GameStop's Game Days sales start next week, and the thrifty shoppers at Cheapass Gamer (free registration required) have compiled the list of games expected to be on sale. The games are up to 50% off, and an extra 10% off coupon that is available at CAG.

Highlights include Monster Hunter 2 (PSP) for $20, Condemned 2 for $30, House of the Dead 1 & 2 (Wii) for $20 and the original PS2 Katamari Damacy for $10. Game Days sales run from June 2 through June 30. Hit up CAG for the full list.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Amazon.com has a little sale going on for those who haven't jumped on the Rock Band tour bus yet. Cheapy D and his frugal army point the way to savings, with both the PS3 and Xbox 360 Special Editions priced for $148 (which include the game, drums, guitar and mic). The $22 saved won't even come back to bite back on shipping with the use of "Super Saver Shipping."

For those who've already picked up the game and are just in the market for the drum set, the normally $80 peripheral is currently $54 on Xbox 360 and $69 for PS3. Feel free to use the money saved on some Rock Band DLC.

SCi shareholders must be celebrating like the Munchkins of OZ after Dorothy dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East over the resignations of the company's executive board -- shares rose 44% on the news. The company's stock plummeted last week over the news that SCi had taken itself off the market for a buyout, causing investors to call for the heads of the executive board.

The board officially saw the resignation of CEO Jane Cavanagh, Managing Director of Publishing Bill Ennis and Managing Director of Studios Rob Murphy; all resignations were effective immediately and former Corporate Development Director of EA Phil Rogers is now the chief executive. SCi Chairman Tim Ryan says the company needs to restore faith and trust in investors by "under-promising and over-delivering." Meanwhile, SCi will strap on the stilettos and start walking the streets again in search of a potential suitor -- maybe it'll fight for territory with Codemasters on the corner.

SCi Entertainment, parent company of Eidos, is under assault as investors demand the resignation of top executives. The Times reports things crumbled like a booby-trapped tomb after the company's stock plummeted last week following the announcement that management was pulling out of buyout talks; making matters worse was the discovery that SCi borrowed £30 million ($59 million) just to stay afloat until the end of the year.

Despite SCi having a recent hit with Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, the announcement that several major titles -- including the latest Tomb Raider -- are not releasing until holiday '08 is causing concerns about the company's financial situation. We'd make fun of how SCi managed to screw things up this badly during a time of record industry growth, but Atari is still light-years ahead of them in that department.

[Via GI.biz]

To be honest, we're more fans of game trading services than buying used from a retailer (yeah, we're looking at you, Gamestop) but if you've going to buy used, you can't really beat GameFly's ongoing end-of-year sale. For the next week or so, you can get used games from the popular online gaming rental service at a steep discount with free shipping. Keep in mind, their used prices were already better than Gamestop's and these come with a case and manual (the luxury!). So if your more thoughtful family members thought to drop some cold, hard cash under the tree this year in lieu of lame gift cards, pick yourself up some treats.

[Thanks, Gregorious]

Valve's Steam service is having a last-minute holiday sale from today until January 1, with everything on the online store reportedly 10% to 50% off. While all they have to do is make one game 50% and the rest 10% to make that statement valid, there are some good deals going on. Highlights include:

• Orange Box - $37.45 (25% off)
• BioShock - $37.45 (25% off)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - $22.45 (25% off)
• id Software Super Pack - $52.45 (25% off)
• Psychonauts - $9.95 (50% off)

There are very few hours until Christmas. On this coast, most stores are closing down. Wouldn't be great if you could find the perfect gift for the ones you love? How about a downloadable copy of Psychonauts (no, we don't shut up about this game) for only $10? And while we're at it, you can afford to purchase Rag Doll Kung Fu ($13.45) and Bookworm Adventures ($17.95).

Amazon.com's deal of the day is the Halo 3 Legendary Edition for $59.99 USD, making it the same price as the standard edition, and ten dollars cheaper than the Collector's Edition. The Legendary Edition includes three bonus discs of Halo-related content, as well as the Master Chief cat helmet scale replica helmet case.

