It's Friday, November 10^th, and you all know what that means. There's only one week left until the launch of the Playstation 3 and, two days later, the launch of the Wii. We're all really excited here, especially because next week is Nintendo's Holiday Wii Preview event in Toronto. So we're ending off the week with some very high expectations. Things are looking up.

The Game Developer's Association of Australia (GDAA), which is hosting Australia's inaugural game conference, Game Connect: Asia Pacific, announced the official lineup of international speakers for the conference, which is being held in Brisbane, November 30-December 2, 2006. The list includes some big names from the industry, including development managers from Microsoft and executives from Sony Europe. Some of the speakers include :

Zeno Colaço, Vice-President of Publisher & Developer Relations for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Scott Brown, President of NetDevil

Chris Avellone, Creative Lead and Co-owner of Obsidian Entertainment

Clinton Keith, Chief Technology Office at High Moon Studios

Noel Llopis, Senior Architect at High Moon Studios

Zsolt Mathe, Software Design Engineer for Microsoft Game Technology Group

Tsutomou Kouno from Sony Computer Entertainment International

Jason Strayer, Developer Support Manager for Microsoft Game Technology Group

The conference is meant to build on other annual conferences which were held by the GDAA in the past. The new format, however, takes a more regionally focused direction. For a complete list of speakers, and any other information you may want to know about the conference, you can head to www.gameconnectap.com.

Just when you thought EA couldn't think of a way to milk The Sims franchise anymore, its team came up with a way to surprise you, and just in time for the holiday season too. How? By re-releasing The Sims 2 Holiday Edition, which is the entire The Sims 2 game with holiday extras, and introducing The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff expansion pack, for people who already have the game. The new Holiday Edition has 60 bonus holiday items instead of the 40 bonus holiday items which came in the original Holiday Edition. The new The Sims 2 Holiday Edition is available for the same amount as the regular version of The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff expansion pack is available for $19.99 USD and CAD. For full information on The Sims 2 and its expansion packs, you can head over to www.thesims2.com.

That's all for this week's gaming news. Be sure to come back and join us next week, as we'll be back to our regular schedule of bringing you daily gaming news.

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