What a difference a few hours makes. The Kickstarter for OUYA, an Android-based home console system that promises a development kit for everyone and a strong open-source vibe, has already managed to raise an impressive $2,859,021 from 22,747 backers. This has to be a record, but the crowd funding campaign for the device still has 28 more days to go. The OUYA Kickstarter got off to a good start earlier in the week, generating close to $1 million in the first eight hours of its launch. The makers of OUYA were looking to hit a goal of $950,000.

InXile Entertainment announced that Wasteland 2 will include the original 1987 CRPG Wasteland for free. The original RPG is considered the godfather of post apocalyptic games and a sort-of spiritual successor to another game series made by Interplay: Fallout. This free offering would not have been possible without the kindness of EA towards InXile Entertainment because EA owns the rights to the title.

Katsuhiro Harada, the man in charge of Namco Bandai’s Tekken series, says that he would quit working for the company if he was put under pressure to introduce character downloads as DLC.

Nintendo is apparently tired of not having a uniform login solution across all of its handheld and home console devices and has decided to do something about it. According to this Polygon report (citing a report from Nintendo World Online), Nintendo customer service representative David Marshall has confirmed that the company will implement a unified eShop account system for Wii U and 3DS.

If you are one of those people dedicated (or crazy depending on your perspective) enough to pay $30 a month to rent a Battlefield 3 server from EA DICE, then today's announcement will make you feel like you are getting more bang for your buck. EA announced that an upcoming update will add new match features which give server owners and players the ability to coordinate and schedule matches.

THQ Australia confirmed that it will honor all Darksiders II pre-order DLC bonuses purchased through retailer GAME Australia. The retailer announced this morning that it would close its 15 remaining stores on July 8.

GAME Australia had offered Australian customers who pre-ordered THQ's upcoming game the Deadly Despair DLC pack, but then it went into liquidation. Obviously if the retailer is no longer in business it won't be able to fulfill those promised pre-order bonuses.

In the wake of Sulake's problems with Habbo, Disney has decided to spend $4.7 million on an internet safety campaign for its popular massively-multiplayer online game for kids, Club Penguin. The announcement was made by the game's co-founder Lane Merrifield today. The internet safety campaign hopes to target more than 100 million children and parents around the world who use Club Penguin.

At its annual shareholder's meeting this week, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata confirmed that the company will not institute a subscription-based online service like Xbox Live. In other words online play will be free to use like PlayStation Network. According to a translation by Andriasang.com, Iwata said that the company considered an Xbox Live-like model for online gaming but ultimately decided against it. The company came to the conclusion that it would attract more customer use by avoiding a subscription model.

Habbo owner Sulake has issued a statement today announcing its plan to reintroduce chat channels and instant messaging within the virtual world that offer better protections for teens that frequent it against pedophiles. A report from British TV's Channel 4 detailed how pedophiles were using the service to engage youngsters in lewd and suggestive conversations.

Good Old Games, the popular place to get classic PC games that have been remastered to work on modern operating systems without horrific DRM is offering two great classic Origin titles for free. For a limited time you can download Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire and Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams provided by GOG and EA free of charge. The Ultima Worlds series of games used the Ultima VI engine technology to create two unique RPG worlds: the dinosaur-filled lost land of Eodon, and the bizarre landscapes of Mars.

Epic Games is putting together a brand new studio in Baltimore comprised completely of former Big Huge Games employees. The team was part of 38 Studios before its financial troubles put the entire company in limbo.

While Epic Games President Mike Capps says that "there's a million things to work out," the plan is to have these employees work as contractors. All of this work will be remotely because these employees will remain in Baltimore.

Anyone that has ever flipped through the pages of Computer Gaming World knows the epic struggles between Tom Chick and Bruce Geryk in their popular column Tom vs. Bruce. The second most popular column at the time in the magazine could return if it can raise enough money to do so. The Kickstarter campaign is asking for $10,000 to write ten brand-new columns to be released on a monthly basis over the next year.

Atlus USA delivered some great news to fans of its ultra popular online-focused RPG, Demon's Souls: the game's servers will not go offline. On April 12 Atlus had announced that it would be shutting the online servers down for the PS3 game on May 31.

But today a tweet from the company's official Twitter account, @AtlusUSA, revealed some great news:

Earlier this month we reported that some consumers who purchased Minecraft on Xbox Live wanted a refund because they couldn't play the game in split-screen co-op. The problem related to the game requiring a high definition television set to play the game that way - a fact that they did not disclose to consumers in any of the game's information or on the product page. Because of this fact consumers felt misled and were demanding a refund.

Blizzard has issued an apology to all the players all over the world that suffered through trying to log onto Battle.net to play Diablo III over the last few days. The company says that they have been humbled by players and by the gargantuan task of trying to keep Battle.net servers up and running as millions of people (many in vain) attempted to play the game. As of now, they say everything is stable and players should have no problems logging in.

