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When you lay down your $120 on the counter of a GameStop this Fall and walk out with a copy of Tony Hawk: RIDE, its peripheral and a fifth less of your dignity, you're not just investing in that single game. No, no. As we've already covered, Activision have plans for tons of non-Tony Hawk games to be used in conjunction with this plastic board going forward ... and the developer has even hinted that it might be making the leap from sports title accessory, to comic book game accessory.

Speaking on the subject, Josh Tsui, president of RIDE developer Robomodo said that the accessory will not only be prime targetting for other board-based sports, but it could very well be incorporated into upcoming games based on the Silver Surfer and the Hobgoblin. Bwah? So not only did we just get confirmation* that Activision will be making games based on these Marvel characters, but they may have unneccesary waggle controls built-in. Thoughts?

*Not actually confirmed, but it's Activision. Come on.

Easily one of the most anticipated games of the Summer, EA DICE's Battlefield 1943 has finally been given a release date. The multiplayer and online-only title will arrive on LIVE Marketplace next Wednesday, July 8th for 1,200 Microsoft Points.

1943 features 24-player online matches, a fully destructible world thanks to the Frostbite engine, and three maps out of the gate: "Iwo Jima," "Guadalcanal," and "Wake Island." A fourth, "Coral Sea" will be freely unlocked for all after the Community Challenge of 43 million kills is achieved. I want to play on this map, so get to killing. Do it.

Make sure you've got 560MB of free Hard Drive space, and you're ready to revisit WWII.

After being the sole bidder for the bankrupt Mortal Kombat publisher, Warner Bros.' offer for Midway has been approved by the court, and the deal should be finalized within 10 days.

As expected, Midway Newcastle (and their new game), as well as Midway San Diego are not being scooped up in the deal, and both were given 60 days notice. It's reported that the San Diego team were working on a new installment of the TNA franchise - an IP that Warner will not get access to.

As part of the acquisition deal, Warner will will receive the rights to Mortal Kombat, This is Vegas, Wheelman, Joust, Spy Hunter, arcade and sports titles and the Seattle and Chicago studios. In addition to the TNA franchise, NFL: Blitz and NBA Ballers are not included. There are currently no details on what steps Warner/Midway will be taking to clear up the stil-active lawsuits surrounding the publisher.

Yesterday it was revealed that Microsoft's proprietary technology, Silverlight, would be brought to Xbox LIVE by the end of 2009 to power more interactive and impressive advertisements. Naturally, that led people to assume that Microsoft, and possibly third-party partners, would now be flooding the 360 dashboard with spiffy new 1080p ads, instead of keeping them isolated to places within the Marketplace. Relax. Not so. Major Nelson addressed the problem on his blog with a short and sweet response.

"I need to let you know that you don’t need to worry about a huge influx of ads across the dashboard. One of our core principles is to enhance, not interfere with the gaming experience, and we work directly with our partners to only deliver experiences that are relevant to the LIVE community. Silverlight will help make those ads a more organic part of the dashboard, like we’ve done with some of the NXE slots in the past. No one on the team wants to turn the dashboard into something that looks like like Shibuya Crossing. That’s just not good for anyone."

So we won't have to worry about a "huge influx" of Silverlight-powered dashboard ads, but that isn't saying we won't have to worry about more dashboard ads period. How will you feel when you boot up your dashboard later this year and possibly see - regardless of its size, shape or placement - another interactive ad for McDonalds? We already have various ad "cards" on some of the NXE blades now, so it shouldn't be so bad. Interesting. Hey, at least the console and guide are getting that long-awaited speed boost, so you can conceivably skip past them in a flash! Good thing for that $50 per year premium subscription that alleviates these things. Oh.

(Photo via Kotaku)

Uh oh. THQ and JAKKS Pacific are butting heads over the licensing to WWE games. JAKKS want to renew the joint license to create games based on the franchise; publisher THQ are shaking their heads.

The toy company announced today that they've notified the WWE that they wish to renew the deal, which would expire December 31st, 2009, and extend it through December 2014. THQ on the otherhand, aren't feeling it. The publisher filed a lawsuit that said they were "not ready to make a decision with respect to renewal of the WWE videogame license." The publisher's suit claims that they have no obligation to consent to a deal renewal and that JAKKS were "not authorized under the parties' joint venture agreement to unilaterally issue a renewal notice to the WWE."

Sticky situation here. THQ want to, should they choose, be able to toss the deal aside ... but still have the right to publish games based on the WWE license. Both parties have entered arbitration, so this will be one to watch.

Hmm, very interesting, this little sliver of information is. According to a source familiar with the matter, The Ultimate Fighting Championship is apparently readying to drop the banhammer on any and all fighters - who are not currently signed under the UFC - that agree to appear in EA's 2010 title, EA Sports: MMA. The only publisher that currently has an officially licensed MMA title out with rights to UFC fighters is THQ.

"I hear that all mma managers were informed that if any of their clients not currently under contract with the UFC..... sign to be a part of the EA game.......the will forever be banned for fighting in the UFC," says the source. MMA Agents' Ken Pavia later says: "It's true. And they told me want the word out."

So if a fighter were to take the cash from EA to be represented in the title, the UFC will turn their backs on them altogether, and their possible invite will be thrown in the garbage. Just after E3 where the publisher announced their title, EA Sports' Peter Moore said, "We are looking obviously at every fighter that we can, that we feel is applicable from a quality level and then analyzing their image rights, and if they're available and we want them -- then we'll get them. If they're not then we'll move on to the next fighter. ... There's plenty of great fighters that have their image rights, and we'll start announcing fighters pretty soon."

Neither the UFC, EA or THQ have issued any official comment on this just yet.

id Software and Pi Studios' XBLA port of Quake III was announced all the way back in the year 2007, during the studio's Quake Con gathering. Quake Arena Arcade is being consoleified and digitized for 360 users, and now we've got the first, pseudo in-game screenshot!

Thanks to Pi Studios' Twitter account, a screenshot of Arena's level select menu... which shows nothing other than a new stage: Cliffside. When it releases (who knows when that is, the game is currently being tested by Microsoft), Quake Arena Arcade will sport 40 single/multiplayer Arenas, 16-player multiplayer in modes such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Tournament, Harvester and Overload, and the usual XBLA suspects of leaderboards, matchmaking, widescreen, Achievements, etc.