14 DAY TRIAL // Hello and welcome to another edition of A Gamer's Week, your roundup of the most important news from the gaming industry in the last seven days. This week was a very interesting one, filled with speculations, reports and, to top it all off, the sales charts from the NPD group showing software and hardware sales in the United States. Without further ado, here's this edition of A Gamer's Week.
Monday was filled with speculations and rumors regarding two very different subjects. First of all, many fans were quick to discuss the fact that Blizzard would launch both the first chapter of StarCraft II and Diablo III next year. Don't forget that a new WoW expansion might also be rearing its head at that time, so we can't know anything for sure. Another bit of speculation started around a job listing from EA, which wanted capable developers in order to port the extremely popular Sims 3 title to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.
Tuesday saw some more speculation, as inside sources for WoW.com seemingly confirmed that the Worgen and Goblins would be the new races included in the future expansion to World of Warcraft, which is apparently dubbed Cataclysm. Take it with a grain of salt though as nothing is confirmed. Other rumors pointed at US retailer Best Buy, which will start a program in which new games will be sold for the price of old ones at select locations in the store chain. Whether or not it will work is still anybody's guess.
Wednesday was reserved for concrete statements, as the community manager from Infinity Ward, Robert Bowling, revealed that the DLC for the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 game would be based on the desires of the community of players. This means that there might be more than two DLC map packs and content upgrades if people want them. Another interesting announcement came from Valve, which started unveiling its Classless Update for Team Fortress 2. The first day brought new hats and maps for the popular online shooter.
Thursday was when rumors and concrete facts played together nicely, as, while a catalog scan revealed that the Xbox 360 Elite console would see its price slashed to a very attractive $299, EA and Harmonix confirmed that the first batch of DLC for their The Beatles: Rock Band title would include songs from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club and Rubber Soul albums, both belonging to the famous rock and roll band.
Friday was when EA announced that its NFS Nitro title would be receiving exclusive artwork and graphical enhancements, created by a few extremely popular designers from both the United States and Japan in order to give it a more aggressive and unique look. But most importantly, the end of the week brought the sales data from the NPD group. While drops were recorded for both hardware and software, in terms of consoles, things were good only for the Xbox 360. Software-wise, the top 10 was divided between Electronic Arts and Nintendo, which managed to occupy all of the spots.
Overall, a pretty hectic week, and with the next one being right before GamesCon, we will see other big announcements, so check back the dedicated games section here at Softpedia for all the latest news, downloads and demos.