Firstly, the good news. Soulcalibur IV has a release date pinned, albeit just for the US as of now. Expect to see the dazzling installment burn into souls on the 29th of July, that too with your choice of cuddly Jedi master Yoda (Xbox 360) or bodacious Sith-Daddy Darth Vader (Playstation 3). Oh, and this time you’ll get to play online. Two jugs are better than one.

Now for the bad news. Ubisoft will be distributing SCIV within PAL territories, which means that the chances of seeing this carried over to Indian retailers are within the vicinity of slim. Not a possibility I’d like to admit, but that’s only going to be one more obstacle to overcome in my vast pursuit of knowledge for digital Tee and Ay. Man, if only Ubisoft acquired some mobile game development studio based in, oh I don’t know, Pune or whatever. Actually, I’m not sure how much good that’ll do, but not all candy-coated dreams should have to be imported from Play-Asia, ya know. Unless you don’t want your parents catching you during an intense session of Puchi Evangelion. Hang on, I better lock the door.

Wow, it looks like the demos are just (pun very much intended) rolling on to Xbox Live Marketplace these days. Joining the ranks of awesome demos released this month, including Stranglehold, Fatal Inertia, Eternal Sonata and the almighty BioShock is Namco Bandai’s quirky alterna-platformer, Beautiful Katamari. A favorite among PlayStation fans, the Katamari franchise has seen two best-selling games on the PS2, Katamari Damacy and We ♥ Katamari and one, Me and My Katamari, on the PSP before it was announced that the franchise would be dumping the Playstation brand name to become an Xbox 360 exclusive this year. Weighing in at 432 MB, the Beautiful Katamari demo is available for download right now from the Marketplace. The final version of the game all set to release later this fall, with HD visuals, an all new soundtrack, new characters (including the Prince’s cousins), online multiplayer, downloadable content and, whoopee, offline multiplayer, both competitive and co-operative. With all these demos coming to the Xbox 360, it’s sure got me singing the sunshine song as I wait for another awesome demo download to complete.