The big news this week: Rock Band 2's dates slipped out, Rockstar finally goes ahead and tells us GTA IV is coming to the PC, and Crecente is gonna blast his genetic material into outer space. But wait, there's less: The Tower formally unveiled the penalty of "disemvoweling," which means miscreants who don't necessarily commit banhammerable offenses will have a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y removed from their comments.

Jst dn't mk mstrbtn jks t Crcnt's xpns nd vrthng wll b lrght. Hr's sm hghlghts frm th wk n rgnl rprtng, wth th fll lst fllwng th jmp:

Kotaku's New Tool: The Straight Razor of Disemvoweling
Wheelman: Another Game With Vin Diesel
Blitz II: Like Madden, But Doggy Style
Rock Band 2 Dates Slip Out
5211: World Braces for Crecente Clone Army
Rockstar: GTA IV For PC in Nov

I don't know which I like more, the scientific description of the pseuderanthemum incendia (fire flower), which can be found wild in many places around worlds 1-2 and 4-2, or the fact that you can actually buys these for $20 to $30 a pop. A vase of these could make a great Mother's Day present, if you're mom is cool.

pseuderanthemum incendia (fire flower) [Etsy, via Tanooki]

Best Buy Offers Gift Cards for HD-DVD Players

Are you one of the unfortunates stuck with a now useless HD-DVD player? Did you purchase it at Best Buy before February 23rd? If you answered yes to both of these questions, you can return that old door stop to Best Buy and get a $50 gift card in return. According to CNN it is estimated that upwards of $10 million in US Gift cards. HD-DVD owners will be found through Best Buy's Reward Zone program, service plans and online orders. The gift cards will automatically be mailed out to qualifying folks at the beginning of may. If you are not a Reward Zone member you can bring in your BB receipt or credit card info. They will also be offering an online trade-in center where customers can unload their unwanted players beginning March 21.

Those stuck with HD-DVD players getting gift cards {CNN.com - Thanks, Robert]

Last Minute Shopping?

It's the day before Christmas and at least one of you haven't gotten around to buying presents yet. Fortunately for you the folks here at Kotaku Tower have a solution... it's called a card. Yeah, you're screwed. But you can still give something nice after the holidays. Check out our 2007 Gift Guide of Obscene Nicety and Sublime Naughtiness for an amazing and eclectic list of gaming goodies and hardware or if you're a stickler for giving games to the gamers on your list make sure to hit up our 2007 Video Game Wish List with oodles of ideas for which games to buy.

And if you buy that island you sure as hell better be inviting us to the island warming, you know how cranky pirates and ninjas can get.

Just in time for Christmas, Steam is rolling out a new gifting feature on their gaming downloading service. To send a gift you just need to sign in to your account, select the game and then select it as a gift and indicate who it's for. The recipient will receive an email saying they've gotten the game and, if they're new to Steam, they'll get instructions on how to sign up.

Hit up the official Q& A for all of the lovely gift-giving details.

Steam Gifting [Steam]

See, if you read the site regularly you'd probably know I only write posts on the hour and that since I'm in Australia, I don't usually wake up and starting writing "live" until 1 p.m. Denver time, or so.

For those of you finalists who figured it out, good for you. Now the first person to answer the question found on the jump in the comments for this post will win the $500 gift certificate.

I'm sure by now most everyone has heard of the one laptop, one child program. Back in 2002 an MIT professor traveling in Cambodia was struck with the idea of getting affordable, durable, low-energy laptops into the hands of every child in the world. To do this he helped found One Laptop per Child, which worked to create a cheap laptop which met those needs.

The XO is that laptop. The XO is hard drive free, has a very low power consuming screen and super powerful Wi-Fi antennas, but the neatest this is the XO's design, which features a "transformer hinge", allows it to function as an educational laptop, and e-reader and even a gaming device. The laptop features what appear to be a D-pad and perhaps a thumbstick of some sort built into the front of the case on either side of the screen, according to the site.

