Can you believe it?  We made it through January, and at the end we have two major titles that greeted gamers.  Soul Caliber V and Final Fantasy VII-2 hit shelves in North America on Tuesday and Europe got them Friday.  But that’s not all that happened this week, let’s look back at other headlines.

Earlier this week, we found that Microsoft is expanding their Kinect technology to labtops.  At this point in time, there are currently two netbooks manufactured by Asus that have the integrated Kinects in them.  Microsoft announced during its CES ’12 keynote that Kinect for Windows released on February 1.  The pc operated kit is expected to operate in a “near mode” which accurately detects movements within 50 centimetres.  Its expected that additional laptops will be revealed starting in February after Microsoft publicly showcases Windows 8.  Time will tell what integration we will see between Windows Games and Xbox Live.

Going into February, it was announced that 343 Industries will acquire all rights and content to the tremendously popular Halo franchise from Bungie.  On March 31, 2012, Bungie will relinquish rights to 343 for all online Halo services including: updating game statistics and player files, hosting new user-generated assets, and controlling the Bungie Pro premium service.  Bungie did state that all it’s historical Halo data on Bungie.net will remain intact for as long as the internet remains.  343 Industries was the studio behind Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary which released in November ’11 and is currently at work developing Halo 4.  Halo 4 is the direct sequel to the 2007 release, Halo 3 and is expected for the holiday season this year.

Weeks after the initial release, Bioware‘s Star Wars : The Old Republic is quickly gaining in popularity among the ranks of MMO titles.  SWtor is already the fastest growing MMO, gaining 1.7 million active subscribers and sold over 2 million copies of the game.  What seems to be the biggest reason for the title’s popularity is that the game doesn’t show any major visible flaws.  “We’re truly honored and humbled by the incredibly strong support from our players who are enjoying Star Wars: The Old Republic,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder of BioWare and General Manager of EA’s BioWare Label. “Our entire team worked very hard over the holidays to deliver a smooth experience at launch, and the resulting response to the game from our fans and critics has been exceptionally gratifying.”  To date SW:ToR, over 239 million in-game hours have been clocked with over 20 million NPC’s being killed and over 148 billion credit’s being spent.  Star Wars: The Old Republic is out now!

Lastly, back home here at Zero1Gaming, we celebrated being on the web for one year.  Team Z1G commemorated the event by looking back to their peers’ posts since launch and wrote about each other.  There were stories about how retro reviews touched the hearts of those whom played at younger age, and how our cultural icons need to be protected along with animals’ rights.   To top it off, Z1G’s founder Paul James released a statement about making it to one year old.

In addition to celebrating one year on the web, Team Z1G will also be celebrating the release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 by doing a series of  Retro Reviews of previous Final Fantasy titles.  Make sure to check back for those as they release.

That will do it for this week!  Stop back to Z1G for more news, reviews and more!