GameFly is happy that Microsoft will keep things "business as usual" in the next console generation, following today's stunning reversal of its Xbox One digital rights management policy, which will now allow rental games again.

"I always felt good about the future of GameFly, but I feel better today," said Sean Spector, GameFly co-founder and SVP of business development and content. "Today is a win/win for consumers, as well as GameFly. I think choice is always important and now consumers have more choice. And I give [Microsoft] credit for listening to their consumers."

Spector was unable to share what he knew about the console's previous plans, but he notes there were discussions with Microsoft. He said, "I think the original proposal would have been detrimental to lots of people's [business] systems. Not just GameFly. And, most importantly, gamers. Based on what I've read today, which is all I know today, it's business as usual for Xbox. Their statement is really cut and dry."

GameFly plans to have Xbox One and PlayStation 4 listings up on the rental site sometime towards the end of the summer.

Asked if he had anything else to add about today's events, Spector concluded, "It's a good day for gamers!"

There's a pretty massive Sega sale going down on Xbox Live right now. Many games and DLC packs are $5 or less. In the $5 camp are Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, Sonic Adventure 2, Jet Set Radio, Nights into Dreams and Crazy Taxi. Other downloads, such as Guardian Heroes, the Sega Genesis Sonic games (including Sonic CD) and Space Channel 5 Part 2 are only two bucks each. You'll also find a number of $10 Games on Demand titles, including Sonic Generations, Condemned, Sega Superstars Tennis ... and Sonic Unleashed.

Finally, if you haven't tried out Ron Gilbert's latest adventure, you can pick up The Cave for $7.50.

This summer, Square Enix will launch a vampire-hunting app on iOS called Bloodmasque. Set in 19th century Paris, Bloodmasque tasks players with ridding the town of vamps in this Unreal Engine-powered game anchored by a "photo-based character customization experience."

Square Enix snatched up domains for Bloodmasque back in January, tipping us off to the new iOS game and sadly ignoring our most excellent suggestion for an Edgar Allan Poe game. It's okay, Square Enix; we're just going to put on our Crymasque and go sit in the corner for a while.

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This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown seems like it was built for iPad. The touch-screen controls on the iOS port are so good that the game feels like it was lovingly crafted specifically for touch devices from the get-go.

These controls are easily the highlight of the iOS version of XCOM (which also runs on the iPhone, by the way). With a redesigned HUD full of chunky buttons, completing actions in the game is a cinch. I actually prefer the touch scheme to wielding a controller. It's a simpler, more intuitive process, and the meat of the game is every bit as good as its console and PC counterparts.

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Australia's government-sponsored media funding body Screen Australia announced its support for local indie game developers, promising to pay out a $6 million grant over the next three years.

The stimulus arrives in response to a sharp decline in industry income and employment. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, local game industry employment dropped from 1,431 to 581 people between 2011 and 2012. Screen Australia announced its funding in the hopes that local developers will "grow the business, retain intellectual property, keep a skilled workforce and raise the necessary finance."

The following ten indie studios will share the grant:

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Microsoft has announced an almost full reversal of the controversial digital rights management features built into the Xbox One. The console, launching later this year, will no longer require an online connection, or need to ping the Microsoft servers every 24 hours to hang on to life. It will also now play discs like any regular console and no longer place restrictions on trading games. There will also be no regional restrictions.

"The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold," said Xbox division president Don Mattrick. "Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray."

Microsoft previously addressed concerns about Kinect's always-on, always-listening monitoring of your living room.

Why the reversal? Um, if you payed attention to E3 last week, you observed one of the greatest pummelings in industry history. Sony's PlayStation 4 presented itself as the other side of the coin to Microsoft's restrictions and stole the show.

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This week's Steam deals are headlined by ex-Valver Kim Swift's first-person puzzle game, Quantum Conundrum, available for $4.50 until June 24 at 10AM PT. Anodyne, a 16-bit adventure game from Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittika, is also on offer, discounted to $5 for the week.

Worms developer Team17's arcade shooter Alien Breed Impact, an expanded version of Alien Breed Evolution, is also $5 for this promotion; physics-based puzzler Obulis is down to $1.25 and manic side-scrolling shooter Ares: Extinction Agenda is $2.50.

While we were given a quick description of the cloud computing at work in the Xbox One version of Titanfall, we weren't able to get an in-depth answer. So we took to a back room at E3 and asked Respawn Entertainment's Fairfax "Mackey" McCandlish, lead designer on Titanfall, to elaborate.

Essentially, cloud computing helps matchmaking, allowing dedicated servers to be spun up on a moment's notice to handle multiplayer matches and find you the most local option when searching for a game. McCandlish also answers other burning questions – like what exactly powers these titan mechs.

Vlambeer is going to live-stream development of its next game. This wouldn't be notable for many other indie developers, but Vlambeer's history makes this strategy appear, for lack of a stronger term, absolutely illogical.

"At this point, all of our big games have been cloned," Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail tells me at E3.

