While other retailers are loudly proclaiming that they are offering pre-orders for Nintendo's Wii U, one online retailer seems to be thumbing its nose at Nintendo's latest console and the consumers who might want to lock a purchase down early. Amazon is telling customers that pre-orders for the Wii U are "not available at Amazon.com at this time," and are providing no explanation why.

Variety reports that G4TV owners NBC Universal are going to revamp the popular tech and geek culture channel to be more "GQ," catering to the "modern male." Details on the revamp, set to happen in early 2013, have not been revealed, and many in the gaming, geek and technology culture of the internet are concerned that NBCU will dump the decent programming G4TV offers such as extensive event coverage. G4TV has always had a strong presence at events like Comic-Con, E3, and GDC.

If you're a video game tester and you act like a dumb ass (allegedly) you'll probably get fired. Just ask 20-something Blake Marsh, who decided to try a little political comedy with a dash of misogyny and hate on his Facebook page. It's too bad for Marsh that his bosses at Eidos Montreal weren't laughing when they found out.

Following a failed assassination attempt by suspect Richard Bain on the newly-elected Quebec premier-designate Pauline Marois that saw one person killed and another severely injured, Marsh decided to make light of the crime:

Cloud-based gaming subscription service company OnLive announced this evening that its founder and CEO Steve Perlman is leaving the company. In a press release issued by the company it was announced that Perlman was leaving to work on "other projects," and that lead investor Gary Lauder would be taking over as the company’s new chairman. Charlie Jablonski, the Vice President of Operations, will serve as the company's COO and acting CEO.

Even though its investors are pretty much left holding the bag and most of its employees have lost all their stock options and unceremoniously shown the door, OnLive CEO Steve Perlman will hold onto his position at the company.

In a statement to OnLive Fans a company rep said that Perlman was still with the company:

British telecom company BT has apparently joined the ranks of OnLive investors that have been burned by Friday's announcement that the company would sell its assets off to a third-party entity controlled by Lauder Partners. BT said today that it is "highly likely" that it will be forced to write off its stake in a cloud-based video games service.

BT joins phone maker HTC, who said yesterday that it would lose its $40 million investment in the cloud-based gaming subscription service.

While employees of OnLive felt the most immediate sting on Friday when the company announced mass staff layoffs, other entities involved with the cloud-based game streaming service felt their investments of time and money disappear like a building at a David Copperfield show in Vegas. Too bad that it wasn't an illusion.

This interesting GamesBeat report details a bit of controversy and an exodus related to the Facebook game Mystery Manor. Fans of the hidden object game (the Facebook game had 20 million registered users, according to the report) are apparently pretty upset with Game Insight over a recent change it made to the iPad version of the game, and they are taking the fight anywhere the company can read their angry replies.

According to an Associated Press story found on Time's Techland, the person that was arrested for burglarizing Apple co-founder Steve Job's Palo Alto, California home stole his wallet and his driver’s license, along with other items including Apple products and jewelry, according to a police report released Tuesday.

While having a super casual mode for your game is a great idea, what you call it in private can sometimes seep out and cause you a headache if you are not careful. That is exactly what is happening to Gearbox Software this morning after a Eurogamer report called a new super easy skill tree in Borderlands 2 "Girlfriend Mode." The offense comes from the inference that "girlfriends" are somehow not very good at games (or not very bright) and need a special skill tree to help them along. Gearbox is basically being accused of using a misogynist term to describe the mode.

According to this Computer World Australia report, Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has some harsh words for the Australian federal government for its part in pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is currently in negotiations in the U.S. The treaty is an agreement between Pacific Rim countries such as Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the U.S.

Gamers who bought the PlayStation 3 version of Konami's game, Silent Hill HD, got a patch last month that dealt with a number of frame rate and audio-sync issues. Good service. But those who bought the game on the Xbox 360 have pretty much been told to "go pound salt." Konami issued a brief statement this week noting that it wouldn't be releasing an update for Xbox 360 gamers who bought the game. Bad service.

The Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. and Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co. are now the proud (?) owners of the game assets of 38 Studios. While we doubt the state of Rhode Island will be releasing Kingdoms of Amular 2 or Copernicus anytime soon, we can expect that they will offer the assets for both of those franchises up for sale at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Australia New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione is taking a lot heat for comments he made recently blaming the rise of teen knife-related crimes on playing violent video games. Scipione recently told The Daily Telegraph that teens were being desensitized to violence by playing violent video games that reward them for "killing and raping people." Obviously a tired trope related to Grand Theft Auto spewed by politicians.

