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Dragon's Crown launches on PS3 and Vita, and it looks friggin' awesome. Here are two new videos to whet your appetitie.

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After a Facebook post poll of North American and European fans garnered 25,000 likes and 15,000 shares in less than three days, Sega has deemed the U.S. and Europe worthy of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F for the PlayStation 3 in August. Want more good news? There's a demo coming next week. Despite Kotaku East's continuing coverage of the Japanese virtual idol game, I've somehow managed to avoid importing Project Diva F. It's been painful, but now the pain has paid off. The localized version of the game hits U.S. and European stores and PSN in August, with a demo dropping on June 11 (June 12 in Europe). “It’s very rare that we’re able to answer the overwhelming support and demand for a game like Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F,” said John Cheng, President and COO, Sega of America via official announcement. “And we’re excited to be able to deliver this creative and unique experience for the western audience to enjoy.” I love you, John Cheng. I am so excited right now I might ... import the Japanese version so I can play right now.

Another playset revealed for Disney's expanding universe of video game figurines as The Lone Ranger comes to Infinity.

Meet your running mate in Volition's positively presidential alien cyberspace action... thriller? Let's go with thriller.

Man, that YouTube thumbnail has totally distracted me from whatever it was I was going to say about this. Oh yes! Pixelated presidential penis aside, this is the trailer for a game I wouldn't need to be coerced into purchasing with a shiny plastic Dubstep Gun. With some fancy editing and the right voice actors (hooray for Keith David!), Volition has created a two-minute video about a monumental title that will test the boundaries of interactive fiction as we know it. In other words, not the game we're getting, but possibly the game we want. Remember this trailer when you're running about naked, punching people in the genitals later this year.

Earlier today, Masahiro Sakurai sent out a tweet saying that new video from the upcoming installment of the Nintendo all-star fighting franchise will be debuting on June 11. お知らせしておきます。6月11日23時配信のNintendo Directで、新作『スマブラ』の映像が初披露となります。世界同時、ここが初！ お見逃しなく。 — 桜井 政博 (@Sora_Sakurai) June 6, 2013 Translation by Kotaku East’s Toshi Nakamura: "Notice: On the June 11th 11PM Nintendo Direct, the first footage of the new Smash Bros will be aired for the first time. For the first time, simultaneously worldwide! Don't miss it." That 11 p.m. is probably for Japanese local time zones. Also, it’s worth nothing that Nintendo had already said months ago that the company wouldn’t be saying anything about the next Smash Bros. game until E3. Well, that time’s almost upon us. What do you want to see in the new game?

Don't worry about all the live action stuff. Stick with it, and you'll get a little gameplay footage, too.

Blizzard revealed it's bringing Diablo 3 to the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 and PS4, with the worldwide release date for the two current-gen consoles set for September 3.

[developing...]

Amazon has launched a brand new indie store, and we've got your first coverage right here. Amazon is going beyond just having awesome sales with the opening of their indie shop. The retailer is running a sweet promotion until July 17th where anyone who buys a game from their indie store will receive three free games. These three games will rotate, and of course, the Moneysaver will keep you posted on which three are currently on offer. The current trio is:• Dynasty of Dusk• The Curse of Nordic Cove• Huntsman: The Orphange But it gets even better. Amazon will sell a set of indie bundles that also rotate over time. These bundles will be priced at $10 and will consist of either 5 or 10 games. When you purchase one of these bundles, 100% of the revenue goes to the developers. Check out their indie developer spotlights. Ok, enough preamble, listed below are some of our favorite picks from the long lists of items on sale. Games are Steam unless otherwise noted, prices are 50% off of retail unless otherwise noted, and the majority of the titles are playable on Mac as well as PC. Indie up. Full List. Individual Games • Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien ($11) | Normally $15 | But wait, buy this Bit.Trip Bundle below and you'll get Runner2 for $3.50• Bit.Trip Core + Beat + Void + Runner ($10) • Stealth Bastard Deluxe ($5) | DLC also on sale. • Don't Starve ($12) | Normally $15 • FTL: Faster than Light ($5) | Normally $10 | Absolute must-play. • Chivalry: Medieval Warfare ($12.50) • Brutal Legend ($7) | Normally $20 | Other Double Fine games also discounted. • Hotline Miami ($5) | Worth it for the music alone. • Castle Crashers ($10) | Normally $15 | If you somehow haven't played this by now, it is incredibly fun. • Shatter ($5) | Fantastic game. • Puddle ($4.50) • Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack ($4) | This is from the Guacamelee! guys • McPixel ($2.50) • They Bleed Pixels ($3.40) | Normally $10 • Trine ($1.25) | Normally $5 Bundles • Iron Brigade + Stealth Bastard Deluxe + The Cave + Galaxy on Fire 2 + Mutant Mudds ($10) | I like this bundle, kind of made up of stuff that's dodged other bundles in the past. • Costume Quest + Stacking + Brutal Legend + Psychonauts + Iron Brigade ($10) • 6 Serious Sam Games + DLC ($21) | It's pretty serious guys. Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

