If you've been itching to get your greedy hands on Sony's PS Vita before its scheduled February 22nd launch data, GameStop is helping scratch that urge by making playable demos available in over 3,300 of its retail stores starting today.

You'll get to test drive Sony's latest portable wunderkind's beautiful 5" OLED sceen and dual analog sticks for yourselves with high-profile titles like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Little Deviants, FIFA Soccer, wipEout 2048, among others. Of course, expect to be nagged, nagged, and nagged again to pre-order one for yourselves while doing so.

In the wake of disastrous third-quarter results that saw massive losses and delisting warnings from NASDAQ, publisher THQ has decided to trim the casual fat from their catalog and no longer publish kid-friendly licensed gaming adaptations, instead focusing on more mature content for a different audience. Among the fat is their console-specific tablet peripheral, the uDraw, which let Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 users add stylus control to uDraw-specific games like Pictionary, Spongebob Squarepants, and Disney Princess: Enchanted Storyboards.

Only the tablet's own story wasn't so enchanted, as disappointing sales of the HD versions failed to impress, leaving THQ little choice but to discontinue production. Like many ports from Nintendo's console, the uDraw failed to find success with Xbox 360 and PlayStation audiences, selling far less than the Wii version's reported 500,000 units sold when it was originally released back in 2010.

President and CEO Brian Farrell said during the company's conference call: "We were looking at uDraw as a bridge to the digital future, and it turned out to be a plank that we walked off of." If only they released a uDraw version of Saints Row: The Third...

Microsoft promised its arrival during last month's CES show in Vegas, and today they deliver: Kinect is now (officially) available for Windows users to tinker, develop, and control their Windows-based computers hands-free.

But don't go thinking that Microsoft is just slapping those 'extra' Kinect sensors in a fancy new Windows box and calling it a day. Not at all. Instead, Windows users are getting a technical upgrade to help make their hands-free future that much sweeter. Read more after the jump!

Upgraded features on the PC version of the sensor include Near Mode, which "enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters" in front of the camera. Another addition is "improved skeletal tracking, which lets developers control which user is being tracked by the sensor", as well as acoustic mode that improves speech recognition.

The last upgrade is the price: Kinect for Windows will set you back $250, a full $100 over its Xbox 360 equivalent. And you'll need to be running Windows 7 or Windows 8 Developer to take full advantage, naturally.

The truth is that while the Kinect sensor has never really gained much traction as a gaming device, it's literally exploded in the PC mod/hacker world, to the point where Microsoft has already released an SDK to keep modders happy and content. Making the sensor official for Windows is the next logical step for hardware that seems more at home in the entertainment world than the videogame one. For more information on Kinect for Windows or to pick up the new sensor for yourselves, check out the official website right HERE!

That clunking sound you hear right now are the collective heads over at HBO hitting their desks in frustration that Sarah Palin, former VP Candidate, declined to run for president this election cycle. While the media's obsession with Alaska's former Governor still borders on the bizarre, the rest of the political world won't have Palin to kick around (politically) anymore, but that doesn't mean they won't poke when they can in whatever media they can. Enter Game Change, HBO's latest poke at the GOP drama that chronicles McCain's failed 2008 presidential bid at the hands of his VP pick, played by Julianne Moore.

Director Jay Roach (Meet the Fockers) is no stranger to charged political films, having previously helmed 2008's Bush vs. Gore election scandal drama Recount (also for HBO), and the rest of the cast looks surprisingly strong, especially Ed Harris as John McCain. While nobody was and shouldn't be expecting anything remotely resembling fairness or objective reporting from a tele-movie like this, Moore looks great as Palin and the production values seem pretty high.

Game Change is set to launch on HBO this March, and should have less impact on the upcoming election as the producers would have liked. Sorry, guys.

The head of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata has just announced that the company is set to release their own online service, appropriately called the Nintendo Network. Here gamers will be able to compete, communicate, and purchase digital content, much like Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live.

There's also special plans for when the Wii U is released, as users will have personal network accounts for their new tablet-sporting consoles, with the promise of being able to purchase DLC and play game demos (who'd have thought?). While there isn't a release date for the service, it's good to know that Nintendo is finally getting on the ball with this, as it's been a long time coming. Thanks to Engadget!

The NeoGeo is back, baby! Well, that's partly true, as SNK Playmore seems to have licensed one of the most popular arcade-friendly lablels to an upcoming portable machine. No, it's not the long-rumored return of the NeoGeo Pocket (thank heavens), but an entirely new machine that's built with the nostalgic (portable) gamer in mind - at least in Japan.