If you live in Nashville, Tennessee then you probably use Comcast for most of your internet needs, but a new trial in the region that begins tomorrow will change the way you use your internet connection for gaming and entertainment. Starting Wednesday, August 1, Comcast will test a new usage-based broadband policy on its Nashville customers. The company will data cap its customers at 300 GB a month and anyone that goes over that threshold will be charged an additional $10 per 50 GB of additional data used.

Update: The BBC is reporting that Ubisoft has rushed to patch the exploit unearthed by a Google engineer in its Uplay DRM. The company also issued instructions for Uplay users:

"We recommend that all Uplay users update their Uplay PC application without a Web browser open," Ubisoft said. "This will allow the plug-in to update correctly. An updated version of the Uplay PC installer with the patch also is available from Uplay.com."

Gamers Against Bigotry, a site that asked gamers to take a pledge promising not to use bigoted language while playing games online, announced that it has lost 1500 signatures due to repeated attacks from hackers. The site has faced some tough challenges from months of repeated attacks from hackers who have done everything from posting "grotesque images" on the website's signatures page, to making it impossible for new visitors to sign on to the pledge.

Over the weekend it was revealed that Minecraft maker Mojang is being sued by a Luxembourg, Germany-based company called Uniloc for patent infringement. The company claims that Mojang violated a patent it holds related to a "system and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data".

Microsoft's entertainment and devices division did pretty well in the fourth quarter despite the company's overall performance delivering the first loss for the company since it went public in 1986. The company posted a net loss of $492 million for the quarter, despite posting record revenue of $18.06 billion.

Yesterday we reported on Chinese mobile developer Entertainment Game Labs being accused by Runic Games president Travis Baldree of stealing art and sound assets from his company's popular action-RPG Torchlight. After getting some unwanted attention from the press and from fans, the company said today that it will modify "some parts" of its iOS MMO Armed Heroes Online.

One thing customers do not want to hear is something along the lines of "we can't do the right thing because it costs too much money." That is exactly what Fez developer Polytron has said about a broken patch that it plans to re-deploy for the game on Xbox Live. Polytron quickly yanked a patch it released earlier in the month because it corrupted some players' save game files.

The Economic Development Corporation of Rhode Island finds itself highly dysfunctional in the wake of 38 Studios going bankrupt and not being able to meet its obligations related to $75 million loan. The pseudo government-corporate entity has been without an executive director since May when Keith Stokes decided to resign over the loan to 38 Studios. Today we have learned from several published reports that another loan the EDC approved is not going to be paid back and that another executive has resigned.

The Providence Journal has several stories related to the ongoing saga of 38 Studios. The first story details the testimony of Richard Wester, chief financial officer for 38 Studios in bankruptcy court this week in Delaware.

Less than a week after the European Parliament voted to soundly reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), opponents of that measure are crying foul on a back door deal to get some of the treaty's worst provision enacted as part of another treaty.

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.

GAME Australia administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced that it will "immediately" shut down 16 retail stores in Australia, with the remaining 15 stores to be closed in the "coming weeks." The retailer went into administration (bankruptcy protection) last month, and while there was plenty of optimistic talk about saving the chain in Australia in the lead-up to today's news, most believed the writing was on the wall for the company.

States across the Union are passing or debating laws that will make online gambling legal, either for their entire state, or – as is the case being discussed in New Jersey, presently – just in certain cities/areas. These legislative changes may represent a shifting in the ideals of voters, but the impetus is most certainly tax revenue and perceived job creation.

Is Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel) a despicable hang-out for pedophiles that are continually preying on its underage users? A report that will air tonight on a Channel 4 news claims that they have strong evidence that it is. The report claims that pedophiles are chatting it up in the graphical social game-like teen destination, asking them if they have a "web cam," if they will get naked on camera, and trying their best to engage under age children in sexually charged conversations.

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.

The Australian arm of UK games retailer GAME made headlines on Monday when it told customers that it couldn’t honor its pre-orders for Diablo III. As one might imagine, this was not great for the company's reputation amongst customers, but luckily Blizzard stepped in and saved the day. This news came after news on Monday that it had entered into administration and had named PriceWaterhouseCoopers as the administrator.