News Snatch: Bloody Socks, Lickable Boobs And Today’s Next Gen Rumour (Yawn)

It’s the Snowpocalypse! Panic buy everything, including Wii U’s which have had a mysteriously generous price cut over at Simply Games who are selling the 32GB version of the console for £249.99, sixty quid off the launch price.

Also for sale is a blood stained sock which is a bargain at an estimated $100,000. This does have something to do with gaming as the sock belongs to former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. After leaving professional baseball Curt set up 38 Studios who released Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which did not sell as expected and shortly after release, 38 Studios folded.

Schilling had personally guaranteed loans to the company and listed the sock as bank collateral in a September filing with the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office.

“I’m obligated to try and make amends and, unfortunately, this is one of the byproducts of that,” he said. The sock was worn by Curt during the 2004 World Series and had previously been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The obligatory and really quite tiresome Next-Gen rumour of the day: CVG say Sony are to ditch the Dualshock design. “Versions of the new PS4 pad include biometric sensors on the grips and an LCD touch screen, the development source claimed.”  So it’s a Dualshock with sensors on the grip and a screen on the central panel then. Not exactly a massive step away from the Dualshock is it?

Also, sounds a bit like this, no?

Tomb Raider will not have a demo prior to launch, Crystal Dynamic’s global brand director Karl Stewart has tweeted “We’ve weaved such a personal story we don’t believe spoiling it by having you wait a week or so to play on, delivers on our promise.”

A trailer for Grasshopper Manufacture’s Killer is Dead has been released and it’s… uhm. Yeah.

Release date round up: Dead or Alive 5 Plus for PS Vita hits Europe on March 22nd, Splinter Cell Blacklist arrives on August 23rd and Trails Evolution Gold Edition for PC wheelies on to screens on March 22nd.

Over in Europe the merest mention of boobs gets journos all in a tiz but the Japanese have a rather different culture.  Next month gamers in Japan can get their grubby mitts a new PlayStation Vita game, Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus.

Kenichiro Takaki of publishers Maervelous Interactive has said the game features – those of a nervous disposition may want to look away now – “tits that can be licked.”

The game is a third person fighting title and during the battle the ladies carelessly lose their clothes and their breasts can be jiggled using the PS Vita touchscreen. “I’ll wrap the world in happy boobs” tweeted Takaki.

Registration for the SimCity beta ends on 21st January, click this link to register.  The beta will run from 5pm GMT on January 25 until 8am GMT on January 28th and  “offers fans the chance to play a one hour slice of the game.”

The first DLC for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale has been dated and will arrive on February 12th. However Kat from Gravity Rush and Emmet Graves from Starhawk will only be free for two weeks, after that you will have pay for the characters. Sony also revealed a new stage entitled ‘Fearless’ which combines Heavenly Sword and Wipeout, it will be available to purchase in February.

Staying with mash ups we end with news that characters from Team Fortress 2, Total War and Football Manager (wtf?) are to join the PC version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.