If you happen to live in LA, live near there, or just happen to be there on June 4th, then you might be interested in this contest from Capcom Unity. They're inviting an unspecified amount of lucky folks to an E3 Unity party on the said day, where you get to enjoy all good things Capcom first-hand. Hit the link to find out how.

It's official. Ziff Davis has sold 1UP to UGO Entertainment and has closed EGM. This was confirmed by no less than an official press release from both camps earlier today. The axe has fallen, and it's fallen hard. GameVideos.com and others take the hit as well. Full details right after the jump.

The eighth iteration of the Nintendo Voice Chat has just been released. The show discussed quite a number of games such as Electronic Arts' Boom Blox and Sega's Iron Man for the DS (also available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC, and Playstation Portable) as well as a few of the storage issues on the Wii. To find out more, check out the full article.

Download: Nintendo Voice Chat Ep.8

After Frank Provo's decision to leave the GameSpot ship comes another quite saddening news: Alex Navarro, the GameSpot reviewer famous for his podcasts, also decided to hand in his resignation from the gaming site. Details in the full article.

The Halo DS project may have been nothing but vaporware - canceled and left deep within the inner crevices of Cortana's fiber optic network - however, IGN promises to reveal more details about the demo they played earlier this year.

As GameStooge points out, in a recent IGN podcast (06-15-07), editor Matt Casamassina once again brought up the subject of Halo DS. It's just a very quick comment, but right around the 38:00 mark of the podcast, Casamassina says that Halo DS is:

a real game… It was a Halo on DS! And it never made it to the light of day, for whatever reason. That reason was most likely Microsoft or Nintendo...

But a lot of people just don't believe that. We're gonna lay down some ownage next week or soon afterward by showing you guys that that is a real game. You guys are about to be owned - all you nay-sayers.

Some may have thought that IGN being able to play a build/demo of the game was just a hoax. Now, maybe we can actually confirm that.

Next week isn't all that far off anyways. It's already the weekend, so we've only a few days left to really find out. "Finish the fight," or so says Halo 3. Finish the rumor, more like. That's what we want right now. If you want to hear the podcast for yourself though, click the Read link below. Remember, the Halo DS comment was somewhere around the 38:00 mark.

*Halo DS (Deathly Spartans) fan art by Icarus_Flight from vgboxart.com.

Picture says a thousand words, eh? You're not dreaming guys. It's the DS hinge crack. We overheard this in a VGM Daily Interview: "I have a DS Phat. My hinge on my original DS has cracked in much the same way and fashion as the DS Lite hinge." We haven't really confirmed it yet, but it's highly possible. In past articles, it used to be the DS Lite's only Waterloo, but now it looks like even the sturdier-looking original DS has developed the problem as well. Just goes to show that being big won't protect you from damage.

We've been playing with our DS for a long time and so far it didn't develop any cracks (and we're not among the "play safe" type). We're not sure if this happens only in the US and Europe because so far we haven't heard any DS cracks in Japan. Could it be a weather thing as well? We can only speculate but Nintendo will have to find the source of the problem and deal with it as soon as possible.

Since the DS Lite can be repaired, free of charge, will it cover the original DS as well? So far we haven't heard any official word from Nintendo about these developing cracks. In our opinion, as long as it doesn't affect the game and gameplay, it's ok. Nothing lasts forever.

If any of you guys out there have cracked DS hinges, let us know.

Download: [Cracked DS Phat Hinge Interview]

Nintendo has teamed up with GoTv to create a series of four podcasts spread out until the day after the release of the DS Lite. The videos will focus on the New Super Mario Bros. and the DS Lite itself. Here is a brief episode schedule:

Monday, May 22 - The first episode to kick-off the series is an interview with legendary video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the man responsible for creating Mario, Zelda and countless other popular Nintendo franchises.

Monday, May 29 - A review of New Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo DS. The classic Mushroom Kingdom action gets revamped classic look, and Mario shows some sweet new moves.

Monday, June 5 - An interview with the one - the only - Mario. What makes this guy tick? How does he pull off his cool moves? And what’s the deal with Princess Peach getting kidnapped all the time?

Monday, June 12 - A review of the lighter, brighter Nintendo DS Lite, which hits stores on June 11 priced as low as $129.99 at retailers throughout the United States. It has two super-bright screens to make all your DS games look good.

Still not satisfied? You can just wait for us to put the episodes on the website! Above is the full first episode complete with a dubbed Shigeru Miyamoto. Come back May 29th for more Mario fun!

Listen: [RSS feed] [Podcast]