California-based Double Robotics has come up with a piece of kit, called Double, that turns your iPad into a telepresence robot. Cost? $1,999.

Imagine you’re at your company, seated at your desk, when this iPad perched on a kind of pared-down Segway rolls up beside you. On the screen is the face of one of your co-workers located in another country who today is poking about your office, getting to know the layout, meeting some new people, asking a few questions. After a brief chat, it rolls off to the other side of the office. You look up five minutes later and do a double-take as you notice two of these devices having a conversation with each other by the water cooler.

Thanks to Double Robotics’ iPad-on-wheels – otherwise known as ‘Double’ – such a scenario could one day become a reality.

Double, which its maker claims offers the “most elegant way to be somewhere else in the world without flying there,” comprises a pair of wheels, a battery-powered motor, an adjustable pole and an iPad holder.

The telepresence robot is controlled remotely by someone using Double’s app on another iPad. The app enables the operator to move Double around its location, with its minimalist design helping to ensure it doesn’t get in the way of ‘real’ on-site workers. The length of the pole can also be adjusted using the app, allowing its user to talk face-to-face with co-workers, or peer over partitions to see what others are up to when they think no one’s  looking.

Weighing a delicate 15 pounds (7 kg), there’s little chance of Double causing any damage to furniture, or humans for that matter, should its operator fail to see upcoming obstacles.

The California-based firm behind Double believes its creation offers a unique teleconferencing experience, allowing you to move around a location freely, meeting co-workers in any location, although presumably the bathroom will be off-limits.

Double Robotics suggest its robot could be used by companies who regularly communicate with remote workers, as well as school campuses, “enabling potential students to walk the halls and talk to professors.” Museums and galleries could also use Double, offering tours to those too far away to visit in person.

While some may consider Double to be an unnecessary luxury, the museum/gallery idea is certainly an appealing one, where anyone on the planet could work their way around such places using simply an iPad and an app.

Of course, there are already a number of telepresence robots like this in existence, but what makes this one stand out is its reasonable price – $2,499, or just $1,999 if pre-ordered – iPad not included. The firm is set to ship its first batch this December, with orders placed from this week going out early in 2013.

Take a look at the slick promo video below to see Double in action. Would you like to see one of these rolling about your workplace?

Move over, Christian Grey; there's a new hero taking the Amazon.com sales chart by storm. Less than a day after being made available for pre-order, a 248 page hardcover art book about the Legend of Zelda series of videogames has become the online giant's best-selling title.

To end your week right, here’s some unexpected news that proves that, just sometimes, sanity and order can prevail in a universe that all too often seems cruel, callous and entirely capricious: 50 Shades of Grey is no longer the best selling book at Amazon.com, being bumped from pole position at the top of the charts by a book about a video game that’s been available for less than 24 hours. Doesn’t that put a smile on your face?

The surprisingly popular book in question is The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, a 248 page hardcover co-published by Oregon’s Dark Horse Comics and Nintendo Co. Ltd. that seems targeted very squarely at the crossover between the comfort zone and wheelhouse of videogame fans worldwide. Dark Horse describes the book like this:

This handsome hardcover contains never-before-seen concept art, the full history of Hyrule, the official chronology of the games, and much more! Starting with an insightful introduction by the legendary producer and video-game designer of Donkey Kong™, Mario™, and The Legend of Zelda™, Shigeru Miyamoto, this book is crammed full of information about the storied history of Link’s adventures from the creators themselves! As a bonus, The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia includes an exclusive comic by the foremost creator of The Legend of Zelda manga—Akira Himekawa!

Admit it: You’re trying to work out if you can scrape together the $34.99 to buy the book right now, aren’t you?

Well, you’re not alone. And, with Amazon offering the title  at a significantly reduced price – $20.99, a 40 percent saving – it’s no surprise that the book was a hit when it was made available for preorder yesterday. And yet, knocking 50 Shades of Grey from the top spot? That’s definitely success on a scale that few could’ve been expecting.

