LG has a treat designed specifically for gaming fans: a curved, 34-inch UltraWide desktop monitor with a 21:9 aspect ratio and AMD's FreeSync tech that prevents screen tearing. This thing looks suave and ridiculous, and we're betting the price tag will be, too, though LG has yet to announce the cost of this bad boy. Players will be able to stack monitors on top of each other, as well.

The gaming model is the 34UC97, though LG also announced a more general-purpose UltraWide display, the 34UC87M, which looks to be designed for the stock market ... market. (See more images after the break). LG revealed both displays just ahead of CES 2015, which kicks off on January 6 in Las Vegas.

Joystiq's sister site, Engadget, will have all of the hot tech news out of CES 2015, and we'll round up the coolest gaming news right here. CES 2015 runs from January 6 - 9.

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Xbox wraps up its daily deals leading into the new year today, featuring add-ons like the Dead Rising 3 season pass and Red Dead Redemption's super excellent Undead Nightmare Collection. There's also BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea's two episodes at about $5 apiece.

There's also been a slew of sales on Xbox One and Xbox 360 games this week. The deep discounts for Xbox One owners include the worthwhile Alien: Isolation, along with Telltale Games goodies like Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones at $2.50 apiece. Worth a browse if you're planning on staying in tonight.

Microsoft will phase out sales for the original Kinect for Windows in 2015. The decision follows the arrival of the sensor's second version and PC adapter in October, as well as the latest hardware's SDK being made freely available. The company noted in an announcement blog that companies reliant on the original motion sensor should contact Microsoft soon to fill orders for the older hardware, though "no more original sensors will be manufactured after the current stock sells out."

Version 2 of Kinect for Windows is essentially the same tech paired with the Xbox One when Microsoft's latest home console launched in November 2013, save for two changes: Microsoft pulled the Xbox logo from the camera and added a separate hub and power supply to operate. Microsoft's PC adapter for the Xbox One Kinect links the new camera to Windows 8 machines using USB 3.0 for $50. The original Kinect for Windows hardware launched in February 2012.

Update: Sony's confirmed North America's PS Plus line-up for January is the same as Europe's. We've updated the post to reflect that and other details.

We already knew Infamous: First Light and The Swapper were coming to the Instant Game Collection next month, but now we've got the full January PlayStation Plus line-up. The two PS3 freebies headed to the continent are Prototype 2 and DuckTales: Remastered, while the Vita duo is Whoa Dave and Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition.

The line-up hits the PS Store stateside on Tuesday, January 6, 2015. As ever, Europe joins the PS Plus party the day after.

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Planetside 2's beta program on PS4 is now expected to arrive in mid-January 2015. The news comes from Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, who confirmed via Twitter that the first-person MMO shooter was "approved [in its] first pass" by the publisher and will go live during either the week of January 13 or January 20. The developer will know for sure as it enters the new year, "when we are back on [January 5]."

In November, Creative Director Matt Higby said the developer planned to launch Planetside 2's PS4 beta by the end of this year. The developer added that its goal is "to have our launch on the PS4 feel like a great PS4 native console game. Not just a PC port." SOE is hoping to reach a resolution and framerate of 1080p and 60 frames per second on the system, though if the developer opts for 30 fps "it'll be because we want to maintain a completely solid 30 fps. But that's the optimization we're working on right now."

This is it, folks. Time to make those holiday gift cards count. If you're an owner of the 32GB Wii U Deluxe console, you've got one more day to earn bonus eShop credit in Nintendo's Deluxe Digital promotion. The promotion rewards Wii U Deluxe owners with credit for making purchases on the Wii U eShop. Specifically, owners can get 10 percent of their purchases back in eShop credit.

If you've been waiting to make any eShop purchases, or if this is the first you've heard of the promotion, tomorrow marks your last day to earn points. Points earned via the promotion can be exchanged for eShop credit until March 31, 2015. You can find the relevant details on the promotion's website.

Nintendo's Mario Maker – launching early next year – may be the company's first official foray into do-it-yourself level editing but, as many people know, would-be game designers have been using unofficial channels to do just that for close to two decades using Nintendo's most popular brand. The end result? A fan community like no other, filled with passionate people from all over the globe, all working toward one common goal – creating an absolute boatload of deviously designed Mario levels.

Of course, long before there were dedicated toolsets, there was the humble game ROM. In addition to allowing people to finally brag about beating Ghosts N' Goblins, NES game ROMs had/have the added bonus of being fairly easy to manipulate. What better title to screw around with than the original Super Mario Bros.? It didn't have too many sprites and, oh yeah, there's that whole "pretty much defined video games for an entire generation" thing.

