Update: Both Xbox Support and an Ubisoft representative have confirmed the issue has been resolved. Happy badassing!

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Original: If you've played beyond the first mission of Splinter Cell: Conviction while connected to Xbox Live, you've likely run into a freezing glitch. A few minutes into the single-player campaign's second mission, the game just locks up -- but there's hope!

Thanks to a pretty comprehensive thread on the Ubisoft Forums, a temporary workaround has been discovered, which requires clearing the system hard drive cache and logging out of Xbox Live. "I assure you everyone is hard at work to resolve the issue," posted an Ubisoft technical support representative, who could not confirm when players can expect an official patch.

Check out the glitch and workaround in action above.

Looking to bone up on your knowledge of the Church of Unitology? Tor Books, in collaboration with Visceral Games, will release Dead Space: Martyr this July -- a book that will not only explain the origins of the fanatical church, but also that of the "Black Marker," the powerful alien artifact discovered on Earth in Dead Space's fictional future universe. The book stars Michael Altman, the geophysicist who first discovers the potential for crazed-out hallucinations from alien artifacts.

Steve Papoutsis, Dead Space 2 executive producer, hopes that Martyr is "the first of many books to let fans dive deeply into Dead Space's secrets and immersive lore." Dead Space: Martyr by B.K. Evenson will retail for $14.99 when it releases this July.

Square Enix's original, classic-style Final Fantasy for DS appears to be heading westward. Square Enix trademarked "The 4 Heroes of Light" in the US, which matches pretty closely with the translation of Hikari no 4 Senshi: Final Fantasy Gaiden ("4 Warriors of Light"), the streamlined DS Final Fantasy released in Japan in October. To see the trademark filing, it's number 85006964, searchable in the USPTO database. It might just be the next game you pay the Square Enix tax (by which we mean the customary $40 price for Square's DS games) on!

Square Enix's subsidiary Taito also trademarked "Dariusburst," (serial number 85008406) which, unless some bizarre trick is involved, refers to last year's PSP shooter, which updates the company's classic robo-fish-shooting Darius series.
[Via Siliconera]

Newegg is currently offering The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return for the ridiculously low sum of $12.99. With free shipping. Honestly, we're not sure how to fill the rest of this post with more relevant information. You get two House of the Dead games, both of them brimming with zombies just itching to be blown apart, for $12.99. That's about as much as a disgusting chicken sandwich and a terrible bottle of wine to wash it down with. You don't want those things, do you? Of course not. Get the game.

Better get it fast though, because it's bound to sell out quickly at this price.

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Amazon has dropped the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade console to $159, as noticed by CheapCollegeGamer. The retailer doesn't mention an end-date for the promotion, but the listing notes that the price isn't shown without clicking to add it to the cart "because [Amazon's] price on this item is lower than the manufacturer's suggested retail price." It's rare for consoles to go on sale without it being an official price drop.

We've followed up with Amazon and Microsoft to verify that the promotion is isolated to just Amazon and not indicative of a general price cut.

Update: It's back to $199. Curiouser and curiouser.

[Via CheapCollegeGamer]

Creat Studios and TikGames are releasing yet another DLC expansion pack to their popular PSN ball-bouncing game, Magic Orbz. The Jungle DLC pack will be available on the PlayStation Store this Thursday, April 15th, for $2.99. The DLC will hit the European Store next week, April 22nd, for €2.99. Like the "Wicked Witches" and "Winter" packs before it, this adds 25 new stages and a set of new Trophies for players to acquire.

If you have yet to buy Magic Orbz, it's on sale on the PlayStation Store right now for $4.99. But you'll want to hurry to take advantage of this deal: the discount ends tomorrow.

Music Master: Chopin is a music game for Eternal Sonata fans (and classical music fans in general). If you love classical music and music games, this will provide a welcome break from Mad Maestro! The PC/Mac/iPhone/iPad music game will feature playable arrangements of the music of composer Frédéric Chopin, in traditional arrangements as well as " vocal perfromances and rock arrangements," according to GameMusic.net.

StacjaKultura reports that the game is one of the winners of the "Chopin 2010 Promise" competition, a Polish government program to promote Chopin-based projects in observance of the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth. It's being developed by Poland-based Bloober Team, who is also working on the iPad game, Gender Wars.

[Thanks, The_Shadow]

In this post-Modern Warfare 2 world, a number like five million may seem insignificant -- even laughable, to some. But hey, don't knock the PS3's latest accomplishment of selling 5,001,598 consoles in Japan.

Famitsu brings us the news, along with the top-selling games on the platform so far: Final Fantasy XIII is first with 1,883,828 units, Metal Gear Solid 4 takes second with 706,461 and Yakuza 4 -- which was just released a few weeks ago -- comes in third, selling an impressive 526,093 copies so far. Gosh, the only thing that's missing is a Dragon Quest.

[Via Andriasang]

There seems to be a tiny bit of confusion going on over in Europe after the God of War Trilogy bundle was removed by some retailers. Eurogamer clarifies that the set isn't canceled, but that Sony is still working out who the retail partners will be for the special edition. The takeaway here is that not all shops will sell the item, which explains the pre-order cancellations we've received tips about.

Barring any hiccups, the Trilogy should release the last week of April in PAL lands for €89.99 (£64.99). Oh, and if you're wondering about picking up God of War 3, well, we liked it.

[Thanks, Miguel B.]

