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symbolset writes “In the long running dispute between Motorola and Microsoft, Judge David Shaw of the ITC recommended Monday an import ban on Xbox 360 S consoles, as they are found to infringe Motorola’s patents (PDF). The judge also ordered Microsoft post a bond of 7 percent of the retail price of all unsold U.S. Xbox inventory. The decision will go to the ITC’s board of commissioners, who will either uphold the recommendation or overturn it. ‘Microsoft argued that Shaw’s exclusion order does not serve the public interest because it would leave consumers of video game consoles with only two options to satisfy their needs: the Sony Playstation and the Nintendo Wii. Shaw rejected that argument, finding that the public interest in enforcing intellectual property rights outweighs any potential economic impact on video game console buyers.’”
This follows news last week of Microsoft winning an import ban on Motorola’s Android devices.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For the first time ever, GameStop’s annual conference will be open to the public. For years, the expo served as a way for employees to get previews of upcoming games to better sell them to potential customers. With major publishers like Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Activision, and EA attending the expo, it’s essentially GameStop’s private E3.

Well, it’s not private anymore. The company has announced that its 2012 expo will be open to the public–so long as you’re carrying a PowerUp Rewards card.

Taking place on August 29th in San Antonio, Texas, the five-hour expo will likely feature many of the games we’ve been previewing in our ongoing E3 coverage. General admission costs $35, but the company is also offering a $100 VIP pass which includes access to VIP sessions, VIP lines for autographs and signings, and access to the GameStop hospitality room.

While it may not be as a lengthy, massive affair as PAX, it’s a rare opportunity for local Texans to get early access to this holiday season’s biggest games. It’ll be interesting to see if the demand will warrant a repeat for 2013.

Friends are okay, I guess. They demand your attention, take up your time, and somehow feel they’re qualified to give you ‘advice,’ but at least you can play video games with them. Like, say Scourge: Outbreak, a downloadable co-op shooter coming this summer to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and, Mac?

It appears to be an improved version of Tragnarion’s The Scourge Project, which was released for PC back in 2010. Reviews were far from glowing back then, so hopefully the extra development time has done it some good.

As well as a four-player co-op campaign lasting an estimated six hours, Scourge packs competitive deathmatch, TDM and CTF modes for up to eight. Each of the four characters has different weapons, stats and abilities, as well as their own flashbacks revealing more of the story.

Hit up the official site for more.

Many deemed the indoor rockery “creepy”

Diablo III is getting hit with a major change to the Monk class, after Blizzard determined that letting a overpowered rune exist in its current state was a “mistake.” This comes among other hotfixes that apparently weakened the Wizard class as well.

The change comes to the Mantra of Healing rune, called Boon of Protection. It now caps damage absorption at the amount of healing provided by the Mantra of Healing in the first three seconds after activation. Blizzard recommends discontinuing its use until the rune is replaced in a future patch.

“The Boon of Protection rune was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was,” read a post from community manager Bashiok. “We don’t intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly.”

The post notes that other fixes are coming, and forum users seem to have spotted at least one of them. Many players are noting that the Wizard has had his Force Armor weakened without a notice yet.

So how is Blizzard just now catching such large problems after the game spent two years in “polish mode”? A follow-up post from Bashiok says that the game is adapting to player data. “The game is still young, there were some skills that threw things out of whack, and we expect the landscape to settle out a bit more evenly. Or at least change again so we can continue to monitor the impact,” the post read. “Maybe we’re wrong, maybe there’s no current chance for monk or barbarian to compete with ranged, but our current suspicion is that’s incorrect and until we know for sure we’re not going to turn any dials.”

And to assuage some fears that the Monk would be underpowered now, Bashiok points out that “general class balance is an ongoing investigation” and claims that “the monk and barbarian are not as bad off as they seem.”

If you want some tips on surviving Nightmare Mode, check out our latest Diablo III Diary. John Keefer is playing as a Monk, and “use overpowered rune” wasn’t even one of his tips.

Do you love Street Fighter enough to pay $150 for a fancy box packed with SF goodies including four games, an 11-disc soundtrack, an 8″ light-up Ryu statue, and a replica of the fighting man’s black belt? If so, why, what a happy coincidence, as Capcom today announced such a set to celebrate 25 years of the beloved franchise.

The Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set contains, deep breath:

• Past and Present Street Fighter Games - Playable on current gen PS3 and Xbox 360 console systems, the four critically-acclaimed titles selected from the star-studded catalog are: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike Online Edition, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition with all costume DLC, and Street Fighter X Tekken including all character and Swap Costume DLC.

• Exclusive Video - The two-disc Blu-Ray set includes a documentary that highlights the profound influence the franchise has had on fans - and vice versa - throughout the years. The collection of videos also includes Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV Anime movies as well as all episodes of the Street Fighter animated series and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

• Light-up Ryu Statue - A specially commissioned and highly-detailed collectable Ryu statue stands prominently at 8″ tall and features the iconic character in mid-Shoryuken, with flames lit from below.

• 11-Disc Soundtrack - Street Fighter game music spanning the past 25 years, in addition to remixes and fan-created music inspired by past Street Fighter games .

• 64-page Hardcover Art Book - A tribute to Street Fighter game fans from all over the world, the art book includes fan pieces submitted by professional and aspiring artists alike.

• Ryu’s Belt - Created to regulation specs, the full-size martial arts black belt is a replica of the one Ryu wears and even includes his classic “FÅ«rinkazan” in kanji!

