Austrailia's censorship on mature-themed video games isn't as strict as we thought ... but it soon will be. The government is pushing forward with its national internet filtering system, a program designed to block all the world's evils -- including video games that don't meet the country's MA15+ rating standard. As The Age reports, the current system of "banning" only applied to actual stores, but the new internet filtration system is supposed to catch unclassified downloadable games, Flash games and sites that sell physical copies of games that don't abide by the MA15+ standard.

Seriously, Australia needs to stop basing its video game rating system around what's appropriate for a 15-year-old.

Source -- Web filters to censor video games
Source -- Australian 'Net filter to block video games, too

[Thanks, Isaac]

[Update: Sega has confirmed that the US release date remains June 23.]

Sega has announced that the European release of The Conduit has been delayed from its original June 26 date to July 10. According to CVG, unspecified issues with the game's multi-language European localization are responsible for the holdup.

VOOKS has also confirmed a delay for the Australian release of High Voltage's FPS. Once given a June 25 release date, the game has been pushed back to July 16. Neither Sega nor VOOKS offered any reason for this version's delay, and the Australian release shouldn't be affected by the same localization problems. At this point, your best shot at playing The Conduit next week remains the "living in North America" strategy, or the slightly less drastic "importing from North America" strategy.

Gallery: The Conduit

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Games Developers Association Australia President Tom Crago feels that the country's development community is holding strong against the current economic storm. Speaking with The Sydney Morning Herald, Crago believes the current exchange rate and the focus on "family-type titles" by local developers is a benefit, noting that 50% of titles developed in the region are sold on Nintendo consoles.

Crago did acknowledge that it's not all sunshine in Australia, saying "You only have to look as far as the closure of Pandemic up in Brisbane to see that impact" of the current economic crisis. Of course, EA's Pandemic Brisbane was closed earlier this year after reportedly failing to deliver the long-rumored video game tie-in to The Dark Knight. However, Crago believes that Australia is in a "pretty reasonable position" – but that's his job to say that, isn't it? We'll play along if promises that Sydney-based Team Bondi's LA Noire is coming out soon. Promise us, Mr. Crago!

[Via Develop]

Okay, so DS hasn't really bested Paul Hogan's popularity -- as the man is an Australian legend -- but it is the fastest-selling piece of gaming hardware ever down under. Edge reports the DS, DS Lite and DSi have pulled together to sell two million units in a span of 221 weeks, the fastest any platform has managed to reach that coveted two-million milestone. Nintendo of Australia boasts that the DS has been the number one console in Australia for three years. That's just ... wow.

Fear not North America and Europe, for it appears that Sexy Poker will make it to our virtual shores through WiiWare. The Germans rated the title last month and there's also a listing on the ESRB site. According to the ESRB's content description, the game not only titillates with visuals, but with "provocative comments" like, "I'll always know what's in your hand." What, the Wiimote? Let us waggle it for you, Sexy Poker lady.

[Via GamePolitics]

Microsoft is sending a special Gears of War Xbox 360 bundle (depicted above) to our friends in Australia. Included in the bundle are copies of the original Gears of War and Gears of War 2. Sadly, the console itself isn't as special as the box it comes in, for it's of the plain white Pro variety.

The new bundle will hit Aussie store shelves on June 4 and retail for $449 AU.

[Thanks, Josh]

Let's face it, folks, game addiction is hot. We've all read the stories, some of them funny and others tragic. And then, of course, there are the scare pieces. Enter Australia's Herald Sun, which declares that gaming addiction is on its way to becoming a national health problem. The article notes that "psychologists" are claiming that gaming addiction is affecting a growing number of Australians and the headline even proclaims "Tech addicts playing video games for up to 10 hours a day."

The source, apparently, is one psychologist by the name of William Campos. Said Campos, "I had one patient who was so involved with one game called World of Warcraft and would play it up to eight [to] ten hours a day.'' To clarify: That's one psychologist referring to one patient.

Furthermore, in reaction to a statement from the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, which claims that gaming addiction is "not a lasting obsession for the majority" of players, the article claims that the games industry is "in denial." We won't deny that gaming addiction is a problem for some gamers, but to imply that the majority of players are addicts -- which the Herald Sun has done by calling the IEAA's statement denial -- is simply fallacious.

Then again, maybe we're just in denial.

Bad news for our Australian friends who love match-three puzzles blended with platforming ... or at least think they would if given the opportunity: EA's Australian branch says Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure won't be coming to the continent.

There's no reason given, but we can only imagine that EA Australia wants to save its countrymen from the overwhelming desire to snap their DS systems in half after getting killed by the nurse boss for the hundredth GD time.

