Turn 10's Forza 3 has managed to attain double platinum status -- dubs plat in "cool kid" speak. Microsoft announced that the game sold over two million copies since its October release. The racer took just over a month to surpass one million sales, and has clearly been doing laps around the money pit ever since.

And hey, if you're wondering what you're missing in all of this hot pedal-on-metal action, there's a demo on Xbox Live right now.

Let's be honest. Between Diablo III, Stacraft II and the new World of Warcraft expansion, we're all going to be pretty heavily embroiled in Blizzard's games over the next couple of years. That's why we were thrilled to see this recent update on the new Battle.Net, which has been renovated by Blizzard from the ground up to offer a Steam-esque cross-game platform for players of all Blizzard's titles.

A recent post on the StarCraft II blog reveals the three pillars of the service: Achievements for in-game deeds (which, in turn, unlock avatars and emblems for your profile); a beefy competitive ranking bracket and auto-matchmaking functionality; and social networking features available for everyone playing one of Blizzard's games online. It looks predictably slick -- check out some screenshots and a video of the interface on Blizzard's official blog.

Crack open a fresh copy of Mass Effect 2, The Saboteur or Dragon Age: Origins and you'll see it: A code to download some piece of game content that those suckers buying used will have to pay for. It's not just coincidence that EA is shipping so many games with these bonuses/punitive measures (depending on your perspective). It's what CEO John Riccitiello calls "Project Ten Dollar," a bid to take back a portion of revenue from the estimated $2 billion in annual used game sales. That and the rest of Riccitiello's strategy to to make EA more reliant on digital content is detailed in a new BusinessWeek report.

All we know is, with a 25 percent decline in revenue for Q3, the company needs to find some way to fill the gaps sooner rather than later. Though Riccitiello seems convinced the digital strategy will patch the hole, some remain unconvinced. Former EA consultant Eric Goldberg told BusinessWeek, "While it's possible EA can make the extremely difficult transition from providing a shiny disc in boxes to [leading] in digital, history suggests it's rather unlikely."

Marvelous Entertainment, faced with low sales and financial trouble, is turning to a relatively low-cost source of new material to publish: Western WiiWare games. The publisher just started a new label, World Game Parade, to release localized Japanese versions of some WiiWare games originally developed and published outside of Japan.

In March, World Game Parade will release Zombie in Wonderland (called Zombie Panic in Wonderland outside of Japan) and Bit Man!! (Bplus's Bit Boy!!). Katamuki Spirits (Equilibrio) and Rakugaki Hero (Max & the Magic Marker) will follow in April. WiiWare sales figures aren't normally released, so we may have to wait until Marvelous's next earnings report to determine the effectiveness of the plan. We can confirm right now that the logo is adorable.

[Via Andriasang]

During the same event in which Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino teased new Wii and PS3 games, he also suggested that the company may be setting up operations in the US. According to our own imperfect translation of 4Gamer's summary of statements, "Mr. Hino, in order to release software overseas, spoke about a plan to establish a new company in America," describing his intention to expand the company's activities from its current home of Fukuoka to the world.

This new enterprise would be the second new office opened by the company for this purpose -- it recently established an overseas-focused office in Tokyo. Perhaps we'll see self-published Level-5 games soon. Perhaps that way we can get timely Professor Layton releases!

[Via Siliconera]

In what's becoming the rule rather than the exception for EA games, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will receive day one DLC. Speaking to Worthplaying, senior producer Patrick Bach said, "We have an in-game store where you get free content or you can buy new content to the game, so it's a very integral part of the game that we will have a long post-launch campaign. I think people will be thrilled to see what's in that already. On day one, you will get some really cool stuff."

It's still not clear if that "really cool" stuff will be free, for-pay or both -- in the case of EA's usual in-the-box DLC strategy, it would be free to new buyers and sold separately for used copies of the game. You'll remember that during the release of the first Bad Company, EA was actually threatened with a boycott for its (soon abandoned) strategy that would have created an in-game gap between players that spent extra money and those who didn't. Hopefully EA and DICE will be a bit smarter about things this time around.

We've been following this story for quite some time now. Australia is currently debating a new R18+ rating, which would allow more mature games to be released in the country uncensored. The established maximum rating of MA 15+ has been a pain for both the gamers and those producing the games. Now there's a paper that citizens can weigh in on and retailer EB Games is the latest to support the new, more mature classification. Caught up? Good.

In addition to the roadblock of the Australian Attorney General, it would seem the R18+ rating now has another hurdle to overcome: The Australian Christian Lobby and its head, Jim Wallace. In an interview with GameSpot, Wallace equates violent video games to his time spent in the SAS, comparing soldiers' use of simulation exercises and routines as a way to break their "natural reluctance" to kill an enemy. By making these games more lifelike, he thinks the average citizen will be less hesitant to perform these violent acts outside the confines of their television screens and computer monitors, something he says isn't "in the individual's interest, and it's not in the community's interest."

