It's a special day in tech jargon. April 4 is also 4-04, the all-too-famous error. It's time to party like it's PI day (March 14 at 1:59 a.m.) all over again! (Image Credit) Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Ask Joystiq: On region-free downloading, Xbox streaming and Karnov
DS Fanboy Lite: Mar. 29 - Apr. 4
Joystiq hands-on: Red Faction: Guerrilla (360/PC/PS3)
Joystiq impressions: Darksiders: Wrath of War (360/PS3)
Joystiq impressions: Saints Row 2 (360/PS3)
Joystiq Podcast 044 - Le Joystique edition
Joyswag: Win the Call of Duty 4 'Variety Map Pack'
This Week in Review get its shake on

News
GTA IV edited for Australia
Sam & Max ready to Wii-lease this fall
ELSPA comments on UK's Byron Review
Gran Turismo PSP still 'delayed,' possibly until 2009
Watch GTA IV's Liberty City tourism ad
Call of Duty 4 map pack going live in 30 minutes
IGN posts about Skate on Wii, then pulls story
Saints Row 2 pimp slaps consoles Aug. 26
N-Gage application finally launches
PSP enjoys 'Monster' success in Japan
Damage coming to GT5 Prologue, weather possible for final release
THQ CEO says company can grow without acquisitions
Burnout Paradise will 'transform,' Criterion vows
Check out indie art game 'The Graveyard'
Rock Band Weekly: OXM disc now for download
Rockstar acquires Mad Doc Software, forms Rockstar New England
Samus Aran spotted in Unreal Tournament III
SCi shares up amidst takeover speculation
Iwata asks about the many Wii wheels of Nintendo

Rumors & Speculation
Analyst: Wii, GTA IV, game industry all winners in '08
Rumor: Legend of Zelda manga coming stateside
'Thief' is that you? Eidos Montreal project begins with 'T'

Culture & Community

In a recent article about Imagination is the Only Escape, an under-development edutainment title about the Holocaust, the New York Times' headline writer apparently didn't read the story before slapping at the top: No Game About Nazis for Nintendo.

Turns out the actual quote from Nintendo was something far more inert: "At this time, there are no plans for this game to be released for any Nintendo platforms in North America." Which in industry speak simply means "wait and see."

GI.biz's follow up with Imagination's publisher, Alten8, reveals the game is in its "early stages" and wasn't blocked by Nintendo. A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League even said the group welcomed the use of new technology to educate. Although this isn't our favorite NYT error about gaming in recent memory, not channeling FOX News when writing headlines is always a good start.

[Via GamePolitics]

Read -- NY Times: No game about Nazis for Nintendo
Read -- Alten8 disputes reports of Nintendo blocking DS release

Bringing an old story back to the forefront with a new angle, BBC show Watchdog reports that Michelle Livesey of Manchester can't get Brain Training (Brain Age in the States) to recognize her saying "yellow" -- she's apparently not saying it "posh" enough. Although Watchdog added a new dimension with Brain Training's inability to recognize yellow, the original problem color blue is also in the mix. The issue is all in the accents.

According to Nintendo, on page 47 of the Brain Training manual it gives hints on how to use the voice recognition properly. Suggestion number four is: "Pronounce each word as clearly as possible, and try to avoid using strong dialects or accents." Just check out Nicole Kidman saying scissors in a Nintendo ad to see how things could go wrong with accents. Nintendo claims it has been continually monitoring the voice recognition efficiency in its software since the game launched in June '06. We believe them, just as long as we don't have to say the color blue, or yellow if we're from Manchester.

A little lesbianism goes a long way as the New York Times names Mass Effect its game of the year for 2007. The NYT bestowed Mass Effect with the honor for its "focus on character development, personal growth and moral tension, all fueled by a graphics system created to evoke emotional empathy." Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction was honored for being the shining star on the PS3 and BioShock was named the "best newcomer." There's also digs at Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy for being "unambitious representations of the state of the art."

Speaking of unambitious, for the second time in less than a month the New York Times copyeditors took a nap (albeit a minor one) on a video game-related story, which is slowly becoming inappropriate in covering an $18 billion-plus industry. There's no telling when reporter Seth Schiesel submitted his copy for this piece, but E3 2008 was already confirmed for the Los Angeles Convention Center last Tuesday, so the article's suggestion that "the solution for [E3] next year can be summed up in one word (or is that two?): Las Vegas" is just about 1,000 New York minutes behind the times.

Talk about all the news that's fit to copyedit. The New York Times has a hat-trick of errors in a recent technology piece discussing video game options. They manage to make it through the Wii spot on -- but then the real fun comes.

First the Old Gray Lady says Gran Turismo 5 is "a hyper-realistic, high-speed journey, [and] is one of the best sellers for [the] Sony console." One little problem, the game isn't out yet. Next up they say the PlayStation 3 is $299, which would be awesome and perhaps the Times has some incredibly privileged info about Sony's holiday strategy, but we're pretty sure the system is going to be starting at $399 for a while. Oh, but they're not done yet. Did you realize the PS3 and Xbox 360 are both powered by the Cell processor? This is being reported by the venerable New York-freakin'-Times, so it must be true, right?

[Thanks, Murph]

Imagine our absolute panic and horror this morning when we checked the news wires to discover that E3 -- yes, the E3 -- was going on this week! No flights scheduled, no hotels booked and we didn't even send Ludwig to the doctor for his dry-wit injection this week -- wait, we didn't even get our invitations to the event! Thankfully, after reading through the first couple paragraphs we discovered that there was just some horrible computer error and there actually is no E3 this week ... we think. They could be hiding it.

In related news, IDG World Expo, the organizers of the E for All event, say that 18,000 attended the inaugural show. Maybe they'll be able to up those numbers by getting Sony and Microsoft to attend when they hold E for All again (yup, it's already planned) much earlier next year at the LA Convention Center from Aug. 28 -30. Anybody who actually attended the event want to chime in on how it went?

Read: E3 video game trade show in radical downsizing
Read: 18,000 Attend E for All

Eurogamer reports that Sony is refunding gamers who purchased Spyro 2: Gateway of Glimmer and MediEvil following "significant technical issues." In essence, the games were broken. People will have their purchase refunded to them in the next seven days.

There's still no word yet on whether Crash Bandicoot 2 will also have a refund following its removal from the PlayStation store. It's not like XBLA has been immune to bug issues, most notable were the Mad Tracks "stuck in demo" bug and Contra's out-of-sync co-op. Just another day in the land of QA. Someone should make a musical about it.