Heavy Weapon shooting XBLA next week?

The official story: Microsoft rep--"Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation."

What we heard: The holidays may be over, but for Xbox-360-owning casual and retro gamers, every Wednesday seems like another Christmas morning thanks to Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays program. Nearly every hump day sees new content go up on Xbox Live Marketplace, the most anticipated type of content being a new Xbox Live Arcade game.

To keep interest high, Microsoft usually announces what game is coming out that week on Monday or Tuesday. However, it appears that the release date of next week's game may have slipped out a bit early.

The unabashedly named Xbox360Fanboy.com picked up the blog of DaKing240, who says that Pop Cap's Heavy Weapon will be the game du jour for January 17. Heavy Weapon may already be familiar to PC users. Like several other Pop Cap Games for Xbox Live Arcade, the game has been available for download for the mouse-and-keyboard gamer for a while now.

DaKing240 claims to be well connected in the industry and in several other posts credits sources at various developers. Unfortunately, this post doesn't directly credit a source, leaving gamers to ponder its authenticity and cross-check DaKing240's credibility.

Just last week, DaKing misfired on the release date of Ms. Pac-Man, saying the game would be released on January 4. DaKing420 wasn't far off, though. Yesterday, Microsoft officially announced that the game would make its debut on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow.

DaKing240's news sparked some sleuthing by Xbox 360 Fanboy, which claims to have confirmed the news from another source, The Xbox Domain. However, the news comes with a disclaimer--the game is merely scheduled for January 17...meaning that barring any unforeseen circumstances, it should be out that day.

Heavy Weapon was originally announced for the 360 back in early May and was originally scheduled for release last year. Given that the game is deep in development, it's a good bet that Heavy Weapon is due sometime soon, if not on January 17.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus, but nothing is official.