Microsoft's corporate vice president J Allard will deliver a keynote address at the 19th annual Game Developers Conference (GDC). Entitled "The Future of Games: Unlocking the Opportunity," Allard will discuss Microsoft's commitment to the next generation of interactive entertainment. Possible Xbox 2 announcement? We will be on site and report as it happens, or not.

Ubisoft announces that it has signed an exclusive deal with Hudson Soft to publish and distribute Bomberman DS for the NDS in Europe and North America (Summer 2005) and Bomberman Hardball for the PS2 throughout Europe (Spring 2005).

Namco announced today that Prema Toy has awarded Namco the exclusive publishing rights to the classic children's entertainment property, Gumby. The deal allows Namco to create video games for all game systems, featuring Gumby and all related characters, such as Pokey, Prickle, Goo and the infamous Blockheads.

Stronghold 2 will bring the the castle-sim and siege-warfare RTS series to life in glorious 3D. Stronghold 2 will also offer players a "castle-life" campaign, enhanced multiplayer capability and a new, innovative and exciting single player campaign that will be revealed in the months ahead. Take Two sent over a pre-canned interview with Firefly Studios Lead Designer Simon Bradbury.

In March 2004 JoWood announced it had secured a license from Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures to develop a game based on the Torque movie, but not much has been heard from the project since. Today developer Sproing revealed that the project is no longer a movie tie in and has been renamed to Jacked (thanks Blues). Need a new bike? In Jacked, asking for permission to ride a new bike is not on your agenda! Race from the east coast to the west coast and steal as many bikes as you can! A nice selection of weapons will help you to beat upstart biker gangs in your way...

A new breed of baseball is coming exclusively to GameCube. Nintendo Pennant Chase Baseball brings video game play to a new level of excitement and reality with fan-favorite players and teams. Slugger David Ortiz of the 2004 World Series Champions, the Boston Red Sox, will grace the cover of Nintendo Pennant Chase Baseball, which will be available April 4.

Today at a press conference in Paris, Nintendo announced that this innovative new console will be available to buy in the UK on 11 March at the estimated retail price of around £99 and will be supported by a strong software line up. The Nintendo DS has been received exceptionally well in the US and Japan, having sold 2.8 million units by the end of 2004, and is expected to have the same response when it launches in the UK.

Midway games announced today the pre-sell program for NARC. Gamers can pre-order their copy of NARC and receive the 2-Disc soundtrack featuring select songs from the game, for free. The soundtrack includes 15 in-game tracks comprised of Classic rock-n-roll tunes and hip-hop tracks created exclusively for NARC by up-and-coming artists. Read more for details ...

Techland has released the first patch for their rally racing sim Xpand Rally. This update brings your retail game to v1.1.0.0 and improves the performance of the dedicated game server, fixes game's mods problems in multiplayer, allows for changing the time of the day and weather conditions when running player-created maps, introduces (by popular demand) a 'less dust' feature to the multiplayer mode (to increase the game's performance and make racing with more people easier), and improves the ChromEd tool. Read more for download links ...

Knuckle up, gamers: Overload Entertainment and Iridon Interactive today announced that Heavyweight Thunder, the first boxing simulation to celebrate the championship lifestyle, will be released on PC in March 2005.