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BioWare has confirmed Mass Effect: Jacob's Story for iPhone and iPod Touch, after a focus group tester broke NDA to leak the project last month.

Warner Bros. has picked up Scribblenauts and plans to launch the DS game here this autumn.

Dragon Age: Origins will use a simple disc check instead of SecuROM digital rights management, BioWare has said.

Chinese MMO publisher The9 has launched a website for a new title called World of Fight, reports GamesIndustry.biz. Many have drawn immediate comparisons to World of Warcraft, the title The9 previously operated in China but lost last month after Blizzard cut ties with the company, announcing a new deal with NetEase.

Nintendo has announced a 5th June release date for New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.

While it's lovely to imagine that game creation is packed with artistic geniuses and auteurs beset from all sides by flashes of stunning inspiration, the harsh reality is that plenty of games are borne of more humble, even cynical, thought processes. Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce is exactly such a game, and its inspiration isn't so much worn on its sleeve as flown above its house on a flag the size of a double-decker bus.

If you've been casting about for something new to plug into your DS recently, today is the day. Rhythm Paradise - the European version of Rhythm Tengoku Gold - is out. It's a game about maintaining rhythm in absurd situations. It's the sort of "old Nintendo" that brought us WarioWare, and it must be encouraged.

Wii Fit stays atop the UK All-Formats chart for a fifth consecutive week, outselling newcomer X-Men Origins: Wolverine by nearly two to one.

Stardock boss Brad Wardell reckons the Demigod connectivity issues will be cleared up this week.

Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has offered the first hints at what we can expect from his next game.

Good news for fans of Disney Interactive racer Pure - Trophies for the PlayStation 3 version are arriving tomorrow,

SouthPeak has opened registration for the Section 8 PC beta taking place this summer.

Tripwire Interactive has confirmed a new Red Orchestra game is on the way.

Activision Blizzard has confirmed that Infinity Ward will be the team behind Call of Duty 6.

A remake of arcade title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time is on the way for Xbox 360.

Konami has released a demo version of Metal Gear Solid Touch for iPhone and iPod Touch, which you can grab from the iTunes App Store.

TIME magazine has named Grand Theft Auto royalty Sam and Dan Houser in its annual list of the most influential people in the world.

Sony has unveiled a new music visualiser program in development for PlayStation 3.

Microsoft may be working on a full-body motion-sensing peripheral for Xbox 360.

Microsoft has said to expect three new Xbox Live Arcade games tomorrow - Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid Live! from Square-owned Taito, and Zombie Wranglers from Activision. All three will cost 800 Microsoft Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60).

Eidos has confirmed the release date for Batman: Arkham Asylum has been delayed.

Electronic Arts has announced that its EA Redwood Shores Studio has been renamed Visceral Games "to better reflect the studio's culture, identity and focus on creating intense action-oriented intellectual properties".

Just in case you weren't convinced that Eidos Montreal is working on a fourth game in the Thief series, more evidence popped up late last week.

With Plants vs. Zombies out today, it seems like a good time to point out that there's a free downloadable demo on the official site for PC or Mac.

Capcom has dated the PC version of Street Fighter IV and said beige-box versions of Bionic Commando and Resident Evil 5 will follow.

Microsoft has updated the rules regarding the total amount of Achievements and gamerscore that Xbox 360 games can award to players.

Gardening brings out the worst in game developers. Even nominally cuddly outfits, who trade in moonbeams and gentle kisses, experience a strange, peat-fuelled bloodlust whenever they saunter down the cobbled path and set up shop under the old oak tree. Why else would Nintendo invite us to choose between choking to death on an alien allotment or harvesting warm corpses for industrial reprocessing in Pikmin? And what brought Rare, a developer more likely to have you chasing after coins while butterflies skitter about overhead, to delve into the rotting underside of the natural world in the bucolic Viva Piñata, a papier mache bloodbath of sacrificial breeding and advanced eugenics, where the sight of a Fudgehog having its head bashed in is accompanied by cheering infants?

It's easy to forget in these days of plastic Les Pauls, colour-coded drum kits, flashing dance mats and wireless microphones, but the very first music game had little to do with pretending to be a rock star. Instead, you tapped buttons in time with some Sesame Street hip-hop, in order to make an awesome, beanie-wearing dog rap his paper-thin heart out. And, if you performed well enough, you'd get the girl who, in this case, happened to be a sunflower. It was imaginative, leftfield, cute, weird and beautiful: everything that videogames should aspire to be. And yet, PaRappa the Rapper's wildly creative approach to interactive music has almost no legacy in contemporary videogames.

The keywords for today are "acquired taste". For those with the willingness to battle through the crunchy exterior of this cult Japanese confection there's a lovely nougaty centre of deep, thrilling combat gameplay to be savoured. Many more, however, will struggle to get past the experience of being pummelled to bits over and over again while that metallic shaaaa-ching sound effect that punctuates every anime movie ever made echoes in their ears.

Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz' widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial is a weekly dissection of one of the issues weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer after it goes out to GI.biz newsletter subscribers.