You'd think a 19 year-old convicted criminal would be happy to avoid jail in favour of home detention and the chance to get some gaming done, but nope, not in the case of this unnamed New Zealander. Having already served ten months of an eleven month sentence for an undisclosed crime, the man called his local police station and told them that, because he "had run out of Xbox games to play", he was in danger of breaking his parole conditions if he wasn't locked up. The cops duly obliged, and he's spending the last month of his sentence Xbox-free in the slammer. Man sick of playing Xbox on home detention asks for jail [New Zealand Herald, thanks Brent!]

As people are probably aware from my fairly frequent posts about Hong Kong collectible toy company Hot Toys' Movie Masterpiece figures, I am a bit of a fan of the collectible figurine. Especially the ones that look superbly close to the real life characters they're modeled after. So, the latest major hit to my wallet has been the Hot Toys Avengers Loki figure. As always, the details to the character's face are astounding. It's not an exact copy of Tom Hiddleston, but it's still damn close and probably the best 12-inch figure recreation of the actor I've seen so far. In terms of facial detail, Loki is probably one of my favorite Hot Toys collectibles alongside my Captain America and Joker figures. More than the facial features, however, I was completely blown away by the details to Loki's costume. One of the things I really enjoy about the Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece line is how they really let you appreciate the costume design that you tend to overlook when watching the actual movie. Looking at the intricate details of the figure's costume lets you notice all the folds, layers, and little accessories that the movie costume designer probably spent hours, if not days, milling over to create the final product. As for flaws, the standard 12-inch figure-in-clothes mobility issues apply, though not as drastic as some other figures. The clothes and armor are rather delicate, but even more so – due to their shape – are the helmet and spear. For God's sake, keep this thing out of young children's reach; they WILL break it. The figure comes with removable helmet and cape, 2 spears (long and short versions), 2 daggers (to stab your Thor figure with), shackles, and muzzle. All in all, a somewhat limited selection of props, but considering how awesome the figure itself looks, it's not that much of a drawback. Overall, I am really, really happy with my purchase of this figure. While it's not exactly in the lineup of Avengers "heroes," it has no trouble fitting in on the shelf among the good guys. Also, now that I own Loki, Thor, and Captain America, I can totally have fun expanding on that image Tom Hiddleston tweeted from the day he ransacked the Avengers props department. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. To contact the author of this post, write to cogitoergonihil@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @tnakamura8.

The Eidos life president thinks Nintendo risks losing a generation of gamers.

Presented without further comment. Star Wars Han Solo in Carbonite Light Switch - I will offer more by June 15th [Etsy, via Laughing Squid]