The book is a translation/English language edition of a title published by Shogakukan in Japan at the end of 2011. Interestingly enough, the original version is significantly longer – 274 pages – which suggests either than there’s more going on here than a straight-up translation (This is, after all, a coffee-table-style art book, so you’d expect the page counts to be identical), or that there may be some level of missing material in the new edition. Given the hardcore fanbase for Nintendo material, video game or otherwise, it shouldn’t be too long until we see a detailed comparison of the two versions, with differences, edits and minor mistranslations being highlighted for the discerning reader.

It’ll be interesting to see how longHyrule can maintain its place atop the Amazon sales charts. If nothing else, we may finally get an answer to the question, which is more popular: the mainstreaming of bondage porn, or the more innocent, purer love fans have for a little hero called Link.

(Via.)

Check out the newest trailer for LucasArts’ Star Wars 1313, as well as three clips highlighting the gameplay.

During E3 we did something awful to our readers. We didn’t mean it, honest, but we couldn’t help it. We were granted a first look at the gameplay of Star Wars 1313, but we couldn’t show you what we saw, we could only describe it. We didn’t want to tease you like that, but it was the best we could do.

To summarize that first look, 1313 looks awesome. It is a Star Wars property that manages to avoid getting bogged down by trying to recreate a well-known aspect of the Star Wars universe, and instead simply peels off a small, unexplored section of the universe to create an original story free of the constraints of the established continuity. It looked great, and we wanted it like Smeagol wanted his precious.

For more about the game and its development, you can also check out our interview with Star Wars 1313 creative director Dominic Robilliard.

Now finally we can show you most of what had us so excited about the game when we saw it at E3. LucasArts has released several new clips showing off the gameplay. You can find them below, along with a trailer. There is no release date, or even a confirmation of what systems the game will be on, but 1313 is a game we will certainly be watching. Intently.

Gameplay Clip #1

Gameplay Clip #2

Gameplay Clip #3

Trailer

Better late than never, DC Comics has released two new apps for Nokia Windows Phones that explain what happen prior to the opening of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises.

In what may appear to be a somewhat later than ideal release, DC Comics today announced two new mobile apps that tie in with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises movie, offering fans a chance to learn just a little bit more about their favorite characters from the final act of the cinematic trilogy.

While one of the two apps repurposes existing material – The Batman Origins app, which DC describes as “featur[ing] the original comic origins for all of the stars from the Dark Knight trilogy and links to the most up-to-date sources about THE DARK KNIGHT RISES film”; instead of the “original” comic origins, what is actually available from the app are origin stories that have been created in the last few years for print in the 52 and Countdown miniseries from the publisher, as well as online use – what may be of more interested to both fans of the movie and more hardcore Batfans in general is the second app, which goes by the functional name ofThe Dark Knight Rises: Prologue.

DC describes that app as offering “an exclusive motion-comic from writer Joshua Williamson and artist Jorge Jimenez that serves as a prologue to THE DARK KNIGHT RISES film,” as well as the pre-requisite “social media share options and links to other apps tied to the film.” This marks not only the first time that DC has created original comic material that ties in with any of the Christopher Nolan series – Comic book versions of the various Tim Burton-era movies exist, and there was a series of print prologues to tie in with last year’s Green Lantern release, but oddly the Dark Knight series has remained unaffiliated with the comic format outside of as source material – but the first time that DC has released individual apps to tie in with multimedia releases.

DC has found success outside of its core comic store audience with digital releases in recent months; its digital comic series Smallville Season 11, which follows the continuity of the decade-long run of the CW series starring Tom Welling, has proven to be a surprisingly strong seller through the publisher’s DC Comics app as well as the multi-publisher ComiXology storefront and app, and titles in its regular DC Universe line have continued to build a fanbase through digital sales without print sales seemingly being affected.

Both the Batman Origins and The Dark Knight Rises: Prologue app are sponsored by Nokia and only available through Nokia Windows Phones; the publisher has not given any information about whether any future releases for other platforms are planned, or if the Joshua Williamson and Jorge Jimenez prologue material will be made available in print at any point.

Not sure which PC speakers work best with your computer? Here is a list of our favorites, covering every price range.

