Not to be confused with the upcoming line of DC figures based on the Caped Crusader's escapades through Gotham and its related institutions, these new figures from Square Enix recreate Batman: Arkham Asylum's Harley Quinn, who happens to come with her own little Scarface, as well as a new armored Batman variant.

Each toy comes with interchangeable hands and accessories and will be available in Japan this May for ¥5,800, or about $76.

You gotta hand it to THQ, despite posting a $56 million loss last quarter, the publisher is still willing to take a risk on bringing a fresh-faced developer into the fold. Of course, when you take into account that said developer is staffed by a who's who list of classic game designers, the proposition sounds less risky.

Innovative Leisure, the brand-new developer in question, touts Seamus Blackley, Ed Logg, Ed Rotberg, Rich Adam and others among its ranks. If those names sound slightly familiar, it's for a good reason: Blackley co-wrote the original Xbox proposal and helped shepherd the product into existence. Meanwhile, Logg was responsible for Asteroids, Centipede and Gauntlet, while Rotberg and Adam were responsible for Battlezone and Missile Command, respectively.

The studio will focus on creating titles for mobile, downloadable and social platforms; THQ is applying Innovative Leisure's extensive collective experience in design-driven experiences to produce accessible titles that work well in small doses. Here's hoping for a Saints Row-themed Missile Command clone for iOS and Android.

XBLA Fans has done an exhaustive analysis of Xbox Live Arcade sales, Metacritic scores, and trends over the past few years in a four-part writeup. The most interesting finding in the article, in our estimation, is how the perception of rising prices squares with reality. Yes, there are more 1200 point ($15) games being released on the service as compared to previous years, but there are more 800 point ($10) games coming out as well, and there are more of those than $15 games. The average is rising overall, but it hasn't yet reached the 1200 point mark, even if that price is being assigned to some of the more high profile (and high quality) games on the service.

The quality of the Summer of Arcade, on the other hand, is dropping overall, according to the average price and Metacritic score. In 2008, the first year the promotion existed, the games had an average Metacritic score of 84.8, with an average price of 960 points. This past year, however, the Metacritic score dropped to 78.8 (which still isn't too bad), but the average price was at 1120. This is purely mathematical, remember: The games are probably more complex these days, which allows Microsoft to set a higher price, and reviews on any site are subjective.

Finally, XBLA Fans found 73% of titles on XBLA have gone on sale within their first year, though many of the games on XBLA were only on sale for a day or so. That means that patient XBLA buyers can save a lot of money, if they pay attention and move quickly. There are a few other interesting conclusions in the analysis as a whole, and lots of insight on how Microsoft's Arcade has developed over the past few years.

That first-run copy of Mass Effect: Deception you picked up may just be turning into an odd collector's item. Bioware has issued a statement on the slew of errors fans have found in the novel, stating that all will be fixed in future editions of Deception.

"The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception," the apology post on Bioware's forums reads. "We are currently working on a number of changes that will appear in future editions of the novel."

Currently, there's no word on when the revised edition will be available.

Blizzard has announced that 100,000 more Diablo 3 beta invites have been sent out in North America, so if you opted in to beta access with your Battle.net account, you should log in and see if you've gotten a notification. Blizzard warns that phishing activity may increase with this new wave of invites, so take care.

If you weren't one of the lucky one hundred thousand, don't fret: Blizzard promises to send out more invites eventually. You can go back to rolling classes now!

Breathe in, breathe out, and everything's zen, because next week's Rock Band DLC is a three-pack from alt rockers Bush. All the tracks are off the band's hit 1994 debut album "Sixteen Stone."

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Deus Ex is leading the revenue revolution for Square Enix, whose digital entertainment -- games -- department in April-December 2011 grew 6.2 percent from the previous fiscal year, totaling $704.7 million in net sales. Games now comprise 56 percent of Square Enix's total revenue, where in the same period of 2010 they made up just 52 percent.

The company's operating profit rose 11.5 percent to $169.4 million and its net income ended at $65 million, up 175.2 percent from the previous period. Square Enix cited Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its online and social titles as the main factors behind its financial progress.

We're still a couple of months away from the end of fiscal 2012, but the first 9 months of the confusingly offset financial season have treated Konami extremely well: The company reports a 77.3 percent year-over-year increase in net income over fiscal 2011, earning profits of ¥17.05 billion ($224 million) for the period.

Most of that, however, was pushed by Konami's social networking devision, which operates mobile/casual games in Japanese markets and posted revenues of $348 million, up from $127 million over the same period last year. The company's "consumer games" segment fell year-over-year, from $698 million in fiscal 2011 to $465 million in fiscal 2012. Konami has also adjusted its predictions for the end fiscal 2012, anticipating overall revenue at $3.38 billion and net income at $298 million.

Valve has finally put together its schedule of events for 2012, announcing the big things happening in Team Fortress 2 in the coming months. Most notably, Valve says its final character video, Meet the Pyro, will air in 2012 and it will feature "lots of blood pretty much all the way through."

The TF2 team is also working on a secret project that isn't a hat or a map, Valve reports. This leaves speculation open to new characters, a feature-length film, a live-action feature-length film, or a live-action feature-length film starring Brendan Gleeson, Jude Law and Emma Stone. These are the only options.