With fantastic games on offer across just about every platform, with libraries that grow more accomplished with each passing day, you might think it's always a good time to buy new video game hardware, should you still be without one of the major systems. Mostly, you would be correct. But not this month. There's one time of the year where you'd be a sucker for spending cash on a video game system, and that time is upon us. Beginning on June 11 is the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3. It's the biggest industry event of the year for the video game business, the place where all the big guns get up on stage and talk about their plans for the holiday season, unveil new games and make headlines with important announcements. It's an even bigger event than usual this year, because both Sony and Microsoft have new consoles out this holiday season, the first true "next generation" systems since the Xbox 360 and PS3 were released all the way back in 2005-06. The stakes are high, and the announcements will come thick and fast. So how does this affect you, potential video game console purchaser? In a number of ways. PRICE CUTS ARE COMING With the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 only a few months away, the current generation of home consoles is about to become outdated tech. Unlike other industries, though, video games aren't so quick to cast out old models; with huge install bases and developers having experience working with the systems, there'll be games coming for the Xbox 360 and PS3 for years to come. Not to mention the fact that, while hardcore gamers will be lining up at launch for new systems, they're likely to be priced far too high for massmarket adoption. What you can expect to come at E3, then, are probable price cuts to these old systems to help them stay competitive, lure in more customers (especially mainstream consumers) previously put off by higher prices. Even Nintendo, which only launched its latest console last year, seems to already be in on the action. Call it a fire sale, call it savvy business, it's highly unlikely either the PS3 or 360 will escape E3 without a price cut. Or, worst case, reworked bundles that give you more gear (games, HDD space, controllers) for the same price. So wait for those to kick in. As for handhelds, it's a similar story. Sony's faltering Vita must surely in line for a price cut to revive its flagging fortunes, and there's no better place for that to be announced than at E3. Hopefully alongside word of new games for the system. WE MIGHT GET NEW MODELS Sony helped really champion the idea of cheaper, smaller models of old hardware with the PSOne, and did it again with the slimmer PSTwo, iterations which extended the lives of both consoles considerably even when they'd been "replaced" with newer machines. Nintendo have likewise dabbled with the idea recently with the Wii Mini (having really invented the idea with NES and SNES redesigns). There's a chance that at some stage during E3 we get to see smaller, cheaper versions of existing machines, at least from Microsoft. Since Sony only just redesigned the PS3 last year, they might not, but who knows, with the Xbox One not backwards compatible and the Xbox 360 a capable media player, rumours of Microsoft releasing a cheap, download-only Xbox 360 console/media device aren't the craziest we've heard this year. If new models are announced, you're going to want to get one over the consoles currently available. They're usually smaller, cheaper and use more modern components. THE UNKNOWN In terms of everything from backwards compatibility to upcoming releases to the specifics of DRM, there's still a lot of stuff we don't know about the video game landscape, for both new systems and old. So it makes sense to wait until after E3, see how things are shaping up. Sure, you might be excited for a PS4 or Xbox One now, enough to place a preorder right now, but if the games shown for those systems underwhelm, or appear to be simply upscaled ports of current-gen games, will you bother? Also, remember, there'll likely be new games announced for the Xbox 360 and PS3 at E3, maybe even important ones, which could lessen the need to upgrade. Or cause you to buy one of those systems. Which you shouldn't. Not until after E3. PLEASE WAIT In short, then, be patient. Wait it out. The video game console marketplace is about to get its biggest shake-up in over six years. Rushing in to buy a system now would be throwing your money away. Best to wait a month or two, see how the dust settles, see which consoles are cheaper, which have earned your investment and which look destined for a swift and painful death. Then buy something. And if you do, you might want to check these out. Note: I've exempted the 3DS from this article, because really, in 2013, it looks like any time is a good time to buy a 3DS. Ditto for the PC, because purchasing decisions for that platform are normally tied to new generations of CPU and graphics hardware (which is a whole different story) than specific announcements at E3.

There are very few scenarios in which I would even consider spending $1000 on a photograph of former Microsoft boss Bill Gates. This - a signed photo of Gates playing Guitar Hero at E3 looking like a goofball - is one of them. BILL GATES SIGNED PHOTO 11X14 RARE XBOX WII GUITAR HERO MICROSOFT JSA PROOF [eBay, via Game Sniped]

Alex and Rorie are back, with some discussion of 2013's finest comedy, After Earth (spoilers end around 19:00)! Also: The Hangover 3, Game of Thrones (spoilers end 40:30), and various other entertainment-y events! The summer's in full swing!

I tried to sit down and watch Ultramarines, Games Workshops' official animated Warhammer 40K film, a few years ago. Made it maybe 15 minutes in. It was awful. Like bad 90's PC game cinematics. Where official projects fail, however, fan projects can be counted on to succeed. And I don't think I've ever seen a fan project quite like this one. The Lord Inquisitor is an animated film that, a few of years back, began as a labour of love of just one man, artist and modeller Erasmus Brosdau. He put the trailer you see up top together by himself, an incredible achievement considering it blows the official movie out of the water. That trailer, though, was from 2011. In the years since, you might be forgiven for thinking the project, originally planned to be an eight-minute clip, fell by the wayside. Nope. It's since ballooned out to become a planned 40-minute film, and is now the work of a team, including Warhammer 40K authors and helping hands from employees of places like Crytek and Ubisoft. Below is a more recent trailer, from 2012. As you can see, more hands and eyes on the project means slicker trailers (not to mention better writing than in the first clip, something you can forgive Brosdau since he's an artist, not a writer). The hope is that a prologue portion of the film can be released for free next year, with the final cut to follow. You can follow the movie's progress at its official site.

We fly through tubes to victory and play a swan song for our ungracious hero.