If you’re using your computer for gaming, movies, or music than a quality speaker system is essential. While desktops may come with some basic speakers and laptops feature chintzy built-ins, neither is going to give you quality sound when you start to crank it up. Below we’ve gathered our list of the best computer speakers at price ranges fitting every budget. These systems should provide a huge upgrade in sound quality over most any stock speakers.

Multiple members of the Digital Trends staff contributed to our list of the best computer speakers.

 

Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 Multimedia Speakers $499.00

Price is no object you say? Well if you don’t shy away from big price tags, this set from Bowers & Wilkins will pack some serious hi-fi sound into pint-sized package that’ll fit nicely on your desktop. As far as specs go, it’s got four 18-Watt class D amplifiers, a two 1-inch tweeters, and each speaker has it’s own 3-inch woofer. Aside from its innards, the system has also got a sleek, well-designed exterior. 

Harmon Kardon Soundsticks III — $135 – $170

If you’re looking for a speaker set that balances sound quality with an eye-catching design, check out this system from Harmon Kardon. The third incarnation in the Soundstick line, this system boasts two satellite speakers—each of which contains four 1-inch full-range transducers—and a 6-inch 20 watt subwoofer. Their performance easily ranks among the best we’ve seen from speakers in this price range. Downsides? Despite being the third generation of the system, it still doesn’t have a remote. 

Altec Lansing Expressionist Ultra MX6021 $199.95

If you love floor rumbling bass for your movies and games than give Altec Lansing’s Expressionist Ultra MX6021 computer speakers a long look. They offer the most bass on our list with a 6 ½” front firing, long throw woofer. This system offers 200-watts of power and retains a clean output at any volume. If there is one downside to this system it’s the size, the woofer is pretty large so if you have space concerns then you should probably look elsewhere.

Check out our full Altec Lansing Expressionist Ultra MX6021 Review.

Logitech Z523 $99.99

These are the most inexpensive speakers on our list, but don’t let the price tag fool you these offer great sound that should satisfy most non-audiophiles. The 2.1 system offers surprisingly rich bass and performs great with music and games alike. All three speakers are driven by a 40-watt amplifier that fills most medium sized rooms easily with sound. These speakers may not satisfy everyone’s appetite but if you’re on a budget than their outstanding choice.

Check out our full Logitech Z523 Review.

M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 $229.00

The Studiophile AV 40s from M-Audio offer nothing flashy, just outstanding sound and surprising bass for a system lacking a dedicated subwoofer. The monitors feature a combination of 4-inch polypropylene-coated drivers and ¾-inch silk dome tweeters for balanced professional-grade fidelity. An integrated bass boost switch along with MDF wooden cabinets provide the Studiophile AV 40 speakers with plenty of low end power and saves users from trying to find a place to put those large dedicated subwoofers.

Joey Roth Ceramic Speakers $495.00

Industrial designer Joey Roth’s Ceramic Speakers are the most expensive system on our list and won’t suit everyone. For the price they aren’t going to be the best bang for your buck as you can probably get better sound from the Audioengine or M-Audio systems, but the Ceramic Speakers are about making a statement with a unique style that deviates from traditional plastic computer speakers. The speakers are made from simple materials including porcelain, cork, and Baltic birch and the T-Amp is made from stainless steel and cast iron which emphasizes the systems minimalistic and natural qualities.

Check out our full Joey Roth Ceramic Speakers Review.

Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 $149.99

The ProMedia 2.1 system offers no frills just great sound plan and simple. The three piece system offers two 35-watt satellite speakers and a booming 130-watt subwoofer which reaches down to 31 Hz. The two satellites feature Kipsch’s MicroTactrix horn which maximizes clarity in digital sources and the system’s high output digital hybrid amp features a headphone jack and dual stereo analog inputs so you can connect two sources at once.

Audioengine A5 $349.00

The A5s are similar in design to M-Audio’s AV 40s with a slightly larger tweeter and woofer to offer a little more punch. They offer phenomenal sound, two audio inputs, and two integrated charging options. With a 5-inch driver and 50 watts per channel the A5s pump out a lot of sound for their size. At close to $350 MSRP they are a bit pricey but since they’re powered there’s no need for a separate amplifier which depending on your needs can save you money, space and allows you to hook up any audio source.

