Following the technical difficulties with the first streaming event for the UFC on Xbox Live app, Microsoft has come up with a consolation. Tomorrow's UFC 142 event will be free for those affected by the outages of UFC 141. All you need to do is sign into the app with the affected Gamertag. It should all work out this time ... we hope.

Users affected will also receive a free month of Xbox Live Gold service. "Our hope is that this gesture conveys our sincere apologies, and helps restore confidence in our customers and fans," a Microsoft spokesperson said. UFC 142 will air live from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at 10pm ET on Saturday, January 14.

When a Double Fine rep told us to expect Double Fine Happy Action Theater in February, we didn't really expect it to be the first day of the month, but here we are. Imagine our surprise when Tim Schafer announced the Feb. 1 launch date on Twitter earlier today.

Double Fine head honcho Schafer neglected to include pricing in the Tweet. A rep at CES did tell us it would cost a "reasonable" price. Sadly, that's more of a concept and less of a real, actual price.

We've contacted Double Fine and will update this post accordingly.

Ubisoft announced this morning that Just Dance 3 has surpassed seven million sales, with the Just Dance franchise cha-cha-chinging at cash registers over 25 million times worldwide. Just Dance 3, which launched in October, has been working it on the US and UK sales charts -- even offering private dance lessons at The White House.

US retail tracking group NPD previously stated dance game sales were up 326 percent in 2011 over the prior year. During Black Friday week, the Just Dance franchise sold over a million units, with Ubisoft stating it held 76 percent market share on dance games.

Just as a reminder, the Just Dance franchise includes: Just Dance 3, Just Dance 2, Just Dance, Just Dance Summer Party, Just Dance Kids 2, Just Dance Kids, Michael Jackson: The Experience, The Black Eyed Peas Experience and ABBA You Can Dance.

Don't be surprised if Just Dance 4 hits the scene in 2012, along with (at least) two other spin-offs.

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We've already told you what our favorite games of 2011 are, but the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences apparently needed a bit more time to ruminate on the matter. The final awards will be given at the annual DICE summit in Las Vegas on February 9, giving us all tons of time to pressure the AIAS into giving Rayman Origins the awards for Outstanding Animation and Outstanding Art Direction.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is the belle of the ball this year, with a total of 12 nominations across several categories. Other notable titles include Portal 2 (10 nominations) L.A. Noire (9 nominations), Bastion (3 nominations), and Battlefield 3 (6 nominations). 2010's top game from the AIAS was Mass Effect 2, which walked away with awards in the RPG and storytelling categories.

Jay Mohr will be hosting again -- here's his monologue from last year -- and the entire show will be streamed online through GameSpot, starting at 7:30pm PT/10:30pm ET. Or you could buy a plane ticket and fly to Vegas, hoping to somehow sneak in. We wouldn't suggest that, though, as your time and money can be better spent petitioning for Rayman Origins.

Hit the jump for the full list of this year's nominees.

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The game industry's December 2011 may have been down from the same month last year, but it hasn't brought down spirits at Microsoft. The Redmond-based Xbox 360 manufacturer capped off 2011 by having the number one console for twelve straight months, NPD data reveals.

In December, Microsoft sold more than 1.7 million consoles (déjà vu, anyone?) without brand-new hardware to help push it over the top like last year. Gamers spent $1.5 billion at retail on the Xbox 360 alone during December, and overall Microsoft's share of that $16 billion pie in 2011 came to $6.7 billion -- $2.1 billion on consoles, $4.6 billion on games and accessories.

During its annual (and, this year, final) CES sojourn, Microsoft revealed there are 66 million Xbox 360 consoles out in the world today. Based on the 2011 figures from the NPD, we'd say a lot of them are here in North America. But when will this month-to-month momentum slow down and make way for the impending next generation? Probably around the time we invent robots for boxing.