The Steam Workshop has a shiny new blog, and Valve says it plans to unveil another secret at the second annual Saxxy Awards. We're pretty sure this secret will be the announcement of the TF2 movie's sequel, starring Katherine Heigl as Brendan Gleeson and Brendan Fraser as everyone else.

How many times have you been in the middle of an intense Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies round when you've had to suddenly stop? Well, Activision has a solution in the latest update: save and load games mid-session.

It's just one of the additions in this free update, which also adds the ray gun, six different tiers of in-game point packs that players can purchase through the app, and monkey bombs -- relax, they're not real monkeys strapped with dynamite or anything. They're actually cute little toys that explode, which may actually be worse now that we think about it. We like toys!

This weekend is Super Bowl XLVI, where the New York Giants and New England Patriots tee off for the most runs in a set. It is also the weekend for the greatest counter-programing tradition since the year one network televised Gypsy. Yes, we refer to Puppy Bowl VIII. Cute overload!

What's everyone playing?

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If you're near Los Angeles on February 10, and you're eager to celebrate the upcoming release of Rhythm Heaven Fever, you can party with other like-minded people at the iam8bit gallery.

Nintendo, Giant Robot, and iam8bit are teaming up for a launch event, at which attendees will be able to play the game (with headphones, hopefully!) and pick up custom swag. Go find out who else in the world dares to play a rhythm game about interviewing wrestlers and playing airplane badminton!

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EA's studio in Vancouver, home to EA Canada and Black Box, was hit with layoffs while the studio goes through a "transformation." Apparently it's a lot of transforming, since variants of "transform" show up a lot in the following statement about the transformational studio.

"EA in Vancouver is transforming its studio to align with EA's transformation to high-growth digital formats, including online, social gaming and free-to-play," an EA spokesperson told IndustryGamers. "The Need for Speed World team in Burnaby is leading the digital transformation with 11 million registered players. As the BC studio makes this transformation, a small number of employees are being impacted while most others are being retrained, redeployed and rolling-on to new projects."

EA recently reported a net loss of $205 million in the third quarter, but is seeing significant positive transformation in increased digital product sales.

Sony may have been caught in the same handheld wavelengths as Nintendo in 2010. A patent uncovered by Games Beat shows Sony considering a handheld, touchscreen device that would function similarly to Nintendo's Wii U. Titled the "Position-dependent gaming, 3-D controller, and handheld as a remote," the device would track its own location as "input to a video game" and render "an avatar on a mobile device such that it appears to overlay a competing user in the real world."

Sony's Vita can share saves and transfer data with the PS3, and even has the capability to be used as a controller for compatible PS3 games, meaning this patent could simply be a tale of what might have been. Inspect some more images of Sony's device below.

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We know you're used to coveting Mass Effect save files, so this should come as no surprise: you'll probably want to hold onto your Mass Effect 3 saves. In an interview with GamerZines, associate producer Mike Gamble said it "wouldn't be a bad idea" to keep them.

Of course, Gamble didn't go into any specifics -- the save files could affect future DLC or any potential entries in the Mass Effect series beyond the third and final Shepard-focused game. Or maybe it's just so BioWare can forever track those monsters who decided to shoot Wrex in the face. You know who you are and you should be ashamed.

Capcom made an embarrassing printing error on the spine of the Resident Evil: Revelations box sent to reviewers -- one made more embarrassing by the "revelaiton" today that it's still on the version of the art sent to retailers in advance of Tuesday's release.

Reader Zach shared this picture of the stock at the Prescott, AZ store, showing "Revelaitons" all the way down -- Joystiq has since confirmed the error with the store. For some, we're sure this mistake will be at worst a slight deterrent to purchase. For others, what was once a reasonably interesting 3DS item now seems like a fascinating rare collectible.

Update: A Capcom representative offered us the following statement: "The initial shipment of Resident Evil Revelations had been sent to retailers in North America with the spelling error. Subsequent shipments of the title are being repackaged and will have the corrected spelling. Customers who have been affected by the misspelling on the Resident Evil Revelations packaging can contact Capcom Customer Service at 650-350-6700 or accounts@capcom.com and a new insert for the front of box will be sent." So, like the previous Okami snafu, Capcom will offer replacement packaging to any who want it.

You'd have to be a fus-ro-dummy to think that Skyrim would be through with receiving accolades. At last night's New York Video Game Critics Circle Awards, the Bethesda Game Studios-developed RPG took home yet one more, earning the "Big Apple Award for Best Game" as decided by a cabal of NY-based game journos from various outlets.

Other winners include two apiece for Bastion and Portal 2, portable love for Super Mario 3D Land and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, and explosive nods to both Crysis 2 and Saints Row: The Third. Harold Goldberg's "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" took home the "Algonquin Roundtable Award for Best Book" and Sony's "Michael" commercial won the "Mad Men Award," mysteriously beating out Robin Williams' luxurious beard. Frankly, we were baffled. The full list of winners can be found below the break.

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Is it just us, or is the trailer above for the Vita version of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 uncommonly smooth? It makes a pretty convincing showpiece for the portable fighter, even if you do have to squint to see the tiny gameplay screen on the tiny Vita within the window.

Kotaku noticed that the Vita version has additional "Ability Cards," which provide stat boosts in Heroes & Heralds mode, including X-Men's Nightcrawler, Green Goblin, and Ulik, a Thor villain we definitely didn't have to look up just now.