Trism developer, Steve Demeter, is readying Onyx Online for the iPhone app store. Onyx Online is being billed as the "Xbox Live" of the iPhone community. The program promises to add social media features to iPhone games, like leaderboards, achievements and forums. The service will also allow players to view one another’s profiles and scores and to compete in game-specific challenges. Onyx Online drops soon. There has been no word on pricing yet.

An independent research study has issued their results regarding the attachment rates for each video game console. An attachment rate is taken to be the amount of games sold per console per person. After 23 months on the market, the PS3 and Wii are virtually tied, with 5.3 and 5.5 games sold per system, respectively. During that same time, the Xbox 360 was hanging high at 6.6 games sold per system.

The Xbox 360 does have the benefit of being the first kid on the block, being released a good year before the other two. However, they’ve always had an excellent attachment rate. Whereas, a good portion of Nintendo Wii owners may have never bought anything besides the pack-in Wii Sports, which would bring down their number considerably.

Popular video game maker EA has announced that it will be laying off 600 people in the coming months. This will reduce their workforce by approximately six percent. The company has remained profitable throughout the economic downturn and the move is being seen as a precautionary measure. No word on which divisions will be hit heaviest, however it’s a safe bet that it won’t be team Madden.

Marware has jumped on the need to be more comfortable as you play games on your iPhone and iPod touch. The company has released their Game Grip, which allows you to do just that. It consists primarily of two giant foam handles that allow your hands to rest comfortably as you get your game on. The unit is just foam, thus offering no additional functionality. The company just opened the floodgates for pre orders on their website. It costs around $50. Click here to check it out.

Ultima’s Lord British has safely returned to earth. The gaming mogul’s ten day trip into outer space has come to an end. While up there in the black, he participated in an interstellar toilet repair. Really. Not as glamorous as say, meeting alien life, but tons cooler than an earthly toilet repair. Joe the space plumber, perhaps?

At 7:34 Moscow Time (10:34 EST) the space tourist touched down in Kazakhstan. He has offered no comment about his trip to the press yet, but word on the street is that it was "totally awesome." Click the link for more on his arrival.

In other news, I can’t even afford closet space much less to go to outer space. What a cruel, cruel world!