To top it all off, Amazon is offering free shipping on the bundle. For sixty bucks -- less than half the bundle's original cost -- this is easily one of the best deals we've seen in a while. The offer is only good today, so if you've been holding off on that Halo 3 purchase for whatever reason, there are no more excuses.

Hell, even if you don't have an Xbox 360, this bundle might still be worth picking up, if only for the cat helmet.

Update: It seems that Halo 3 Legendary Edition is now completely sold out at Amazon. Condolences to those who weren't quick enough with their credit cards.

[Thanks to everyone that sent this in.]

Update 2: As many commenters have figured out, and the seller has now confirmed, the box that was sold includes a demo version of the game that has a limited song list. The demo unit has been relisted with the corrected information.

Update: Seems the auctioneer has since halted bidding on the item. We're trying to find out what's going on.

It seems that not every Best Buy manager knows exactly what to do with those demo units that are beginning to seep into the stores. A shopper at a Marina, CA Best Buy was shocked to see a boxed copy of the Xbox 360 edition of the game sitting among the Guitar Hero III boxes. He was even more surprised when the game rang up for $180 at the register. He's put the spoils of his trip on eBay (relisted here) complete with multiple confirmation pictures that include the receipt and the seller's eBay username (plus one, above, with his cat).

We're not sure this eBay auction will stay up, what with street dates and eBay's sometimes liberal cancellation policy being what they are. Still, if you have some extra cash lying around and just can't wait until Nov. 20 to start rocking, it's worth a try.

[Thanks Thomas]

Publisher Ziff Davis has been in trouble for a while, and now we know how bad. The publisher skipped an interest payment and is entering into negotiations regarding its $390 million debt. Ziff Davis says they are still operationally "in very good shape," but they still have debt left over from when the company "was a very different scale." The company used to employ 1,200 people, it is now down to 290 and among its many websites (including 1UP), it only has three magazines left: PC Magazine, EGM and Games for Windows. During the attempted sales of its games division it became clear buyers wanted 1UP, but had no interest in the declining magazines.

Death in the video game magazine business seems inevitable, unless you're bundled with a mega gaming retail chain's discount card. Although this shouldn't be taken as a sign that EGM and your other Ziff publication's are finished. There's obviously a reason these magazines have survived while the others died off.

[Via Evil Avatar]

An "employee of Circuit City" dropped this clip in our tip box about an alleged sale for the PlayStation 3. The flyer shows that Circuit City is dropping the price of the PS3 by $100 for the week of July 15. We contacted Sony to ask how they felt about the price drop and they told us, "Circuit City hasn't announced any price drop on PS3, so we have no comment." To be clear, despite the collective game consciousness' longing for a PS3 price drop and its possible announcement at next week's Min-E3 ... this is merely a clip of an alleged flyer which shows a week long sale at Circuit City for the PlayStation 3.

Now, if somebody happened to get their hands on the whole flyer, we'd have something to go back to Sony with. Don't get us wrong, this plot is thick like cheddar soup. Have we seen the price drop of a console, or even a sale, without it being officially sanctioned by the console manufacturer? Nope. Can we verify the validity of this flyer? Nope. Could Circuit City be desperate enough to sell the PS3 console at a loss to themselves just to move product and software? Well, that's the real question, isn't it?

Update: GameDaily reports an anonymous source who is the "merchandising manager at one of the world's biggest retailers" confirmed the price drop is retail-wide and begins July 12. The first wave of flyers are July 15. There's also an ongoing thread regarding the price drop at Cheap Ass Gamer.

Update 2: We now have the full page Circuit City ad found after the break. The tipster goes on to say, "And just to make things clear. This is not just for Circuit City. This will be for all retailers in the US and will be $499 from now on. No store can sell a console for cheaper without the permission from the console's company so no Sony did NOT give Circuit City a special deal to sale the PS3 at this price." [Thanks Se7enwolf]

Legitimate sister site, PSP Fanboy, ponders the whimper-like end status of the UMD format. After finding Stomp the Yard as the last UMD available for pre-order through Sony Style, and Amazon listing a few others with a release date of 2025 (read: they may be canceled), PSP Fanboy takes a moment to mourn these movie discs.

