To put this situation into parrot terms, the Japanese SKU of the Wii is pining for the fjords. Nintendo of Japan's official site lists the console as "discontinued," according to Engadget's translation.

Earlier this month we learned that Nintendo planned to halt production of the console, though it was unclear whether the company intended to shut down all manufacturing processes, or only those concerning the Japanese Wii. There's still no indication that supply lines in North America or Europe have been altered, but we've reached out to Nintendo to find out precisely what the dealio, yo.

In any event, this means that there are now a finite number of Japanese Wii units in existence. We anticipate that the remaining new Wii units will undoubtedly be pitted against each other in a ruthless battle to the death – or a lot more people will be buying used Wiis, whatever.

Superflat Games' spooky survival-horror adventure, Lone Survivor: Director's Cut, is set to grace the PC and Mac on October 31 – just in time for Halloween. In Lone Survivor, the world has been ravaged by disease and, playing as a nameless protagonist in a surgical mask, you must avoid monsters and scavenge for supplies.

In a blog post, creator Jasper Byrne says the updated version of the game will be available as a free download to anyone who has already picked up the game. The blog post adds that save files from the original game will be compatible with Director's Cut, so you can start in one version of the game and continue in the other.

In order to ease some of the financial strain as a result of developing this new version of the game for ten months, Superflat Games will determine a new price point for Director's Cut when it launches on Halloween. Lone Survivor: Director's Cut will be available through the official website, Good Old Gaming and other digital distribution channels.

WWE 2K14 will receive at least three downloadable content packs, all of which are included in the game's newly-announced season pass program. The season pass costs $19.99 (£15.99) and covers the three packs that launch in November, December and January, respectively. Each piece of DLC can be purchased individually.

The first pack, slated to launch in November for $8.99 (£6.99), features NWO-themed characters Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, Syxx, Curt Hennig, Scott Steiner and The Giant, the last one being free of charge and available separately from the pack. WWE 2K14's second piece of DLC, the WWE Superstars and Moves pack includes Fandango, Big E. Langston, Brie Bella, Nikki Bella and Summer Rae, the latter also being free for all players. That pack, set to launch in December for $7.99 (£6.99), also grants players access to 30 new moves and taunts, such as the psycho driver and a two-handed chokeslam.

Lastly, January 2014's DLC offering features legendary wrestlers Bruno Sammartino, Dusty Rhodes, Rick Rude and Jake "The Snake" Roberts along with a free-of-charge Virgil. This pack includes 15 "superstar parts" for use in the game's creation suite, such as Goldberg, Batista and The Undertaker's player models. This final season pass-eligible pack will be available for $8.99 (£6.99).

WWE 2K14 season pass buyers also receive two bonus The Outsiders themed-characters Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in addition to the game's "accelerator," a piece of DLC that unlocks every in-game item and offers players the ability to customize the attributes of all wrestlers. The accelerator will be available for $1.99 (£1.59) on October 29 in North America, then November 1 internationally.

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Metal Gear series producer Hideo Kojima announced that Platinum Games' Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will see a DLC-bundled PlayStation 3 re-release in Japan later this year.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Special Edition includes the previously released "Blade Wolf" and "Jetstream" DLC packs, along with 30 VR missions, five alternate costumes, and a custom PS3 theme. The package will hit retail in Japan on December 5, and will also be available as a downloadable release on PSN.

Joystiq asked a Konami representative if the bundle is set for release stateside. We will share updates as they're available.

North America and Europe welcome Warface on PC today, a big step for a game that is itself a big step for its developer, Crytek. Warface is the company's first free-to-play game, the first step in a planned journey that culminates in the Crysis and Ryse studio going fully free-to-play within five years.

At the recent DICE Europe conference, CEO Cevat Yerli spoke about closing the visual gap between cinema and games, and how Crytek is using advanced lighting and modeling effects to make Xbox One historical adventure Ryse stand out. Afterwards, I asked Yerli about the difficulties in marrying F2P with the studio's reputation for high-end graphics.

"It's just a matter of time," Yerli said. "We already introduced with Warfare a much higher quality relative to the current generation of gaming, and Ryse is [our] first game that launches a next-generation experience. Going forward, I expect free-to-play games to catch up with next-generation offerings as well. So it's really just a matter of time."

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Above you'll find a clever video that touches on the cultures of three decades and experiences of four different PlayStation consoles, all from one London bedroom. It's so weird to think the PlayStation brand is 18 years old, going on 19, which means I've been enjoying PlayStation games for more than half my life - and I'm ooooold.

