Bathhouse. (Photo: Kotaku)

Pray for Nintendo’s PR department, as it’s undoubtedly going to face the wrath of some very angry gaymers. Last week, the company released a life-simulation game that let male characters to marry the same sex. But an update released yesterday removed that supposedly unintended feature...OF HAPPINESS.

In the new, Japanese-language game Tomodachi Collection: New Life (think The Sims meets cute, Japanese anime), male Mii characters could date, marry, raise children and presumably be miserable together, too. Despite the female characters not having the same interactions, the "bug" delighted users. Gaming blog Kotaku wrote that Japanese players planned on purchasing the game because of the quirk.

Nintendo never officially recognized that the feature was unintended, but an update released Monday patched the gay marriage feature. NPR writes that the company said that some of the relationships were "funny" or "strange," depending how the Japanese message is translated. The company veers from controversy and the country doesn't officially recognize gay marriage. It's also not scheduled to be released stateside.

Thomas Whitehead, a blogger for Nintendo Life, wrote that decision is disappointing to some:

Whether unintentional or not, due to the political and social sensitivities of the issue Nintendo has been faced with a decision in terms of maintaining male-female marriages only, or using the discovered feature as an opportunity to open up the experience to same-sex couples.

Your move, r/Gaymers.

(Photo: Flickr)

If there was one salient lesson gleaned from the two-hour, day-glo sex romp that was Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, it was this: just pretend that life's a video game. As it turns out, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley maintains the same mantra. At the Twofixsix conference in Brooklyn, presented by gaming magazine Kill Screen, Mr. Crowley told the crowd that his success in tech largely hinges on his love of video games.

"The Zelda games were a big influence on how I saw the city,” Mr. Crowley said, according to the Wall Street Journal. In fact, they made him wonder, "Can you apply that magical experience you have in those games and bring them out into the real world?"

Instead of a magical experience, though, Mr. Crowley came up with Foursquare, an app for bragging to people about the time you went above 14th Street.

You too could be successful in tech, if only you can pretend life is a video game with no financial or emotional consequences. Just think of a down round like losing and having to start from the beginning of the level!

(Photo: VG Memes)

If your significant other isn't keen on the idea of you purchasing another gaming console, just tell him or her that owning an Xbox will actually help you hone your sexual prowess.

Metro reports that a study conducted by the website VoucherCodesPro polled the partners of 1,747 gamers about which consoles they used, then asked how they'd rate their gaming S.O. in the bedroom. As it turns out, most people classified their partners as "good" or "average," as opposed to the much-preferred "excellent." Guess gaming doesn't make your fingers as dexterous as you thought?

Writes Metro:

The results saw just 11 per cent respond ‘excellent’, while most  - 27 per cent said their partner was ‘good’, 26 per cent said their partner was ‘average’ and a disappointing 20 per cent branded their partner’s bedroom skills as ‘below average’.

When VoucherCodesPro broke the data down, they discovered that 54 percent of Xbox users were described as "good" or above in bed, with 22 percent winning the "excellent" crown.

Meanwhile, PC gamers ranked the worst in bed. But what if you're an irresistible stud in World of Warcraft?

(Photo: Xbox live addicts)

Who says playing video games is nothing but a timesuck? The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reports that Jose Muñoz, an undocumented immigrant who's been living in the U.S. since age 1, used his extensive Xbox history to stay in the country. Take that, Mom!

Mr. Muñoz graduated from high school in 2005, but because his family visa had long since expired, he couldn't safely attend college or apply for a job without fear of being deported. Instead, he began to help around the house, and much like every other college-aged kid, spent a lot of time playing games on Xbox Live.

When President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Mr. Muñoz finally had a chance to remain in the country while working or attending school. The problem was that because Mr. Muñoz had lived under the radar since his graduation in 2005, he didn't have documents like paystubs or college transcripts to prove that he had lived in the U.S. consistently since then.

Luckily his attorney came up with a genius idea: using his Xbox Live account history to prove Mr. Muñoz's residency. And the idea worked--Mr. Muñoz can stay in the country for another two years, after which he can apply for deferment again. Plus, he'll never have to justify staying up late playing Bioshock ever again.

As for immigration reform: Zuck's on the case, don't you worry.

(Photo: LiveLeak)

What do you do when you lack the technology to create your own simulation of New York City under missile attack? You use footage from video games, of course!

Kotaku reports that a new space race propaganda video put online by North Korea's propaganda arm Uriminzokkiri depicts a city that looks an awful lot like New York being struck by missiles. Buildings begin to burn as an American flag waves overtop the footage. The video is couched as a dream sequence, showing the dreaming man aboard the rocket the country successfully tested in December.

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," reads the caption, according to LiveLeak.

But as Kotaku points out, the footage of New York in ruins is actually borrowed from the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Even more bizarrely, the video is scored with the popular Michael Jackson/Lionel Richie song "We Are the World."

Is this some sort of ironic jab at the imperialistic nature of American pop culture, or do North Koreans just really really like MJ? Kim Jong-un does kind of seem like he'd be into all-night COD marathons.

We've reached out to COD publisher Activision for comment, though we have a pretty good feeling North Korea didn't reach out to them for permission.

