GAMESTOP STARTS SELLING ANDROID TABLETS PRE-LOADED WITH 7 GAMES

GameStop recently began carrying several Android Honeycomb tablets pre-loaded with seven free games. It was originally rumored that the game retailer would begin selling its own custom Honeycomb tablet, although it appears that is no longer the case. GameStop currently lists the Acer Iconia, Acer Iconia Tab A500, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Motorola XOOM, ViewSonic VPAD7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in stock with prices starting at $300. The seven free games include Dead Space, Madden NFL, Monster Madness, Sonic CD, Re-Load, Riptide GP and Cordy. GameStop is also bundling a special tablet-friendly own-brand Bluetooth controller with its slates for an additional $39. The devices are currently only available in 200 of GameStop’s stores, although you can also purchase one directly from the company’s website.

GAMESTOP JUMPING INTO TABLET MARKET

U.S. video game retailer GameStop will soon sell its own GameStop-branded Android tablet, president Tony Bartel recently told GamesIndustry. The company is not building a device from scratch and will instead re-brand an existing model. GameStop has not disclosed which manufacturer it partnered with but the company is testing the device in Dallas, Texas where Samsung Mobile is also based. “I don’t see any need to create a new one with the three hundred or so on the market already,” Bartel said. “We have a refurbishment center and we can bring in the product and pre-load certain games onto it. It’s an Android device.” The tablet is currently being called a “GameStop-certified gaming platform.”

“There’s not a lot of tablet/Android-based games for the consumer that are designed to use an external controller,” Bartel added, noting that the company has created a special controller that may be used with the device. “As it stands now, I think we’re seeing developer interest in developing immersive games that use the controller as well, but our first foray is to really be working with developers to create an install base of devices with the controller to allow them to develop immersive games.” The tablet will initially run mobile games but Bartel hopes to eventually stream console titles to to the device, too. GameStop expects to begin selling the tablet next year.

GAMESTOP STARTS iOS TRADE-IN PROGRAM, MIGHT SELL iPHONE 5

GameStop is hopping on the mobile bandwagon. The company announced it will begin selling iPhones, iPods, and iPads as well as offer a trade-in program for those old iOS devices you want to upgrade. Starting this week, GameStop stores will start taking your old iOS devices for in-store credit.

The game selling store will be up against some fierce competition in the trade-in program department. Over the past few years companies such as Verizon, Amazon, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble have all created such programs with varying degrees of success.

DUKE NUKEM FOREVER DEMO COMING JUNE 3RD

If you’ve been following the Duke Nukem Forever saga for the last decade or so, you were more entertained than surprised when Gearbox delayed the launch of the game one last time in March from the original May launch dates to June 14th in the United States and June 10th internationally. If you’re still skeptical the game will ever appear at all, Gearbox has something to help you keep the faith: a demo, slated for June 3rd.

In a brand new video, Gearbox President Andy Pitchford says that the launch dates are for real this time, and the decades-long Duke Nukem Forever saga will soon come to an end. First, Gearbox will unveil a demo of the game on June 3rd that members of the First Access Club will be able to download and play to get a taste of what the full game will look and play like.

If you’re not already a member of the First Access Club, you can still become one by purchasing the Borderlands Game-of-the-Year edition, or by pre-ordering Duke Nukem Forever from select retailers around the globe. At this point, only First Access Club members will be able to play the demo. Gearbox hasn’t said whether or not they’ll make the demo available to anyone else, or make it freely available once the game is officially released.

If you want to get your hands on a demo code, you can visit the game’s official site to see a list of the select retailers you’ll have to pre-order from. In the United States, you can buy from Amazon or GameStop, in Canada you’ll have to buy from EB Canada, and in the UK you can order from GAME, Play.com, TheHut.com, or Zavvi.com. When Duke Nukem Forever is officially launched, it’ll be available for Windows, XBox 360, and PlayStation 3.

