After all of the speculation concerning the GTA IV Xbox 360 downloadable content, an official Microsoft announcement of the release date has been made. The first bit of the exclusive DLC should be coming this Fall, but neither the price nor the content of the update has been revealed.

Source: VideoGamer.com

A recent post on the Inquirer has stated that “well placed sources” are reporting that Google is in the market to buy Valve and that the deal could go down any minute. Many believe Google’s interest in Valve is not so much for their amazing games, but for their content distribution system, Steam. Valve’s Steam service has been well ahead of the curve of all digital distribution services and is constantly getting new content added weekly. The deal seems good for both parties, but we’ll have to wait and see if any of this is indeed true.

Source: The Inquirer

UPDATE: Kotaku has contacted Valve’s Lead, Doug Lombardi, and were told that the Google buyout rumors are fiction.

Source: Kotaku

The years hottest game is coming to PC this holiday season. While many thought that in order to shoot hookers with Niko on PC was going to require a rig from NASA, the released recommended requirements aren’t too steep.

OS: Windows XP SP2
Processor:  Dual Core Processor (Intel Pentium D or better)
RAM:  2GB
Hard Drive:  18GB Free Space
Video Card:  512MB Direct 3D  10 compatible video card or Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader
Drive: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive

Sure it wont run on your Pentium 4 you’ve had for 6 years, but it has enhanced multiplayer!

Activision has released a press release revealing the entire tack listing for the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour. The list covers a wide variety of time periods with older hits like “Hot For Teacher” by Van Halen all the way up to more recent tracks by the Linkin Park and Tokio Hotel. All of the games 86 tracks are master recordings and you will be playing them October 26th when the game is released. Read on to see the full listing.

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Tons of people still log onto Burnout Paradise daily. It’s because on top of Burnout being an excellent game, Criterion has continuously released FREE content for the game that adds hours of enjoyment to the original release. The last update came with a bunch of new challeneges and a few new cars. The new update comes with something not ever seen in a Burnout game before, motorcycles. Criterion has announced that the motorcycle update for Burnout Paradise is coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 owners this Thursday, Spetember 18. In addition to the motorcycles, you’ll be treated to a new License career, fully customizable day/night cycles, 38 new events, dynamic wetaher and 70 new Freeburn challenges.All of this free of charge from our friends at Criterion. If free downloadable content is this easy why can’t everybody do it?

Most PC gamers rely on Valve’s Steam service for all of their digital distribution needs. Other companies have tried to compete with Valve with their own services including EA’s download service and Stardock’s recently released Impulse service, but none have met the acclaim of Valve’s effort. Another team has stepped up to the plate, but with a bit of a twist. CD Projekt’s Good Old Games service has launched it’s first public beta today and it looks to be more of a companion to Steam than a competitor. The service focuses on selling older pc games with price points of no more than $9.99. The games are also optimized to run on newer hardware and operating systems. The nicest part of the deal is not only are the games cheap, but contain absolutely no DRM. There are still spots left to testers so check out the site and sign up. I’m going now to download and play the first games in the Fallout franchise in order to prepare for Fallout 3.

Gabe Newell has revealed that Valve’s latest Source powered shooter, Left 4 Dead, should be getting a demo for the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game. An exact release date for the demo was not revealed, but it is known that the demo will feature the first part of one of the four campaigns. The most exciting bit of news coming from the announcement is that Gabe revealed that the demo will feature both single-player and co-op gameplay. Look forward to slaughtering zombies with your friends November 21.

Insomniac has now opened up their beta applications to win a chance to get into the Resistance 2 beta. All you have to do is log in with your PSN ID, answer a few questions, and pray to the Resistance gods that you get chosen. You can also bypass the game of chance and get guaranteed access into the beta by pre-ordering the game from Gamestop or by purchasing last months issue of Qore on the Playstation Network.

A forum poster over at VGChartz has posted a huge rumor in regard to the “New Xbox Experience” that Microsoft has been talking about since E3. The proclaimed “insider” tells that Microsoft is planning a huge, five-hour televised release starting September 25 at 7PM EST leading to the initial launch of the new Xbox experience around midnight. The event is apparently being televised on G4 and will be streamable by Xbox Live members. Another juciy bit of gossip is that three new components of the updated Xbox will be revealed including a partnership with Sirius Radio to allow streaming radio through the XBox 360, a music store page that allow gamers to buy music with MS Points, and a mad lib page(?). This source also reveals that a slew of exclusive/timed exclusive games will be announced following the launch including a new Conker game, Assassins Creed 2, Mass Effect 2, and two new Halo titles as well as info about DLC for Halo3, GTA IV, and Mass Effect. Finally the last bit of news is that six Xbox original games will be available to download for free including Halo. This mostly sounds like an Xbox fanboy’s wet dream but I guess we’ll have to wait closer to the supposed launch date to hear if any of this is indeed true, but if so it looks to be a great month to own an Xbox 360.

While many of us are still waiting on a patch to fix the online issues in Castle Crashers, Behemoth has been hard at work on some new DLC for the Xbox Live Arcade hit. They announced on their developers blog that some new content including two new characters, the King and the Necromancer, and a new weapon, the chainsaw should be coming in the not too distant future. Oh, and don’t fret over the online issues being overlooked by the developers. Behemoth says the online patch is their top priority.