So apparently society is such that now where if we dont catch enough people doping at the Olympics, theassumption is that the testing is flawed. Certainly not that just less people are doping.

• Seinfeld hates Macs
• Dude, thats a big fish
• Psychoanalyzing on the web
• MS new photo site not as awesome as Shackpics
• You decided who you are voting for and just dont know it

As for the videogame news around these parts today:

• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo is out
• Blizzard unveils World of Warcraft: Lich King cinematic trailer
• Rock Band 2 to offer Rock Band song imports
• PC manufacturers love piracy
• Game sales supergroup formed, releases figures
• Midnight Club: Los Angeles trailer
• Xbox 360 helping gamers register to vote
• Wheelman trailer and screenshots
• Borderlands screenshots
• Champions Online screenshots
• Rush Album on Rock Band
• Damnation screenshots with undertit
• Bully heading to PC in October
• Mercenaries 2 trailer
• GameStop profits rise as economy falls
• $50 PS3 price cut incoming
• Guitar Hero World Tour adding another instrument
• Bionic Commando trailer
• Wii finally getting DLC

Lastly, it seems that the idea of 'fair use' for those videos on YouTube etc is getting a bit of a change.

Though Valve has hoped to release Team Fortress 2 add-on content as a free download for console users, company co-founder Gabe Newell now says that the console business model is getting in the way.

"The big concern I have right now is our ability to provide updates," said Newell to videogaming247. "On the PC side, we've done as many as four updates in a day, and that's great: we can respond very quickly."

Newell continued:

If Nvidia puts out a new graphics driver and it changes some way about how texture management works, then before our customers know there's any issue then the problem has gone away. Or we can do the Pyro updates, and the Medic updates [and so on].

On the consoles, they want us to charge money for them... Read more

Gearbox's maraca-shaking music game Samba de Amigo will be the first retail Wii release to support downloadable content, publisher Sega confirmed today.

New tracks will arrive in 3-song packs, all performed by the original artist, and pricing has yet to be announced. The first bundle, slated to arrive when the game launches on September 23, will contain the following:

• Mambo Mambo - Lou Bega
• I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
• Are you Going to Be My Girl - Jet

Other upcoming Wii games that support paid downloadble content include Vicarious Visions' Guitar Hero World Tour and Harmonix's Rock Band 2... Read more

Capcom provides us with the following look at the larger enemies and swinging multiplayer of GRIN's Bionic Commando, due on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 by next spring.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Shackvideo users can use the HD Stream.

In addition to guitar, drums and a microphone, it seems that Neversoft's Guitar Hero World Tour will be adding yet another instrument to the mix when it hits this fall.

Neversoft director Brain Bright reportedly told G4 that another peripheral is on the way, one that will only be used in the game's music creation mode.

No other details are currently available, with the outlet speculating that the new device is a keyboard. Neversoft previously revealed that players can use the guitar controller to map out keyboard notes and drum machine programming in the editor, which also allows players to share their tunes online.

Guitar Hero World Tour is in development for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, with Neversoft on the PS3 and 360 versions, Vicarious Visions handling the Wii edition and Budcat on the PS2 release.

This week's PlayStation Store update will allow PlayStation 3 gamers to play Hot Shots Golf as God of War's Kratos.

What more is there to say, really?

The full list of booty:
Downloadable Games

Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty ($14.99)
The search is on for the most valuable treasure in the galaxy: Clank! The swashbuckling action in Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty begins one year... Read more

While discussing its record-breaking quarter, retailer GameStop revealed that it expects both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to undergo $50 price cuts by the end of 2008.

A $50 price cut for the Xbox 360 Pro and Elite models has been practically confirmed, with the drop expected to take effect on or around September 7. Whereas the two higher-end Xbox 360 models will drop by $50, the hard drive-less Arcade unit is said to see a reduction of $70, making it $199.

Sony previously stated that it would not drop the price of its various PlayStation 3 units this year. However, the company is introducing higher-capacity PS3 models--the $399 80GB and the $499 160GB bundle--that maintain the existing prices of PS3 hardware.

Without any major promotions, retailer GameStop has recently seen an increase in the amount of games being traded in, a feat it attributes to the sluggish US economy.

"Because of the economic condition, we did not have to be as promotional on the buy side of games, because it just seems like we were naturally getting consumers trading [games in]," COO Dan Matteo said today, according to Edge Online. "That's why our margins are slightly better than they were in the second quarter last year."

In exchange for used games, GameStop offers in-store credit that's generally around 30% of the title's worth, with the game then sold for about $5 less than a new copy. In other words, the retailer buys low and sells high.

The used game market has been an extremely lucrative source of profit for GameStop. Despite accounting for 26.1% of the company's total sales in Q2 2008, used games sales made up 49.7%, some $234M, of its quarterly profit.

High profit margins on used games have long represented a sore spot for some publisher and developers, as they do not see a kickback from used games.

Publisher EA has supplied a new trailer for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PC, PS2, PS3, 360), Pandemic's explosion-fueled action game due out August 31.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Following Bully's debut on PlayStation 2 and later arrival on Xbox 360 and Wii, Rockstar has confirmed that the academia-themed open-world game will ship for PC in October.

