This fall, Microsoft is releasing a compilation disc of XBLA games, presumably for the unfortunate XBox 360 owners without a broadband internet connection. The package will include: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, Hardwood Backgammon, Wik: Fable Of Souls, Outpost Kaloki X, and the soon to be released (hopefully) Texas Hold'em Poker. The collection will set you back $40 and is currently slated for an early October release. You can view the box art here.

Pompom has put up a collection of new screenshots for their upcoming sequel Mutant Storm Empire. The 20 high-res shots (plus a logo) seem to be of the first two worlds. With how the game is shaping up and with online co-op, this game is quickly becoming yet another "must have" for XBLA

You can go check out the screenshots here.

Thanks for the heads up McLean78

In an article at MTV ( I still find it odd to get gaming news from MTV ) it was revealed that Small Arms will have an Achievement that it's director calls "Six Degrees of 'Small Arms.' " (it's not yet clear if that will be the actual name of the achievement yet). The way it works is that the four people who work at Gastronaut Studios will initially be the only ones with the Achievement, as soon as someone plays with any of the four, they will also get the achievement. This viral effect will continue on and on, with each new person gaining the achievement and the ability to "spread" the achievement on to others. Another interesting thing is that Microsoft is hedging their bets and making the achievement worth zero points, just in case the spreading doesn't occur as expected.

Personally I love the idea and hope other developers start coming up with unique and interesting achievements.

With the summer now fully upon us, we had to dig even deeper than normal to bring you these rumors.

The XBLA version of Texas Hold'em may include a "tells" system.

Rumor: The version of Texas Hold'em coming to XBLA is being developed by Carbonated Games (a MS subsidiary) and will have more than a few things in common with the Bicycle version they just released on MSN Gaming Zone, including the "tells" system.

Our Take: We asked MS to comment and they wouldn't even confirm that it's Carbonated that are developing it. That said, I'd say it's a pretty good guess that it'd be them since Texas Hold'em> is a first party game and what would be the point of having two divisions making different versions of the same game? Add to that how much everyone has loved how Uno turned out, it just makes sense for CG to be developing it.

As for the "Tells" system, it sounds like a great idea, and if CG is developing it, you'd have to guess that the game is going to be running on the same basic framework (although it does look different from the screenshots we've seen so far), so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they'd share this feature.

A third Pompom game might be making it's way to XBLA

Rumor: Bliss Island will be the third XBLA game developed by Pompom Software.

Our Take: This one seems to make sense, after the success Pompom has experienced with Mutant Storm Reloaded and the upcoming Mutant Storm Empire on Xbox Live Arcade, you would imagine that they'd be pretty happy with XBLA. Add to this that the official site has three other locations stating "Coming Soon" (one of which is known to be the PSP) and you've got a pretty decent argument that we'll be seeing it at some point in the future.

... For the 8th time? This time, Xbox Australia points towards a July 30th release. While it is rare that any Arcade game gets a specific release date other than "the end of April" or "sometime this year", especially Street Fighter II, believe it when you see it folks.

If the release date is correct, which we doubt it is.. could you at least 'throw us a bone', Microsoft? Where are the other Arcade games?

Also, since when did any marketplace content release on a Sunday? I think it's just a 'safe' way of saying 'sometime in July'.

UPDATE: It looks like that date for Street Fighter II has changed on Xbox Australia, to an incredibly vague "2006". .. We liked the "July 30" a bit more.

In the August issue of OXM, their calendar of events for XBox Live lists August 6th as "Texas Hold 'em Poker night on XBLA". That night happens to be a Sunday, and new content is never added to the XBox Live Marketplace on the weekend, so the game would need to be released before that weekend. Although we won't know for sure until then, this scenario seems reasonable. On last week's Major Nelson podcast, it was hinted that the game was coming along nicely but was caught up in legal issues with the sponsor. Hopefully, they will get that all cleared up so we can be playing free poker on XBox 360 in less than 6 weeks.

It might be worth mentioning that OXM previously gave a release date for Marketplace content (PDZ Map Pack 1) well in advance and they got that one right.

UPDATE: Apparently, OXM's calendar of events isn't always a reliable source for XBLA release dates. We would like to thank our readers for this tip.

Ah yes, the lack of Xbox Live Arcade games.. There is no supply, but there sure is demand. They're being promised, but not delivered. Sure, we have some great titles available to download from the Marketplace at the moment, but why in the past 3 months have we only seen one Arcade release (Uno)?

Peter Moore explains to Next Generation why our Arcade games blade is so empty, and he seems to have a credible 'excuse'.

"Here's what happened - people didn't believe that Arcade was going to fly. So we went round a year and a half ago as we were doing the final plans for launching 360, and told our publishing friends that here's what we think is really cool idea, where you could make games for hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of tens of millions, and at very low risk, but people didn't believe it. And we released it and it blew the doors down. Now all of a sudden we're in this phase where Sega, Namco, Konami, Midway... they want some of that. But we do have an important quality bar in place - we could probably throw 300 games up there quickly, and we are trying to get the independent guys going as well. It's almost going to be like Pop Idol, where someone will pop out suddenly - Geometry Wars is a great example. But I love this forum, whether it's profitable or not, this platform for indie developers, for four or five guys to put $100,000 into it, and we'll publish it and see what happens."

I understand that the releases have to be consistent, but.. Wii are waiting too long.