REDBOX TO OFFER GAMES IN KIOSKS; GAMESTOP TO START STREAMING GAMES 'EVERYWHERE'

Redbox's famous red disc-dispensing kiosks will start spitting out video games starting on June 17th, offering titles for the PlayStation3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii for $2 per day.

The new game rentals have been in testing at about 5,000 locations around the country for some time now, but Redbox says they’re finally ready to expand the program to their other 21,000 kiosks. According to the press release, video games will be introduced at the same time as Blu-Ray discs at Redbox locations nationwide. “Redbox will make discovering the latest games as easy as a trip to the local grocery, convenience, or drug store,” according to Redbox’s VP of Games, Joel Resnik.

Meanwhile, GameStop's Spawn Labs' offers a cloud-powered game streaming service, enabling users to enjoy their favorite console games on connected devices with substantially less horsepower. Back in March, Spawn was acquired by retail giant GameStop — and it looks as though you might soon be playing Xbox 360 or PS3 games on your Android tablet as a result.

Joystiq has discovered several job postings which are aimed at developers who can help the company port Spawn’s player software to Android and Linux. As an added twist, GameStop is also hoping to put its acquisition of Impulse to good use when its “new consumer interface” for Spawn is ready to rock.

Impulse is a digital content distribution service like Steam, and it even sports the unsurprisingly similar domain name impulsedriven.com (compared to steampowered.com). GameStop President Ton Bartel foresees pairing Spawn and Impulse in order to offer users the ability to stream its library of 1000-plus games on-demand.

GAMESTOP BUYS IMPULSE AND SPAWN LABS, SAYS IT IS BECOMING "TECHNOLOGY COMPANY"

It looks like GameStop's plans following its acquisition of Impulse and Spawn Labs may be even grander than we had suspected. At an investor conference today, GameStop said flat out that it is "becoming a technology company," and that it does indeed plan to introduce a cloud-based gaming service similar to OnLive as a result of the Spawn Labs acquisition, while Impulse will be used to "compete fiercely" with Steam. But that's just the start of things.

According to the Dallas Morning News, GameStop also plans to expand the gaming service to a variety of mobile devices, and it's apparently even entertaining the idea of a GameStop-branded tablet, saying that "if we feel like we could do a better job of making a tablet, we'll do that." Of course, some of that is still quite a ways off, but GameStop will be taking its first steps fairly soon -- it's already showed off a demo of how the service will be integrated into its website (see above, complete with a "try it now" option), and it plans to begin a public beta sometime this year before rolling out the full service early next year.

KONGREGATE ARCADE APP REMOVED FROM ANDROID MARKET

Google has removed the Kongregate Arcade game app from the Android Market after just one day. The reason: it apparently violates the non-compete clause in the terms and conditions developers sign to distribute Android apps.

Kongregate is one of the largest Flash game portals on the Internet and owned by GameStop. It offers in the region of 13 million games online, and a growing percentage were to be offered through the Kongregate Arcade App.

It looks as though Google has seen that the Kongregate Arcade app is offering access to those games and assumed it’s a competing app store operating on Android devices, which isn’t allowed.

Kongregate’s CEO Jim Greer disagrees as the games are only cached to a device while being played. At no point is a game stored on the Android device’s main storage. He also points out that by the same definition the Kindle app would also break the non-compete clause.

It’s unclear why Google has decided to take this action for what seems to be an app that offers no real threat to the Android Market. Greer assumes the decision was made by someone in the Android Market review department of Google, and not a senior member of the management team who didn’t like what he/she was seeing.

GAMESTOP TAKING PRE-ORDERS FOR NINTENDO 3DS

GameStop has started taking pre-orders for Nintendo's handheld 3DS. It appears the deposit varies by location (a store in NY wants $50 and store in AZ wants $25) and no word on final price, although it has been widely believed to be close to $300. If your local GameStop doesn't know what you are talking about, have them enter the SKU number '020132' in their computer. Orders will begin shipping in March. [Engadget]