The new year may have just begun but already there is major news to announce for the Forza world: Forza Motorsport 6 is coming!

Today, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios officially announced Forza Motorsport 6, which is in development and will be arriving exclusively on Xbox One. The news came alongside the announcement of the worldwide debut of the all-new Ford GT, which will serve as the cover car for Forza Motorsport 6. In addition, Ford’s performance vehicle line-up will appear in Forza Motorsport 6. This includes the GT, Shelby GT350 Mustang, and the F-150 Raptor, debuted by Ford earlier today at the auto show. As First in Forza vehicles, Forza fans will have the opportunity to drive these cars when they debut in Forza 6.

“Just as Ford has pushed the boundaries of car technology in GT, Forza Motorsport 6 will embrace that spirit of innovation as our most technically advanced racing simulation to date, offering a fun and realistic automotive experience for both car lovers and gamers,” said Dan Greenawalt, creative director at Turn 10 Studios. “We’re excited to unveil gameplay at E3 in June.”

The announcement of Forza Motorsport 6 kicks off 2015 and the ten-year anniversary of the Forza Motorsport series. This year promises to be the busiest and biggest in Forza history and we’ll have much more to say about Forza 6 and more of our exciting plans in the future. Stay tuned to www.forzamotorsport.net and the official Forza Hub app on Xbox One for all the latest news!

Dataminers may have found evidence in the information for World of Warcraft’s upcoming Patch 6.1 that indicates the developers are planning for a new free-to-play option.

The recently discovered data files with references to a “Veteran Edition” are noted to resemble those for the already existing Trial Edition that allows everyone to play from level 1 to 20 for free. Like the Trial Edition, the Veteran appears to have limits as information in the files show a level cap, money cap and chat restrictions.

What all of this actually means is unknown at present, but Superior Realities suggests that it may be a system to allow subscribed players with lapsed accounts to continue playing with restrictions.

What do you think?  Can you see WoW going free to play?  If it does, what do you think non-subscribers would lose access to?

Today on their site’s blog Mojang announced that something Minecraft players have been waiting for is soon about to make its way to the game!

… No, it’s not the Mod API. It’s the ability to change your in-game name!

The change is due to be rolled out on February 4th and as long as you already have a Mojang account it’s free to do. The option to change the name will be a little link on the Mojang account page with the ‘change’ option next to your current in-game name.

You can only grab unused names though, and once you change your name you can’t do it again for another 30 days. But no worries if you want to change back, names previously in use are held for 37 days before they become up for grabs so as long as you’re on the ball you won’t lose your username if you regret the change. Mojang are also freeing up old unpaid account names for use, so if you have one now’s the time to go and buy it!

The system gives each account an identifier that’s separate from the display name so if a user’s been banned for a server they’ll stay banned, as well as accounts retaining inventories and other things across name changes. Mojang hope that the system will be simple enough for mod users to encode with for their own mods.

Mojang blog “Announcing Minecraft name changes”: [x]

I’ve written about Glorious Leader! before now. No, I don’t mean our Glorious Leader (for those of you who don’t tune into the shows (why not?) it’s a term we jokingly apply to the station owner), rather a sidescroller game featuring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Yes, really.

The game was in development by Moneyhorse Games, and they had a Kickstarter going to fund it. I say ‘had’ because… well, it’s been cancelled after a hack meant someone gained access to the files related to the game and “destroyed data pertaining to Glorious Leader! and other projects we had in development” according to Moneyhorse. They have said though that no user information was compromised.

“As many of you know, over the holidays we were victims of a hack inspired by the attack on Sony,” a statement posted to the Kickstarter page read. “The hackers destroyed data pertaining to Glorious Leader! and other projects we had in development and locked us out of our own computers and website… It is now evident that our funding goals will not be met, so we are cancelling our Kickstarter campaign.”

Moneyhorse also said that it wasn’t the first time they’d received threats because of the game and so were reevaluating their commitment to it. They thanked all the fans and backers for their commitment, saying they were sorry to have let them down.

At close Glorious Leader! had attracted $16,816 of its $55,000 Kickstarter goal.

Seems Blizzard have hit a little snag with their plans for new IP Overwatch. Seems someone already has a predated trademark on the name, and now Blizzard’s let it lapse over into a suspension for the game.

Blizzard filed the application for Overwatch back in April and then revealed the game in a very complete form at last year’s Blizzcon. However the USPTO suspended the two applications put in when it discovered a filing by Innovis Labs, Inc., a smartphone app company. The mobile app in question is used for real-life paintball, laser tag and airsoft matches to enhance play.

Blizzard have not responded to the notice of suspension and so the USPTO has sent a Statement of Allowance to Innovis Labs, Inc. – basically if within six months they file a Statement of Use Innovis Labs can use the trademark commercially and Blizzard cannot.

There are many different ways this could turn out, and the most likely seems to be that Blizzard will have to change the name of their game to avoid legal action. However that’s not to say that is what will happen, as similar cases have turned out differently in the past. We can only wait and see.