Last month, Nintendo released a Zelda-themed Wii U to correlate with the launch of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Now the corporate is doing it again with its handheld line to celebrate the launch of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

Nintendo announced this morning that the gold-and-black special edition 3DS XL might be coming to North America. The system has gold top and black bottom to mirror the parallel worlds of Hyrule and Lorule that seem within the game. Each side have a Triforce emblazoned around the side to mirror this in addition.

Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma made a quick video announcing the hot bundle and explained the history behind the Zelda series infatuation with gold:

“This beautifully designed Nintendo 3DS XL system continues a convention that has delighted our fans for many years,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice chairman of Sales & Marketing. “It’s a unique bundle for an awfully special online game.”

Both the special edition 3DS XL and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds shall be available on November 22. The 3DS XL bundle will retail for $219.99 and are available with a download code for A Link Between Worlds.

[Image: Nintendo/Business Wire]

For years now, sales of game consoles and games was declining as a result of a stagnating console generation choked with sequels. Though some market watchers have predicted that the approaching console generation won’t rise to the degrees of the former, at the very least one market research firm is predicting increased sales within the short-term.

Gartner today predicted that total revenues for the online game market will rise to over $93 billion by the tip of this year. That’s an important increase from 2012, when revenues reached only $78.8 billion. The upward push in revenue is seen on every platform, including consoles, handhelds, mobile, and PC. Total revenues are expected to achieve $111 billion by the year 2015.

Console game sales are expected to be up over 18% this year, reaching $44 billion. That market is anticipated to achieve $55 billion by the tip of 2015. PC games are expected to work out an identical rise to $22 billion by 2015, handheld game revenue is absolutely predicted to drop to just $12 billion by that year, down from an estimated $18 billion this year.

“Sony and Microsoft are releasing their game consoles in November and pent-up demand for these new consoles has caused a short lived reduction in game console hardware sales during 2013, but growth will resume during 2014 and sales of existing console hardware are forecast to grow from $15.9 billion today to $22.7 billion in 2015,” said Brian Blau, research director at Gartner. “In stark contrast, dedicated game handheld devices and conventional PC games will play a smaller role within the game market and cease to be important game platforms.

The mobile games market is, again, predicted to have the strongest growth. Mobile game revenue is predicted to succeed in $22 billion in 2015, overtaking sales within the PC games market. These factors are directly related, as Gartner predicts the installed base for PC games will decline as consumers replace their traditional PCs with tablet devices.

“As mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) keep growing, the mobile game category will show the most important growth a result of entertainment value provided by games compared with other app categories,” said Blau. “This growth is fueled by healthy premium mobile device sales globally and a desire by consumers to play games on these multifunction devices which are able to displaying increasingly sophisticated game content.”

For nearly twelve months now, Nintendo has struggled to sell its Wii U console. The dearth of must-have games for the system has created apathy for gamers, who’re now waiting for two competitor consoles from Sony and Microsoft. This, just as Nintendo is finally getting some fun-looking games for the Wii U.

Nintendo last week released Wii Party U, its Wii U follow-as much as Wii Party for the Wii. The sport is a Mario Party-style virtual board game with dozens of mini games for players to play with one another. While other publishers are specializing in online multiplayer, Nintendo continues to be encouraging people to occasion in one front room, and who better to advertise this idea than comedian Wayne Brady. Wait, what?

Nintendo today released a sequence of ads starring Whose Line is it Anyway‘s Wayne Brady. Within the videos, Brady appears to make use of his improvisational skills to harass the assorted members of 2 stage families. Essentially the most bizarre ad, though, is one where he raps on about Wii Party U because the families dance (poorly):

Two other ads were also released within the series. One sees Brady annoying two children attempting to play a baseball mini-game at the Wii U GamePad. The opposite features Brady and the daddy from the rap ad passing some awkwardly forced male-bonding time together.

Do racing games desire a story? Need For Speed: The Run proved that story modes in racing games are literally sort of lame. All you want is a few fast cars and great track design to make a good racing game. Need for Speed Rivals appeared like it’d be ditching the type of stories that bring about stuff just like the Need for Speed movie, however the latest trailer for the title leaves one skeptical.

In a brand new Need for Speed Rivals trailer released today, the narrator lays it on thick as we’re introduced to a worldwide where the police are under investigation for using excessive force to bring down street racers. The police aren’t going to let these racers embarrass them, however, and are actually pursuing them with extreme prejudice. The trailer than ends with a melodramatic one-liner about how the cops were once rivals, but now they’re enemies.

It’s really silly installed, but we are able to only hope that it doesn’t get within the way of the sport. In spite of everything, racing games never take advantage of a narrative mode. All we have to know is that there are cops and racers, and that these two sects of cars will occasionally butt heads.

In the top, we will only hope that we come to be with a game that’s like a cross between Need for Speed: Most Wanted and wish for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The rest, and things might get messy.

Need for Speed Rivals will launch November 19 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The PS4 and Xbox One versions will launch three days afterward November 22.

