The Verge is reporting that Microsoft may kill off its point system used on its Xbox Live Marketplace. Citing sources "familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans," The Verge says that Microsoft will replace the MS Points system with a gift card system for retail and will support straight transactions of money using credit and debit cards. The gift cards will be similar to what Apple offers for iTunes - in other words they will have a real cash value.

An internal Microsoft memo offers some good news for those worried about the next Xbox system (which they call Durango in the memo) requiring a constant connection in order to use. According to that internal Microsoft e-mail (as reported by Ars Technica) the next Xbox has been designed in a way that recognizes the delicate nature of today's Internet connections.

In Episode 49 of the show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the ongoing turmoil inside EA, Nintendo's decision to not host an E3 press conference, results of the latest poll and catch up on some mail that went into the silly spam filter. Download Episode 49 now: SuperPAC Episode 49 (1 hour, 3 minutes) 58.5 MB.

Mojang has inked a deal with North American toy maker Jazwares to produce a line of action figures, plush, and papercraft items based on the ultra-popular Minecraft game franchise. The new deal covers the entire globe, with toys shipping by year's end if all goes well.

"We are excited by our new partnership with Jazwares," said Mojang CEO Carl Manneh. "This partnership will help give our community a new way to interact with the game they love."

Just how influential and popular is Minecraft creator and Mojang co-founder Markus "Notch" Persson? Well he is apparently the second most influential person in the world right behind Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Time Magazine's 2013 Time 100 Poll. Voting for the poll ends today, with the final list to be chosen by Time editors and revealed on April 18.

Sony Online Entertainment will merge the two remaining servers for its MMO Vanguard into one big server on April 4 at 10 p.m. PDT, the company announced this week. On April 9, the European Halgar server will permanently be taken offline, following its merge with the Telon server. SOE warned players that when this happens the game will be down for a 24 hour period - but that's not the worst of it; when the two servers are merged into one server some characters may be affected.

Just how much money has been pledged to game projects so far on Kickstarter? According to data released by the popular crowd funding platform, right around $107.6 million. Since the site's launch four years ago, more than 633,242 backers have pledged to over 4,500 Games projects, nearly 1,000 of these were pledged to in the last year.

Richard Garriott posted a lengthy explanation of a PC Gamer interview that was published yesterday in which he said that "most game designers really just suck," and that he had not met anyone who he thought came close to being as good a game designer as he was.

Earlier in the week Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA.) penned an editorial over at Politico that takes aim at parenting and deflects the idea that video games are to blame for violent crimes in America. The editorial title sums up Hunter's thoughts on the top pretty succinctly: "Target parenting, not games for violence."

Rovio's Angry Birds Trilogy has sold over one million copies worldwide, according to developer Rovio and publisher Activision. The duo also announced that the game would be coming to the Wii U and Wii later this year.

Angry Birds Trilogy was released in September 2012 for Xbox 360 with Kinect support, PlayStation 3 with Move support and Nintendo 3DS. The compilation offers three games - Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio, along with extra content such as additional levels, added features and brand new interactive backgrounds and spiffy new animations.

Indie games portal Kongregate says that "core gamers" tend to spend way more money than casual gamers on its popular gaming destination (which is owned by retailer GameStop). Speaking to Develop, Kongregate CEO Jim Greer said that while the free-to-play titles it offers had a similar conversion rate to other platforms (two-to-three percent) paying core gamers were spending an average of approximately $60 a month.

Ubisoft announced that it has shipped well over 12 million units of Assassin's Creed 3 and well over 4.5 million units of Far Cry 3. That number includes all platforms the games are available on - as well as digital sales of both games. Ubisoft's total sales for Assassin's Creed 3 have now passed the 12 million mark worldwide, while Far Cry 3 sales are up over 4.5 million units, the French publisher announced today in its third-quarter financial report.

It's Luigi's 30th anniversary this year but it seems like Mario's taller brother - like Rodney Dangerfield - can't get any respect. Luigi was introduced as an optional second player in the arcade version of Mario Bros. thirty years ago.

Two more League of Legends professional eSports players have been permanently banned from competition, according to word from Riot Games (by way of Polygon and PC Gamer).

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher and 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling will sell the famous bloody sock that he wore during the 2004 World Series. The sock is expected to net at least $100,000. The Associated Press is reporting that an online auction for the piece of rare sports memorabilia will open on February 4, with an in-person auction to be held on February 23.

ArenaNet's Colin Johanson says that the popular online-focused RPG Guild Wars 2 has managed to sell over three million copies since it was released and launched in August of 2012. He made the announcement as part of an update on the game's official site detailing what new content the company plans to bring to Guild Wars 2 players in the next few months.