But we wonder, having bought a fire-sale Virtual Boy after it was discontinued, is now the time to scoop up UMDs on the cheap? Or should we put our money into Memory Stick and copy our own movies over, DMCA be damned?

Update: Dave Karraker of Sony wrote to remind us, "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that we are discontinuing the UMD format for PSP." Fair enough. MiniDisc is still around, too.

Target stores have a nice little sale going on this week. All games regularly priced $29.99 (here's the nice part) and above are on sale for $24. Although it is just $5 off in most cases, that's still two gallons of gas, a meal at McDonald's off the dollar menu or a nice way of saving up for the Target exclusive Peach DS lite "bling skin" at the bottom of the ad. We don't want it -- but we do.

The financial news from video game mega-publisher Take Two Interactive has run the gamut from bad to horrible over the past month or so. First there was a report from analyst Michael Pachter that suggested selling the company's stock. Then there was a disappointing earnings restatement and a shareholder coup that sought to overthrow CEO Paul Eibler. Now comes word that Take Two is considering selling the company to pacify the group of angry shareholders.

Gamasutra is reporting that the Grand Theft Auto publisher has postponed its annual meeting from March 23 to March 29 to come up with alternative plans to present to the shareholders, which own a combined 46 percent of the company. One of the main alternatives mentioned in the official notice is "a possible sale of the Company." There's no guarantee such a sale will actually take place, but the fact that they're even considering it shows just how bad things are getting at Take Two HQ. Wall street seems to support the idea -- shares of the company were up 5.47 percent to $22 in early-morning trading.

[Via Xbox360Fanboy]

Another month, another batch of hardware and software sales data estimates from the NPD Group. The February numbers show Nintendo hitting the competition with a one-two punch of hardware dominance -- nearly half a million DS units and a third of a million Wiis were sold in North America in February. The Playstation 2 continued its impressive afterlife with roughly 300K in sales, while Sony's new system continued its slow start, selling only 127K units for the month -- even less than the somewhat-defunct Game Boy Advance.

On the software front, Crackdown was the top seller for the month, giving the Xbox 360 had the top selling game for the fourth month in a row (In January it was Lost Planet. In December and November, Gears of War). A free Wii remote sent Wii Play soaring to the No. 2 spot, while the DS rehash of Diddy Kong Racing premiered at No. 3. In more bad news for Sony, perennial favorite Guitar Hero 2 was the only game for a Sony system to make the top 10 this month.

Continue reading for a complete breakdown of the top-selling hardware and software for the month.

Media Create's Japanese sales data for the past week has just been released, revealing a PS3-free Top 30 that is headed by a monster hit (yes) for the PSP at Number One. For more mixed signals, set your dials to receive this week's Top Ten:

1. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd - 705,281 units sold last week (new entry / Capcom, PSP)
2. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - 80,002 (new entry / Alchemist, PS2)
   
3. Fire Emblem: Dawn Goddess - 75,359 (new entry / Nintendo, Wii)
   
4. Sim City DS - 50,826 (new entry / EA, DS)
   
5. Professor Layton and the Mysterious Town - 49,979 (186,716 sales to date / Level-5, DS)
   
6. Wii Sports - 47,503 (1,090,736 / Nintendo, Wii)
   
7. Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX - 45,792 (new entry / Tomy, Wii)
   
8. Dragon Quest Monsters Joker - 40,507 (1,174,576 / SquareEnix, DS)
   
9. Wii Play - 35,811 (944,586 / Nintendo, Wii)
   
10. Picross DS - 26,693 (183,357 / Nintendo, DS)

And here are some lessons we can learn from the big figures:

• The PSP is ALIVE, and Monster Hunter is the WINNER
  
• EA has had a place in Japan, after all (see also: firing the whole Japanese studio was a really clever thing for EA to do)
• There are as many Wii titles as there are DS games in this week's Top Ten -- Japan is bowing to its Nintendo duarchy