Things are certainly looking up for EA's Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). It's about to hit retail stores in a few hours, and so far, it looks like the reception of the people are good. This is if you look at the number of downloads the demo has gotten since its release. Read up after the jump.

It looks like everyone's dishing out there own version of "Gamer's Day." Sega's own rendition, however, may be the one to stand out from the rest, since its multi-genre, multi-platform, and multi-franchise collection is studded with highly-anticipated hopefuls. So aside from Iron Man and upcoming game adaptation of The Incredible Hulk, Sega laid out teasers for fans of Aliens, Total War and the stealthy action title, Alpha Protocol.

Remember the rumor about the Xbox 360 Blu-ray console that's set to ship this year? If you do, don't  buy into it anymore. Recently, Microsoft has spoken words that have dispelled this particular hearsay circulating. Find out what the company said in the full article.

Rumors of Microsoft adopting Blu-ray after the fall of HD-DVD may now have some merit, as Sony Electronics U.S. president Stan Glasgow just revealed that there are discussions between the two giant companies about Microsoft having Blu-ray drives on the Xbox 360. Whether we're going to see a Blu-ray add-on or Blu-ray-equipped Xbox 360 SKUs is still in the air, but we at least know that MS is looking at the high-capacity format. More details await at the full article.

Among the revelations at CES 2008, Microsoft announced partnerships with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) and Disney-ABC Television Group to diversify the content offering offering on Xbox Live. In other words, blockbuster movies and your favorite TV shows will soon be available for download from the Video Store.

More details await at the full article.

Mass Effect seems to be a massive hit, with more than a million copies sold in less than three weeks since its release. Its success adds to what Jeff Bell, Xbox 360 Corporate VP of Global Marketing, calls "the best holiday lineup in video game history", adding to Microsoft's previous statement that 2007 is the "best release year ever." More in the full article.

Outspoken movie director Michael Bay, who is behind the blockbuster movie Transformers, recently related his theory that Microsoft wants both the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats to fail, saying the war is just a diversion to create confusion. Now he adds in his site that he doesn't care about the war at all (since he can play both formats in his screening room anyway) but that the Blu-ray format suits his films better. This comment also got a reply from Amir, a "retired HD DVD insider." Read more in the full article.

 Team Ninja's leading man, the guy with a few smiles and a thousand words, behind the Tecmo-published Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series deserves his own QuickJump Quicklist, so here's something dedicated to Tomonobu Itagaki and all his greatness. We've collected some lines from Itagaki that are either very amusing, or so badass fanboys would rather follow him around and wipe his sunglasses clean for a living.

Find all that at the full article!

Pandemic Studios and BioWare are currently on the hotseat after Electronic Arts' shocking acquisition of both development studios, and we're fortunate enough that they're giving answers to fans who aren't very happy. In an interview, Pandemic made it pretty clear that the partnership with EA won't hinder the developers from being creative.

According to Pandemic chief production officer Greg Borrud, nothing is changing in how Pandemic develops games or what games they choose to develop. He also adds that the acquisition will not break the company's "core pillars of building big brands", regular game events, or their ability to attract the best talent in the industry.

Co-founder and president Josh Resnick continued, saying that EA probably wanted to buy them because of Pandemic's "ability to be creative... and to really stretch our limits and innovative, and to really focus on creating blockbuster original IPs." He stressed out that new and original IPs will be coming without restrictions from EA.

What Pandemic can learn from the partnership, as Resnick sees it, is how to have a powerful marketing organization and make franchises go forward by spinning out many games. Pandemic CEO Andrew Goldman and Borrud agree that passing technology around is another positive draw to the US$ 860 million deal with a publishing giant like EA.

Aside from having access to support from Electronic Arts, Pandemic big wigs say nothing much will be changed in the development pipeline. Hopefully, we won't be seeing annual Destroy All Humans! titles or titles like Mercenaries 09 any time soon.

Fans of skating in the UK shouldn't miss out on this great offer: Blockbuster UK is giving out free copies of Alten8's Skateboard Tips and Tricks for every purchase of EA's SKATE.

For those who live a bit too far from the nearest Blockbuster outlet in the UK, don't fret, as the DVD will be featured as downloadable content in Xbox Live in the near future. Alten8's DVD will sure come in handy for those who are inspired to take up the sport after doing all those tricks in SKATE.

The DVD feature is filmed in UK's famous Sixty6 skate park, and is also sponsored by Microsoft Xbox 360. Alten8 sees their partnership with EA games for this bundled offer as a very lucrative venture. "This is the first of many Alten8 video productions...We are very pleased and proud to be associated with such a great game as SKATE and to have our work partnered with such high calibre product, said Paul Andrews, CEO of Alten8.

EA's SKATE will be available for both the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3.

Buy: [SKATE (PS3)]
Buy: [SKATE (Xbox 360)]