The publisher provided little in the way of details, only confirming to IGN that the port will be based on the enhanced Scholarship Edition that debuted earlier this year.

Developed by Mad Doc Software, now Rockstar New England, the Xbox 360 and Wii versions of Bully built off Rockstar Vancouver's original PlayStation 2 release. The 360 edition was afflicted by numerous glitches upon its release, with a patch resolving some of those issues shortly thereafter.

With the Leipzig Games Convention in full swing, publisher Codemasters has unleashed several new screenshot batches from Blue Omega's vertical steampunk shooter Damnation (PC, PS3, 360).

The media includes a sole shot of the PC version running with Vista-only DirectX 10 effects, along with single-player pictures and multiplayer images.

Originally crafted as a Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Damnation hits retail this winter.

Harmonix today announced that the Rush album Moving Pictures will be featured as Rock Band downloadable content next week.

The DLC should be available on Xbox Live starting August 26, with release on the PlayStation Store following on August 23.

Priced at 880 Microsoft Points ($11), the album includes the following track list:

1. Tom Sawyer (Original Version)
2. Red Barchetta
3. YYZ
4. Limelight (Original Version)
5. The Camera Eye
6. Witch Hunt
7. Vital Signs

More screenshots from Cryptic Studios' upcoming Champions Online (PC, 360) have appeared, providing a glimpse of the superpowered MMO due out next spring from the City of Heroes (PC) creator.

Included in the latest batch of media from Gearbox's Diablo-esque shooter Borderlands (PC, PS3, 360) are explosions, guns, some creepy-looking dude, and more guns.Borderlands and its gun-heavy take on RPG-style loot action are expected next year.

Ever want to see Vin Diesel driving a junker that looks too small for his masculine build? Well, today is your day, and there'll be much more where that comes from when Midway Newcastle's open-world driving-action game hits PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 next year.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Shackvideo users can use the HD Stream.

A partnership with Rock the Vote will allow Xbox Live users to register to vote through their Xbox 360s, Microsoft announced today.

Voter registration will be available via Xbox Live beginning Monday, August 25, with Microsoft also set to provide polls and a forum for discussing presidential candidates. No details were provided as to how the process will operate.

"If Xbox Live were a state, it would rank as the country's seventh largest, giving it approximately 20 electoral votes," Microsoft said of its 12 million Xbox Live users.

"Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters," explained Rock the Vote director Heather Smith. "To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there's no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live."

In addition to voter registration, Microsoft will also have a "presence" at the Democratic and Republican conventions, which respectively begin on August 25 and September 1.

The impending October 7 release of Rockstar San Diego's open-city racer Midnight Club: Los Angeles has resulted in a new trailer for the PS3 and Xbox 360 game.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Shackvideo users can use the HD Stream.

Sales-tracking firms NPD, Chart-Track and Enterbrain today announced that they will be releasing a monthly Top Global Markets Report, which will provide a glimpse of the retail game sales in the US, UK and Japan.

The report is said to be "a single source for sales data" for the "the largest games markets in the world."

Below are the results of the first report, detailing sales from January to July:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 360 / Rockstar North) - 6.29M
   (4.71M US, 1.58M UK, Not yet released in Japan)
2. Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii / Nintendo) - 5.43M
   (3.53M US, 213K UK, 1.68M Japan)
3. Mario Kart Wii (Wii / Nintendo) - 4.69M
   (2.4M US, 687K UK, 1.6M Japan)
4. Wii Fit (Wii / Nintendo) - 3.6M
   (1.43M US, 624K UK, 1.54M Japan)
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock * - 3.47M
   (3.03M US, 412K UK, 26K Japan)

While Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two claimed the game had sold 8.5 million units, and shipped 11 million back in June, NPD analyst David Riley explained Top Global's missing 2.21M as a result of sales outside the US and UK.

"To be clear, [the report] is not a global product. It covers only the top global markets--US, UK and Japan," he explained. "Global is coming but let's not put the cart before the horse."

*(PS2, PS3, 360, Wii / Budcat, Neversoft, Vicarious Visions)

While acclaimed studios such as Doom creator id, Unreal Tournament developer Epic and Crysis veterans Crytek have cited widespread piracy of PC games as the impetus to pursue console development, id CEO Todd Hollenshead has accused PC makers of viewing piracy as a "hidden benefit" for consumers.

"I think they are [secretly happy about PC piracy]," he explained to GamesIndustry. "The size of the [PC game] pirate market actually is larger than the legitimate-goods market in many cases."

"I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content--even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs--is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games."

Though Hollenshead was confident that there is no conspiracy... Read more

Owners of the Xbox 360 edition of Rock Band 2 will have to pay a small fee in order to import "most" of songs from the original, developer Harmonix has disclosed.

That fee will be no greater than $5, studio representative John Drake assured MTV.

Drake explained that the fee stems from licensing costs. The developer previously told Shacknews that similar licensing issues were the reason that it had yet to specify which songs from the first Rock Band disc will be playable in the sequel.

The fee does not apply to all of the downloadable Rock Band tracks that have arrived across the last year, which will be playable in Rock Band 2 at no extra... Read more