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Gears of War 2 has shown some skin last week in an in-game video featuring a personal introduction by Epic Games Design Editor Cliff Bleszinski at Xbox LIVE. This video features the first in-game look at large scale fire fights and chainsaw duels with Locust Horde. Cliff already unveiled the game earlier this year at the Game Developers Conference.

Gears of War 2 is a follow-up to the best-selling Xbox 360 third-person shooter, Gears of War. The highly anticipated sequel is scheduled to be release this November exclusive for the Xbox 360 again.

Activision announced that the next game in the popular first-person shooter series will launch on most popular gaming consoles like the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, and PC, and it will be out before the end of this fiscal year during a conference call with investors this week.

Of course, since 5 won’t be developed by Infinity Ward, who produced the award-winning, critically acclaimed fourth game in the series, we can’t be sure that this year’s entry will be as good.

The fifth game in the series will not be produced anymore by Infinity Ward, the company that produced the award-winning and critically acclaimed Call of Duty 4 so this is something every Call of Duty fans have to watch out for.

What war or era will this new game cover? Will it spawned on the Call of Duty 4’s Modern Warfare genre or will be much more advanced? Will the 5th edition be better or worse? That’s the million dollar question my friend.

And that is something to keep us glued for the release this year.

A quick look at the HTC Touch Diamond coming soon. Looks like iPhone got a competition. And all I can say was WOW!

HTC Corp says it will be available to customers across all major European carriers in June; later this quarter in Asia and the Middle East; and in North America and Latin America it will be available in the second half of 2008. No pricing info available yet.

It’s in the news that Sony has been ordered this week by a US court to stop selling its PlayStation game consoles in the American market and to pay around £48 million in damages to technology company Immersion.

Immersion, a California-based developer of digital touch products, claimed that Sony infringed on their technology that makes game controllers vibrate simultaneously with the actions in gaming consoles. But Sony’s gaming division, Sony Computer Entertainment, quickly responded and said it would appeal this decision by a California federal court in the patent infringement case.

For now, Sony will keep selling PlayStations, which covers the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles, two game controllers and 47 software titles, while they take the order on appeal. Sony is said to be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion.

The Gaming Division has been Sony’s profit driver in recent years, gaining around 44 per cent of Sony’s operating profits in last year. Sony has been struggling in its bottom line with dropping prices of its electronics division from stiff competition and declining market share.

The amount ordered to be paid by Sony is more than triple Immersion’s total revenues in 2004 and confirmed a ruling by a California jury last year that ordered Sony to pay around the same amount.

What would you do if Sony is stopped from selling its Playstations? I am sure you will not be happy about it like me.

Rumour has it that Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind Blackberry, will be launching a new flip-phone named “Kickstart” in the market within weeks from now. This sweet news reportedly boosted the shares of RIM to its all-time high today.

The buzz came flying around all over the internet after The Boy Genius Report blog has released the rumour sometime late last week complete with pictures from a source.

The phone looks nice and shiny and with the Blackberry brand behind it, Kickstart is expected to widen the market for RIM and become a big hit soon. [Read the entire blog here →]

Nokia has announced the release of its 2 brand new phones sharing the same name – the Nokia 6600. The only difference between the two is that one folds and the other one slides.

Nokia has been known to brand each of their mobile phones using 4 digit names (until the N series of course came along). Now, this giant mobile phone company has broken this trend by naming two phones with one in slight variations. Depending on how clear you order these phones with the saleslady, you may end up getting the other one instead.

Welcome Nokia 6600 Fold and Nokia 6600 Slide. Scheduled for release by Q3 2008, these new phones has been characterized in the press with words like “Beauty”, “Glossy”, “Shiny”, “Smooth” and “Elegant”.

Nokia 6600 Fold, as the name suggests, is the < !more--> flip-top variation while the Nokia 6600 Slide features, well not surprisingly, features a slide-out dialing panel. There are some distinct features to the phones as the specs suggest.

