Ask any musician and they'll tell you the set list is crucial; it's a diverse collection of tunes meant to elicit specific emotions from the audience. The track list for PlayStation Vita launch game Lumines Electronic Symphony is no different.

Electronica fans (electronicistas?) will notice some great acts like LCD Soundsystem, The Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Goldfrapp and Mark Ronson & The Business.

In addition to the track list, the PlayStation Blog also has a brief Q&A with some of the musicians in the game. If you want some insight into their songs and why they were chosen for the game, hit up the source link below.

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Whoever said money can't buy friends? It certainly wasn't Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose company today filed for its initial public offering with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the filing, Facebook seeks to raise $5 billion if and when the company goes public -- the filing is still pending approval from the SEC.

Also revealed in the filing was news that the social platform's biggest game developer, Zynga, accounts for "approximately 12 percent" of Facebook's revenue. Zynga had its own IPO late last year, which sought to raise $1 billion in going public.

That 12 percent is enough to have Zuckerberg and co. worried about going public, as the filing notes, "If the use of Zynga games on our Platform declines, if Zynga launches games on or migrates games to competing platforms, or if we fail to maintain good relations with Zynga, we may lose Zynga as a significant Platform developer and our financial results may be adversely affected." So, uh, here's hoping Google+ doesn't get into games, eh?

... oh, right.

EA adjusted its earnings for the most recent quarter (its fiscal Q4) in part because of the delay of an "important social game." It just didn't say which one. In an investor conference call, CEO John Riccitiello broke the news that EA is moving the launch to Q1 of fiscal 2013 (January-March of this year).

Later, during the Q&A portion, COO Peter Moore called it "a major title based on a major piece of the EA brand IP." EA recently acquired KlickNation, rebranding it BioWare Social, but that just happened last month -- likely not enough time to even think a game would be ready for this quarter. EA also releases social games through Playfish, EA Play, and EA Sports.

Street Fighter X Tekken has been officially listed by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (T for Teen, if you're wondering), and some details in the listing may have revealed a few more characters for the game. The description of possibly objectionable content in the game mentions both a character that uses "chainsaws," as well as the fact that "one wobbly character uses 'drunken' fighting moves."

Neither of those descriptions matches any of the announced characters thus far, and fans have jumped to the conclusion that Tekken's Alisa Bosconovitch (who wields chainsaw arms) and drunken fighter Lei Wulong may be making an appearance in the crossover. It certainly seems possible, and this wouldn't be the first time ESRB has mentioned information in its warnings that was supposed to be secret. With the game due out next month, we'll know the truth before long.

One of the better surprises of this year's Spike VGAs was not random tea-bagging -- for most, it was the unveiling of Naughty Dog's new IP, The Last of Us. All of that buzz is attributable to the dramatic trailer used to announce the title.

Today, Naughty Dog released a behind-the-scenes making-of trailer for the announcement trailer. Within you'll see some of Naughty Dog's famous mo-cap work at play and probably suffer a bit of disappointment when you see Ashley Johnson in a mo-cap suit. Yes, we know you were expecting Ellen Page, but we're pretty sure Juno is totally dead in this post-apocalyptic future anyway.

THQ is definitely experiencing some troubles related to its uDraw flop and subsequent layoffs, as evidenced by a new document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
President and CEO Brian Farrell will take a pay cut for the year starting February 15, which reduces his salary from $718,500 to $359,250. His salary will go back up the next year.

His golden parachute has also been tailored a bit more closely, as the payment he'd receive upon departure from the company (either termination "without cause" or resignation with "good reason") has been cut from three times his highest-ever bonus to just his highest-ever bonus. This is, of course, a small sacrifice compared to the THQ employees whose salaries went from "some" to "none."

The board of directors is also seeing some cuts: all the other directors have "elected" to receive 50% less cash compensation for a year effective today.

THQ has confirmed planned layoffs of "up to 240 selling, general and administrative personnel worldwide," with plans to finalize the proceedings by September 30, 2012. The company promises that the "majority" of said layoffs will occur before March 31, 2012 and many of the employees affected have already been notified.

The 240 number is a marked increase from numbers we heard earlier today, making the situation at THQ look all the more dire. Today's announcement reflects specific numbers for layoffs that THQ first confirmed last week.

Though the company makes note of the recently announced restructuring away from kids and licensed titles, nothing is mentioned of the rumored cancelation of the Warhammer 40K MMO. We expect to hear even more when THQ announces its fiscal third quarter results tomorrow afternoon.