This week's Sunday Telegraph Magazine, the Sydney Telegraph's weekend magazine, includes a Tech Guide which gives readers a chance to "Eye up this year's latest and greatest, from all singing and dancing mobile phones to the mod squad of gadgets."

Only one video game console made the cut to be included in the five-page special feature. Listed under the category "Beyond" with a laptop, digital weather station, keyboard and wireless mouse and home digital media player is the Playstation 3.

Game consoles have come a long way, and so too have the price tags. For those among us who winced when Sony released its PlayStation 3 with a $1000 price tag, the company has wiped $300 off just in time for Christmas. The new 40GB model doesn't quite match the 60GB model that was released earlier this year, but should provide enough storage and features to keep gamers happy, pumping out exceptional gaming experience at a more affordable price. And don't forget, it connects to the internet and plays music and high-definition Blu-Ray DVDs, too.

Nothing against the PS3, certainly not now that its dropped its price and is getting some amazing games for the holidays, but it does seem weird to not include the 360 and Wii, especially without any explanation.

Every year the holidays roll around and every year I promise myself, the rest of Kotaku Tower and sometimes even the readers that we're going to get off our collective asses and actually write up a gift guide. But the thing is, I hate gift guides. The hate, I think, comes from spending 12 years of my life working at newspapers where the list, the gift guide, the annual must-write-story was a thing to dread and hate. This was because as a newspaper writer you weren't allowed to buck any trends or come up with neat ideas for things like gifts, instead you had to roll out the list of things people already knew about and polish them up to make them sound new and interesting.

While I suppose you could say the same about this, our first real gift guide, I'd like to think that it holds some surprises and delights. Personally, I've already started bugging everyone I know to pool their money together and buy me Pigeon Island (Fahey's find) for my next 50 Christmases and Birthdays rolled into one.

If a $400,000 private island in the Caribbean isn't your cup of tea (and it better not be because it's MINE, ALL MINE), you're still bound to find something that tickles your fancy among this list of goodies complies by all of Kotaku's writers, be it a Japanese Gesture book or a life-sized Gundam.

Earlier this week we posted our first ever, sorta, Gaming Gift Guide. While the G3 was packed full of all sorts of goodies, mostly game related, but not totally, it was completely missing any actual games. That's because we had a different idea for listing out which video games would make good gifts and why.

This year, the problem isn't finding a game to give, it's figuring out which of the more than 50 or so top-tier titles you should pick to hand out or ask for. So instead of compiling a list of the 50 games and saying, go make up your own mind, we decided to mix things up a bit. Each of the Kotaku writers were given $300 in fictitious Kotaku Kash to spend on themselves. We figured that way the writers would be completely honest about which games they would buy or ask for if they were limited to a still rather high budget.

Hit the jump to see the lists and explanations, then feel free to join in with how you'd spend a $300 gaming gift card.

Toys "R" Us Offers $25 Gift Card With Super Mario Galaxy Purchase

New Wii Gift Feature, But No Price Cut

Good news and bad news. OK, really just good news for Nintendo.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata today ruled out any price cut for the Wii today during a press conference, saying that they would be struggling to meet demand for the console. He added that the will begin selling the Wii in China next year and unveiled a new gift-giving feature for the Wii.

The new function will allow users to send each other games via the Wii's shopping channel. The user will purchase the game and then choose a recipient, who will receive an alert. When the other gamer accepts the gift the Wii will jump to the channel and start downloading.

"We think this will be a breakthrough in encouraging customers to spread news of fun games word of mouth," Iwata said. "We also hope to spur more users to connect their Wiis to the Internet," he said.

Just in time for the holidays. I wonder how well this will go over?

Nintendo Rules Out Wii Price Cut [AP]

Cooking Mama Lunchbox

GameStop Invades Grocery Store

Everybody Hates The PS3

Sony Gives Gran Turismo HD Concept For Cmas

Germ Free PC Gaming For The Win