He goes down the list: Super Crate Box, Ridiculous Fishing, Luftrausers and Infinite SWAT all have clones. The only acceptable one is the Infinite SWAT "homage," Broforce, from South African team Free Lives, Rami said – it's an example of developers taking inspiration from a game and creating their own world with it. The other ones, though. Those are straight-up clones.

These clones caused major problems for Ismail and Vlambeer's other half, Jan Willem Nijman. The Ridiculous Fishing clone affected the team so strongly that they almost stopped developing their own game completely. Ridiculous Fishing almost didn't exist. Because of a clone.

Hence, Vlambeer live-streaming development of its next game sounds like a pretty terrible idea. Until Ismail explains his reasoning:

"If you look at Ridiculous Fishing, one of the reasons the clone was such a nightmare was because nobody knew that we were working on Ridiculous Fishing. We had to rapidly announce Ridiculous Fishing while the clone story was going down, so people knew that it was our idea first and they stole it from us. With Luftrausers, when SkyFar hit, it was much better, because everybody already knew that Luftrausers was a Vlambeer thing and that SkyFar was a clone."

That makes sense, actually.

"No, it doesn't," Rami says. But Vlambeer is doing it anyway.

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Publisher Bethesda is "unhappy" with Prey 2's current state, company vice president of PR and marketing Pete Hines said during an interview with IGN during E3.

"We appreciate that folks are displeased that we haven't had any update or any info on Prey 2, but whatever your displeasure is, you can't even be remotely as unhappy about it as us," Hines said. "We spent years and millions of dollars and a ton of effort trying to help [developer] Human Head make a great Prey 2 game. What we said the last time we said anything was that it's not up to our quality standards."

Human Head is rumored to have encountered numerous setbacks during Prey 2's development. Anonymous sources claimed that development stalled in late 2011, and rumors from last month indicated that Dishonored developer Arkane Austin might be taking over the troubled project.

Hines' frank comments during IGN's interview suggest that Prey 2 is either on the verge of cancellation or a major shift in development. "You don't just keep throwing money at something or going down a path that you're not happy about," Hines explained. "You have to make tough choices. Again, when we have more info on it, we'll be happy to talk about it. That's what I can say for now."

Android micro-console GameStick will now ship to its Kickstarter backers at some point in August, the start-up hardware manufacturer announced yesterday in an update. Originally slated to release back in April, GameStick was then delayed until June after changes in the manufacturing process were required.

This latest delay stems from the fundraiser's $300 "DESIGNED BY ME!" donation level, which promises 50 backers exclusive early access to development kits for the purpose of beta testing and refining the system's user interface. Getting these devices to the backers took longer than expected, and so has implementing their feedback into the GameStick's UI.

"We have therefore taken the decision to push back the whole project by one month to ensure we can fit this process in," the update reads. "We appreciate that this will frustrate backers keen to get their hands on their device but we did not feel it was fair to bypass this step as it was a key pledge and the feedback will be really welcome."

Nintendo is currently battling the chicken and the egg of the video game business. The Wii U isn't selling at levels to make it a "rational" risk for third-party developers, but how does a console sell if it doesn't have games? We spoke with Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's head of corporate communications, last week at E3 about the House of Mario's business and future.

Nintendo's current strategy is to get some high-profile first party games out the door and grow the Wii U's install base that way. Scibetta tells us in the interview, "We're confident that once some of these games come out that we have planned between now and the holiday and into 2014, that it will help drive the install base and when that happens the platforms will look more enticing to third parties."

We also discuss the recent Wii U recall, which Nintendo is calling a "rebalance," as well as the rising scene of independent games and the future of Nintendo Direct.

Ubisoft has shed a little light on its new Tom Clancy open-world RPG for Xbox One and PS4, The Division. First and foremost, the game has no predefined classes. Players are allowed to assign skills to their characters as they see fit and those skills are "totally changeable." So, you're able to spec your character as a healer or tank or whatever the situation demands.

The publisher also detailed The Division's second screen experience, which allows players to join games via a mobile device. Joining a game via a tablet allows players to take on the role of a drone that can provide a number of benefits to players on a console. The drone is able to heal and provide buffs to players, tag and debuff enemies, and it can even summon a missile strike. Drones have their own progression system as well.

As did many of the games shown at E3, The Division will employ a seamless multiplayer system, allowing online squads to play cooperatively or engage in PVP without leaving the game world. A "black-market economy" system will allow players to create weapons and items and trade them with others.

Square Enix game director Tetsuya Nomura has elaborated on the choice to bring Final Fantasy 15 – previously known as Final Fantasy Versus 13 – to next-generation consoles instead of PS3, the original platform when the game was first announced in 2006.

In an interview with Famitsu (via Polygon), Nomura said Square Enix moved the game to Xbox One and PS4 because "the lifespan of the current generation of consoles was starting to pose a problem" to Square Enix. "We had originally thought about making this announcement last year, but due to assorted reasons that got delayed. This meant that the lifespan of the current generation of consoles was starting to pose a problem to us. If we were a year later, other companies will have more time to research the next generation, and releasing the game against their products on the older generation could have caused us to look inferior when people inevitably compared us."

