Round Up: X360 Waterfight, Castlevania Ruins DS, Rev Contest

Today's round up includes a balloon toss in Australia to promote the launch of the Xbox 360, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin confirmed for the Nintendo DS, and Nintendo and AOL partnering to bring one lucky person to Los Angeles to be the first person to experience the Nintendo Revolution on stage at the company's pre-E3 press conference, as well as the latest GameSetWatch and Serious Game Source updates, product news and Gamasutra job postings. - To commemorate the Australian launch of the Xbox 360, on Saturday, April 22, Microsoft will stage a world record water balloon challenge in Sydney, Australia. Thousands of participants from all over the world will converge on Coogee Beach to toss balloons carrying the Xbox 360 logo. All registered entrants will get an Xbox 360 Challenge Pack worth over $150 that includes an Xbox 360 game, a commemorative Xbox 360 T-shirt, Xbox 360 trucker cap and swimming goggles, and an Xbox 360 canvas bag. The current world record for a water balloon event is held by 2,677 Spaniards who threw 50,855 water balloons in 2005. In addition to water balloons, attendees will be able to play Xbox 360 games and listen to the Melbourne band Kisschasy playing live. - Konami announced that it will ship Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for the Nintendo DS in the fall. The latest installment in the series is set against the backdrop of World War II, and lets players control two different characters that can be switched between on the fly. The game is being developed by Koji Igarashi and the development team behind 2005’s Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. “For 20 years, the Castlevania series has set the standard for excellence and innovation in the action genre, and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin continues this trend with all-new features that expand the handheld gaming genre,” said Dennis Lee, Group Manager at Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. “The game’s two different characters give players unprecedented variety in completing their quest, while the expanded battle system makes it more fun to take on Dracula’s minions.” - With anticipation for the next-generation Revolution platform at an all-time high, Nintendo and AOL have jointly announced a contest that will see one winner getting the opportunity to to play a game on the console at Nintendo's pre-E3 media briefing, taking place on May 9 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California. Those interested have between April 21 and April 28 to sign up. "No consumer has ever played this new Nintendo system before," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "But more importantly, no one has ever interacted with video games in this way before. Our next home console will revolutionize how people play and experience video games." - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include a look at the popularity of 'Monhun' in Japan among junior high school students, pictures taken from the I Am 8-Bit gallery show in Los Angeles, and a look back at one of the strangest cases of branding ever seen in a video game, Pepsiman. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news on a partnership between MTV and Cisco to fund serious games by students, plus Gamasutra product news on game licensing by Associated Production Music and the ActiveMotion service from LDI, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from 8monkey Labs, Blizzard, Eurocom Developments Limited, LucasArts, Midway Games, Ncsoft, Sony Computer Entertainment America, The Art Institute Online, and Vivendi Universal.