My earliest memory of PlayStation is really getting into the self-explanatory Destruction Derby, a game made by the studio that's now Ubisoft Reflections, and a franchise that has been in the wilderness for far too long. Also, while I'm so very ooooold now, I was (almost) young and wimpy enough to find the first Resident Evil kind of scary.

No really, I did ... okay, stop laughing now.

Some 6,922 days after the first PlayStation hit Japanese retail shelves, the PlayStation 4 arrives in North America on November 15. Time to share your earliest PlayStation memories in the comments. Anyone have to do the "turn it over" trick?

If your Destiny is to get into the beta for Bungie's upcoming shooter, you'll want to keep your eyes on the game's Twitter account this week [Update: and Facebook too].

Yesterday, the ex-Halo studio said it'll post beta codes randomly on each day of the coming week. The other route to the beta is a little less reliant on your ability to stare at social media: just pre-order the game.

The Destiny beta is scheduled for early 2014, and is coming to all of the game's platforms, namely PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360. The game itself is pinned to arrive in the spring.

Warner Bros uncowled (it's a word) a walkthrough video of Batman: Arkham Origins, ahead of the dark knight's new adventure coming to retail shelves this week. WB Montreal Senior Producer Ben Mattes and Gameplay Director Michael McIntyre are your tour guides, taking you through a fulsome 17 minutes of the studio's prequel chapter in the Arkham saga.

Spoiler warnings ahoy: The vid introduces iconic elements like the Batcave and Batwing, and takes you through a mission in which the Bat has to deal with a corrupt SWAT team who, like the villains, are also after the bounty placed on the hero's head.

Arkham Origins swoops into stores on Friday, October 25, on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, and PC. UK heroes-to-be will have to wait until November 8 for the Wii U and boxed PC versions.

Considering we're knee-deep in silly season, it's surprisingly quiet in the UK charts this week. Grand Theft Auto 5 makes it two weeks in a row and three in all as the country's best-seller, despite a 31 percent drop in sales from last week. Meanwhile FIFA 14 holds on to second place, and below those two it's practically an unchanged top ten. Still, there are some nuggets of interest to unearth.

The biggest mover and shaker is Skylanders: Swap Force, the third major outing in the ridicu-lucrative toy-based series. While it doesn't move and shake enough to displace the top two, it debuts in third place ahead of Pokemon X, Y and Beyond: Two Souls. UK sales compiler Chart Track offers a couple of interesting stats on Swap Force, the first that it sold 35 percent less than previous entry Giants. As for the second, have a guess which of the game's gajillion platforms earned the most sales. If you said the Wii - with 37 percent for the record - give yourself a pat on the back and at least one sprinkled donut.

Move outside the top ten and you immediately find Sonic: Lost World, just missing out in 11th. That's a combination of the significantly different Wii U and 3DS games, and a peek at the individual formats chart shows the console game in 15th and its handheld sibling in 28th. The blue blur's new adventure doesn't roll into North America until next week on October 29.

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Firaxis Games is preparing to launch a follow-up to Sid Meier's turn-based mobile darling, Sid Meier's Ace Patrol.

Set within the Pacific Theater during World War II, Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies recreates historical battles at Pearl Harbor, Midway and Guadalcanal as players create a pilot and nurture their rise in ranks. Pacific Skies will support iPad 2 and up, iPad mini, iPod touch 4 and up, and iPhone 4S and up on iOS devices. The PC version will be available for download through Steam.

Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies launches this fall. 2K Games has not announced price, but the press release pass the break calls it a "premium" game so adjust your expectations accordingly.

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Taking a hike through the world of Wasteland 2 will be fraught with danger and discovery. An update on the game's Kickstarter page has revealed how exploration will work in inXile Entertainment's upcoming post-nuclear apocalypse RPG, as well as the guiding principles behind its design. The basic map experience, according to Montgomery Markland, a producer on Wasteland 2, is one of exploration, discovery and survival.

The game's map will be broken into a 3D version which renders your immediate surroundings, and a 2D version that shows the overall region, as well as the location of settlements, resources and "sites." Sites in Wasteland 2 are described by Markland as "minor locations such as an abandoned mine or a highway roadblock." No matter where you go, however, death awaits.

Along with keeping an eye out for attacks from random monsters and other survivors, players will also need to watch their Geiger counter. The land is irradiated, and wandering into pockets of dense radiation can result in instant death. Even if you avoid radiation poisoning however, the world of Wasteland 2 can still kill you via dehydration.

