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Keeping in line with previous Need for Speed entries on the iPhone, EA today announced the release of Need for Speed: Shift on Apple's handheld for $9.99. The game features 20 cars to maneuver through 18 tracks with your phone's tilt functionality, and even play with your (presumably wealthy) friends via Bluetooth or over Wi-Fi.

EA included a handful of impressive screens below, though we can't imagine the graphics (which are enhanced for iPhone 3GS and third-generation iPod touch) will do much to mask the frustration of clumsily trying to control a simulation-style racing game with a mobile phone. We've been burned before, folks.

Need for Speed: Shift ($9.99) :

Hey Canadians! Yeah, you guys and gals huddled together attempting to maintain sustainable body heat. Just a friendly reminder that big-box retailer Futureshop is currently slashing prices on a slew of new video game titles. Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, Brutal Legend and Need for Speed: Shift are all on sale for $39.99. Wait, what's this? NHL 10? Oh, Canada. You're so adorably predictable!

The online and in-store sale ends on December 3, so make sure to defrost your car, dust off your skates and hit the store ASAP. And before you ask: Yes, Rock Band 2's special edition is priced at $99 and does include a free mullet kit. We don't know what that is, but we know we want it. More Canadian deals can be found after the break.

Update: Best Buy Canada is offering similar discounts.

EA's preparing a new pack of cars for your virtual garage in Need for Speed: Shift. On December 1st, Xbox 360 owners worldwide will be given five classic rides to race around in, free of charge, while PS3 owners in Europe and North America gain access on December 3rd and 10th, respectively. Dubbed the Legendary Car pack, this new bit of DLC puts gamers behind the wheel of these five classic rides:

• 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427
• 1967 Shelby GT-500 (Nicolas Cage not included)
• 1969 Dodge Charger R/T
• 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T
• 1998 Toyota Supra Mark IV

The free update will also bring with it a new Team Racing mode, which will allow two teams of up to six racers to compete against each other online. You've got some time, so find a few friends and get ready to shake and bake.

Don't want to grow up or pay full price for video games? A list of purported Black Friday game deals for Toys R Us has shown up online, with a few temporary price drops that may justify a late night or early morning trip to TRU on November 27.

Most of the great deals are "5AM Doorbusters," which means that if you have yet to pick up Halo 3: ODST, Need for Speed Shift, or Forza 3, they'll all be $34.99 ... at 5AM. Good luck! Also marked down at that obscenely early hour: Dead Space Extraction, which most of you have yet to pick up. It'll be just $24.99. Whether any of that is worth getting up at ridiculous o'clock to fight each other over is your call. See the full list of deals here.

[Thanks Pete!]

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Yep, EA has announced the Need for Speed series has raced past the 100 million sold mark -- thanks to recent sales of Need for Speed: Shift -- and earned $2.7 billion in life-to-date sales, cementing its status as the best-selling racing brand in gaming. Just because it's sold the most doesn't necessarily mean it's the best franchise in terms of quality, however -- so we cooked up the graph you see above!

There are a couple of things to keep in mind as you follow the red line's progress:

• First of all, we didn't include cell phone entries and tried to focus on the main entries in the franchise
• The general quality of the series seems to be high, yet starts to dip after the release of Underground 2 in 2004; Shift seems to have brought the series back from the brink of critical mediocrity

EA's focus now is on rebooting the franchise -- the first step was to release a new hardcore sim racer in Need for Speed: Shift. The next move is to release Need for Speed Nitro, an arcade racer for the Wii and DS market, and follow that with Need for Speed World Online, a free-to-play PC racer for the casual audience.

Electronic Arts' continued comfort with Steam opening up its sales op-pore-tunities is clear, as the mega-publisher adds six more titles to the service. Valve's digital distribution network now provides access to:

• Need for Speed: Shift ($50)
  
• The Godfather ($10)
  
• The Godfather 2 ($40)
  
• Battlefield 2: Complete Collection ($30)
  
• Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising ($20)
  
• Medal of Honor: Airborne ($10)
  

Curiously, Steam still doesn't have EA's mega-hit The Sims 3, which is available on Stardock's competing Impulse system. We've asked EA about this discrepancy before, but still don't have a clear answer.

