Straight Right's building up a respectable portfolio of Wii U games, including at least one new IP alongside its port of Mass Effect 3.

Australia’s Straight Right is one of the studios that will help define the Nintendo Wii U’s early life. Pretty surprising for a group whose only recent credit is the iOS version of Electronic Arts’ Shift 2: Unleashed. Unproven or not, Straight Right is responsible for bringing BioWare’s much-derided, best-selling sci-fi melodrama Mass Effect 3 to Nintendo’s new console. According to the studio, this Mass Effect port is just the start of its plans on the console.

Speaking with Eurogamer, studio head Tom Crago teased Straight Right’s other Wii U plans. “We made a number of bets on the Wii U, so we’re certainly hoping that the platform comes strongly out of the gate,” said Crago, “We’ve got two other titles in development. One of them is original, our own IP, and another is based on another big franchise that will come out in 2013. It’s a big title and you will have heard of it.”

The most exciting news is naturally that an original game is part of Straight Right’s Wii U plans. Crago’s history has been mostly as a gun for hire. His previous studio, Tantalus Interactive, produced mostly ports, spinoffs like Unreal II: The Awakening, and licensed kids games like Megamind: The Blue Defender. No one gets into the video game business to make Megamind games though, so  it’s great that his new studio will get to flex some creative muscles.

What will the second project be? EA clearly has faith in Straight Right, so maybe it’s working on an unannounced Wii U version of a Q1 2013 game? Good money is on Dead Space 3.

Crago also confirmed that Mass Effect 3 will be a Wii U launch title.

Most peculiar moment of E3 2012: When Mass Effect 3 appeared in a series of clips of upcoming Wii U games during Nintendo’s press conference, the entire room started cheering. This is the same Mass Effect 3 that so enraged critics and fans with its ending that BioWare was forced to give away DLC for free just to calm people down. There were petitions to have it revoked from the series! Some people raised more than $80,000 for charity! Why the hell were people cheering? Because apparently people love them some Mass Effect, even when it’s Mass Effect that they hate.  Good news for Straight Right then. This’ll be one more feather in the studio’s cap.

Travel app WeHostels has all the app finesse of Airbnb without the high prices. The startup officially launches to target the last-minute backpacking crowd.

Today WeHostels is announcing its public launch, pivoting from its beginnings as Inbed.me. The currently mobile-only app is targeting the space between CouchSurfing and Airbnb — the world of cheap hotel and hostel bookings. The startup is still riding its $1.2 million raised this past spring, and silently added 30,000 downloads in the past three weeks.

Before the WeHostels mobile app, the service existed as Web client Inbed.me – but surprise, we users all have our minds in the gutter and interpreted the name in the most inappropriate way possible. Though there’s been a name change, the concept more or less remains the same: Connect to Facebook and find last-minute affordable last-minute accommodations on-the-go. It’s not all utility, however, and the social link gives you options to connect with other guests so you can, as WeHostels puts it, make friends en route before you even get to your destination.

Of course, the other big switch-up would be that fact that WeHostels is entirely ditching the desktop in favor of a mobile-approach. According to the team, it was a pure logistics decision when they saw traffic from smartphones growing 10 times faster than their Web app.

“We decided to focus only in mobile because it’s a fascinating new arena that requires a very unique set of skills in terms of product design and distribution,” says co-founder Diego Saez-Gil. “By focusing only in mobile, we’re forcing ourselves to become experts on it, and therefore we can outperform any team in any big company working on it.”

Despite that focus, WeHostels sees beyond the smartphone. “In the future we plan to develop solutions for all devices and platforms – we will need to be ubiquitous,” Saez-Gil tells me. “But we prefer to start on the one platform where the new ways of interacting with the Web are happening.”

The fast and quiet growth that WeHostels experiencd over the last few weeks saw the userbase grow largely in the United States, with Europe coming in second, and from there travelers in South America and Australia getting on board with the network. The current version of WeHostels has 80 cities available, but new partnerships with Hostelworld and Expedia will hugely increase those options worldwide.

“We will keep growing in terms of cities and accommodations, and we will develop for other devices,” says Saez-Gil, who mentions that iPad and Android are up next. “In the longer future we consider expanding to other verticals in the travel space and becoming the one-stop-shop where young travelers plan and book their trips from mobile devices.” 

The next generation of Kinect may do more than track your body. Xbox tech in a Microsoft patent will project the game into a whole room.

Don’t think of the Xbox 720 as a graphically advanced piece of consumer video game technology. Don’t think of it as a vessel for a new and improved version of Kinect and Xbox Live. In fact, don’t even bother thinking of it as the cable TV and connected entertainment set top box, Microsoft’s definitive gambit to take control of living room media. It will be all of those things, rest assured, but the Durango may also introduce some crazy immersion technology that goes well beyond Kinect’s motion sensing.

On Sunday Patently Apple detailed a Microsoft patent just recently published by the US Trademark and Patent Office that describes technology that would transform your entire living room into a game environment. The patent reads: “An immersive display environment is provided to a human user by projecting a peripheral image onto environmental surfaces around the user. The peripheral images serve as an extension to a primary image displayed on a primary display.”

Put another way: You’re playing a motion-controlled Gears of War. If you scan ahead for enemies, they might be taking cover behind broken walls not just on your TV but maybe to the right on your walls. You might be able to see an attack from the air on your ceiling. A locust soldier could sneak up behind you and you could literally turn around to face them.

What is the tech? The Xbox itself is outputting both the primary image on your television and the secondary images on your walls. It’s not necessarily 3D tech either. The figures shown in the patent detail 2D displays, though the tech would be compatible with 3D TVs and could be augmented with “suitable headgear.” In addition to a new version of Kinect is a depth camera that generates the depth information needed for the environment meaning it knows where everything in the room is while the Kinect focuses on where you are. The depth camera might also be built with a three-dimensional scanner that will collect any non-visible light (infrared, etc.) given off by monitors or projectors.

Creating a more immersive video game environment is clearly a priority for Microsoft with the Xbox 720 and the overall future of the Xbox brand. Back in March, another Microsoft patent was made public for “Projector Eyewear for Xbox and Beyond.” These goggles would work in place of a television for the Xbox, projecting a virtual screen in front of the user. It’s not quite the same as turning your living room into the game, but it’s one more example of how Microsoft’s engineers envision the future of games.