In an interview with Eurogammer, Mark Incitti, author of the now infamous Grid Wars spoke publicly for the first time since he was forced to remove his Geometry Wars clone. While he admits that Grid Wars "...ended up being very similar to Geometry Wars", he also points out the irony of "Smash TV/Robotron clone developer complaining about being copied."

EBGames has listed a new joy stick from Mad Catz that really has to be seen to be believed. While very little is known so far, so much so that mad catz doesn't even have it listed on their site, but it certainly does seem interesting for those who missed out on the DOA joy stick.

You can check it out here.

UPDATE: Joystiq is reporting that the price of the new joystiq will be $50 USD and it will include "Several full Live Arcade games".

OK I promise that will be the first and last rhyming headline.

Microsoft announced yesterday some new details about the future of XBLA Wednesdays including:

• Texas Hold-em will be released Aug. 23 and will be free for the first 48 hours.
• 4 Cloning Clyde picture packs @ 100 points each are available today.
• A PGR3 themed deck for UNO will be available later today for 100 points.
• Time Pilot will be available August 30th for 400 points.
• Scramble will be available September 6th for 400 pointsMajor.

Nelson later updated the free poker info with this:

I don't know about you, but I'm interested to see what gameplay changes the PGR3 Deck will bring as Microsoft has stated in the past that there won't be any UNO Decks that are just a rebranding, that all decks will bring gameplay changes in line with the theme itself. Don't know how you would play racing UNO or Kudos UNO, but for 100 points, I'm willing to try.

UPDATE: it seems that Microsoft has removed all references to the UNO PG3 Theme pack, guess were not getting it today.

Load Inc., the Paris based company behind the highly anticipated Mad Tracks, has announced via press release that they will be attending CGDC in Leipzig. At the European developers conference, they will be representing Mad Tracks, as well as a previously unannounced racing title also bound for XBLA titled ToW.

Also announced were the expected release time frames for both titles. Mad Tracks is hoping for Q1 2007, while ToW is slated for Q3 2007. With no current driving genre games currently released, it's good to see that Load Inc. is looking to rectify that.

This isn't specifically XBLA related, but it's close enough and big enough to post anyways.

In advance of this mornings Gamefest, Microsoft has announced XNA Game Studio Express. This will allow hobbyists and students to create games on any XP enabled computer. Additionally, for $99 USD, you will be able to join the "Creators Club" which will allow you to "build, test, and share their games on Xbox 360, as well as access a wealth of materials to help speed the game development progress.". Both Garage Games, makers of the fantastic Marble Blast Ultra, as well as Autodesk were involved in one way or another with the creation of XNA Game Studio Express. The beta should be released to the public on August 30th.

What wasn't clear however, was how these games would be shared, or if it would be possible for users to charge money for their games. All in all, this is a fantastic step in the right direction of allowing for more indie games on the 360.

With some exceptions (read: Geometry Wars), the best selling games on XBLA tend to be games that people remember playing in their childhoods. On the other hand most of the best rated games tend to be from Indie developers. Due to this, and due to the manner of XBLA, it should be no surprise that many of the winners and runner-ups at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) are, or will, be coming to the service. It seems that this trend is continuing with a sequel to the 2005 IGF - Audience Choice Award in the Web/Downloadable category, N.N has a description of:

 Metanet with Klei Entertainment are working on the sequel dubbed "N+" and will be adding such features as cooperative and competitive multiplayer. You can check out the original N here and see how addicting the gameplay is for yourself. N+ is currently slated to be released June 2007.We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

So this is the big weekend that we are moving to the third version of the site software. While Wordpress has been great for us so far, the new features that we want to add (and the features that people have been requesting) require us to move to a new site software. In order to facilitate a clean transition and to ensure we don't lose any of the posts or great comments (who do you think we are? Major Nelson?) I've disabled all comments on the site.

Keep checking back over the weekend for the new look, a story about an unannounced game in development (i.e. not one of the 36 known games in development), and the addition of the number one requested features, forums! Wish us luck and let us know if you see any issues with the new site.

UPDATE: obviously the new site is now live, bare with us as we fix the little issues that pop up, and feel more than free to comment on what you think and if you find any issues.

UPDATE 2: had to change a bunch of things, but it should work fine in IE7 as well as the others now.

While it's still early in the XBLA lifespan, that's not stopping us from putting together the top 10 rated games list (two of them actually). As of today, depending on what meta-review site you prefer, the list is either:

Game Rankings:

1. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved	88.9%
2. Marble Blast Ultra	81.2%
3. Cloning Clyde	81.1%
4. Uno	80.6%
5. Hexic HD	80.1%
6. Zuma Deluxe	79.6%
7. Outpost Kaloki X	79.4%
8. Wik: The Fable of Souls	78.6%
9. AstroPop	78.5%
10. Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting	76.1%

or Metacritic:

1. Geometry Wars:Retro Evolved	86%
2. Hexic HD	82%
3. Cloning Clyde	81%
4. Uno	80%
5. Marble Blast Ultra	79%
6. Zuma Deluxe	79%
7. Wik: The Fable of Souls	78%
8. AstroPop	78%
9. Outpost Kaloki X	78%
10. Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting	77%

It's nice to see for the most part the Indie gamers are cleaning up, with Ninja Bee/Wahoo Studios with two games in both top tens.

So it has finally come to the end of the first wave of XBLA Wednesdays, and with it brings the classic Pac-Man. For 400 points, you can relive all those hours spent pumping quarters (wow, remember when arcade machines actually took quarters?) to control the yellow hero running from, and then after, Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde. Or were you one of the ones, unlike myself, who knew the patterns?

After months of playing coy, Denis Bourdain revealed recently to Xboxic, that Mad Tracks will indeed have online multiplayer.

When Load Inc. first announced Mad Tracks was coming to XBLA, many people were extremely happy that Microsoft had finally found something to fill the Revolt/Micro Machines hole in their lineup. Later, it was revealed, that due to time and money concerns, the game would be released without an online multiplayer component. Today's news comes after a fair bit of backlash that Load Inc. received about it's lacking.

As with almost everything it seems these days, with the good comes some bad. In order to code the PC's net code from the ground up, the game has been pushed back "several months" from it's estimated mid-September date.

Thanks Hexx and Audie for the heads up.