller, MeCam, Recoil Winders A list of a few new tech gadgets for technophiles.
Starbound Video Tests Music Crafting With Portal's Still Alive A cute little video that also shows some major promise for one of the most highly anticipated indie games out there, Starbound.
Deus Ex: The Fall Debuts This Week Whether you're a mobile gamer or not, Deus Ex: The Fall released this week.
GameStop's PS4 Pre-Orders Are All Sold Out All gone... every single one of them. Should have pre-ordered faster, son.
89% of Famitsu Readers Think Xbox One Is Too Expensive Well, it's kind of hard to argue with their anti-$500 logic.
Tuesday
Xbox Live Summer Arcade Features Flashback, TMNT Dang, I loved both of those games. There are the near perfect representation of 16-bit nostalgia. Seriously.
Borderlands 2 Tiny Tina DLC Isn't The Last Gearbox still has plans to pump out additional content for Borderlands 2 and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
GamersGate Kicks Off Summer Sale With Nearly 400 Discounts A whole bunch of games drop in price and made available for even PauperStation fans.
Just Cause 2 Gets Blood Dragon Treatment, Courtesy of Modders Some amazing new mods drop for Just Cause 2, including a collection of mods that gives the game a bit of a Blood Dragon makeover.
What Is Payday 2? A Really Kick Butt Co-op Heist Game A new video runs through a lot of cool parts for the upcoming cooperative heist game, Payday 2.
Star Citizen Racks Up $14 Million in Crowd Funding, New Ships Being Added Star Citizen is just really racking up a storm in crowd-funding and the game's content just keeps on expanding.
GTA 5 Combat Adds Hip Firing, Removes Hard-Locking Rockstar details some of the new firing mechanics and weapon combat in GTA V.
Unity Surpasses 2 Million Registered Developers, Time To Bring On The Games There are exciting times ahead for both consoles and PC game development, courtesy of Unity Technologies.
After Earth Interview: Composer Joshua R. Mosley Talks Endless Running We chat briefly with the composer for the mobile game based on M. Night's recent movie.
World of Warcraft Game Store Explained By Blizzard Why are they adding microtransactions to a subscription-based game? Well, for money of course.
Killzone Shadow Fall Stars Homeland, True Blood Actors Killzone takes in a few brand name folks from the silver screen.
The Last of Us Sells 3.4 Million Copies In Three Weeks Unlike Tomb Raider, this game is a startling success thanks to the amount of copies it moved.
ZombiU 2 Scrapped by Ubisoft; First Game Didn't Make A Profit Low sales yield caused Ubisoft to abandon a ZombiU 2. Although, I imagine we might see a similar game on multiple platforms in the future... perhaps?
Firefall Launches Open Beta Sign-up and play for free right now.
Munch's Oddysee Hits PlayStation Plus, June PlayStation Top Sellers revealed The top selling games on PSN are revealed and you probably won't be surprised with the results.
Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Vengeance Map Pack PS3, PC Release Date Set For August The latest map pack for Blops 2 will arrive for PC and PS3 next month.
China Finally Lifting Ban on Video game Consoles This is great news for gamers over in mainland China.
Minecraft Developers Being Sued By Mini-Golf Company Putt-Putt don't play that.
League of Legends Lucian Purifier Is Your Next Champion Riot Games rolls out a brand new champion for players to master.
Desura Indie Game Haven Gets Acquired by Second Life Publisher Linden Lab is moving on up in the world.
Thursday
Xbox One, PS4 Hacker, SuperDaE, Being Charged In Court This Week He's a bit of a loon but he's also the reason we were able to rally against the Xbox One's DRM. How will this play out?
Microsoft Won't Need PCs To Showcase Xbox One Games At Comic Con They're only bringing the dev kit-friendly titles this time around.
Buy Fire Emblem Awakening or Shin Megami Tensei IV And Get $30 From Nintendo It's like a win-win for gamers in this case.
DotA 2 Finally Launches Free-to-play and now available on Steam.
PS4 Pre-Order Bundles All Sold Out on Amazon No more folks...it's all gone.
Game Dev Story: Zachary Snader Discusses His Journey in the Industry To Future Games Gaming Blend's Ryan Winslett does a detailed expose on developer Zachary Snader.
Black Desert Proves To Be An Interesting MMO With Graphics Realism achieved? Not quite, but it's getting there.
Injustice Gods Among Us: GOTY Edition Spotted For PC Two big name fighting games coming to PC within the span of a year? Call me crazy but that's some sweet news for the PC Master Race.
Microsoft Restructures, Pitching Xbox One As Video Conference Business Product This is a strange twist in the ever evolving dramatic saga known as the Xbox One.
Wasteland 2 Being Distributed By Deep Silver At Retail A boxed copy is inbound for this retro-redo made for today's generation of console gamers.
Friday
Whether Pacific Rim Flops or Not, The is Game Looking Good Mostly like Infinity Blade meets Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Steam Summer Sale Gets Underway Today Better hurry, it only runs through the 22nd.
GTA 5 Gameplay Trailer Depresses Kojima The game is so big and so awesome it has made the Metal Gear creator sad.
10,000 Games Beg Microsoft to Bring Back Xbox One The circle-jerking here has reached levels that even Jon Stewart couldn't dream up.
Ratchet & Clank Nexus Headed To PS3 This Holiday Insomniac Games gets back to work on the series that made them famous.
Microsoft Responds to DRM Petition: Glad People Are Excited About Xbox One Features Why, of course they're excited.
Xbox One Family Share Plan Coming Back, Just Not At Launch Although, it does stand to reason how on Earth the system would have worked regardless?
U.S. Government Grants Visas to eSports Players Gaming has officially gone legit. Way to go gaming.
Microsoft Says Xbox One Restructure Will Allow Them To Win Next-Gen Good luck... they're definitely going to need it.
Saturday
Pirates Are Misunderstood Customers, Says CD Projekt RED Well of course they are... they're also either very poor or very selfish customers, too.
Bit.Trip Fate Launches On Steam At 50% Off The latest in the Bit.Trip series launches on Steam.
EA Shuts Down Command & Conquer Studio The studio behind the C&C games gets shutdown. EA has to curtail spending.
DayZ Dev Says Modding Isn't Dead The designers of the popular mod run to the defense of the modding community.
Tribes Ascend Put on the Back Burner Hi-Rez is focusing on SMITE instead of Tribes. Does this bode well for the free-to-play FPS? Nope.
Killzone Mercenary Beta Sign-Ups Begin The PSV shooter is taking in beta sign-ups right now.
That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. You can check out some brand new gameplay of Pokemon X & Y below. Enjoy.
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