Update: THQ tells Joystiq that, "These are the cuts we described in our statement last week. No studios are a part of this. It's administration and publishing offices worldwide." The company declined to comment on whether these layoffs will affect any currently announced projects.

Update 2: This post originally stated that THQ would be laying off the 240 employees across nine months, which is inaccurate. Due to varying employment guidelines around the world and internal financial considerations, the restructuring will be completed by September 30, 2012, but most of the affected employees have already been notified.

Is Origin a success? We can't be sure just yet, but reaching one quarter of Steam's userbase in a fraction of the time it took for Valve to do so certainly doesn't hurt. And that's precisely what EA revealed today in a press release ahead of its third quarter financial earnings call for fiscal 2012, which boasted 9.3 million registered Origin users since launch in June 2011.

For those of you playing along at home, Valve announced its Steam service has approximately 40 million users as of mid-January 2012, resulting in 100 percent growth for yet another year. EA can't quite boast 100 percent growth numbers, but it does point out that those 9.3 million users "generated more than $100 million in non-GAAP revenue since launch." Which is to say that the service generated, like, a lot of money for EA, especially if you contextualize it in the nebulous "non-generally accepted accounting principles" world that EA has.

Update: During EA's investor call, CEO John Riccitiello said that in the company's financial third quarter of 2012 that Origin had over 1 million daily users.

EA recorded a net loss of $205 million, but its highest operating cash flow in 31 quarters for the fiscal third quarter ending December 31, 2011. In Q3 2011, EA generated $1.06 billion in net revenue, which is up from the previous Q3, with a net revenue of $1.05 billion. EA's cash flow from operations is recorded at $475 million.

EA's Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12 have each sold more than 10 million units, while Madden 12 sold almost 5 million. PopCap, which EA acquired in August, grew revenue 30 percent on a trailing 12-month basis, and its monthly active users for social games rose to 52 million, up from 39 million the previous year.

EA has revealed the sales numbers of a handful of its major titles, including FIFA 12 and Battlefield 3, which have both sold through over 10 million units since their respective launches in September and October. Meanwhile, Madden NFL 12 has sold through over five million units since launching last August.

Remember that "sold through" actually refers to copies that have been sold to consumers -- as opposed to copies sold to retailers -- meaning that it's probably safe to call all three titles "hits" at this point.

EA's continuing efforts in the mobile space are paying off. Thanks to a ridiculous sale in December, the publisher managed to best all competitors and become the top publisher in the App Store throughout December. The Sims: FreePlay was the top-grossing iPad app.

The news comes from the company's third quarter fiscal year earnings report, which shows a substantial increase in gains and registered users throughout its digital products compared to the same period last year. In the period ending December 31, 2010, EA Mobile earned $59 million, while earnings at the end of December 2011 were up to $70 million.

It looks like Star Wars: The Old Republic is off to a decent start, with EA today touting sales topping 2 million copies since launch, 1.7 million of which are reported as "active daily users." According to CEO John Riccitiello, those sales helped to bolster the company's third quarter financials for fiscal 2012 above those of the previous year, alongside major launches like Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12 helping to pick up the slack.

"Star Wars: The Old Republic is developing a committed community of players," Riccitiello boasted in a press release today, ahead of EA's financial earnings call where we'll likely learn more. Unfortunately, we can't snicker in the faces of any analysts on this one because they kinda sat on both sides of the fence ahead of the game's launch this past winter. So, uh, congrats folks, you were sorta right ... we guess.

Update: EA's chief finances man Eric Brown pointed out during the call that "over 40 percent" of Star Wars: The Old Republic's sales were through Origin, which services like NPD aren't able to track.

Konami is making it easier for schools to use Dance Dance Revolution for fitness programs, with a new version designed specifically for schools. Dance Dance Revolution Classroom Edition, being unveiled Feb. 24 at the CAHPERD Conference, is a PC game that allows up to 48 mats to be connected to a single game.

We can only hope that the following presentation at that conference will be about reinforcing classroom floors.

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A new deal will help facilitate downloading Virtual Console games or playing Mario Kart online instead of whatever you're supposed to be doing while you're out. Nintendo of Europe has partnered with free-hotspot.com, giving 3DS owners free use of "over 5,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across 21 European countries."

According to Nintendo, a 3DS will automatically find and connect to one of these hotspots, which are located in fast food chains and hotels. You can also do email and web browsing type stuff with the 3DS, though if you're like us, you probably avoid console web browsers whenever possible.

