Lovely JRPG Ni No Kuni taking the No.1 position in the UK All Formats Video Game Chart probably gave us the wrong impression of the week that was to come. By the middle of the week we'd be more interested in the potential end of the pre-owned market than the fortunes of a beautifully-animated RPG starring a funny Welsh character.
Before the anger spewed there was finally news of Skyrim DLC release dates for PS3 and a new Skylanders game with interchangeable characters. I know for a fact that our own man-child Dave is very excited about the latter, but whether or not his pocket money will stretch to cover it along with Disney Infinity remains to be seen.
More exciting than that, though, was the reveal of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While this is said to be the last game in the series from CD Projekt RED, it does appear to be going out with a rather spectacular bang on PC and next-gen platforms. Sadly we'll be waiting quite a while to get our hands on the game, with 2014 the firmest the developer is willing to be on the release date.
Big games are starting to arrive in what is shaping up to be a busy spring period, but sadly EA's Dead Space 3 started off the month's releases in a rather disappointing way. The trailer below isn't the real one, but we like it more this way.
The week was heating up, but nothing could prepare us for the megaton rumour that arrived on Wednesday. EDGE ran a story claiming that the next Xbox (which is apparently being revealed in April) will prevent pre-owned games being played - news which understandably got the internet gaming community rather riled.
While not using the same set of hate-fuelled words as consumers, retailer GameStop wasn't shy about saying what it thought. Essentially, the US game giant feels that no pre-owned would seriously put consumers off - which seems to be the case going by the reaction on forums. Sony has certainly had the more favourable rumours in recent weeks, although the supposed PS4 price point could prove to be too expensive for most of us.
On the subject of financial difficulties, news broke this week that 66 HMV stores are to close within the next six weeks. Sad news for the staff affected, and for the high streets left without a headline store, but perhaps this guy could rent the space left by one of the departing stores to flog his massive collection of games.
One game that looked set to bring everyone happiness in a few weeks was Rayman Legends for the Wii U, but Ubisoft decided it wanted it on Xbox 360 and PS3 too, and pushed the game into September. While everyone and his dog is - quite understandably - thinking this is a decision caused by poor Wii U sales, Ubisoft avoided making any such damning comments.
Captain Obvious turned up later in the week to confirm that we'll be getting a new Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty at the end of 2013, before also informing us that the days will gradually get longer before becoming shorter again. Then Crytek decided to say lots of things about next-gen without really saying anything at all - clever how they do that.
And finally we got word that gamers who get their hands on a new PS4 later this year will be able to buy Killzone 4 before the year is out. Fingers crossed we'll see a big reveal at Sony's grand PlayStation Meeting on February 20.
That's it for me. I'm off to spend my weekend playing a 5/10 rated game while eating a Russian fudge yoghurt.