Assassination and dancing has proven to be a lucrative mix, as Just Dance 2 and 3 and Assassin's Creed: Revelations helped Ubisoft to lead this year's best seller's list with three entries. That's according to the NPD Group, which also estimates the video game industry's profits, comprising "new physical video and PC games, used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile games," reached sales of somewhere between $16.3 and $16.6 billion in 2011.

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 took top honors (it's kind of a big deal), while Just Dance 3 and Skyrim occupied the second and third spots, respectively. NPD also says that, despite sales growth in the digital sector yet again, physical copies offered at retail outlets still accounted for the majority of sales coming in at $9.3 billion, "an 8 percent decline over the $10.1 billion in 2010."

That decline was "partially" offset by increases in digital, mobile, and used game sales, which NPD expects to be a focus moving into 2012. "Our overall estimate of the market continues to point toward the increased imperative for deeper visibility into digital distribution than is available today, not only in the U.S. but globally," said NPD prez David McQuillan. Our waning shelf space agrees.

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After years of hearing about Microsoft's poorly hidden plans for offering streaming TV subscriptions through the Xbox 360 (among other devices), Reuters is reporting that those very plans are currently stuck in a holding pattern. According to "people familiar with the discussions," Microsoft built out an infrastructure for delivering television, but upon finding out how much it would cost to deliver currently broadcast-exclusive content, walked away from talks.

"They built Microsoft TV, they demoed it for us, they asked for rate cards but then said 'ooh ah, that's expensive,'" the piece quotes one "senior media executive" as saying with regards to the negotiations. That doesn't mean that the plans are a total wash, just that they're currently not progressing.

Still, some avenues for live television are currently available and coming soon to Microsoft's Xbox 360, including a limited selection from several cable providers, as well as the just announced partnership with Newscorp which will bring Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and more to the console.

Update: Microsoft has issued this statement regarding the Reuters report, "We don't comment on rumors and speculation. Microsoft is committed to working with the world's leading TV and entertainment providers to bring their offerings to Xbox and transform the TV experience with the power of Kinect. We are continuing to launch the more than 40 new entertainment partners we have already announced, including a wide range of live and on-demand TV on Xbox. Moving forward, you can expect to see more of the world's leading entertainment providers coming to Xbox."

Double Fine's next project, Happy Action Theater, just appeared on the floor of CES, right on time according to Tim Schafer's Twitter account. The game, available in February for what a Microsoft rep called a "reasonable" price, is basically a collection of 18 different minigames, featuring sandbox-style fun for the younger audience.

But don't let that tame description fool you: Happy Action Theater isn't just a standard minigame collection made for kids. Instead, it appears to be one of the best experiences on Kinect yet, and a perfect marriage of Double Fine's expertise at finding almost instant fun, and its skill at wringing some impressive feats out of that Kinect camera.

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NanaOn-Sha's spooky Kinect game, Haunt, may have missed its original launch ... erm ... year, but it turns out that it won't be by much. A representative from the studio told Joystiq this evening that the game will be available via Xbox Live Arcade, on January 18 for 800 MS Points ($10).

Haunt is materializing exclusively on XBLA and is the first of several neat Japanese Kinect projects first announced at Tokyo Game Show in 2010.

To say we were taken aback when Double Fine unveiled its Kinect-exclusive Xbox Live Arcade game, Double Fine Happy Action Theater, is an understatement. It was due in 2011 but saw a delay, and now it's gearing up to launch next month.

Our man on the ground at CES 2012, Mike Schramm, confirmed the news with a Double Fine representative. Yet, with a February launch planned, why wasn't the game part of next month's House Party promotion? "I would've loved to see it in House Party," the rep told Joystiq. Seems like a perfect fit to us, though the representative went on to say that the target audience for Double Fine Happy Action Theater is between ages 2 and 12, and the target demographic for the House Party promotion is a bit older. We should hope so -- best not to let your kids play Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

Double Fine Happy Action Theater features 18 different mini-games, including some clones of classic titles Space Invaders and Breakout. Mike was able to spend some time with the game and will be posting a preview soon, so keep your eye out for that. In the meanwhile, we suggest watching the debut trailer about a hundred more times.