Remember Me is one of those rare - and wonderfully so - games that divides opinion. Yeah, it's got some iffy combat, and the platforming's not so great. But the world developers Dontnod created for it to exist in...just, wow. The Neo-Paris of 2084 is a remarkable place, taking design cues from the obvious - like Blade Runner - while managing to preserve a very French feel. It also strives to be as "real" as possible; yes, there are lasers and towering glass skyscrapers, but the city's inhabitants still wear dirty jeans, and many live in 19th century buildings (or what remains of them). I remember the first time I saw the game, back in 2011, when it wasn't really even a game. Huddled in the world's tiniest meeting room at GamesCom, I met with Remember Me's creators, though back then, it was a project known as Adrift. They had no gameplay to show me, and couldn't even really tell me what the gameplay would be like. What they could tell me, though, was everything about the world of Neo-Paris, from the dystopia caused by trading memories to the distinct look and feel of the city. That's something you can really get a feel for when you play the game. Yeah, there's a "game" to play, but for DontNod, it's clear the world and the story came first, the game almost an excuse, a vehicle with which to propel your eyeballs through their real labour of love, a social and political exercise rendered through a nightmarish vision of their home city. In the gallery below, I've collected the best pieces of concept and production art released for the game. The artists featured include the game's two biggest visual forces, Michel Koch and Aleksi Briclot, along with Paul Chadeisson, Gary Jamroz-Palma and Fred Augis. Most are wallpaper-sized, too, so enjoy. To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

Over at Dead End Thrills, screenshot specialist Duncan Harris has turned his eye on the striking sci-fi fantasy Remember Me. Head on over there for some screenshots so high-res they look like concept art.

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, an Xbox 360-only indie game that a Russian pirate "ported" over to PC as "a restoration of justice" will get an official PC release, the game's studio said this evening. Ska Studios said a PC version of Vampire Smile had always been envisioned since the game released in 2011, but the time and money of bringing it out for that platform got in the way of other projects the indie shop was working on, such as its upcoming game Charlie Murder, due this summer. "The reason The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is not on PC is not because of something secret and evil," James Silva wrote. "Porting is a huge hassle, it’s not trivial, and I simply haven’t made time for it." That said, the cracking-and-porting job done by one "Barabus" has focused attention on the game and therefore Silva's attention toward officially releasing it on PC. "Of course, we can’t condone it, but we definitely recognize that the only thing we can really do about it is the original plan: port to PC," Silva wrote. "Nothing’s set in stone, but we got the go ahead to make a pre-announcement: we’ll be working with Microsoft to bring our stuff to PC," Silva promised. To Kotaku, Silva said "the PC port was something I had been wanting to do for awhile," and something his studio had brought up with Microsoft on Friday, four days before the hack. "Once that news hit, we all decided it was a good opportunity to follow up with an announcement. It was a bizarre coincidence, and we're actually more flattered by the positive attention Vampire Smile's getting than anything, but I've said that already. "The most common misconception about porting is that it's entirely a policy-based process, when the real issue for me has always been the months of dev time I'd personally have to sink into it," Silva elaborated. Once Charlie Murder launches, they'll have more time to devote to creating a proper PC version of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. Vampire Smile, Charlie Murders [Ska Studios]

Phenomenal cosmic power... and (relatively) itty bitty price. I mentioned in today's Moneysaver that Rakuten was running a promotion where customers could get 30% of their spendings back in store credit on purchases over $200 using the code SUMMER at checkout. Turns out this applies to the latest generation of Intel's processors and NVIDIA's video cards as well. It's a pretty insane deal on these just-released components. So insane in fact that I bought them myself. Guess that gaming PC I'm planning on building is happening sooner than expected. Warning: Credit will be available 15 days after delivery and must be used within 20 days after that. Warning 2: Do not forget to put the code in. The processor you want: • Intel Core i7-4770K 3.4GHz "Haswell" ($338 - $101 Credit = $237) As for the 700 series of graphics cards, they have both the 770 and 780 from a few different makers, though at least in my opinion, the 780 doesn't really justify its price. I went with the: • EVGA GeForce GTX 770 SC 2GB w/ ACX Cooler ($420 - $126 Credit = $294) Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. This is a Moneysaver One-Shot, a post focusing on a single deal, sale, or category. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