Update:

Yup, Activision was none too happy with North Korea using its bestselling video game for propaganda purposes. The BBC reports that YouTube has taken the video down after a copyright complaint from the video game publisher.

(Screencap: Dress Up Games)

It's so hard to instill the right values in your children these days. If you don't teach them to be power-hungry, wealth-obsessed superficials, who will? With that in mind, a new video game from IDEA Studios may be the perfect holiday gift for your little one. It's called Upper East Side Makeover, and it will turn your 10-year-old daughter into a Gossip Girl yet.

Where other video games might teach your child basic math or hand-eye coordination, Upper East Side Makeover offers the chance for your child to learn the crucial skills of proper exfoliation, backstabbing and vicious social climbing.

Upper East Side Makeover's main character resembles that other famous UES socialite, Blair Waldorf. Players win the game by completing tasks like dressing up, enduring beauty treatments and applying makeup in order to climb the social ladder. It's just like an episode of The Real Housewives of New York, but with less screaming.

The game is targeted at girls between the ages of 8-15, so that their pretty, malleable brains can more easily absorb valuable hairstyling techniques. But since it's created by Romanian developer Daniel Tamas, who himself has never been to New York, it may not actually represent the values espoused by true Upper East Siders.

"I don't know what this is, but it seems like this is just from a different era," one Upper East Sider named Sandy told DNA Info. "Come on, this is just ridiculous."

Sounds like somebody's charity gala invitation just got lost in the mail.

The finished product. (Photo: Imgur)

If your notion of a DIY project is "rosettes" crafted from duct tape, prepare to have your mind blown. A redditor with the username DBrizzle spent the last eight months hacking on a portable Xbox 360, and the results are rather magnificent.

DBrizzle took apart an old Xbox 360 slim and transformed it into a portable laptop-like device with a functioning Xbox 360. The device opens and closes like a laptop, and measures only a little over two inches when closed. The whole thing cost him about $520, which is about twice what an Xbox 360 currently costs. But getting to play the new Borderlands 2 somewhere other than a darkened room? Priceless.

Being the Redditor that he is, DBrizzle took his prototype to the local pub to test it out. "Since finishing, my favourite thing was a visit to see friends on the release of the latest DLC for Battlefield 3 - I took it along and when I met them we gave it a go IN THE PUB!" he wrote on Reddit.

We sense a wildly successful Kickstarter project in DBrizzle's future.

(Photo: Digital Spy)

If getting the shit scared out of you at a Broadway showing of Cats was a rite of passage for you, then you'll be pleased to know that the man responsible for that feline phenomenon is putting his immeasurable talents to good use by penning music for Nintendo Wii games. Oh, how the mighty have fallen...into the arms of Dance Dance Revolution.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has signed on for a game cleverly called "Sing & Dance," coming to a Nintendo Wii near you in mid-September. As one Observer arts reporter remarked, "This is like the equivalent of Orson Welles doing commercials in the '80s."

The game will consist of 32 of Mr. Webber's tunes, enabling your annoying theater kid friends to finally belt out Broadway tunes in a venue other than a high school auditorium or their shower. It will also feature the voices of famous Broadway actors and actresses, including everyone's favorite Mormon, Donny Osmond.

Hardcore gamers will probably scoff at a theater-themed game for the Wii (of all consoles!), and really, who would blame them? It's a game for a non-gamer, but we're guessing it will prompt plenty of drunken uncles to create lasting family memories come the holidays.

If you enjoy some pinball with your pints, you'll be happy to hear that a new retro arcade--dubbed Two-Bits--will soon open at 153 Essex Street on the Lower East Side. Local blog Bowery Boogie spotted the signs announcing the new gaming spot a few days back. "Teaser signage, complete with punk-on-a-coin logo, arrived in the windows of 153 Essex late last week," they wrote. "We’ve since noticed numerous pedestrians stopping themselves at the sight."

Unfortunately, Two-Bit's website is disappointingly sparse, offering only the signage in question and some unnecessary share buttons (one for MySpace, for example). In the meantime, maybe you can catch Tyler DeAngelo and his mobile Frogger game if you're feeling especially nostalgic about '80s arcade games.

The modified Frogger game on 5th Ave. (irrelinvent.com/)

Here's a project that neatly weds our collective video game nostalgia with modern technology: To celebrate the classic arcade game Frogger's 30th birthday (and, let's be real, in a not-so-subtle attempt to get his work into the Smithsonian), Tyler DeAngelo, a creative director at ad agency Devito/Verdi, redesigned the game based on real time traffic data.

Mr. DeAngelo set up cameras that captured the traffic flow on 5th Avenue, then wrote code that translated those images into the Frogger game. In short, the team "hacked a 1980's Frogger Arcade so the cars you dodge are really driving down 5th Ave while you play."

Not content with playing the game indoors, Mr. DeAngelo also dragged the modified Frogger machine out on to 5th Avenue, and let interested passersby play the game right in front of the street--needless to say, the poor little frog got squashed on screen by digital versions of the actual cars whizzing down the ave.

Check out the video below, which includes a talking frog with a British accent, because why not?