Creative GigaWorks T40 Series I/II $130.00

If your desktop space is limited then Creative’s GigaWorks T40 series may be worth a look. This system goes up rather than out saving you space but retaining great sound and bass response for their slender size. Each of these computer speakers feature a pair of 2.5-inch full range drivers, a 1-inch tweeter, and bass reflex port on top. The right speaker offers convenient controls on the front for bass, treble and volume along with a 3.5-mm headphone jack. The T40s won’t give you quite the bang for your buck as M-Audio’s M40 system but they’ll fit better beside a monitor on your desktop.

Check out our full Creative GigaWorks T40 Series I Review.

What do you think of our list of the best computer speakers? Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments below.

Sony’s upcoming brawler, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale has begun a closed beta. Check out our impressions of the game and read on to see how you can land yourself a code to check it out.

Show of hands, who hasn’t wanted to see Kratos go head-to-head with Sweet Tooth in a battle to the death? You can put your hands down. We can’t actually see you, you know. Besides, it’s a rhetorical question, because everybody wants to see that. And that is where PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale comes in.

Developer SuperBot Entertainment has begun beta testing for its PlayStation-exclusive brawler. For a full recap of the game, check out our hands-on preview from April.

The game features four players going at it, with a roster made up of the biggest names in the PlayStation library. So far 20 characters have been revealed and more are to come, but only six have been made playable thus far: Kratos, Sweet Tooth, Sly Cooper, PaRappa, Fat Princess, and Colonel Radec.

These six characters are just a small sampling of the gameplay, as each playable character will have their own moves, which in turn means their own strengths and weaknesses. These six, however, give a good mix of the gameplay styles; they encompass a variety of types, from the brawlers to the ranged fighters.

The game moves quickly – so quickly that you may at first overlook the stages. But that would be a mistake for two reasons: First, they are fairly impressive and attractive mashups of some of the most popular levels in the PlayStation library, and secondly because they all feature an interactive element. Some will just occasionally try to murder you, but others will test your knowledge. One level primarily based on LittleBigPlanet features a quiz. The players are given four options, and each option is represented as a platform. Make it to the platform in time and you avoid getting hurt– assuming you can fight off the others and avoid getting pushed off when the countdown ends.

The six available characters all have their advantages, and each can take the day. The health bar, which I felt was out of balance to the point that it didn’t work at all, has been fixed, and now you have a realistic idea of where you stand — as well as who is the most vulnerable.

The scoring is based entirely on the number of kills versus deaths. This means that you will want to always be the person who scores the last strike that gets the kill. That gives the scoring a bit of a slant. Points based on hits might have made a bit more sense, but the fights do switch from one a free-for-all to more coordinated attacks when a health bar is low and there is blood in the water. On the other hand, that is also a great time to unleash special attacks or target someone who is vulnerable because they are going for the kill. Four players are enough to keep things unpredictable.

The action can get hectic and confusing, but part of that is due to the limited character selection, which leads to multiple players using the same characters. When there are more options, this will likely be greatly improved. 

For now the beta is definitely worth checking out for yourself, but it’s hard not to want to see what the game will be like when you have more than six characters. How they are balanced will be the determining factor of how much fun it is to play. On paper, BioShock’s Big Daddy should have no problem with Sackboy, and Nathan Drake’s wit probably wouldn’t mean much against a super powered, lighting spewing Cole McGrath from Infamous. How the characters are balanced will make all the difference.

That said, the beta is something you should definitely check out if you are interested in the concept of having the best and brightest of PlayStation’s library beating the snot out of each other. Check it out now, then look for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale on November 20 on both the PS3 and the Vita. 

And with that in mind, we have ten beta keys to give away so you can try the game out yourself. For you shot at receiving a beta key, simply post a comment below and let us know what character(s) from the PlayStation lineup you would either like to see, or are most excited to play as.

We’ll pick winners on Monday at random. The giveaway is for North America only. Good luck!

Dead or Alive 5 developer Team Ninja wants another crack at Nintendo's Metroid.

Metroid: Other M 2? Team Ninja would certainly like to make it happen. Dead or Alive 5 director Yosuke Hayashi said at Gamescom this week that he’d love to return to the series.