[Thanks, Patrick]

The Nintendo DSi has officially launched in Australia, and with it, the DSiWare service! Six downloads are already available, including, of course, the free web browser. This may be a hint as to upcoming content in other regions' DSi Shops, but it's definitely a hint that awesome times have started for Australian DSi owners. We wish we could be playing WarioWare:Snapped! right now! We've linked to Nintendo of Japan's site for each game so you can see screens and video.

• DSi Browser (free)
• Pyoro (200 Nintendo Points)
• Paper Plane (200 Nintendo Points)
• WarioWare: Snapped! (500 Nintendo Points)
• Art Style: Aquite (500 Nintendo Points)
• Art Style: D-Code (500 Nintendo Points)

The website for the Office and Film and Literature Classification, the Australian ratings body that assigns age-based content ratings to media -- including, most importantly to us, games -- has been hacked by jerks. The website has been temporarily taken down.

The hackers added a message to the front page that said "This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ," according to GameSpot. "The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC [sic]." The attack could be in response to last night's ABC Q&A show, in which Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy spoke about a plan for mandatory Internet filtering.

While we don't necessarily agree with that plan, we really don't agree with any response that leads to the inaccessibility of the OFLC website. Did the hackers even consider for a moment how their actions would affect our ability to learn about unannounced games?

We all know how much swearing there is in House of the Dead: Overkill. There's a world record-setting amount. For some reason, though, the game has no warning about said language in its Australian classification of "MA15+ Strong Horror Violence" -- and some people are understandably upset. Do the people responsible for classifying games down under even play them?

Pro Family Perspective director, Angela Conway, is leading the charge against Sega's game, calling for research into the impact of violent video games on players. She says players will be affected by the amount of "sexually aggressive violence and aggressively violent language" found in the game. Wait, what? We think she got her adjectives mixed up. Shouldn't it be sexually aggressive language and aggressively violent violence? That doesn't sound right either ...

Source - House of the Dead: Overkill lacks language warning
Source - Australian watchdog group protests House of the Dead: Overkill rating

While we can't be sure what the launch lineup for the DSiWare shop outside of Japan will look like, we can guess that the Australian shop will feature at least one of these games, thanks to OFLC ratings:

• Master of Illusion Express: Shuffle Games
• Master of Illusion Express: Funny Face
  
• Master of Illusion Express: Deep Psyche
  
• A Little Bit Of ... Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: Maths Edition
• D-Code (probably Art Style: Decode)
  

The standard ratings board disclaimer applies: we don't know when these will be out, or if this release implies other regions. But if you wanted to know if Nintendo planned to localize any of its Japanese DSiWare lineup, here is evidence that yes, it is.

Also found on the OFLC: The WiiWare version of Rainbow Islands (yay!) and Adventure Island: The Beginning. Also, Karate Phants.

Club Nintendo has finally launched in Australia, offering a sort of hybrid version of the older European Stars Catalogue and the US/Japan Club Nintendo models. Like the new US Club, the Australian site offers exclusive goods in exchange for points earned by purchasing games; however, the store uses the same "Stars Catalogue" nomenclature used for Europe's mostly-virtual offerings.

The new Catalogue currently has but five items available, but that list of five includes the Game & Watch Collection (as found on the OFLC!) and one sort-of-awesome item we don't have in the US: these Mario face towels. They just cost 1300 Stars, 250 of which you can get for signing up!
[Via IGN]

A rating for the DS Game & Watch Collection has popped up on the Australian OFLC ratings board, along with a bunch of other stuff, including Boom Blox Bash Party (under the bafflingly different title Boom Blox Smash Party). The collection, featuring Oil Panic, Donkey Kong, and Green House, has been used as a Club Nintendo reward in Japan and North America. News about Australia's Club Nintendo rewards program was expected last week, so this confluence of events suggests that this is to be handed out as a reward for Aussie gamers soon.

That is, whenever Nintendo of Australia gets around to setting up the Club Nintendo program.

[Via GoNintendo]

After the miraculous announcement of Sega's plan to localize Let's Tap (a game so weird we kind of didn't expect it to make it to stores at all, much less worldwide), we're not too surprised to see Prope's other Wii project, the much more conventional, lower-risk Let's Catch for WiiWare, on its way out of Japan. But we are pleased to see it happening.

Let's Catch is exactly what one would infer from the title: a game about playing catch, with multiple single-player modes (including a ... story mode?) and multiplayer. It's a concept so weird (or weirdly mundane) that we find it fascinating! Australia's OFLC ratings board has rated the game, suggesting that it will be released there soon -- and thus, probably worldwide.