Humble Indie Bundle 7 has broken another milestone this week - surpassing the $2 million sales mark. As of this writing, the pay-what-you-want DRM-free bundle has made $2,174,171.12 from the sale of 332,411 bundles. Yesterday organizers of the bundle added three new games: The Basement Collection, Cave Story+, and Offspring Fling - for those willing to pay more than the average price.

According to a Famitsue report (by way of The Verge) Sony has halted shipments of its ultra popular PlayStation 2 game console in Japan. The last generation console has sold over 150 million units worldwide since its launch in Japan on March 4th, 2000 and is the most popular home console of all time.

Hispanic television network Univision and Swiss online games site Miniclip.com have entered into a partnership to launch a co-branded online gaming property designed specifically for the U.S. Hispanic audience. Launching in December, Univision Juegos will make Miniclip's library of "more than 800 games" available to Univision.com's online user base.

Funcom has decided to ditch the $15 a month subscription fee for its MMO The Secret World. The company announced today that players can now enjoy the game for free, though they'll still have to drop $30 to buy the game. After that players can opt for a special monthly membership or play for free and buy items from an in-game store as they see fit.

Another day, another milestone met for Mojang's ultra popular sandbox building game, Minecraft. It has managed to surpass the 8 million sales mark on the PC platform, according to a tweet from Mojang co-founder and Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson.

"The PC version of Minecraft just passed 8 million sales," said series Persson via Twitter.

"My face is making grinning sounds, so I assume it's grinning," he added.

Microsoft is building its own 7-inch gaming tablet, according to "multiple sources familiar with plans within Redmond" who have confirmed the details to The Verge. According to that report, the initial hardware planning for the Xbox Surface device is underway. The Verge describes it as a mini Xbox platform.

Microsoft has changed its position on selling games rated "18" in the UK (under the PEGI system) via the Windows 8 marketplace. Previously the platform owner had made the decision by comparing the "adult" category used by the ESRB in North America - a category reserved for games with very strong sexual content or extreme violence.

The popular DRM-free digital distribution platform Good Old Games, finally supports the Mac OS operating system - though not every game in its catalog is available at this time. GOG is currently offering 50 games on OS X including Syndicate and Wing Commander 1 & 2. More Mac-compatible titles will be released in the future on an on-going basis.

A Federal Judge has sentenced 36-year old Sang Jin Kim to 40 months in prison and ordered him to forfeit more than $400,000 in assets. Prosecutors charged Kim with criminal copyright infringement in November of 2011 and seized the domains 82movie.com and 007disk.com. Prosecutors claimed that Kim ran an online piracy empire through his Washington-based company World Multimedia Group Inc. The sites offered pirated versions of popular movies, Korean TV shows, software and video games, according to prosecutors.

Microsoft has apparently decided that it will not use Microsoft Points - the popular currency of the current Windows Marketplace and Xbox Live - in its upcoming Windows 8 Marketplace for software purchases. Instead it will simply use U.S. dollars or whatever the currency of choice is in different regions. In previous Windows 8 beta releases Microsoft used its Points system for all video purchases and rentals.

There's a common and widespread misconception among the general population that flying a drone for the United States government or military is like playing a video game, but an in-depth article on the subject from Business Insider reveals that this is simply a falsehood. In fact, if you ask actual drone pilots they will tell you that their work is nothing like a video game...

Walmart will no longer carry Amazon's Kindle Fire in its retail stores. The retailer joins Target, who gave up on the Android-based device in May of this year. Walmart is still selling Barnes & Noble’s Nook as well as some other e-reader devices. Some think this move is in response to its own plans to launch its own e-commerce strategy, which it has apparently been working on for awhile. In other words, Amazon.com is a direct competitor and Walmart doesn't want a device tied to a competing e-commerce destination.

The Gamestation brand of retail stores are now officially dead, with GAME announcing that it will rebrand all of its stores in the UK under its main brand name. Ultimately that means that there will be a total of 341 Game stores in the UK, according to the fine folks at Tech Radar.

While you might think this is a no brainer, it's important to say out loud that if you trade in that Wii console prior to the launch of the Wii U on November 18, you will lose all of your Virtual Console games and Miis. The reason this needs to be said is because retailer GameStop is offering $50 off the price of the new console (via pre-order) to anyone who trades in their Wii system.

While the Wii U is backwards compatible, you will still need to have both systems in order to transfer all of your data and play those games you have already paid cold, hard cash for.