Wallace also had some choice words for the ongoing public feedback phase of the proposed R18+ rating. He says "the only people who are going to be into this are the games people" -- y'know, the people affected by all of this.

[Via Game Politics]

The online multiplayer portion of Cyan Worlds' Uru: Ages Beyond Myst has had about as troubled a past as video games can have. It never made it out of its beta stage when Uru first launched in 2004. Three years later, GameTap opened up servers for the game -- but a lack of subscribers led to them being shut down after just one year. Earlier today, the developer proved its persistence by re-launching the game once more; this time, as a totally free-to-play MMO.

So, once more, with feeling -- you can download and sign up for Myst Online on the game's official site for zero dollars. After that, you and all your friends can start running around, touching glyphs and magic books to your heart's desire.

[Via Big Download]

We know we've already been diligent in keeping you abreast of the status of Bear McCreary's epic soundtrack for Dark Void, so consider this our penultimate update on the topic: The game's score is now available to download through iTunes, Amazon and a number of other retailers. It's very, very good. If you have some extra cash lying around, and enjoy the occasional non-lyrical musical offering, you should purchase it post-haste.

In addition, you can consider this our final post in which we proclaim our musical man-crush on Bear McCreary. That is, until he reveals the next game he's working on, at which point we'll probably pick right up where we left off.

While the big fellas struggle to figure out how to make digitally distributed content profitable, smaller dev houses like RedLynx are handily succeeding. The Trials HD developer claims to have moved 1.5 million digital units worldwide (of all of its games) in 2009, though, as RedLynx itself points out, "most RedLynx games have also free promotional web versions available, bringing the company's key titles to an even wider audience."

Aside from putting out the Summer of Arcade XBLA release Trials HD last year, the Finnish company also made Monster Trucks Nitro on PC and a couple of iPhone games, assuredly assisting that 1.5 million statistic. CEO Tero Virtala looks forward to the coming year, saying things look "even better," and adding that RedLynx is "bringing 8-10 new games to market." We really, really hope the company brings more copies than that if it wants to move past 2009's sales. Come on, guys -- simple math!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Here's the emergency incident message as well.

Listen up, game industry, the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- E3 to the kids -- is kind of a big deal. If you want your company to be a part of it, it's time to get on the ball, as the Expo has revealed that 90 percent of its floor space has already been booked. And seriously, like, everyone is going to be there when the show opens June 15. We're expecting some new Zelda, plenty of PlayStation Motion Controller and Natal talk and, of course, lots of new games. If that's the kind of company you want to keep, it's time to register. That goes for you retail and press types too, as attendee and media registration is now open as well.

Incidentally, Joystiq Publishing is currently soliciting sponsors for floor space. As a no-profit publisher -- it's not that we don't want profits, we just haven't made any yet -- we're looking for a forward-thinking, capital-heavy company to bring our MEGA E3 booth design to life. The current blueprint calls for six full stories of action-packed exhibition rooms, a pizzeria and a ball pit in the center courtyard. We're willing to compromise on the sixth floor (it's mostly Wii shovelware), but the ball pit is non-negotiable.

With a previous appearance in Rock Band as DLC, it's no surprise that known face melters Lamb of God are apparently creating an original song for the upcoming Iron Man 2 game, now scheduled for release on May 4 (just three days before the film's release).

"The music of Lamb of God definitely evokes the intensity of Iron Man action," explains Sean Ratcliffe, veep of marketing for Sega. Meanwhile, Lamb of God's drummer Chris Adler says that some of the band's members are "real game and comic fans," making them all the more excited "to play the game and hear our music as Iron Man kicks a**." Us, on the other hand? We're going to take full advantage of the soundtrack swap function and rock out to some even edgier P.O.D. jams upon the game's release. It just really makes us feel so alive, ya know?

The latest issue of Famitsu reveals (via IGN) that two of the series' classic characters are coming to Mercenaries Reunion in Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition: Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers. Both characters made their first appearance in the original Resident Evil game, but haven't exactly been strangers to the series ever since.

Rebecca co-starred in Resident Evil Zero, while Barry enjoyed an extended role in REmake and was Leon's sidekick in Resident Evil Gaiden, the Game Boy Color game. Barry also played a pivotal role in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Frankly, we're all for bringing these two back, but only if we get oddly apologetic Rebecca and soft-spoken Barry.

If you bought Mass Effect 2 and you like being on the winning "team" when it comes to game trends, high five. According to DFC Intelligence, BioWare's latest spacefaring adventure sold an estimated 1.1 million copies (of the Xbox 360 version) in January -- six times the sales of any other game. Estimating game sales based on GamerDNA activity, DFC also believes that there was a significant uptick in play of Mass Effect as well, "likely supported by the ability to transfer a save file from a completed Mass Effect game into Mass Effect 2 where several key player decisions in the first game could be carried over into the second game."

The other leading Xbox 360 sellers in DFC's estimate include Darksiders (150,000), Bayonetta (170,000) and Army of Two: The 40th Day (175,000) -- with Dark Void somewhat of a surprise bomb (22,000).