It’s that time of week again when we take a fond look back at the top five news stories from the week. Welcome to the Weekly Wrap-Up. Below you’ll find a brief summary of the stories, but for the full articles, click on the hyperlink. Feel free to let us know if you agree or disagree with our choices; if you have suggestions for future entries, feel free to email me at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com.

Enjoy!

Number 5

Infinity Blade 3 Leaked… Thanks LinkedIn

Yet again we have another video game related leak thanks to somebody updating their LinkedIn resume a little bit too early. This time the leak appears to confirm that Infinity Blade 3 is in development by Epic after a staffer at franchise developer Chair posted that he is working on: “Infinity Blade 3 for iPhone”.

The original Infinity Blade title launched on December 9th 2010 and has since spawned a sequel, Infinity Blade 2. With the success of both the original and sequel (the original of which made $1.6 million in just four days) you cannot blame its developers for wanting to expand the series.

Number 4

The Last Of Us Was Censored In PAL Territories

Hugely successes PS3 exclusive, The Last of Us, was censored to meet the legal requirements in PAL territories compared to the North American edition of the game. This was confirmed by Naughty Dog themselves after numerous fans began suspecting that some of the more graphic content differed between regions of the game.

Naughty Dog said:
“1. The gore and violence ratings are subject to local regulatory boards in various countries, so the game must be slightly changed in order to accommodate [sic] those choices.
2. To be honest, I’m not sure what version Australia is getting. If you import the North/South American version, it will not be censored, but EU/UK will be.”

Number 3

Zynga Closing OMGPop.com

Zynga has announced that it will be closing down OMGPOP.com from September 30th meaning that numerous titles will also be put to sleep in the process.

Gamers may remember that OMGPop was originally the place to find Draw Something before Zynga bought the rights to the company after it became a worldwide success story a few years ago, closing the website means that Cupcake Corner, Gem Rush, Pool World Champ and Snoops will be no longer available despite having 30,000 monthly active users that were actually generating revenue for Zynga.

What makes this story even worse is that numerous former OMGPOP staff offered to buy the games that will be shutting down alongside their IP rights and the online games portal itself but Zynga has refused.

Number 2

Sony Rumored To Be Planning PS4 & PS Vita Bundle

As soon as Sony announced that the PS4 and PS Vita would work in sync with each other and allow gamers to essentially turn their PS Vita into a PS4 gamepad (and screen!), gamers across the internet immediately started assuming that Sony would bundle their next generation console with their latest handheld console to actually get it into the hands of gamers. They may have hit the nail straight on the head.

According to a “well-placed, anonymous source”, Machinima believe that Sony will make a package bundling both the PS4 and PS Vita which will go on sale before the end of 2013 for around $500. Seeing as the standard edition of both consoles are $649 then that is a huge saving to be made if this rumor turns out to be true.

Number 1

PlayStation 4 Streaming and Recording Not Tied to PS Plus

It has been confirmed that a PlayStation Plus account is not needed to take advantage of the PlayStation 4′s ability to stream and record game footage.

When asked about the PS Plus requirements by a few people on Twitter, Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida replied with simple answers that these features are not PS Plus exclusive and are open to all PSN users.

Honorable Mentions

This week had a lot of big news and the news staff and I found it hard to narrow it down to the usual five stories:

• Luigi Confirmed for Super Smash Bros.
• Sony Hosting PS4 Keynote At Tokyo Game Show 2013
• Ubisoft Knows How the Assassin’s Creed Series Will End

If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others.