Following the success of the original series, Nickelodeon has just greenlighted a new animated series, The Legend of Korra. According to the network’s president, Brown Johnson, the series will expand the mythology of the Avatar universe — with it being set seventy years after the events of the original The Last Airbender series.

“Michael [DiMartino] and Bryan [Konietzko, series creators,] have imagined a compelling new story inspired by the Airbender mythology that they so brilliantly crafted when the TV series began,” Johnson said. “This new avatar is not only a girl, but also hot-headed, independent and ready to take on the world.”

The series follows the adventures of Korra, a “passionate, rebellious and fearless” teenager from the Southern Water Tribe, who seeks a master for the final element of Air — seeing that she’s already mastered three of the four elements.

Her travels eventually lead her to the metropolis of Republic City, an epicenter for the modern Avatar world. Although a thriving society of benders and non-benders alike, Republic City is also ridden with crime, including an anti-bending rebellion that is gaining momentum. Under the guidance of Aang’s son, Tenzin, Korra begins her airbending training as she confronts the dangers ahead of her.

The Legend of Korra will be produced at Nickelodeon Animation Studios and is expected to begin airing sometime in 2011.

I know that we’re a little slow on the outtake of this information, but it’s news none the less. Anyway, during Sony‘s GamesCom press conference, Sony announced the 3.0 firmware update for PlayStation 3.

The update will change the way you navigate the system such as adding animated themes, a redesigned friends list, premium avatars, new Trophy features, and a new status indicator at the top-right hand corner of the screen – that will now show how many friends you have online, and how unread many manages you have.

Firmware 3.0 will also include a “What’s New” section, and TV services such as BBC iPlayer. These features will release on September 1.

Speaking exclusively to Gamesindustry.biz, Ubisoft Game Designer Michael de Plater acknowledges that the festive holiday season is a “brutal” duration to release new IPs and that many good games could fall wayside as a result.

“It’s a bit tough to launch a new IP exactly at Christmas when you’re head-to-head with blockbuster sequels. It’s interesting to see a number of big titles, like Heavy Rain, being targeted at 2010 to avoid the Christmas rush,” he explained. “And Ubisoft’s got Ruse coming out in 2010. Even God of War 3′s in 2010, that’s how brutal it is. I mean, you’ve got Assassins Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2.”

“To me, it’s been a period of enormous change, and the last four years I would say has been the time when games have actually surpassed movies as the premium blockbuster entertainment,” he continues.

Speaking of, the summer is basically an empty season for video games. I don’t know why developers and publishers can’t just space things out because, like I said, the summer season is basically empty for video games.

Like the brain hungry zombies in the Resident Evil movies, director Paul W.S. Anderson is hungry for more. Resident Evil movies, that is. According to the popular Horror film site ShockTilYouDrop (via GameSpot), Anderson has confirmed that he will write and direct a 3D fourth entry in the Resident Evil movie series.

“I wanted to kick off a brand new trilogy,” Anderson told the site. “I’m really excited we’re doing it [in 3D], and we’re using the same camera system [James] Cameron used for Avatar. There are a lot of exciting things about this one. I don’t regard it as Resident Evil 4; I regard it as a retooling and rebirth of the entire franchise.”

The film will be called Resident Evil: Afterlife and will, once again, feature Milla Jovovich as Alice. ShockTilYouDrop also reports the film is expected to open September 17, 2010, and will feature new characters pulled from the game series.

Ever since Microsoft revealed their “Avatar” program at E3, they fell under criticism for copying Nintendo’s “Mii’s”. Now, however the Head of Xbox, Don Mattrick, has revealed in an interview with OXM UK that he invented the whole avatar concept. He claims that the game “4D boxing”, made by his company, on Amiga, DOS, Atari ST and Macintosh, was the first game to feature avatars program. After doing some research, it turns out that 4D Boxing was the first game ever to use “avatar like” characters.

Source

What are you planing to do this Monday? Well, I hope you didn’t plan anything extreme tomorrow on Xbox Live because Microsoft revealed sometime last week that Xbox Live will be shutting down for some major re-construction. And I’m writing this article to remind you all that Xbox Live would not be working tomorrow. But, for some of us this wouldn’t matter mainly because you don’t have Xbox Live or you were planning to finally beat that single player game that’s is super hard. Here’s Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb had to say:

“As I mentioned earlier in the week, tomorrow (Monday, 9/29/2008) from 12:01 AM PST for up to 24 hours, Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, Xbox LIVE and the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions. When the service returns, you will not have any new features and you will not have the new Xbox experience update. That will happen later this Fall. I will update my Twitter when the service returns.”

But, anyway this service maintenance update is for the “New Xbox Experience”, which will adds Mii-like Avatars to a new dashboard. The new Xbox experience is set to hit this November on the Xbox 360.