Sales of UFC Undisputed 2010 have fallen short of THQ’s expectations, but the publisher is working on a new entry in the franchise anyway. In an E3 analysts meeting held yesterday, THQ announced UFC Trainer, which is, according to GameSpot, “a more combative take on the fitness genre than the likes of Wii Fit or EA Sports Active.” This comes a day after EA announced their new Live Broadcast mode for online gaming in their upcoming EA Sports MMA video game, which we also now know has a cover and an official release date.

Apparently, the game will actually train you to be a mixed martial arts fighter, and it’s going to use motion control tech, PlayStation Move, Kinect, and the Wii, to do it. The game isn’t at E3 because THQ doesn’t want to show it off until “it’s the coolest fighting thing in the world,” “tuned to perfection without lag,” said Danny Bilson, the company’s executive vice president of core games.

UFC Trainer is slated for release on January 1, 2011.

Over on the EA Sports MMA facebook fan page, the video game company has put up new pics in honor of the upcoming Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery event, featuring some of the fighters participating in the event.

Some of the new faces in the pics include Lyle Beerbohm, Vitor “Shaolin” Ribiero, Kevin Randleman, Andrei Arlovski and Alistair Overeem, who is not looking so good in the pics to be honest, but it is still early on so I am not giving up hope yet. Arlovski, however, looks amazing and dead on, as does Randleman! We are getting closer to the release date of the game, and here is hoping EA sends me a review copy (crosses fingers)!

Hit the jump to check out all the pics of these fighters in action!

Notorious video game franchise, Gamestop, does some good things every now and then when they are not busy buying back games at hilariously low prices so they can mark them back up 600%. It is rare, but it happens. This is one of those cases where it is not just one magnanimous offer, but two.

Over on their UFC Undisputed 2010 site, you can enter their “Ultimate Fighter Life” contest, you can win the “Ultimate Gaming Hook-Up”, which means a PS3 or a PSP in a bundle, packed with an early copy of the game. The winner will also receive an exclusive Brendan Schaub Ultimate Fighter Pack, whatever that means. If you wait until May 16, you can win the Roy Nelson prize pack which comes with more swag from “Big Country”, 20 shirts and the ability to watch a UFC PPV with 19 friends on Gamestop’s dime. Earlier prize packs included a Marcus Jones training session (which I hope was not a cardio session), or an all-expenses paid trip to see UFC 114 and this years UFC Fan Expo plus a prize pack with James McSweeney.

The other contest is the “Train a Fighter” contest, where four winners will receive prize packages valued at more than $3,500 including a four-days, three-nights all-expense paid trips to Las Vegas to attend “The Ultimate Fighter 11 finale” at The Palms and more. All you have to do is a write a 500 word essay on how you would train the ultimate fighter. So go check it out, and if you win something, remember who told you to enter the contests!

Dale North and Rey Gutierrez of Destructoid.com was invited to a special “UFC Boot Camp” to hype the upcoming release of THQ’s UFC Undisputed 2009 video game exclusively for video game journalists (ie., not me). Previously, Rey had played the demo with a lady friend of his who knew about the UFC (not MMA, but UFC) and she schooled him quite easily, mostly due to ignorance of the sport. I don’t blame him, he is not a fan of MMA, it just puzzles me why the site would give him this piece to work on when he can’t tell his Kimbo from his Ken Shamrock.

So above is the video that the boys at Destructoid shot of the boot camp (Rey is the one in the knee-high green socks and Dale is behind the camera), which was held at The Ultimate Fighter gym. Shawn Tompkins and Marc Laimon were a few of the trainers present instructing the gaming “journos” in the finer points of MMA, and Dale has now admitted in his article that he has gained more of a respect for a sport he once had no interest in and saw as two men hugging. Furthermore, the author has decided to replay the game and begin to learn the controls, especially the grappling element, and really give the game a chance.

Either way, it’s fun to watch a room of video game writers do physical activity, so take a look and enjoy! I never realized that doing an armbar was the same as eating a Quizno’s sub, and now you will too!

UFC Undisputed fans can start downloading demos for this years installment in the series. As announced on the UFC Undisputed blog, the demo will be free and the codes will begin being handed out today. Here is the info from the announcement:

The UFC Undisputed 2010 playable demo for PSN and Xbox Live will be released this THURSDAY, APRIL 29TH, and as a member of the UFC Undisputed Community, YOU WILL HAVE EXCLUSIVE FIRST ACCESS TO DOWNLOAD IT FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY.