The Nokia 6600 Fold uses a 2.13” OLED display sporting 6 millions colors which is a little smaller than the Nokia 6600 Slide’s 2.2” display. The Fold also has a 2 Megapixel shooter attached to it while the Slide variant sports a 3.2 Megapixel camera that’s great to capture sweet moments.

Both phones also features tap commands. When off, a double-tap of the monolithic cover reveals time, messages and missed calls. A double-tap also snoozes alerts and silences or rejects incoming phone calls.

BTW – there’s another beauty coming along this release. The Nokia 3600 Slide phone offers the same 3.2 Megapixel camera with auto-focus and 2 LED flash ensuring high-quality photos or videos in dim lighting conditions.

It also comes with a TV-out feature that connects to most television sets so consumers can share pictures and videos. This 3600 Slide with built-in background noise cancellation - the first of its kind for a Nokia handset.

All three ship in Q3 and come with Nokia Maps application.

Ubisoft has announced that a new Prince of Persia game is scheduled to be released towards the end of 2008 on PC, Xbox and PS3 platforms.

The next installment will mark the popular series’ debut on next-generation consoles and is now being developed by Ubisoft’s Montreal studio - the same team that created the Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy.

With the new chapter in the Prince of Persia franchise, the game will feature new game play, a new art style and is expected to to rejuvenate the action-adventure gaming genre.

Furthermore, Ubisoft is also set to release a new Prince of Persia game designed specifically for the Nintendo DS. This version will feature a new storyline and new characters with Ubisoft promising to deliver more details in the future.

The long wait is over for Nokia fanatics in Canada. Rogers Wireless has decided to embrace the Nokia’s flagship phone the N95 series into their phone line up. Making them the first North American carrier to support this Nokia model.

N95 is Nokia’s most highly regarded phone that comes with a built in 5 Megapixel camera, HSDPA capability, a second camera for video calling and a sleek slide design feature. It also comes with a MP3 player, an FM radio, built in GPS and WiFi connectivity. Truly a marvelous phone of its kind.

Unfortunately, the N95 phone is heard to be available at Rogers for $399 with a gripping 3-year contract deal. This may not be palatable to many but forthose who have been waiting for a carrier to support this phone, it’s just “the-hell-with-the-plan-attitude” that’s gonna prevail. You can get the phone without contract though at around $699 a piece.

Looks like I am going to defer my plans for WD’s Velociraptor now that Verbatim®, a leading brand in digital storage solutions, announced that it will launch this Q2 2008 the world’s first half-Terabyte 2.5” Portable Hard Disk Drive (HDD) on a 9.5mm Z-height drive.

The demand for higher-capacity portable storage devices at both the consumer and corporate levels seems to be never ending. Thanks to internet where there is a growing number of users who are uploading and downloading huge volumes of digital content (porn or otherwise). (Ok don’t sulk. I have my share. I am sure you do as well.).

Going back to this baby disk with a smart attitude… [Read the entire blog here →]

Grand Theft Auto IV finally went on sale last Tuesday, with a huge line up of fans as early as midnight to grab the first copies of the criminal action game hailed as the most significant release in the video game history to break all records. GTA 4 is also expected to be the biggest entertainment event of the year for Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

The fourth installment to the Grant Theft auto series, it is a lucrative franchise that already enjoys an impressive history with sales totaling more than 66 million worldwide. The new game, however, is expected to reset and break all previous sales records to a staggering $400 million in just one week beating last year’s feat by Halo 3 from Microsoft!

Retailers took advance orders for the game (some even have oversold even before the launch date) and are forced opened their doors to customers at midnight to quench the thirst of gamers who wanted to be the first to play. The anticipation has grown to unprecedented heights that game temperatures started to rise as Tuesday approaches.

Based on buzzes and early reviews in the gaming blogosphere, Grand Theft Auto 4, seems to be [Read the entire blog here →]