“Unfortunately Metroid is kind of out of our league as it’s Nintendo’s game,” Hayashi told VG247, “But we’re still in close touch with co-creator Sakamoto-san, so we want to do something with him moving forward definitely. It really depends on what he wants to do with the game first.”

Metroid: Other M looked like everything fans of the science fiction adventure series ever wanted. Exploration, an expansion of Samus Aran’s pirate-infested universe, and a clever mixture of third-person and first-person perspectives, all in a package meant to flesh out the series’ skeletal story. Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion director Yoshio Sakamoto would be at the helm, working with Team Ninja, experts at fast-paced 3D action.

So what if Team Ninja has a history of making some of the most misogynistic games in history? Surely Nintendo won’t allow “breast physics” into its games.

Samus may not have been playing beach volleyball in Other M, but the strong, silent bounty hunter was turned into an indecisive coward beholden to a cast of men in Team Ninja’s Metroid. It wasn’t a bad game though, just a terribly told story.

If Nintendo is going to return to Metroid, it might be better to revisit its two-dimensional roots. 

Cloud-based games on demand company OnLive isn't closed as rumors suggest, but the company is strangely silent about staff layoffs.

The sky is falling! Or maybe it’s the clouds.  Just one cloud actually. Cloud-based streaming video game service OnLive is closing.

At least that’s what Friday rumors purported. Turns out that OnLive isn’t shutting down, but it’s up in the air whether anyone is working there or not.

It all started when InXile Entertainment head honcho Brian Fargo took to Twitter on Friday morning, saying, “Just received an email that OnLive is closed as of today!” A bold, dangerous statement; Consider how many game developers and publishers working with OnLive likely heard about the Tweet within minutes. It’s the stuff of Internet brushfire legend.

Fargo’s exclamation was followed up by a report at Mashable that OnLive had laid of its entire staff. Its source claimed all OnLive employees were summoned in for a meeting at 10am PDT on Friday and all in attendance were promptly laid off. A number of staff were told that they would be immediately rehired as the company transformed into something new.

That same source said that the management of CEO and founder Steve Perlman was the cause of OnLive’s implosion. His refusal to sell the company to interested buyers was apparently a primary cause of OnLive’s failure.

OnLive corporate communications director Brian Jaquet took to the press by Friday afternoon though, saying that its only comment on the news is that the business isn’t shutting down. Jaquet answered Joystiq’s inquiry as to whether or not it was closing, “We don’t respond to rumors, but of course not.”

So OnLive will still offer up streaming video games to its users according to Jaquet. Wonderful. What about the company’s hundreds of employees? Unknown. There’s been little indication from the company’s employees on social networking sites that they’ve been laid off, but LinkedIn and Facebook profiles don’t exactly tell full stories.

These are strange days for the nascent streaming gaming business. Sony acquired Gaikai, OnLive’s primary competitor, at the beginning of July. As f that moment, cloud-based gaming was no longer a promising niche for startups like OnLive. Now it’s the territory of massive, multinational businesses. There has been speculation that Microsoft would in turn make an offer to OnLive, but so far the company’s stayed independent. The only console related announcement made by the company recently is that it will support Ouya, Boxer8’s new Google Android game console.

We’ve reached out to a number of OnLive employees and will update this article with any relevant information they provide.

Ubisoft has opened its Steam competitor Uplay PC.Is there still room in the digital distribution business for another video game retailer?

Uplay is more than Ubisoft’s digital rights management solution. It’s more than a fragile target for hacking exploitation. It’s also Ubisoft’s new digital distribution platform. The Frenchman’s EA Origin or Valve Steam, if you will!

Ubisoft opened Uplay PC for business on Thursday, an application that let’s people buy Ubisoft games like Assassin’s Creed III direct from the company. It also gives players more direct access to the other perks of Uplay like extra content and community features, but that’s a tertiary purpose for the new client. The secondary purpose is to cut out the digital distribution middlemen like GameStop, Steam, and Amazon.com to reach customers directly. It won’t get all 35 million of Ubisoft’s registered Uplay members—many are console players, many will use competing clients—but it will get them some.

