Today's marketplace update from Major Nelson includes a couple bits of interest to the community here.

Namely, three Wing Commander: Arena videos, giving you a look at an epic 16-player battle as well as doling out some team strategies. Before you all retrieve your "EA's DLC is a ripoff" signs and pitchforks consider this: These videos are free. That's right. EA is giving you tip videos for free. And since these videos easily qualify for the "totally worth the price" category you can douse the torches, stow the signs and go back to work return to your relaxing breaktime (since you'd never read this blog at work...no, never).

Worth the money sure, but can anyone who has watched them tell us if they are worth our time?

Full details post-hop.

[via Major Nelson]

EA, the generous and lovable company that they are, sponsored a Wing Commander: Arena tournament amongst various community sites (some 360-centric, some not). Well, the tournament has come to a conclusion and Xbox360Fanboy came away victorious.

Why am I wasting your time with this information? Because the winning site (Xbox360Fanboy) now has a massive list of prizes (courtesy of EA) to give away to their readers. So, if you think your pad might be spruced up by a 50" 1080p TV then you know which site to stalk. (And no, this is not the time to gloat about how you already have a 50" 1080p TV...geez.)

[via Xbox360Fanboy]

We knew about Wing Commander: Arena (thanks to EA) and we knew about Super Contra (thanks to some PartnerNet Speculation) but we certainly did not expect them to arrive together. But unless those pesky press releases are merely yanking our chain, we can now safely assume that this Wednesday will be filled with a lot of shooting. Some at felines, some at aliens but shooting all the same.

Press Release after the jump.

Skipping directly over that whole Microsoft press release step in the journey to XBLA, representatives from Electronic Arts have confirmed with xbox360fanboy that their baby, Wing Commander: Arena is set to launch this week. Then again, thanks to Skeptical gaming, we already knew that (and we shouldn't have doubted you. We've learned our lesson.).

Gaia Industries (also responsible for the puzzlingly absent Street Trace:NYC) have crafted the largest online multiplayer experience currently available on XBLA. With up to 16 players, it's bound to get a little crazy.

With Bomberman Live! this past week and WC:A coming this week, there seems to be a glut of XBLA multiplayer action. Anyone complaining?

[via x360f]

Skeptical Gaming is reporting that next week will see the launch of Wing Commander Arena. No official word has been given though, so you may want to stay a skeptical gamer.

[Via WCNews]

No, you haven't been transported to the year 2701. You are just looking at the heading for the just released manual to Wing Commander: Arena. The quality (and presence at all) of this manual is astounding considering almost all previous XBLA titles have simple built-in instructions and no online manuals at all (Jetpack being an exception to this.). Mind you, the absence of manuals has not been a problem to this point since most XBLA games have a shallow learning curve.

But even though it has no competition, EA did not take the manual's construction lightly. It's a beast of a document. Not only do we get detailed stats on all the ships, but the entire manual is made-up as a 64-page magazine to aid you on your quest for interstellar glory. That's right. Sixty-four pages. It brings me back to the good ol' days of PC gaming where the art form of solid and interesting manual design was perfected. (I can live without hunting for the 3rd word in the 12th paragraph on Page 23 to continue my game though.)

One could hope that this signals an imminent release of WC:A. Here, kitty kitty kitty.

Direct link to the PDF.

[via WCNews, thanks to Ben "LOAF" Lesnick]

[Update]: I stand corrected about the presence of online manuals for XBLA games -- namely, Jetpack Refueled.

I took some time to finally look over the current state of achievement coverage for unreleased XBLA games over at xbox360achievements.org and here's a summary of what I found:

Xbox360Achievements.org have once again done the impossible in getting their hands on Xbox Live Arcade achievements early. This time they have docked with Wing Commander Arena to load up on all 12 of the achievements for the game. It appears that the achievements may possibly on the easier side of the arcade with the exception of a shoot down 1000 pilots achievement, which should prove time consuming. The "Untouchable" achievement where the player must reach wave 10 without taking any damage may also prove to be quite difficult. With the release of these achievements this week, I wonder if this can be thrown in with the other two titles that according to previous reports were supposed to come out in June (only one week left after all)?

The Wing Commander CIC has updated their website to allow the creation and management of squadrons for Wing Commander Arena. After release the site plans to host tournaments, so if you have a group of friends to fly with you might as well sign-up now.

Two new Wing Commander Arena videos have popped up on the internet including a nice video interview/walkthru. The other video is from GameVideos and is embedded below. It's nice to see so much media and information streaming out of EA about this game. It would be nice if other developers would take a similiar stance.

[Via Wing Commander CIC]