Round Up: Psychonauts BC Plea, CoD2 Duel, DS Lites Stolen

Today's round up includes news of DoubleFine's Tim Schafer's desire to get Psychonauts backwards compatible for the Xbox 360, an online Call of Duty 2 tournament sponsored by Best Buy, and a shipment of apparently stolen black Nintendo DS Lite systems, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, product news, Serious Games Source news, and Gamasutra job postings. - With the most recent update to the list of original Xbox titles that are now playable on the Xbox 360, some, including DoubleFine founder Tim Schafer, took issue with the fact that the company's 2005 release Psychonauts was still not included. In a recent post on DoubleFine's weblog, Schafer indicated, rather comically, that “we'd be willing to fly all our engineers up to Seattle, and they'd do all the programming! Or, they could just tell you exactly how our engine works, and we could probably get it running on the 360 in just a few hours!" He has not as of yet received a definite answer, and has encouraged a writing campaign to get the game added to the backwards compatibility list. - Activision announced that it has joined with retailer Best Buy to recruit players for the Call of Duty 2 Xbox 360 online gaming tournament, which will be facilitated by the Global Gaming League (GGL). Now through June 16, 2006, gamers can register to compete against other Call of Duty 2 players for the chance to win a 2006 Jeep Wrangler, Best Buy Gift Cards and more. Entrants must have Xbox Live Gold to participate. More than 500, four-person teams will battle in single-elimination, bracket-style competitions that will narrow the field to the top eight players. Finalists will take to the front lines on July 22-23 for the chance to win the Jeep Wrangler. First and second place winners will each receive a $500 and $200 Best Buy gift card respectively. - According to a Chinese-language Sina report, a shipment of black Nintendo DS Lite handheld consoles and games valued at roughly $18 million Hong Kong dollars ($2.3 million) that was in route to Europe has gone missing in China, where the units are manufactured for Nintendo. Hong Kong officials are currently offering a reward of $1 million Hong Kong dollars for information leading to any arrests. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include news of the video game industry as analyzed by the Wall Street Journal, a continued PS3 'giant crab' obsessions, and the ILL Clan machinima crew's hosting of a live performance in New York. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news on a budget balancing game from France, ImaginEngine helping with Motorola's M-Lab, and a new feature concerning games in education, plus Gamasutra product news on Voice-O-Matic 2 released by Di-O-Matic, plus the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Amaze Entertainment, Bigfoot Networks, Bungie, Insomniac Games, NovaLogic, THQ KAOS, Turbine, Vivendi Games, and Volition.