The primary purpose though, as always, is to strengthen Ubisoft’s anti-piracy measures. Uplay was conceived as a DRM solution and Uplay PC is just the latest realization of that effort.

Uplay PC could potentially have a grand effect on Ubisoft’s business on PC though. Despite grumbling in the press and in the PC gamer community, Electronic Arts’ digital distribution service Origin has done quite well for itself. In May, claimed that it was now the “number 2 direct to consumer game service” with 11 million registered users. That’s only people who have installed the Origin client. It’s a far cry from Steam’s 35 million registered users, but a hearty population of potential paying customers nonetheless. EA did say at the time that the majority of revenue generated by Origin is from its own games, but it didn’t specify exact sales data.

Digital sales are already growing for Ubisoft. Its online sales grew 110 percent between March 2012 and the previous year, totaling more than $102 million. Those sales only represent a small portion of the overall $1.36 billion in revenue Ubisoft pulled in over the last fiscal year, but with digital sales expected to continue growing throughout this year, expect that number to grow significantly before fiscal 2013 is out.

Steam is growing too though, and consumers like Valve. EA’s proven that big publishers can make money with their own digital distribution clients, but it isn’t clear how many publishers can replicate that success. Ubisoft’s got the intellectual properties and frequency of releases to make it happen, but there aren’t many other companies in the business who can open a similar service and expect to succeed. Uplay PC can be successful but it isn’t part of a trend. 

After the "Saints" trailer came under fire for depicting wanton violence against women, IO Interactive confirms it's changing Hitman.

Hitman: Absolution has been in the works for a long time, so long that the its predecessors are now considered retro. The series it’s born of is fondly remembered, but the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia can cause problems. Truth is the Hitman games were always exploitive, as violent and dumb as a Mickey Spillane novel. Its cerebral, improvisational challenges were sophisticated but that didn’t change the fact that you were still a murderer working for a secret order spouting absurd dialogue. The pre-E3 2012 trailer for Absolution that showed Agent 47 gunning down a squad of lingerie-wearing nun soldiers wasn’t a new low for the series. It was the same old low.

The only thing different is the audience, whose outrage over that trailer’s brazen misogyny has actually spurred developer IO Interactive to change the content of its game. Speaking with Eurogamer at Gamescom 2012, director Tore Blystad said that the level that trailer was based on had to be altered in the wake of this spring’s controversy.

“The Saints trailer is based on a level within the game. One way to go about that level is to in all guns blazing but of course, it’s not the smartest way. We learned from the trailer that we really needed to give these characters some context and some back story,” said Blystad, “We’re working within the game—within that level—to build these characters up before you meet them. That way you know what you’re getting and you aren’t put off by them.”

Know your sexy nun before you fight her, player!

Blystad explained that he was surprised by people’s reaction to the game. “The game is inspired by Grindhouse-style movies, so for us the trailer was a natural way to deal with that subject matter,” said the director, “We’ve been trying to find out, y’know, how could we not see this happening? If we knew it would get such a negative reaction we would have done it in a different way.”

He shouldn’t have to though. There is room in video games for the exploitive, for the grindhouse. There’s room for dirty subjects, just like there is in books, movies, music, painting, literally every form of human expression. Hitman is a grindhouse game, and that’s just fine.

Hitman: Absolution though is coming out at a time when the people of the world are, after thirty years, sick and tired of 99 percent of all video games being grindhouse games. They’re almost all exploitive, all exaggeratedly male. There’s just not enough balance.

Changing the sexy nuns won’t help IO Interactive because sexy nuns aren’t the problem. The problem is that the majority of big-budget video games are made for 15-year-old white boys and are built around their tastes. It just so happens that Blystad’s game was the right target at the right time for the audience’s ire.

Welcome to Digital Blend, your one-stop-shop for coverage and recommendations of all things relating to mobile gaming, digital marketplaces, and indie titles (for the week ending August 19).

Welcome back to Digital Blend, our weekly look at the world of downloadable video gaming that exists at the fringes of the mainstream. That means we look at the hottest new mobile game releases, downloadable content drops on consoles and PCs, indie darlings that deserve your love and attention, and the best gaming values under $20.