Check out more details about the 'return' of the NeoGeo right after the jump - no Japanese required!

With a screen that measures 4.3" and packing 2GB of internal memory, the new machine is slightly larger than a current iPhone, with four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, menu and start buttons, volume and brightness buttons, and ports for audio/video, headphones, and even a SD card slot. That internal memory will come pre-loaded with 20 of the most popular NeoGeo games, including World Heroes, Last Resort, Fatal Fury Special, Samurai Shodown, and King of Fighters '94.

I'm not quite sure about that analog nub/d-pad, but the idea of having a self-contained NeoGeo (in color!) might be tempting, though I'm pretty sure this one is going to be import-only. Famicon Plaza has all the details and loads of pix for the new device, and thanks to Andriasang for the Japanese translation!

We typically don't publish box-art for upcoming games (there are billions of other sites that do that just fine), but when you've got one that's so utterly happiness (or seizure) inducing as Nintendo's Marty Party 9, we couldn't resist. The return of the developer's party extravaganza looks to add "80 all-new minigames" to the Party for Wii, and while the artwork itself closely mirrors the Japanese version we saw a few weeks back, the good people at Nintendo of America seem to have added quite a bit more of Mario Galaxy sparkles, sprinkles, and best of all, Luigi (look in the tower).

If you can survive the cuteness overload and are still interested in more, look for Mario Party 9 to return to your Wii on March 11th.

Just when you thought the Academy Awards were safe to watch again, they release a nominee list that contains more block voting than you can shake a rusty movie reel can at. Led by Martin Scorcece's Hugo (with a whopping 11 nominations) and the ode to silent-cinema The Artist (with 10 nominations), the 84th Academy Awards could be anyone's year as the rest of the nominees are a strange mix of predictable (George Clooney and Meryl Streep), the unpredictable ("Man of a Muppet"), the strange (yes, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a multi-nominee), and the shunned (no nomination for Alan Rickman in the final Harry Potter).

Check out the full list to see if your favorites made the cut at the official site HERE, and watch the predictable show unfold when it airs on February 26, 2012!

He may have inadvertently pilfered verses when he was running for president earlier this year, but former Godfather's Pizza bossman Herman Cain has teamed up with funnyman Stephen Colbert's bizarre voting rally just before last weekend's primary in South Carolina to make his true feelings known to all - he definitely loves Pokemon.

Whatever your political, gaming, or cable network preferences, having the Godfather of Pizza sing Pokemon is probably the best thing you'll see on the internet today. Enjoy and thanks to the Palmetto Public Record!

It's hard to find any young adult series of novels these days that isn't movie-ready, and few are more ready than Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy. As a former television writer, Collins' knows how to keep readers interest without bogging them down, and we'll see how well that style translates to film when The Hunger Games movie explodes onto screens in March. The final theaterical poster is here, and if an extremely airbrushed Jennifer Lawrence (as Katniss) pointing her arrow straight at your heart doesn't convince you to see this, most likely nothing will.

Hollywood has been looking for the next Harry Potter/Twilight for some now, but I'm not sure if this will be it. At the very least, let's hope the final product is less Eragon and more of the former. I guess we'll see if "the world will really be watching" when The Hunger Games begins on March 22nd.

AT&T has been attracting quite a bit of love-hate for their upcoming price hikes for mobile phone users, but it's not just iPhones and Androids that are feeling the bump. Sony's next-generation PS Vita - which also runs on AT&T's network (exclusively) - will also get a slight price-bump come launch day. But that's not only the only thing that's getting increased, as AT&T is also upping the available data with those extra dollars.

Planning on snagging a 3G PS Vita at launch? Keep reading after the jump to see how much that monthly 3G data plan will cost you!

The official PlayStation site lists the new data plans for 3G PS Vitas as follows: 250MB for $14.99 or 3GB for $30.00, each being non-contact monthly fees (opt-out). Previously, the Super Bell (AT&T) announced that 3G Vita users could pay a monthly fee of $25 for 3GB of data, non-contract, so perhaps having to pay an additional $5 for an entire GB of service isn't the worst thing in the world.

Mobile phone users know all-too-well how much (or little) data usage they actually consume, especially if juicy WiFi service is readily available. And with a launch line-up that includes titles like LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Hot Shot Golf, and others, bandwidth-hungry Vita gamers may end up needing every last bit and byte they can get.