Yes, the majority of you will probably be playing Halo 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on Xbox Live this week. This we know. But just in case you're looking for something else, Major Nelson has a whole list of new content on Xbox Live this week. Perhaps, for example, the new version of Atari's Warlords, available for 800 Microsoft Points. Or one of three new Kinect Sports games, for 240 points each, or an XBLA version of Targem Games' Planets Under Attack, for a full 1200 points.

There's a sale on, too: Carcassone, Catan, Magic: The Gathering, Magic 2012, Super Puzzle Fighter HD, and the two Puzzle Quest titles are all half off, for just 400 Microsoft Points each, and Ubisoft's I Am Alive is 33% off, down to 800 Microsoft Points. A downloadable course pack for Tiger 13 is as 50% off, and that's not all. Later on this week, Major Nelson says Microsoft will be hosting an "Xbox Live is 10" sale, which will include discounts on some content, as well as giveaways to some Xbox Live members "who have been with us the longest."

We mean, sure, it'll mostly be Halo 4 and Black Ops 2. But just in case, there's some good deals there, too.

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Singer Beyonce has failed, once again, to get herself extricated from the impending lawsuit against her by developer Gate Five Studios. Gate Five claims Beyonce agreed to help make a video game called Superstar: Beyonce late last year, but then backed out of the deal, causing severe financial damage to the studio. Beyonce's lawyers attempted to get a summary judgment in April, claiming Gate Five hadn't pulled in the financing needed to make the game, but that attempt was denied.

Now the appeal of that judgment has failed. This doesn't mean Beyonce's lost the case, but it does mean that it'll likely go to trial, where a jury will have to determine if Beyonce was within her contract to leave the project, or if she somehow broke the agreement. The main issue seems to be that Beyonce required a certain amount of financing to stay on board, which she says the studio didn't get. Gate Five has suggested that there was an agreement to get the money Beyonce's contract required very soon, and that she knew that deal was all set to take place.

Beyonce, we're really happy for you, and we're going to let this finish and all, but Axel Rose had one of the best video game lawsuits of all time. One of the best video game lawsuits of all time!

Surprise! Nintendo of Japan sneaked out another Nintendo Direct presentation, with more miscellaneous information about the Wii U explained by president Satoru Iwata.

The video details parental controls, but more importantly, it has details on the USB storage, backwards compatibility, and Nintendo Network Premium deal (called the Deluxe Digital Promotion in the US). USB hard drives up to 2 terabytes will function with the Wii U, though they must be formatted specifically for the system. Powered hard drives (plugged into the wall) or using a Y cable (plugged into two USB ports) will work with the system. You'll want to use an external drive, because with system software, etc., the onboard memory of the 8GB Wii U is actually 7.45GB, and the 32GB Wii U holds 29.8GB of usable space. At 5:53, you can see the available space explained with vases full of colored pebbles.

As for Virtual Console, Nintendo still has Wii games, VC, and WiiWare content running only on the TV, not on the GamePad. Nintendo has plans for a "Wii U Virtual Console" compatible with the GamePad, but there were no details given, so it is unknown if it involves the same games, or same purchases, from the Wii Virtual Console.

Finally, the big news with the Premium deal is that earned points for eShop purchases will be usable not just in the Wii U and 3DS eShops, but on DSi and Wii as well.

After the break, you can see Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen explaining some details about Miiverse and Nintendo Network IDs, as revealed in last week's Direct.

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Death is here to chop Darksiders 2 prices by 66 percent for PC. Both Steam and Amazon currently have deals on the apocalyptic action game, dropping the regular $50 price to $17. The deal runs for the next day and a half of Steam, the Amazon sale doesn't say when its time is up.

Despite Darksiders 2 selling 1.4 million copies since launch, THQ CEO Brian Farrell said the game sold "below our expectations." The publisher is currently hanging on to life by a thread.

In response to reports of some PC copies of Black Ops 2 having a second disc for Mass Effect 2, Bioware is giving away Mass Effect Trilogy to those affected. As detailed on its blog, the Mass Effect developer will send free PC codes for the compendium to the first 50 people to send the developer a photo of the error.