The Demo will be available for you to download in the Community AT NO COST TO YOU beginning this Thursday, April 29th but will be limited to ONE CODE PER PERSON for either Xbox Live or PSN.

The full version hits next-gen consoles on May 28, so this demo will be our first glimpse at what is new in the game. Head on over and check it out and let me know what you think about UFC Undisputed 2010!

According to an interview with Dana White from Kotaku.com, the UFC is dropping their ban on fighters appearing in EA’s MMA video game.

White revealed that he is backing off his earlier threats to ban any fighter who appears in EA’s game to be a part of UFC. “Nah, some people have crossed over,” he told Kotaku, “But believe me this is still going to continue to be a battle. …they’re the me-toos. The UFC game is the original game.”

This brings good tidings to several names and reassures of what is up with this non-issue. As we already know, Randy Couture will be appearing in EA MMA but is under contract to the UFC, as is Frank Trigg now and the recent addition of Vladimir Matyushenko. What is more important is that Dana White holds much contempt for EA, and that is truly the meat of this fight.

Dana is also not worried at all about taking a financial loss in 2010 as two MMA games come out in one year, as he explains in the interview.

“They’re bigger than THQ,” he said. “They have been. Let’s see how they do now. Their earnings reports just came out and they suck. This company that used to control the whole video game world and were these big fucking giants, we’ll see where they are in the next two years. And as as far as the MMA space goes, we’ll kick the living shit out of them.”

Is he warranted in his hatred of anything that rivals the UFC? Sure, why not. Do we expect anything less from Dana? Irrational banning of people is commonplace in the UFC but so is retracting those actions. All that matters is that there are two MMA games coming out and we as the fans have a voice in who succeeds.

Above is the new trailer for EA MMA, a video game coming out this year that we have been talking about since last year. Now we get to see some of those things we looked at in screen cap form a week ago in motion, and they definitely do look smooth! Ultimately, the true test will come when we get to test this thing out one on one, but for now we can just marvel at how pretty it looks and how sweaty they made all the fighters.

This trailer has Cung Le, Bobby Lashley, Nick Diaz, Jeff Monson, Fedor and a few others in action and is also giving us something we did not get in the UFC game, and that is entrances. Are they necessary? No, but they do add to the drama and realism and it is one thing they can say that THQ got lazy on.

Has this convinced any nay-sayers into buying this title yet or does this game automatically default to UFC Undisputed 2010 since “this game has no big name fighters”?

UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has been revealed as the fighter to grace the cover of the second installment of THQ’s UFC Undisputed series. The top-selling Platinum/ Greatest hit game is set for a May 25 release, which happens to coincide with the predicted Summer return of Lesnar. UFC 114 is May 29, so there is a strong possibility Brock could return around then to help push game sales. The next UFC Fan Expo also happens to be that same weekend. How convenient.

Not much has been revealed other than this trailer from the Spike Video Game Awards which showed some new mechanics and a new face, but otherwise the game appears identical as far as appearance. As we come closer to this release date, EA MMA will also be on the way. So if you can only buy one, which will it be?

No, my English is not so poor as to make a hideous sentence like that. THQ has announced today that UFC 2009 Undisputed has reached “Platinum Hits” status for Xbox 360, and “Greatest Hits” status for PlayStation 3. This means two things — THQ sold a lot of these games, and it’s now available for $29.99.

Dana White added the following statement in regards to this in a press release:
“We are excited that so many fans around the world have helped us achieve these impressive milestones in our debut year.”

UFC Undisputed 2010 hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on May 25 and will feature some old faces and some new faces, here is the trailer for those who have yet to see it. Has everybody here got the game already or is this what you penny savers have been waiting for?

Last night on the Spike Video Game Awards, the big reveal was made for THQ’s next installment of the “UFC Undisputed” video game, due out in mid-may of 2010. Above is the video that premiered at Spike’s VGA, and shows a brief snippet of gameplay, which really looks not that different from the current game that is out and introduces one new character into the mix… but you’ll have to watch it to see who if you did not catch it since you were watching UFC 107. The same surprise person is also the man who introduced the clip at the award show.
Also of note, UFC Undisputed 2009 was nominated and won for “Best Individual Sports Game,” beating out EA’s Fight Night Round 4 and Wii Sports Resort. So what do you think about this, will you be picking it up or sticking with 2009?