Attention, race fans: EA's Need for Speed: Shift will have a demo ready for a qualifying run this Thursday, October 1. The demo features two tracks (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and London River) as well as five different vehicles to master:

• BMW M3 (E46)
• 2008 Dodge Viper SRT10
• 2006 Lotus Elise 111R
• 2008 Nissan GT-R
• 2006 Pagani Zonda F (unlockable)

As for that last car, you'll need to excel on the two courses and earn enough points to unlock it. And remember: The demo is not limited to Blur developers, so feel free to make with the loading down!

Earlier this week, we got our hands on a few European GameStop listings for 250GB PS3 bundles. Earlier today, SCEE and SCE UK confirmed the hardware packages and included games. Earlier this hour, we went to Whole Foods and purchased some really crisp bok choy. (Sorry. We got into a rhythm there.)

Europeans will have their choice of two bundles, both of which will be made available throughout October. One of the collections includes Need for Speed: Shift, while the other includes FIFA 10. Needless to say, both bundles come with the recently GB-boosted console. A price point for these two bundles has not been specified, but we've contacted Sony for clarification.

Bizarrely enough, the UK's getting a different set of bundles than the rest of the continent. On October 1, United Kingdomites will have their choice of a 250GB PS3 bundled with Infamous or two unnamed Platinum Hits. Their options will be further expanded on October 16 with the release of an Uncharted 2 bundle, and once more on October 19 with a bundle that includes the X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Dark Knight films on Blu-ray and a film-friendly remote control.

SCE UK has graciously provided a price for its bundles -- £284.99 ($450) -- making it our certified favourite European Sony chapter of the day. That's as legit as being knighted by the Queen, you know.

Update: After the break, we've posted a snapshot of the FIFA bundle provided by a GameStop employee in Norway.

It looks like the UK's need for rock was outpaced by its need for speed [Hnngghh - Ed.], as Need for Speed Shift debuted in the top sales position this week. Need for Speed's arrival shifted [STOP IT - Ed.] Guitar Hero 5, DiRT 2 and Arkham Asylum to the second, third and fourth places, respectively. It seems the Fab Four couldn't hold on to their own homeland, with The Beatles: Rock Band slipping from fourth to seventh.

Meanwhile, Wii Sports Resort moved up one notch to fifth, while Bethesda's Wet debuted at number six. Rounding out the list were Call of Duty 4, Wii Fit and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. Now, if you'll excuse us, Joystiq Publishing needs to get back to planning its future UK blockbuster: Colin McRae's Shifty Arkham Hero.

Source -- EA's Need For Speed Shift's Into First (Chart Track)
Source -- All formats chart (Chart Track)

Electronic Arts has announced that a demo for Need for Speed: Shift is now available for PC. You can grab the demo from Big Download right here. The demo offers five different cars, including the BMW M3 (E46), the 2008 Dodge Viper SRT10, the 2006 Lotus Elise 111R, the 2008 Nissan GT-R. The fifth car, the 2006 Pagani Zonda F is included in the demo as an unlockable.

While the demo is currently confined to the PC, take heart, console owners. A demo is scheduled to hit the Xbox 360 and PS3 in early October.

If you're looking to acquire a PS3 steering wheel peripheral before the release of that one racing game, Best Buy's got a pretty sweet offer for you. If you purchase Need for Speed: Shift or DiRT 2 through the retailer's online storefront, you can knock $60 off the price of the Logitech Driving Force Wireless Wheel, bringing its cost down to a mere $20.

There's no telling how long this deal will be available, so if you're in the market for discounted circular gaming peripherals, you should probably put the pedal to the metal.

We've been following the last quarter-mile of Need for Speed: Shift's race to release and this latest video should delight those of you with 40 weight oil in your veins. The video focuses on the Car Battle mode, which pits two racers against each other to settle the dispute of who has the better auto. Of course this doesn't apply if your car has a Mr. Fusion. In that case, you automatically win.

The folks at EA dropped a teaser video on us today (seen above) for Need for Speed: Shift's tie-in video series, "The Driver's Experience." Premiering this Friday evening/Saturday morning on YouTube -- and likely here, dearest readers -- the show is said to profile various race car drivers associated with the game.

More specifically, it will focus on the experience of speeding around places like the Nürburgring. A personal look into the human face behind those who drive multi-million dollar sponsored race cars sounds like a hoot, but we're not sure how much it'll effect our need to play the final product over those other perfectly competent (and proven) racing sims. We'll just have to tune in on Friday at midnight (EST) to find out.