It's a cheeky yet inspired response from BioWare, the developer calling the mix-up an "omen" it had to take heed of. "If the universe thinks that you should be playing Mass Effect right now," the post reads, "who are we to argue?"

Meanwhile, an Activision rep addressed complaints on the official Black Ops 2 forum, saying teams are trying to work out how the mix-up occurred. The post recommends using a product key provided in the case to activate the game on Steam.

The Devil May Cry demo is coming to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network next week, arriving in North America on November 20. As for Europe, it drops the same day on Xbox, but a day after on PS3. Capcom didn't mention a PC demo in its announcement.

The demo offers two missions, including a boss battle. After one completion it unlocks the special 'Son of Sparda' difficulty, which plays around with enemies' placements and behavior as well as making them tougher to beat

Lone Survivor, the side-scrolling survival-horror game from developer Superflat Games, is coming to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, creator Jasper Byrne has revealed. After months of being stranded on the PC and Mac, Curve Studios will rebuild the entire code base from scratch to bring Lone Survivor to Sony's gaming platforms.

Curve Studios is the London-based house responsible for Fluidity and Explodemon, the latter of which is a quaint retro-inspired game that shows the studio has chops when it comes to pumping out the pixels. No release date on the PlayStation versions has been revealed, but Byrne says he'll offer updates through his Twitter account as progress is made.

The tactical advantages to stacking a mech on top of a Banshee are too great to ignore in this latest episode of Defend the House's video game Mythbusters series. In the first Halo 4 installment, we learn a number of valuable things about 343's Halo debut ... but who cares? You can stack a mech on a tank.

[Thanks, Caleb.]

Ed Fries is a former VP of publishing at Microsoft, Ouya advisor and the creator of Halo 2600 – he's got quite the resume. He also founded FigurePrints, a company known for making real-life recreations of your in-game content, like statues modeled after World of Warcraft avatars. Now FigurePrints is recreating Minecraft worlds.

If you're interested, you'll first want to install FigurePrints' world exporter, compatible with Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows XP. Once you've installed the exporter, you can select a portion of your MineCraft PC world and upload it to FigurePrints where its artists will re-create your lovingly-crafted game world into a physical model. Then you only need to place your order and wait impatiently for the box to hit your doorstep. As for price, FingerPrints says "replicas of Minecraft worlds significantly vary in cost," based on the size of the area recreated.

We're sure there's a subset of the gaming population who didn't pre-order Dead or Alive 5 from GameStop or Amazon, only to burst into tears when they later realized that the swimsuit costumes were exclusive to those retailers. This one's for you.

The following Dead or Alive 5 swimsuit packs are now available for $3 or 240 MS Points via PSN and XBLM: Angels (white suits for Kasumi, Hitomi and Leifang), Devils (black for Ayane, Christie and Tina) and DOATEC Divas (bunny ears for Kokoro, Lisa and Helena).

For $5 (360 MS Points) grab the Player's Swimwear Pack 1 with bikini'd out Kasumi, Kokoro, Helena and Sarah; Pack 2 with Hitomi, Leifang, Mila and Pai charm; or Pack 3 for Ayane, Christie, Tina and Lisa. The Player's Swimwear Set includes all three Swimwear Packs for $13 (1040 MS Points).

Dry those tears. It'd be a shame to get these swimsuits wet.

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If you're planning on picking up the Xbox 360 version of Lego Lord of the Rings today, make sure to open the case and verify that an actual game is inside before you leave the store.

It appears as though demo discs, instead of the retail game discs, have been shipped out to numerous retailers incorrectly, according to Game Informer. Only Xbox 360 shipments appear to have been affected by the issue, and even then not all 360 shipments were part of the faulty batch, so there's still a chance you'll be able to go out and buy an actual copy today.

We've reached out to Warner Bros. for comment and will update with any further information we receive on the situation.

Update: Warner Bros. issued a statement to IGN saying it's recalling a "small number" of discs which, while labelled as demo discs, do in fact contain the retail game.