Keeping Final Fantasy 15 on the current generation posed too many concerns to Square Enix – concerns that the final game wouldn't match what the company set out to do. "With current-gen systems, we couldn't fully express what we wanted to do in this project," he said. "There were more and more things that we would've had to change the form of. However, the assumption was that we'd go ahead with a current-gen release, so went through a trial-and-error process to do as much as we could. So we built an alpha version about a year ago, and the company response was 'If you remained bound to the current generation, will it will be the product you envisioned?' They suggested shifting fully to next-gen, and that was the spark that led to the move."

As for a PC port, Nomura says it largely "depends on the demand" – if enough people want it, then Square Enix may pursue it. The full interview can be read through the source link below.

Beneath our descriptions of violence, twisted psyches and new features within Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, there lies relevant information about the game that you surely shouldn't miss: It's due out this year – Dennaton co-founder Denis Wedin told us at E3 that it would be "late 2013" – and it's coming for sure to PC, Mac and Linux via Steam.

Dennaton is talking with console companies about potential releases, and regarding Vita specifically, Wedin said, "We hope so." Wrong Number is a darker, more emotional journey through the lives of multiple, playable characters as they rampage throughout the '90s, enacting their own brands of bloody justice. Wedin wouldn't divulge how many playable characters were in Wrong Number, but the demo featured the Pig Butcher and the Fans – and there will be a playable lady character in there, Wedin told us.

Dennaton doesn't have any plans for multiplayer in Wrong Number, at least not at first. They may add something down the line, Wedin said, but the story in the main campaign is the priority.

"We tried to give different storylines to the characters, tried to work with different emotions – not just being crazy or like a psychopath," Wedin said. "We tried to give them other backstories." Wrong Number tackles deep feelings and character motivations, but it isn't a complete break from its Hotline Miami roots, Wedin stressed:

"We're super proud of how [Hotline Miami] works and people seem to like it a lot, so we're only going to add more enemies and more weapons and more and more. So if you love the feeling and the pace of the difficulty in the first game, it's going to be in the second one."

Battlefield 3 and Saints Row: The Third go marching onto PlayStation Plus in Europe next month, joining the continent's Instant Game Collection along with three others. Yup, marching was the common link we could find between two very different headliners, although we suppose destruction and loud noises would have worked too. The other PS3 game coming to the subscription service next month is Payday: The Heist, while Unit 13 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus are the duo hopping onto Vita.

Thankfully, there are no complicated schedules to mull over with July's changeover: all five games are to be added to the service on July 3. As ever, that means five games make their way out, all on July 3 too. Waving their goodbyes are Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, The Cave, Rayman Origins, and Coconut Dodge.

The Company of Heroes 2 open beta, originally scheduled to conclude yesterday, has been extended through this Sunday, June 23, until midnight Pacific. In this latest phase of testing, beta recruits will have access to new multiplayer maps in the rotation. Players will also receive double XP this weekend in auto match multiplayer modes.

A general reminder that all that major wartime experience will transfer over to the full game if players pick up CoH 2 within 60 days of launch (and use the same steam account as the beta). Company of Heroes 2 storms the Stalingrad of retail next Tuesday, June 25.

This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go.

"Yu-WHAT NOW?"

If you own a PSP, you may already be familiar with Acquire's RTS-like YU-NAMA series. NIS America released the first two entries stateside as Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! After Bruce Wayne's lawyers stepped in, the games were retitled What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? Sony further complicated matters when it later localized the third entry in the series as No Heroes Allowed!

At this point, it might just be easier to refer to the series by its Japanese title, Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida. Sony apparently agrees, as a PlayStation Mobile-exclusive spinoff game was recently released in North America as YU-NAMA: The Puzzle. It's a shame that the series can't seem to hold on to a single consistent title, as it means that PS Vita owners might miss out on one of PlayStation Mobile's best releases to date.

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In the midst of the E3 madness, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot acknowledged Rayman Legends' delay was over concern of low sales on and of Nintendo's Wii U.

"What happened was that we saw the Wii U was not going to sell enough of those games. The game is going to be fantastic, and we didn't want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn't sell well enough," Guillemot told VentureBeat. "We decided that we had to come out on enough machines that players can try it out on any one that they have, and give more time to both improve the game on the Wii U and create versions for the other consoles."

Low sales of Nintendo's latest console has certainly had an impact on third-party support. EA acknowledged it needs to see stronger sales to get back involved, and although Activision has Skylanders for the platform, we're still waiting for confirmation that Call of Duty: Ghosts will make it on the platform. Although, it should be noted that historically Activision's announcements of CoD on Nintendo platforms arrive later.

Nintendo is aware of its current predicament and hopes its first-party games between now and 2014 make the Wii U more attractive again.

Those who opted into the Steam client beta may see some interesting language alluding to game sharing in the "steamui_english" file of the latest update. It's suggested that Steam users will be able to set a shared game library – when the original owner logs into the game, the game sharer gets a prompt to quit out.

If you want to see the file for yourself, you'll need to be running the beta version of Steam – go into Steam settings and opt in, then restart the client. Then, you'll need to head into your public folder and open the "steamui_english" file in a text editor like Notepad. Final step: crack open a cold soda, sit back and feel good about being a computer genius.