So the ROM-smiths went to work. It was simple stuff at first, like getting rid of Mario's mustache or even his clothes. Naked Italian plumbers soon gave way to stoned Italian plumbers. Most of the notable hacks of this early era were simple one-offs created for shock value, like Super Bud Brothers, which replaced some of the game's bushes and character sprites with weed leaves, and the disgusting Super KKK Brothers in which, well, you can probably guess its horrific gimmick.

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As part of Microsoft's ongoing Countdown to 2015 digital games sale, a new Daily Deal has appeared that cuts 40 percent from the prices of both Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions of Terraria.

If that name's unfamiliar, imagine Terraria as a 2D, pixel-heavy fusion of side-scrolling adventure-platforming game elements (a la Cave Story) and the granular resource gathering and crafting systems found in sandbox hit Minecraft. Unlike Mojang's game, however, Terraria offers a more pronounced focus on adventuring, killing giant boss creatures and discovering new, color-coded loot. The end result is a game that's initially bewildering in scope, but quickly becomes addictive in a way that makes the normally mind-numbing act of digging holes somehow entertaining.

Thanks to this temporary discount, the Xbox 360 version of Terraria can be purchased for $5.60, while the Xbox One game is now priced at $12. Because it's a Daily Deal though, these discounts will vanish at the end of the day.

Joystiq Deals continues its return trip through 2014's sale catalog today, giving you a second chance to grab some of our most popular deals on gear and gadgets as the year draws to a close.

Today, you can pick up a three-month subscription to Loot Crate ($47.99), the NES30 Bluetooth controller ($29.99), the Limefuel Dual USB Battery Pack ($34.99), and the TRNDlabs Bluetooth Shower Speaker ($34.99).

Want to pilot a drone of your very own? You can grab an Extreme Micro Drone 2.0 for $74.99 or place an $89 pre-order for the upcoming Limited Edition Code Black Drone through the end of the day. Happy 2015!

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Joystiq Deals is a partnership between AOL and StackSocial. A portion of sales goes to funding this site. Deals are curated by StackSocial independently of the Joystiq editorial team.

Make room on the couch for a quirky, local multiplayer game designed for two players: Paparazzi. It's due out on PlayStation 4 in February, downloadable for $5.

In Paparazzi, one player is a celebrity and the other is a picture-hungry paparazzo. The celebrity tries to earn dignity by attracting fans and avoiding the photographer's camera lens, and the paparazzo attempts to earn money by spotting the celebrity in a variety of scenarios and snapping his or her picture.

Paparazzi started as a game jam project under the McConaughey-approved theme, "Cameras aren't guns. They can't really hurt you." It's the first game from three-person development team Pringo Dingo. "We are incredibly excited about how far we've brought the game since that jam," Designer and Artist Mike Longley writes on the PlayStation Blog.

Paparazzi's official site lists Wii U, PC and Mac as additional platforms, and it's officially coming to Steam via Greenlight. Pringo Dingo's successful $5,000 Kickstarter advertised Paparazzi as a PC game. See the PS4 announcement trailer after the break.

Speaking of couch co-op (we totally were): We've collected some of the best local multiplayer games to come out of 2014 in this handy galllery.

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Joystiq has issues with not starving. It all started with those accursed turkeys when Don't Starve hit PS4 in January. Things got even worse when we tackled Reign of Giants with Klei's own Seth Rosen in June. This time? This time's going to be different. We won't starve now that we're together. Stay close, dear friends, when the dark and the turkeys and the beefalos come. We'll get through this.

We're rocking an extra large stream of Don't Starve Together on Joystiq.com/Twitch starting at 2:30PM EST. The game's old hat for Alexander Sliwinski (@Sliwinski) but this will be the very first time Sinan Kubba (@SinanKubba) has played. Will Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello) finally have his revenge? Maybe!

Joystiq.com/Twitch broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00PM but we regularly stream at odd hours, giving goodies away and being weird, so follow us on Twitch to catch us when we go live.

If you were holding back an eye-roll for that "special, limited-time" part, we feel you. Let's not be shocked if the Xbox One price chop becomes permanent in the relative future. Consumers have shown they are comfortable with the $350 price point and bundles that Microsoft has been parading since the holidays began. The question will be if the momentum of Xbox One sales has become strong enough to push Sony to drop the price of the very successful PlayStation 4's $400 price.

[Image: Microsoft]

Xbox Live Founder Boyd Multerer announced his departure from Microsoft this week after 17 years with the company. Multerer revealed the career change via his Twitter account, saying "Goodbye Microsoft. It was a good run. Xbox was Great! Time to do something new." Multerer's bio on the social media site indicates that the "something new" he's up to is on his own terms, as he is "currently doing independent secret stuff."

Multerer not only led the design and direction of Microsoft's Xbox Live service starting in 2000, but also served as project manager and led the creation of XNA, the company's toolset that facilitates independent game development for its platforms. The longtime Microsoft designer's last position with the company was as director of development since 2011, designing the operating software of its latest home console, Xbox One.