Keep your comments and feedback coming. We want to hear from you! Did you try something you read about here and enjoy it? Is there a particular game you think we’ve overlooked or news you want to share? Any questions you are dying to ask? Let us know! Your thoughts, feedback, suggestions and (constructive!) criticism are welcome, either in the comments section below or directed at yours truly on Twitter, @geminibros.

Making headlines…

* Sega is stepping further into the mobile business. This week, the publisher announced the launch of Sega Alliance, a new partner program designed to help indie developers find the marketing and production support that they need to get their games noticed on mobile platforms. Sega already has a presence in the smartphone and tablet space with its wholly owned IP, but Sega Alliance aims in different direction with its focus on bringing in new talents. The first release under the new initiative is Jack Lumber from Owlchemy Labs, the same studio behind Snuggle Truck.

* Capcom is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the NES classic Mega Man (or Rockman, as it is known in Japan) this year with an iOS-exclusive release called Rockman Xover. It’s only confirmed for a fall 2012 launch in Japan right now, but don’t be surprised if that grows into a broader release. The game ditches the platforming action that the series is known for, instead delivering a social-driven RPG in which players build their own Mega Man robot as they work to rescue all of the other various Mega Men from a plot hatched by a gang of the series’ most notable villains.

* EA is hoping to build a bright future for the Command & Conquer series by embracing the free-to-play philosophy that has made Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances such a hit. The BioWare-developed Command & Conquer: Generals 2 is now officially confirmed to be following a F2P model when it comes to PC in 2013. This is indicative of a larger trend that the publisher is moving toward, with the C&C news coming only days after EA confirmed plans to make the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG a F2P offering this fall. 

* Those who have been patiently waiting for Sony to knock a few dollars off the price of its new PlayStation Vita handhelds are going to have to keep waiting. The portable was released in the U.S. in February 2012, less than a year after Nintendo dropped the price of its 3DS down from $250 — the Vita’s launch price — to a more competitive $180. That, coupled with the relatively light — though largely solid — library of launch and post-launch titles has left the Vita in a tough spot. It’s a great piece of hardware that too few people are adopting. A price cut might change that, but Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida put the kibosh on any hopes for such a thing happening in 2012. “No,” he said. “It’s too early.”

* Nintendo releases its super-sized 3DS XL in North America this Sunday, August 19, 2012. By all accounts it’s a solid piece of hardware that offers a notable improvement over the 3DS, particularly in the realm of its 3D display features. Our own Ryan Fleming has been tooling around with the new hardware for the past couple weeks, and he definitely liked what he saw. He questions the wisdom of not including a second analog control, something that can be added to the 3DS via a Circle Pad Pro, but the overall reaction is a positive one. For more, check out Ryan’s full Nintendo 3DS XL review.

* The PlayStation Vita might have been largely absent from the E3 2012 festivities this year, but that could be because Sony was saving the big stuff for Gamescom 2012. The publisher revealed many details of its future plans for the handheld during the Germany-based consumer show this week. For starters, LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule is currently toiling away on a Vita-exclusive platformer called Tearaway that trades in the Sack People for papercraft. Also confirmed is a new Killzone FPS game from Guerilla for the Vita, called Killzone: Mercenary. Perhaps the most exciting news, however, is confirmation that PlayStation Plus subscriber benefits will soon be extended to the Vita as well. That means discounted software, free software, and more.

Top buys for the week…

Papo & Yo :: PSN :: $14.99

It’s a light week for 100-percent new digital releases, but it’s definitely a quality over quantity sort of vibe to what’s out there. The best of the totally new bunch is Minority Media’s Papo & Yo, a beautiful puzzle-platformer with some very powerful thematic elements. I’m not going to try to synopsize it for you here. Either get the game and find out for yourself, or dig a little deeper with my Papo & Yo review.

The Expendables 2 :: XBLA / PC :: 1,200 MS Points / $14.99

The Expendables 2 was already released for PlayStation 3 via PSN, but this week the Xbox Live Arcade and PC versions arrive alongside the release of the movie. I’m not gonna lie: this isn’t any kind of amazing game. It’s just dumb, straightforward fun, with players taking control of one of the movie’s four major characters in a twin-stick shooter built around body counts. It’s not for everyone, but it’s mindless fun for the right kind of action fan. Check out my Expendables 2 game review for more. While you’re in the reading mood, you should also take a peek at Anthony’s Expendables 2 movie review.

