Xbox Live Indie Games has garnered a reputation for being an unpredictable roulette wheel of weirdness, failure, and several real gems, so a coalition of indie developers are out to give it a little PR boost. The Indie Games Winter Uprising (via The Escapist) wants to start “fighting back against mediocrity and lameness the best way we know how – by releasing amazing games!” The first week of December will see a list of titles go up for sale for 80 to 400 Microsoft points (about $1.00 to $5.00), including a Soulcaster sequel, a secksy dual-stick shmup that emphasizes the tried-and-true combination of large guns and boobs, and something called Asteroids Do Concern Me. Well, they concern me too, buddy.

The Uprising is currently 14 games strong, and the biggest headline-grabber so far is Ska Studios‘s ZP2KX: Zombies and Pterodactyls!, sequel to ZP2K9. You might recognize Ska Studios from (cut-and-paste is my friend) I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 1NIT!!!1 and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. With indie pedigree like that, this Winter Uprising should have enough legs to storm the gates and kick the doors in.

When a Microsoft rep tweeted expectations of 5 million Kinects sold by year’s end, eyebrows were raised, eyes were rolled, and lips were curled in an assortment of skeptical sneers. Now it looks like they just might hit that mark. USA Today (via Nowgamer) reports that Kinect is sold out in stores across the country. Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop, Target’s online store, and Walmart’s online store are apparently completely out of the standalone Kinect sensor, although Amazon and GameStop still apparently have some of the Xbox 360 Kinect bundles ($300 to $400, depending on the bundle) left. Target might have some in stores, and Walmart has not yet reported a sellout.

Color me impressed. Despite my personal skepticism, I’ve been hearing some glowing praise for Kinect, and the consumers seem to be voting with their wallets. If you have your heart set on Kinect in time for the holidays, I don’t think you need to be in panic mode just yet. All of the aforementioned retailers will be stocking Kinect as fast as they can be manufactured, and are taking backorders now. It is likely that ordering it online will result in a wait of several weeks, rather than several days. The availability of Kinect will be a story to keep our eye on as the holiday shopping season rears its head once again.

We’ve previously pointed out that the lineup of games expected for Kinect is heavily skewed toward the mini-game compilation titles à la Wii Sports. As if to answer the critics, Microsoft trotted out a bunch of Kinect-enabled titles at TGS that seem to make a pass at – dare I say – the hardcore crowd. Check out the roundup of new games for Kinect. Read all about them after the break.

Last night, hundreds of gamers lined up at the Best Buy Theater (formerly Nokia Theater) in Times Square to be among the first to buy Halo: Reach. The crowd serpentined from the entrance to the theater on 44th street, around the corner and up Broadway, and reached all the way to the Lion King marquis on 45th street. They waited patiently in line for hours, periodically getting swag like t-shirts posters, and comic books from the dozens of Best Buy employees patrolling the site.

Check out the detailed account of the party and a huge gallery of photos after the break.

Ubisoft looks to be following Microsoft’s own Kinect launch example with Motion Sports, a sports minigame compilation title set to hit shelves alongside Kinect this November. The six minigames include dodging tacklers as a football player, horseback riding, downhill skiing, hang gliding, boxing, and soccer penalty kicks. At least some of these games include head-to-head multiplayer, but the trailer doesn’t indicate whether or not they all do.

Wii Sports was probably the best proof-of-concept for the Wiimote technology, so it’s fitting that approachable sports-themed minigame titles would be a major part of Kinect’s holiday season honeymoon. Including Microsoft’s in-house Kinect Sports game, which also offers six sports minigames, Kinect now has at least two launch titles of that flavor. It will be interesting to see how Kinect is received – especially if minigame compilation titles are the meat and potatoes of its offerings. Will there even be room in the market for two sport minigame titles at launch? Interestingly, Kinect Sports won’t even be pack-in with the Kinect; that honor goes to Kinect Adventures, another minigame compilation.