"Water management is challenging and important," Markland writes. "Your water supply is based upon the number of rangers in your squad and the number of canteens among them. Depending on the type of terrain you are traversing, your water supply is consumed at varying rates." Man, who'd have thought the end of the world would be so rough?

According to a press release from audio accessory (and not reptile umbrella) manufacturer Turtle Beach, the company's XO FOUR and XO SEVEN headsets for Xbox One will not be available until the first quarter of 2014, due to the delay of Microsoft's Xbox One Headset Adapter.

"Microsoft has informed its partners in the Xbox One console launch that the Xbox One Headset Adapter, being built by Microsoft and provided to Turtle Beach for inclusion with new gaming headsets, will not be available until early 2014. Both companies will leverage the additional time to build supply to meet anticipated high-demand when the headsets launch," the press release states.

Xbox Live won't be silent on launch, mind you; an unboxing video from Microsoft's Larry Hryb (aka: Major Nelson) showed that the Microsoft wired headset will be included with both regular and Day One Edition consoles. Prepare accordingly.

The Xbox One isn't the only system with headset compatibility issues. According to a report from Game Informer, USB headsets will not work with the PlayStation 4 at launch, and the Turtle Beach support page notes that although PS4 users can receive game audio using a digital optical connection, you'll need a headset with a mobile adapter connection to chat.

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If you're a PC gamer looking forward to Friday's release of Batman: Arkham Origins and have yet to scoop up the previous two entries in the series, now might be a good time to do so, as they're 75% off on Steam until Monday, 10 am Pacific. That makes Batman: Arkham Asylum just $5.00, and Batman: Arkham City just $7.50. Both versions are Game of the Year editions, meaning even more batarang for your buck.

Not a bat-fan? Amazon has unearthed savings on Tomb Raider and Metro: Last Light, which are both on sale for $19.99 through the week, while Best Buy is helping aspiring gamer musicians get into the groove by taking $50 off the cost of any electric guitar when you buy Rocksmith 2014. Lots of good things on sale, stranger.

Sony Online Entertainment will be shutting down the servers for online turn-based strategy game Magic: The Gathering - Tactics on March 28, 2014, according to an announcement made on the game's official forums.

"Today we are announcing with our partner, Wizards of the Coast, that we will discontinue game services for Magic: The Gathering - Tactics on March 28, 2014," the initial post reads. "We are honored to have been a part of bringing you the magic of the Multiverse over the last few years. It has been a fun and memorable journey, and we thank you for all of your dedication and support."

Unfortunately, if you wanted to experience the game before the hammer comes down and hadn't yet made an account, you're out of luck; new game accounts can no longer be created. Existing players' options will soon be restricted as well, as no new packs will be available to purchase in-game after November 18 of this year, and SOE will retain all code and data from Tactics, meaning no licensed or authorized emulators or fan servers.

March 28, 2014 will see the end of Magic: The Gathering - Tactics. On that day, feel free to solemnly sing the following: Bye, bye, Mr. Minotaur Guy, tapped my blue land then my green land, soon my deck will be dry. Them good ol' boys was playin' dragons with Fly, singin' "This'll be the day Tactics diiiiies."

Dark Matter recently found itself in a dark space of criticism after a player posted on the game's Steam discussion page about its "To be continued" ending. After a developer from InterWave responded and said the "full story is indeed not complete," they clarified that it is a "complete game in itself." Erik Schreuder, CEO of Dark Matter publisher Iceberg Interactive, has posted a follow up on the game's Steam discussion forum to address accusations that the game is unfinished.

The message describes an initial Kickstarter pitch for a game with "significantly more levels" that would have been sold for $30. This plan was discarded once the Kickstarter campaign obtained less than a fifth of its £50,000 fundraising goal.

"The idea was then formed to make Dark Matter an episodic series, with episodes selling at a budget price of $14.99," Schreuder said. "The first installment is what has launched recently on Steam and is simply called Dark Matter."

Schreuder wrote that the game is "exactly as described on Steam (including that it contains 14 levels)" and explained that the version of Dark Matter players are experiencing is "not the $30 full-priced game, but the episodic budget version." The game's Steam page, as of writing, makes no note of the game being episodic in nature.

Schreuder conceded that Dark Matter's current conclusion "may cause confusion and is not satisfactory" and stated that they are working on a "more conclusive and satisfying ending."