The statement reads:

"Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is recalling a small number of LEGO The Lord of the Rings video games that were released for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft to Walmart, Target and Toys 'R' Us in the United States with a disc labeling error. The discs in question are incorrectly labeled as demo discs, but those discs do contain the full game content and are fully functional. This error does not affect any other formats of the game. We are in the process of remanufacturing the discs and will get them to the stores as soon as possible. Consumers who purchased a copy of the Xbox 360 version of the game with the disc labeling error can contact customer support via email at support@wbgames.com or phone at 410-568-3680 for a replacement disc."

Independent UK magazines Xbox World and PSM3 will release its final issues on December 12, Future Publishing tells CVG. Future has plans to focus on digital growth and will redistribute all employees of the canceled magazines to other areas of the company.

Xbox World announced its closure on Facebook, writing, "In all seriousness – we're really, really sad to see the mag end. We've always had loads of fun making it, and we hope you've had fun reading it. We're working on the final issue now, cramming in as many fond memories of the mag as we can."

This year Future US announced it would shut down Nintendo Power and PlayStation: The Official Magazine, both with final issues planned for this holiday.

Zynga's Chief Financial Officer Dave Wehner has resigned to take a senior finance position at Facebook, causing a wave of corporate changes at Zynga. The most notable shift places Mark Vranesh, the former CFO who was demoted when Wehner joined Zynga in 2010, back into his previous role alongside his current position as chief accounting officer.

Former Chief Mobile Officer David Ko is now chief operations officer. The COO position has been vacant since August 2012, when John Schappert resigned. Barry Cottle, former executive vice president of business and corporate development, is now chief revenue officer, and Steven Chiang, previous executive vice president of games, is now president of games.

In an internal memo, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus wished Wehner the best of luck.

"These changes come at an important time," Pincus wrote. "We are positioning ourselves for long-term growth and I'm confident that we have the breadth and depth of management talent to deliver on our mission of connecting the world through games. We are also today reaffirming our 2012 financial outlook that we communicated on October 24, 2012."

This corporate shake-up follows a larger rumble in October that saw Zynga lay-off five percent of its full-time workforce, including closing its Boston Studio, significantly reducing staff in Austin, retiring 13 games, reducing investment in The Ville and considering closures in Japan and the UK. Zynga reported a loss of $52.7 million in Q3 2012, compared with a profit of $12.5 million in Q3 2011.

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November 19 doesn't just mark the arrival of PlayStation Plus – and Gravity Rush at no additional price – to the PlayStation Vita. It also means software update 2.00, which includes much more exciting content than the usual, ever-present Sony software updates.

A new email app supports Gmail, Yahoo, and other unspecified email providers. You can now connect wirelessly to a PC to transfer Vita content (finally!). The browser and video apps have been updated as well, to enable playback of 1080p videos (but not in 1080p), tweeting of URLs from within the browser, and improved website display. Check out all the new additions in this video.

The hallmark feature of the Wii U is its tablet controller, the GamePad. It promises to foster some interesting, asymmetrical gameplay innovations, but one of its best features is a bit more obvious. The GamePad's screen is a perfect gaming display, and many Wii U games can be played directly on tablet itself, no television required.

Handheld gaming is certainly nothing new, but the ability to play full-fledged console games without hogging the TV is a surprisingly delightful feature we've become addicted to. Once you try it, you may begin to wonder how you lived without it. See a round-up of our own experiences with the feature after break.

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Forgive us for the least cute post you'll see today with "dress up" and "dogs" in the headline. Instead of corgis in costumes, the topic of conversation is Sleeping Dogs, which offers some crossover costume DLC today, including a vaguely unsettling bald cap.

The cap is attached to the Hitman suit in the "Square Enix Character Pack" launching today, which also includes a Deus Ex-inspired outfit and a Rico Rodriguez getup from Just Cause. It'll be available tomorrow on Xbox Live and Steam worldwide, and PSN in Europe, for two bucks or its local equivalent. North American PSN users will have to wait until November 20 to make their game look like other games.

Check out the Deus Ex outfit above; you can see a vignette with the Hitman outfit after the break.

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