No, "Le Mans" isn't French for "The Dudes" -- it's the name of a city located in northwestern France that has played host to the annual "24 Hours of Lemans" endurance race since 1923. The awesome thing about Le Mans (the race, not the city) is that manufacturers build beautiful, incredibly fast vehicles specifically to handle the event's unique challenges, and those prototypes are the focus of the lastest DLC pack for Forza Motorsport 4.

Well, by "focus" we mean "there's also a Dodge Challenger owned by a UFC dude," but mostly the DLC is about Le Mans' proud racing heritage. Jump past the break for a complete breakdown of the 10 cars your 560 Microsoft Points will earn you when this pack arrives on February 7.

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As promised, Microsoft's Kinect for Windows has launched today, bundling together a Kinect unit and a commercial license for the hardware. Microsoft is heavily pitching the bundle squarely toward industries outside video games, suggesting that Kinect should move "beyond the living room into other industries such as education, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail."

As part of this new push, Microsoft is encouraging businesses to take part in the Kinect Accelerator program, which offers the chance for startups to receive funding for innovative Kinect projects.

The Kinect for Windows package retails for $249. The hardware features "advanced speech and audio capabilities" as well as "improved skeletal tracking that enables control over which user is being tracked by the sensor." The unit also features "near mode" which recognizes objects "as close as 40 centimeters in front of the sensor."

Will these improvements be implemented in the console hardware? Is it even possible? We're looking into it.

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When reality television made its first foray into prime time, it was fairly clear why networks jumped on the trend with such enthusiasm. "Do we want to pay paltry sums of money to film untrained, attention-hungry people doing strange things in equally cheap locations? Yes. One thousand times yes." And then they did it, more than 1,000 times.

The UK's Channel 4 has taken that one trend deeper, getting rid of the real people completely with "SuperMe," a TV show filmed entirely in The Sims 3. SuperMe follows four Sims living together and is completely unscripted, except for the narrator, who provides insight into what the Sims are thinking, feeling and doing. As producer Somethin' Else describes it, "It's like real life, but improvised by robots."

The first episode is available to watch above -- personally, we find it more entertaining with this commentary.

As of March 31, 2012, Bungie will no longer host any Halo services on Bungie.net. Current Halo data will be transferred to 343 and, at that time, "all live Halo data will be managed by 343 Industries, and Bungie will no longer be able to update game stats and player service records, to host new user generated content, or to operate the Bungie Pro service." Using a peculiar bit of language, Bungie notes that "any replacement functionality" will be hosted by Halo Waypoint on halo.xbox.com.

Notice that Bungie doesn't mention whether or not such functionality will be replaced, though it seems unlikely that Microsoft would allow Halo's community features to disappear. They are, after all, a hallmark of the franchise. Because really, what's the point of playing Halo if you can't show off how awesome you are (or, as the image above illustrates, how funny it looks as your Spartan's limp corpse sails through the air).

When THQ announced plans for layoffs that didn't affect its five main internal studios, we didn't think folks like VP of tech Mark DeLoura would end up getting cut. But that's what an automated response from his email address confirmed to us last night. The response outright states, "Mark DeLoura is no longer with THQ." According to DeLoura's LinkedIn page, he was "responsible for technology strategy, the online game and MMO operations teams, the centralized online technology group, and relationships with platform and technology manufacturers."

More specifically, we're told that DeLoura was leading up management on the upcoming Warhammer 40K MMO -- the same MMO that's rumored to be canceled. At the time, THQ responded to allegations that the MMO was canned with a nebulous statement: "[THQ] has not made any decisions regarding the planned MMO."

Additionally, IGDA Mobile SIG chair Kevin Dent alleges that during the recent round of THQ restructuring, 174 employees were let go -- Dent was the origin of the aforementioned cancelation rumors (he isn't related to Harvey Dent, we're told). The company is also facing potential delisting on the NASDAQ stock exchange. THQ declined to offer comment regarding this report, and once more directed us to this Thursday's investor call.

With a new month comes a new selection of downloadable games for which you can exchange your Club Nintendo Coins. The new lineup is half as varied as those of previous months, offering only one DSiWare download and one Wii Virtual Console game.

For 150 Coins each, you can choose Art Academy: First Semester for DSiWare (but only available on 3DS through this offer) or Mario Party 2 for Wii. If you get that one, use the money you saved by buying it with Club Nintendo money to buy some extra controllers, either for friends or to replace the ones ruined by Mario Party.

For fans of physical, tangible goods, there's also this new 3DS card case. It holds 18 games and includes four "double-sided card covers." And it looks really nice.