Dust: An Elysian Tail :: XBLA :: 1,200 MS Points

PS3 gamers might get beautiful puzzle-platforming in Papo & Yo, but Xbox 360 users get beautiful action-RPG adventuring in Dust: An Elysian Tail. In this final salvo for Microsoft’s 2012 edition of Summer of Arcade, Dust marries absolutely gorgeous hand-drawn 2D graphics with exceedingly sharp writing, simple-yet-fun gameplay, and a surprisingly deep set of RPG systems. There’s a lot of game here for your $15, and it’s mostly pretty damn good. Check out my Dust: An Elysian Tail review for more.

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack :: PC :: $7.99

The best PlayStation Vita launch title is now a thing you can enjoy on your PC as well. Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack follows a formless alien blob as it breaks out of confinement in a research facility and proceeds to absorb everything in the vicinity in order to grow larger, Katamari Damacy style. The game is a 2D platformer with an adorably evil alien protagonist and one of my all-time favorite last levels in all of video games. Check it out if you haven’t before, or take a peek at my Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack review for more.

Jack Lumber :: iOS :: $0.99

Jack Lumber is the first of Sega’s new releases under the Sega Alliance label, a new partner program designed to lend support to indie devs on mobile platforms. The game is the work of Snuggle Truck dev Owlchemy Labs, putting players in the enormous work boots of the titular “supernatural lumberjack.” It’s a bit like Fruit Ninja, only you’ve got time dilation powers that allow you to perform some seriously impressive feats of mid-air chopping.

Random Heroes :: iOS :: $0.99

Ravenous Games, the same team behind the killer iOS platformer League of Evil, is back with Random Heroes. The new game is built around a more involved set of mechanics, with the story complemented by video game trappings like character progression and exploration. 

Advocacy group the Enough Project has given Nintendo a 0 score for making no effort to police the use of "conflict minerals" in its devices.

Shocker: All the parts in your iPhone and your Nintendo 3DS come from somewhere. They are not, no matter what Apple’s shiny commercials tell you, magic. People dig metals, minerals and other goods out of the ground, refine them, and they are used in the production of electronic products. Many of those minerals like tin and tungsten are cultivated in the war ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo and the ceaseless conflicts in that nation are over control of those resources.

The Enough Project, an advocacy group backed by the Center for American Progress, released its 2012 Conflict Minerals Company Rankings this week, giving a score to electronics companies based on how well they work to not use minerals seized through violence. Intel and HP lead the pack, but coming in dead last is Nintendo.

“Nintendo is, I believe, the only company that has basically refused to acknowledge the issue or demonstrate they are making any sort of effort on it,” Enough Project senior policy analyst Sasha Lezhnev told CNN on Thursday, “And this is despite a good two years of trying to get in contact with them.”

Nintendo released a blanket statement to CNN placing the responsibility of sourcing materials on Nintendo’s manufacturing partners, not the company itself. When Digital Trends reached out to Nintendo for comment, we received the same statement. “Nintendo outsources the manufacture and assembly of Nintendo products to our production partners and therefore is not directly involved in the sourcing of raw materials that are ultimately used in our products. We nonetheless take out social responsibilities as a global company very seriously and expect our production partners to do the same.”

Like many companies, Nintendo established a set of guidelines its production partners need to agree to called the Nintendo CSR Procurement Guidelines. Nintendo did not however go into any detail on how it ensures that these guidelines are followed. The “Honor System” isn’t exactly foolproof.

This isn’t the first time in recent years Nintendo’s been accused of socially irresponsible corporate policy. In 2010, Greenpeace named Nintendo the least green electronics manufacturer in the world. Plus, that was an improvement from reports in 2008 and 2009.

For every effort that Nintendo makes to appear as family friendly as possible—from restricting the western release of games like Mother 3 it deems potentially offensive to insisting on byzantine online friend networks through Friend Codes—it’s shocking how willful the company is in its disregard for socially conscious business.