Nintendo of Europe sent a press release out, offering the first details and track listing for the European release of Jam with the Band, confirming that this release is based on the sequel, Daigasso! Band Brothers DX. The DS music title supports Band Brothers DX's downloadable WiiWare channel, which allows music made in the game to be played through the Wii, and thus through your TV's sound system. This way, bands of up to eight DSes can play together and hear the combined result.

The cartridge will include 50 songs, including "The Final Countdown," "We Are the Champions," and a fairly random assortment of popular music from the last few decades, as well as medleys of Nintendo music. You can find the tracks announced so far after the break. Nintendo will release around 50 additional songs, and user-created performances, as free DLC.

[Via Videogamer]

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Regardless of how unfaithful it might end up being to its ludological source material, or how cheesy its dialogue is, or how poorly its actors perform, it's difficult for us not to get substantially excited by the two behind-the-scenes previews of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time we've posted above and after the jump. It looks to be, on all accounts, a Bruckheimer joint -- big, awesome and ... uncerebral. Like a big, clumsy elephant, riding a race car into a tornado made of swords. That's a spectacle we'll gladly drop $10.50 to witness once the film hits theaters May 28.

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According to data collected by The Diffusion Group, there's one area of the console wars in which the PS3 has a notable lead: The percentage of users online in the U.S. According to the numbers posted by Gamasutra, 78 percent of PS3 owners have taken their consoles online, compared to 73 percent of Xbox 360 owners.

By comparison, only 54 percent of Wiis have been connected to the internet, which means that 46 percent of our nation's nephews are failing to return their Aunt Cathy's calls. (By the way, Dylan, would you just help her already? It would take you five minutes. Please, just help her.)

It's Tuesday, which means: brand new Xbox Live Games on Demand to satisfy your very demanding gaming desires. There are two new titles this week. First up, we have Lara Croft's 2006 return to form, Tomb Raider: Legend. Next is Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, which is ... well, it's a Naruto game. Both titles run $29.99 in North America but, as usual, pricing and availability will vary by region.

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Xbox.com: Add Tomb Raider: Legend to your Xbox 360 download queue ($29.99)

Xbox.com: Add Naruto: Rise of a Ninja to your Xbox 360 download queue ($29.99)

One of the most exciting aspects of MMA is the sheer variety of fighting styles you'll see in a single event. The original's repertoire was rather extensive: boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, judo, Brazilian jujitsu, and freestyle wrestling. UFC Undisputed 2010 adds three more fighting techniques into the mix: sambo, karate and Greco-Roman wrestling.

This developer video goes into more detail about the three new styles added to the game, emphasizing the differences between karate and muay thai, for example. With the ability to "combo anything together" in 2010, the added move list should provide a number of interesting and painful combinations to explore.

It may sound like the obvious statement to make, but for how much Nintendo has enjoyed marginally improving its handheld over the last few years, it's a big deal. According to an interview with Businessweek, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime has stated that the upcoming 3DS will indeed be Nintendo's next platform -- not simply another revision of its already existing DS tech.

"The Nintendo 3DS for us is our next handheld platform," Fils-Aime assures. Even though Nintendo's business is "fundamentally about software, not hardware," the new tech will be "a means to an end" -- the final goal being "a great consumer experience."

Reggie wouldn't offer anything else on the proposed new handheld, other than mentioning Nintendo's plans of debuting it at E3. We'll be there.

[Via MCV]

The results of Game Developer Research's ninth annual Game Developer Salary Survey recently surfaced, giving us our yearly reminder that we're totally on the wrong side of this industry. According to the survey, the average "American mainstream videogame industry salary" is $75,573. Over here at Joystiq Inc., we're only pulling in $75,571.42. We're thinking about going on strike until parity is achieved.

The survey also breaks down average salaries for the different disciplines which compose our beloved industry. The highest-paid gaming professionals are PR and marketing executives, earning $129,167 a year on average. The lowest head on the totem pole is that of the QA tester, whose average annual income is $37,905. We're betting the recent winner of The Tester wishes he had chosen to participate in The Public Relations Professional instead.

Developer Nathan Fouts tells Co-Optimus that his label, Mommy's Best Games, is working to bring Shoot 1UP to PSN. The Xbox Live Indie Game turns the tables on the shoot-'em-up genre by allowing the player to build a mass of ships and basically become a sentient bullet hell, tossing back as many projectiles as enemies are able to dish out.

If you think about it, it's not terribly fair that only Xbox gamers have gotten the sweet taste of shmup revenge. After all, Sony fans have been battling through these things since Einhander. When this cosmic injustice is addressed, we're hoping Shoot 1UP can retain its $1 XBLIG price tag.

No one was exactly sure if Sony's gamble with Heavy Rain would pay off. With no aliens, no stealth kills, and no epic boss battles, the game strayed so far from the mainstream norm that some wondered if it could possibly succeed. Considering the incredible technical effort Heavy Rain represented, it's clear that this was also an expensive experiment for both Sony and Quantic Dream to take on.

After seven weeks of release, Heavy Rain has managed to sell through a million units worldwide, according to an announcement on the PlayStation.Blog. No specifics are offered, but we'll deduce that Europe represents the largest piece of the sales pie; Heavy Rain was completely sold out in that part of the world.

It's unclear if a million units sold is enough for Quantic Dream and Sony to break even on Heavy Rain's lengthy development. Undoubtedly, the game will continue selling through the year, which has us hopeful that the industry will be unafraid to invest in another game like it in the future.