The Xbox 360 is getting a new wireless controller with a clever and unexpected gimmick. A few days ago, Major Nelson unveiled a new, silver gamepad with a morphing direction pad. By twisting the controller’s d-pad, you can transform it from a directional disc to a four-way pad. In disc mode, the pad is suited for sweeping gestures, while in four-way mode (with the diagonal bits receded into the controller), it’s better for games that only use the cardinal directions.

It seems to be a premium accessory, and won’t be included pack-in with any Xbox 360 yet. According to Microsoft, the controller with a play-and-charge kit will retail for $65. That’s pretty steep, just for a silver finish and shifting d-pad. If you really need the cardinal directions and arcade-style control, you might want to consider getting a MadCatz or HORI fight stick instead. They’re not as expensive as the new controller, and offer a more old-school experience than just a gimmicky d-pad.

This short video on Sony’s blog demonstrates where the PlayStation Move is at in terms of development. Now that the Wii is about to turn four, Sony and Microsoft are both poised to make wigglin’ and wagglin’ major features of their consoles as well. The Wii’s motion controls have failed to deliver on the promise of a total game-changing console. Despite this, the Wii has some real gems but games which actually utilize the motion controls well are few and far between. Today, most gamers still use thumbsticks, shoulder triggers, and face buttons for a majority of their games. Here are a few ways motion controls could finally make games better.

Microsoft’s Major Nelson has just announced that Xbox Live will be getting a price increase for its Gold subscriptions. Starting November 1, a 1-month XBL Gold subscription will bump up from $7.99 to $9.99, a 3-month subscription will bump up from $19.99 to $24.99, and a 12-month subscription will bump up from $49.99 to $59.99. Based on some of the responses to Major Nelson’s announcement, including a few remarks from players with Gamerscores well over 50,000, people aren’t happy about this change.

It’s long been the case that clever gamers could find good deals on Xbox Live Gold subscription and Microsoft Points cards. Frankly, if you ever paid the full $50 for a year’s subscription, you were taken. Amazon currently offers a 12-month subscription card for $40, $10 less than MSRP and $20 less than the planned price starting in November. Newegg, Fry’s Electronics, and even Walmart have similar deals. At worst, we’ll see the effective price of a year’s subscription move up to the previous $50 standard, and even that’s not entirely certain. It’ll be a $10/$25/$60 price structure on paper, but not for most players.

Siliconera reports that The Last Story director Hironobu Sakaguchi said the game’s system took precedence over the story in an Iwata Asks interview. “During 23 years there are 3 times when I considered the [gameplay] system first” said Sakaguchi. The first was the original Final Fantasy and the second was Final Fantasy VII. “There was a considerable amount of trial and error.” Final Fantasy was when they first set up the systems that the RPG would use for decades, while Final Fantasy VII was the first shift to three dimensions.

Hironobu Sakaguchi created the Final Fantasy series in 1987 with the last of then Squaresoft’s money; the game was named ironically as Sakaguchi expected it to be his last game. He went on to be the head of Squaresoft all the way through Final Fantasy X-2, soon after which he left the company to form Mistwalker with funds from Microsoft. Mistwalker’s games have been critically successful, but haven’t been the financial hits they were expected to be. There is some speculation that The Last Story may also be ironically named, fueled by a mistranslation that Sakaguichi was quitting the industry after this title.

Epic Games has given us an update on the Fate of Carmine campaign. As it turns out, gamers are more sympathetic to the Carmine family than a lot were anticipating. As it stands now, more people have voted to save Clayton from a grisly fate in the final Gears of Wars game than to let him die. But there are still two weeks left in the campaign and as Microsoft says, it’s a close race. You can cast your vote by buying your 360 Avatar a t-shirt or you can head over to Amazon and have a physical shirt mailed. It’s up to you to decide if Carmine should be saved or if Carmine must die. Proceeds from the campaign go to the Child’s Play Charity.