A new update for Mario Kart 7 finally kills off a shortcut exploit found in three tracks for the game. The exploits that were being taken advantage of in multiplayer were in the Wuhu Island Loop, Wuhu Mountain Loop and GBA Bowser Castle 1 courses. Users that want to be able to play online multiplayer will need to get the latest 3DS system update, and then download the update for Mario Kart 7.

As Computer and Video Games points out, you can still play local multiplayer and single player without updating the game, but to play online you will have to install the fix.

Last week we reported that official DICE and EA servers had disappeared from the server list for Battlefield 3 - replaced by servers leased by players for $30 a month. After some public outcry over losing access to "vanilla" servers from EA from fans, EA and developer DICE have decided to bring some of those "official" servers back online.

Blizzard Entertainment issued a brief statement this afternoon announcing that it had come to a mutual agreement concerning their competing DOTA games. Valve is developing DOTA 2, but under the terms of the agreement Blizzard will preserve its right to the noncommercial use of DOTA for its community relating to player-created maps for Warcraft III and StarCraft II.

Prototype 2 creators Radical Entertainment is working with the BC Cancer Foundation to raise money for the fight against cancer as part of the Ride to Conquer Cancer event. The team taking part in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, Radical Riders, hopes to raise $50,000 in donations to support the organization and to further research against the disease. Prototype 2 producer Jon Lim and lead animator Gerald Sombilonare are both taking part in the charity ride.

Electronic Arts says that it is not shutting down or discontinuing Rock Band on iOS devices and calls a notice sent to customers as well as a FAQ entry "errors." Speaking to Polygon an EA spokesperson assured that publication that the iOS version of the Harmonix hit music game isn't going anywhere.

EA said that the pop-up message that the app sent to users was an oopsie. The message popped up when users opened the Rock Band iOS app. It warned users:

The Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter campaign has closed with $1.8 million in pledged funding. The funding drive by Bellevue, Washington-based developer Harebrained Schemes was aiming for $400,000 when it started. It ended up raising $1,836,447 from 36,276 backers. Including PayPal pledges (which allowed those outside the U.S. to participate) the company managed to raise a total of $1,895,772.

Stalker 2 might be dead, but it is certainly not forgotten by fans or the folks that were trying to create it. But there is a silver lining to this incredibly dark cloud: a new free-to-play online shooter will channel the spirit of that game and it will be developed by many ex-GSC Gameworld employees.

Last Week Harebrained Schemes announced that if it hit a funding milestone of $1.5 million in its Kickstarter campaign for Shadowrun Returns, it would create special content that would tie story from the new game into the SNES and Sega Shadowrun games. This content, the company said would be exclusive to backers.

Two different developers, two different takes on the practice of including DLC on retail game discs for future sales. The first is Tomoaki Ayano, the producer for Street Fighter x Tekken, who tells GameSpot that he was pretty disappointed in the individuals who hacked the retail game to unlock the 12 DLC characters on the disc.

THQ announced that it expects better fiscal 2012 fourth quarter results, noting that the company had exceeded prior expectations. Let's just say "prior expectations" were not very high. For the fourth quarter, THQ predicts non-GAAP net sales of $160 million to $170 million, which is above the company's previous outlook of non-GAAP net sales in the range of $130 million to $150 million.

Electronic Arts has quietly changed its policy on suspended accounts. Prior to the changes if you had a suspended Origin and related forum account for saying or doing naughty or disagreeable things, the company would ban your account and make your owned games unplayable - even in single player mode.

Here is the new policy as of April 8, 2011:

Players that managed to grind their way to level 50 in Star Wars: The Old Republic as of last night (5:00 PM GMT), got a nice gift from EA: 30 days of free game time. BioWare is also offering former SWTOR subscribers seven days of free game time to come back and check out the latest update that was released yesterday. If players reactivate their old accounts before April 21, BioWare will also give them a Legacy Tauntaun Ram Pet - the same pet it gave to all current subscribers of SWTOR yesterday.

Here is what they say about the new update:

BioWare announced this morning that it plans to release new downloadable content that will address complaints about the ending to Mass Effect 3 - and the really good news for consumers is that it will be totally and completely free. The downloadable content has been named Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut and will be released this summer. This should put to bed the petitions, forums posts, and articles complaining about how BioWare ended the Mass Effect trilogy - not that we have an opinion one way or the other about it.

Yesterday Sony released firmware update 1.65 for the PS Vita... and then quickly yanked it offline. Apparently the 1.65 has some serious issues - namely problems with adhoc multiplayer. To deal with the issues caused by 1.65 and to add some new tweaks to the handheld, Sony has released firmware update 1.66. The 97MB update fixes the issue with adhoc wireless multiplayer on PSP games and adds an assortment of usability tweaks.

GAME came out of administration over the weekend with a new owner, and a former managing director has returned to run the company, according to GamesIndustry International. The new owner is Baker Acquisitions, who were advised by OpCapita. The firm has bought all the UK assets of GAME, and will keep 333 stores open, saving nearly 3,200 jobs. The company hopes to re-employ a small number of the head office staff.