• Certificate of Authenticity - Each Collector’s Set comes individually numbered complete with a certificate of authenticity.

Whew! It’ll be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 18. Capcom’s also hosting special anniversary tournaments featuring the four Street Fighter games in the Set, held across the world between July and December, as detailed on the Capcom blog.

Click for a closer look

GameFly announced today that it plans to begin publishing mobile games for iOS and Android. The company is now inviting submissions from iOS developers seeking a publisher, and expects to put out its first title sometime in the summer. Submissions can be sent to GameFly’s GameDev group via email to gamedev AT gamefly.com.

The company also plans to launch an Android “GameStore” storefront this fall. The store will offer daily deals on Android games, similar to the mobile “Game of the Day” highlight in the iOS GameFly app.

“GameFly is dedicated to giving consumers the best user experience possible, and to be their single destination for console, PC and mobile gaming needs,” said co-founder and senior VP of business development Sean Spector, in the announcement. “We plan to be a leading player in mobile games by launching our retail GameStore for Android and helping to fund mobile developers of all sizes to publish, promote and sell their smartphone and tablet games.”

[Disclosure: Shacknews.com is part of GameFly Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of GameFly, Inc.]

Microsoft’s legal battle with Motorola has taken another large step towards a console ban, but the company could still narrowly avoid that fate. Judge David Shaw recommended to the International Trade Commission (ITC) that Microsoft be given a cease-and-desist order on sales of the Xbox 360 slim model in the US. He also recommended ceasing Chinese imports of the systems, and a payment of 7% of the value of unsold systems in stores.

Courthouse News Service (via Develop) reports that the ITC can now choose to let that determination stand, in which case it becomes the official stance of the ITC. Alternately, the commission could amend some terms, or send it back for a rewrite. If it does adopt Shaw’s recommendation, President Barack Obama will have 60 days to review the decision, after which it would have to be appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

This follows a one-two punch against Microsoft in this case, after Motorola won its patent ruling, and was subsequently hit with a German sales injunction — which won’t go into effect until the US case is settled. Motorola claims a technology used across several Microsoft devices, but Microsoft alleges that Motorola demanded an unreasonable licensing fee for the patents.

Microsoft has argued that banning consoles would not serve the public interest, but Shaw claimed that enforcing property rights takes precedence. Though Microsoft could still potentially appeal, the threat of a ban is more real now. Either way, this likely isn’t something Microsoft wants hanging over its head as we approach E3.

The military shooter ArmA 2 has gotten a sizable sales boost from the Day Z mod, and mod-maker “Rocket” is continuing to add more sadistic tweaks for those seeking a tough challenge. The popular game mod has now updated to 1.5.8, adding a “sickness” feature to the game. Because zombies clearly weren’t enough to worry about before.

According to the patch notes, you can now become sick in Day Z, which will cause you to slowly lose blood until you find and take some antibiotics. You can’t die from the sickness, since it only reduces blood down to a minimum of 6,000, but it will certainly make your task more difficult. Sick players will lose temperature, so you’ll need to build fires to stay warm which now requires adding wood to keep it lit. If your temperature drops too much, the camera will shake.

If you want to rely on the kindness of strangers, know that as a sick player, you’ll cough loudly to signal others to stay away. Even the mod’s creator seems to be curious about the social implications. “I don’t really know what affect [sic] the new sickness and temperature system will have on player behavior especially with antibiotics so scarce,” he wrote. “It is the genesis of an idea, so please remember this might cause havoc. You need to be careful.”

The patch also makes a few other adjustments. You can’t fill your canteen with sea water anymore, so you’ll need to find freshwater ponds and wells. Plus disconnection saving means you won’t have to save before quitting, and the inventory has added context-sensitive interactions. It also fixes thick fog, keeps you from falling to your death if climbing a ladder with a pistol, nerfs the Winchester, balances some loot, and packs a few other tweaks.

From the launch day server meltdown to the way everyone you know seems to be playing, it’s pretty clear that Diablo III is quite popular. But just how popular? Blizzard announced today that it sold 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours, which supposedly makes it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.

On top of those 3.5 million copies were another 1.2 million doled out free to World of Warcraft Annual Pass subscribers. After a week, Blizzard says, Diablo III was up to 6.3 million players–not including South Korean game rooms, where it’s estimated to have a 39% share.

“We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live,” CEO Mike Morhaime said in the announcement.

“We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support.”

As well as rolling out sneaky little balance updates, Blizzard is investigating reports of nasty hacks, and preparing to launch the real-money auction house on May 29.

When a demonstrative slice of sandy shooter Spec Ops: The Line drifted onto consoles ealier in the month, publisher 2K promised that a PC demo would follow in June. And indeed it will, on June 19, 2K has now said, along with revealing the PC system requirements and its use of Steamworks as DRM.

The demo offer snippets of two early campaign chapters from Yager’s third-person shooter, which sends you into a Dubai ravaged by sandstorms to track down a missing US military unit. Only, it’s all gone a bit Heart of Darkness.

All the doodads were detailed in a blog post. Here are the specs:

Minimum:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Equivalent

• RAM: 2GB

• Video card: Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS/ ATI Radeon HD 2600XT

• Video memory: 256MB

• Hard drive: 6GB free

• OS: Windows XP SP3

Recommended:

• Processor: 2.4GHz quad core processor

• RAM: 3GB

• Video card: Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX/ATI Radeon HD 4850

  <li.Video Memory: 512+ MB

• Hard drive: 10GB free

• OS: Windows Vista/7

Developed by Yager, The Line is coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on June 26.