The puzzle genre is last place I expected to find a game that makes me feel guilty about killing. I've murdered myself a hundred times over in The Swapper, and it never gets any easier. "They aren't really me," I tell myself. "They aren't alive." Technically it's true. The meat of Facepalm Games' award-winning indie puzzler is artificial; soulless clones created through technology. Mindless golems brought to life, quite literally, from clay — the entire game is hand-crafted using clay and other everyday materials. They move only as I move, mirror images with weight and substance. At first the Swapper gun my unnamed astronaut discovers after evacuating the doomed Theseus space station is a convenient tool. Seemingly no one else survived the strange plague that swept the facility — a simple research lab dedicated to studying strange alien rocks — so when more than one button needs to be pushed, being able to craft up to four empty shells out of thin air is a godsend (though perhaps that's not the proper term to use here). But soon I gained the ability to swap my consciousness into these created vessels, sending my free will spiraling out of my body like a reverse bullet. I was shooting my soul from a gun, leaving a flesh puppet in my wake. How liberating, to ride a beam of light from one body to the next! Combining the Swapper's functions, I could do anything. I could squeeze through the narrowest gaps. I could defy gravity. I could even fly, but watch carefully... See that crumpled form turning to dust in the bottom of the pit? That's the price I pay for freedom from the laws of nature — I watch myself die again and again. The higher I fly, the more empty corpses I leave to plummet to the ground below. If a vessel is worthy of containing a soul, isn't it worthy of continued existence? I tried my best to ignore the question as I explored the mostly-deserted space station. I attempted to lose myself in the story of a horrific misunderstanding between scientists and subjects that unfolds through a series of system logs found on flickering computer terminals in the darkness... ...and the song of the strange alien stones that spoke riddles every time I passed. I focused on the puzzles, brilliantly-built wonders of convoluted logic, where the path from point 'a' to point 'b' usually involved seeding the level with duplicates and then dancing between them with pinpoint precision. I learned to dread the red and blue lights, the former preventing me from soul-swapping, the latter denying my creations. I reveled in the atmosphere (or lack thereof, at times) created by developers Otto Hantula and Olli Harjola, a wondrous concoction of hand-crafted scenery, minimalist lighting and ambient music that's almost too magical for a science fiction title. And I smirked at the realization that this PC game, like so many mobile puzzle games I've been playing late, at its core follows a very simple formula — complete puzzles, earn enough "stars" to open the next set, complete more puzzles, earn more stars. If only the developers of those mobile titles had the time and resources to create a framework around their brain games as Facepalm Games has. I tried to keep my mind off of my countless careless leavings, but still they haunt me, the same way I'm haunted by the vision of the bottled Jackmans in the movie adaptation of The Prestige, or every Jamie Madrox that's ever perished in the line of duty. At the end of The Swapper the player is presented with a difficult choice, but in my case it wasn't all that difficult. After hours spent creating and destroying countless simulacra, my fate was sealed — there was no question. The gravity of any final decision is far outdone by the hours of existential deconstruction that come before.

Brad and Vinny wreck many a truck to stay alive in this delightfully janky zombie game.

The Trophies, mood, scope and more from the latest masterpiece from Naughty Dog. Plus, E3 predictions.

Designers that worked on the likes of Assassin's Creed III and Dead Space 3 are working on a new title for PS4 called Tiny Brains.

Ska Studios' XBLA bloodbath The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is coming to PC with help from Microsoft, creator James Silva announced on his dev (and cat) blog. Vampire Smile is currently on PC - but it's via an unofficial crack that made headlines this morning, partially because the hacker labeled his version a "restoration of justice."

Silva says he and the other half of Ska Studios, Michelle Juett Silva, approached Microsoft last week about developing an extended, PC version of Vampire Smile, far before the unofficial version was an issue.

"Porting Vampire Smile to PC as an enhanced Director's Cut has been something I've been wanting to do since launch (I was calling it Georgelucasing until Michelle made me stop)," James writes. "Nothing's set in stone, but we got the go ahead to make a pre-announcement: We'll be working with Microsoft to bring our stuff to PC."

Ska Studios can't officially condone the cracked PC version of Vampire Smile, but James doesn't hold the creator in complete disregard: "I really am honestly flattered that he took the time and effort to reverse engineer Vampire Smile for PC. I heart your enthusiasm, Barabus! (Just stop calling it justice, please!)"

And since Ska can't stop making news today, it went all out: Charlie Murder, its next brawler coming to XBLA, is slated for a launch this summer. We think it's a ton of chaotic fun - check out the launch trailer below.

Scott Jon Siegel knows Zynga from the inside out. The game designer was at the casual game company as they grew to becoming a buzzed-about company, working on titles like Café World and Scramble. He left a while back and is now at PopCap Games. Like lots of other game creators, he looked on with concern as Zynga shed 520 peers on Monday in a massive lay-off. But, unlike lots of other people, Siegel has been offering some post-mortem twitter wisdom from Zynga’s meteoric rise and seemingly imminent fall. Check out the highlights from the #lessonsfromz hashtag below.

Samsung has announced the latest variant of its flagship smartphone, the dustproof and waterproof Galaxy S4 Active.