X3: Albion Prelude announced

Egosoft has announced a new, stand-alone expansion in its long-running X series; X3: Albion Prelude. This expansion will be used as a bridge between X3 and the next full release in the series, X: Rebirth (currently in development). In plot terms, that means you’ll be playing the events that lead to the state of the universe in Rebirth.
Players will be seeing corporate power struggles, more than 30 new ships, an updated graphics engine, some user interface tweaks and a new stock exchange feature that will allow you to fraudulently trade in space-mortgage securities (or something).
If you happen to already own something called the X: Superbox, X: Albion Prelude will be free to download from Steam. Owners of X3 can pick up Prelude at the cheaper price of $10 USD, and if you want to buy it on its own (or in a bundle with X3, which would seem to make the most sense), it’ll be $20 USD.
X3: Albion Prelude will be released for PC on 15 December this year. Enjoy a couple of spacey screenshots, below.