[Image: EaGamesAus/YouTube]

Earlier this year, Microsoft debuted a Halo-branded top-down shooter called Halo: Spartan Assault. The sport was designed primarily with tablets and smartphones in mind, and Microsoft tried to used the sport to sell Windows Phone 8 smartphones and the Windows 8 OS by limiting access to the sport to these platforms.

Obviously, with Windows Phone 8 representing a minuscule share of the smartphone market and only around 5% of Windows users on Windows 8, the game’s audience was extremely small. Today, Microsoft announced that it’s correcting this example and can be launching Spartan Assault on consoles this year.

The game will come to both the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 as a digital download sometime in December. Along with the complete content present in the mobile version of Spartan Assault, the console versions will feature an internet co-op mode, though cross-play between Xbox 360 and Xbox One systems should not available. It also comes with the “Operation Hydra” expansion for the sport.

The mobile version of Spartan Assault featured a tie-in with Halo 4 during which various armors and logos may be unlocked in Halo 4 by playing the mobile game. It’s unclear whether the console version of Spartan Assault will support these features, and additionally it is unknown whether the console version may have the microtransactions featured within the mobile game.

It’s been decades coming, but Sonic Lost World is finally upon those people who live in North America. The Wii U/3DS exclusive promises state-of-the-art gameplay that makes Sonic stand out greater than ever before while introducing players to new villains that aren’t Dr. Eggman.

Unlike the former trailers that target either the Wii U or 3DS versions of the title, the overall launch trailer gives players a glimpse at both titles. The Wii U version obviously receives essentially the mostsome of the most love, but Sega is quick to show that players can get 4 player competitive modes only at the 3DS.

In a post at the Sega blog, the publisher outlines what differentiates the Wii U and 3DS versions of Sonic Lost World:

Wii U

Nintendo 3DS

Since the sport is now out in North America, quite a lot of reviews from other outlets have now begun to pour in. Has it helped the game’s 62 metascore from last week? The sport still sits at a 62 metascore, however it has received more positive reviews than last time with 17. It also has received more mixed and negative reviews in addition though with 27 and six respectively.

[Image: SegaAmerica/YouTube]

Last week, Nintendo made us a believer in Mario again with the newest trailer for Super Mario 3D World. After some initial skepticism regarding Mario’s first 3D adventure at the Wii U, most at the moment are convinced that Nintendo has discover something great another time. Without a doubt , a six-minute trailer isn’t nearly enough time to look everything the sport has to give, and that’s where the Nintendo Minute is available in.

In the most recent Nintendo Minute, the people at Nintendo of America sing their own praises some new levels from Super Mario 3D World. Unlike the carefully edited gameplay trailers out of Nintendo of Japan, this latest video gives us a glimpse at what 4-player gameplay will really be like. In brief, it’s chaotic and appears like a blast.

Check it out:

I think it’s safe to assert that Super Mario 3D World could be the most effective games of the year. After all, it is going to face some stiff competition in a gaming population that has increasingly lost interest within the platformer. That being said, Mario games have a tendency to be the single platformer that even the foremost jaded platformer cynic likes so it’s anybody guess regarding its reception.

Super Mario 3D World launches on November 22 exclusively for the Wii U.

[Image: Nintendo]

Despite a brand new Kinect being packed-in with every launch Xbox One, there’ll be no Kinect launch title from Microsoft itself. The device can, needless to say, be used to navigate the console with voice commands, but that won’t exactly justify its inclusion in launch boxes to many gamers. And, sure, Ubisoft could be there to pick out up the slack with Fighter Within and Just Dance, however it does seem odd that Microsoft is so bent on making Kinect a compulsory element of its next-generation plan with out a launch title for the peripheral.

Today Microsoft announced a stop-game measure for this oversight, revealing that a preview of what’s to come back with Kinect can be available on launch day. a unique free trial of Kinect Sports Rivals would be available for download on November 22. The “Preseason” download features the wake racing mode from the complete game.

Xbox One owners should be ready to benefit from the Kinect Sports Rivals Preseason from launch day until sometime in March 2014 – presumably across the time the whole game could be released. The free trial can have monthly challenges and opportunities to earn and unlock in-game items resembling jerseys or wake racers. The in-game items will carry over to the entire game, and Xbox One owners who download the trial sometime between launch day and November 30 will receive a “Founder” title and exclusive in-game items.

With just one week to head before the launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts on PC and current-generation consoles, Activision has officially revealed a brand new game mode called “Extinction.” The mode appears to be Infinity Ward’s answer to the favored Zombies mode present in Call of Duty games developed by Treyarch.

Extinction can be a cooperative game mode pitting as much as four players against waves of alien creatures. As shown within the first trailer for Extinction mode, players must destroy alien hives while fighting off the alien horde. To try this, players must defend a drill that places bombs into alien hives for a certain quantity of time. Killstreak weapons and environmental traps can all be used to aid players survive. It sounds as if to be a mixture of Zombies mode mixed with slightly classic FPS horde modes.

The reveal trailer doesn’t include any gameplay footage, though the preview does indicate that the sport mode can be extremely fast-paced and whole of action: