Verbinski BioShocks Hollywood

Gore Verbinski is returning to Davy Jones' locker. Having completed work on the Pirates of the Caribbean film trilogy, Verbinski has signed on for another oceanic epic with the big-screen adaptation of 2K Games' award-winning action game BioShock.

The publisher today announced the project in conjunction with Universal Pictures. The studio is in talks with Academy Award-nominated writer John Logan (Aviator, The Time Machine) to provide the screenplay.

In an interview with Hollywood trade magazine Variety, Verbinski said the film won't be on the same scale as his summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean films.

"It's a much more intimate story than Pirates," Verbinski explained. "Although it's an adventure, its a dramatic adventure. I see it more along the lines of Blade Runner."

Guitar Hero leaping forward in Q4

Earlier today, Activision reported nearly $3 billion in earnings for its 2008 fiscal year. The company called out Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock as being the number one game in terms of revenue in the US and Europe during the 12 months before March 31, 2008. It also promised more profits from the franchise, thanks in part to the forthcoming June 29 release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3.

During a conference call with analysts afterward, Activision publishing president Mike Griffith also talked up Guitar Hero: On Tour, the first iteration of the game for the DS. "[It's] a breakthrough peripheral-based game for the Nintendo DS that brings the Guitar Hero experience to the 41 million DS users in North America and Europe so they can play Guitar Hero anywhere, anytime," said Griffith.

Activision sales near 3 billion dollars

Following several quarters of record-breaking earnings reports, Activision has ended its 2008 fiscal year with a bang worthy of a Call of Duty 4 claymore. For the 12 months ended March 31, the Santa Monica-based publisher reported net income--aka profit--of $344.9 million on record revenues of $2.9 billion. The whopping figure was made even more impressive because it was a 92 percent increase on the $1.51 billion Activision took in the year prior, and marked 16 years of consecutive growth for the company.

The massive sales surge has also prompted Activision to claim a series of bragging rights once held by its archrival, Electronic Arts. Citing figures from the NPD group, the publisher now claims to be the number-one third-party publisher in the US in terms of console and handheld software dollars, having grown its market share to 17.3 percent of the market--a 7.2 percent increase in a single year.

Mummy Game, LMAO

Way back in 1999 when the first Brendan Fraser-led occult action flick The Mummy debuted in theaters, Vivendi Games was on hand to develop the movie game tie-in, with Konami publishing. For the 2001 Universal Pictures sequel, The Mummy Returns, Vivendi took over game publishing duties and exported development to the burger slinger Blitz Games.

Now, with Universal slated to drop The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third installment in the franchise, on theaters August 1, Vivendi has once again returned to supply the game, this time through its soon-to-be subsumed subsidiary, Sierra Entertainment. A direct tie-in to the film, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor will release in North America a week before its silver-screen counterpart, on July 22 for the Wii, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo DS, while Europe will get the game a week after the film, on August 8.

Xbox 360 wins for GTA4 sales

Following the launch of Take-Two and Rockstar Games' critically lauded Grand Theft Auto IV on April 29, the question on many industry watchers' minds was just how well the heavily anticipated game performed and whether it lived up to its heady expectations. Take-Two kept the stats-hungry mob on edge a full week after, saying just yesterday that the game nailed its reported 6 million sales prediction, generating $500 million in week-one revenue.

While Take-Two kept the industry waiting, Sony, which sponsored a portion of the advertising spots for the game, chimed in a full week prior to extol the game's as-yet-unconfirmed performance. In a congratulatory statement bereft of any hard details, the PlayStation maker said GTAIV "drove sales of the PlayStation 3 entertainment system within the first 24 hours," and not much else.

It now appears that the reason for Sony's ambiguity was that the majority of consumers opted to pick up GTAIV on Microsoft's console. Today on Microsoft's marketing-team-operated GamerScoreBlog, the publisher dished on the stats breakdown for the 6 million copies of the game sold in its first week at market.

Pandemic initiates LOTR: Conquest

As part of an investor meeting in February, publishing giant Electronic Arts let slip, and Pandemic Studios quickly confirmed, that its freshly acquired developer was at work on a new game based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings novels. However, aside from revealing that the new LOTR was set in the same universe as Peter Jackson's much-acclaimed film adaptations, Pandemic was only willing to say that more details would arrive "in the very near future."

That future date is today, as EA said that Pandemic's The Lord of the Rings: Conquest will arrive for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Nintendo DS this fall. In a marked distinction from EA's previous movie-based LOTR games from the early 2000s, Pandemic's take on the series promises to give players control of both sides of the conflict, fighting for either the alliance of men, elves, and dwarves or Sauron's evil legions.

Next Gen Marvel Games?

Marvel has no qualms about spreading its net wide when it comes to sidekicking gaming-industry partners. The comics aficionados have teamed up with a variety of publishers in recent years to varying degrees of success, including Sega on the just-released Iron Man game; Activision on Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, a sequel for which was announced in February; and Microsoft and EA on their respective recently canned fighting game and massively multiplayer online venture.

Now, THQ is getting in on the Marvel licensing party. On the heels of its deal with DreamWorks earlier this week, the publisher said it has entered into a multiyear agreement with Marvel to make games based on the child-oriented Marvel Super Hero Squad franchise. The deal extends to all current and "next-gen consoles," as well as handhelds and Windows PCs.

Under 17 buying M games

Only 20 percent of kids under 17 were able to buy "M"-rated games in the United States this year, according to a government report out Thursday.

The Federal Trade Commission report studied kids' success at buying tickets to R-rated movies or purchasing R-rated DVDs, mature CDs, and M-rated games. In every case, the FTC found the success rate had dropped over every previous year it conducted its study.

But nowhere was the drop sharper than with games.

According to the study, while 20 percent of under-17 kids were able to buy M-rated games in 2008, the number had been 42 percent in 2006 and between 60 percent and more than 80 percent in previous studies.

COD5 announced

Earlier today, Activision made known its dominance in the gaming industry, triumphantly proclaiming it had secured the top publisher slot in the US in terms of console and handheld software dollars. One of the crucial titles driving Activision's $2.9 billion windfall of annual revenue durings its 2008 fiscal year was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the first contemporary installment in Infinity Ward's long-running first-person shooter series.

It goes without saying that Activision plans a new installment in the Call of Duty franchise during its 2009 fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2009. The publisher has released a new installment in the series every fourth quarter since the series launched in 2003. In today's earnings follow-up with analysts and investors, the publisher dished more details on the fifth Call of Duty game, first revealed in December.

"We'll launch on all four platforms we've participated on in fiscal [year] 2008," Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith referring to Call of Duty 4, which sold over 7 million units worldwide on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Nintendo DS in 2007. Griffiths then re-confirmed that "we'll [also] launch on the PS2 and the Wii," marking the series' return to the PS2 and Wii after a two-year hiatus.

GTA4 record entertainment sales

In the weeks leading up to the release of Take-Two and Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV, predictions were in abundance as to how well the game would do. While analysts' predictions were mixed, Take-Two execs themselves were reportedly under the impression that the game would shift 6 million units in its first week after measuring out preorder demand.

It turns out that prediction was spot on. The Rockstar Games parent said today that Grand Theft Auto IV has sold through to consumers 6 million units globally in its first week, generating income of approximately $500 million. First-day sales for the game hit 3.6 million and tallied a staggering $310 million--nearly double Halo 3's $170 million day-one take and $10 million more than the sci-fi shooter's entire opening-week haul.

Law against GTA4

When Rockstar confirmed that Australian versions of Grand Theft Auto IV had been modified to better fit with local classification laws, many gamers cried foul and demanded to know exactly what had been taken out. Rockstar has so far refused to reveal exactly what the difference is between Aussie versions of their hit game with other versions around the world, saying only that the changes were "not significant" .

GameSpot AU can now explain in some detail at least one change that has been made. Having just received a region one version of the game, we tested out a few scenarios and only found one difference so far: how the game deals with prostitution. In Australian versions of GTA IV, Niko can indeed pick up prostitutes, but once he takes said sex worker to a secluded area, the game camera shifts to a tight shot of the rear of the vehicle the pair are in and cannot be moved.

Activision/Vivendi leave ESA, skip E3

Yesterday, selected members of the gaming press were sent an invitation to register for this year's E3 Media & Business Summit. The invitation offered a nontransferable registration to the 2008 event, which will return the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 15 to 17. It didn't take long for visitors to notice that though Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft were all listed as participating companies, a number of high-profile publishers did not appear on the list. Vivendi, Warner Bros, Bethesda, and several others are all currently missing from the Entertainment Software Association's E3 Web site, as is international superpublisher Activision.

GameSpot has since reached out to several prominent publishers that attended last year's show but were omitted from the ESA's recent list, and can confirm that Warner Bros., Bethesda, id Software, Majesco, and D3Publisher still plan to attend the event.

However, at least one publisher will not be in attendance at the ESA's annual event, which underwent significant downsizing last year. Activision has confirmed for GameSpot that not only will it not be attending this year's E3 Media & Business Summit in LA, but also that it has pulled out of the industry trade body entirely.

Muse download for Guitar Hero 3

After the original Guitar Hero came out, diehard fans had to settle for playing the same setlist over and over again for an entire year before new songs arrived in Guitar Hero II. Things have changed significantly for rhythm-game fans since then, given that Guitar Hero III and Rock Band have both supplemented their libraries with downloadable songs since their releases last October and November, respectively.

Next week sees both games receive a trio of new songs. On Thursday, Guitar Hero III players on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will be able to download three more songs from Muse, whose "Knights of Cydonia" was included in the original game. The new songs--all of them master tracks--include "Exo-Politics," "Supermassive Black Hole," and "Stockholm Syndrome." No price was announced, but previous three-song packs have sold for $6.25 (500 Microsoft points).

NCsoft, Foundation 9 bypass E3 '08

The Electronic Entertainment Expo has been in a serious state of flux in recent years. At the behest of many top publishers and hardware makers, the E3 Media & Business Summit organizer Entertainment Software Association said in July 2006 that it would be dramatically downsizing the annual trade show--reducing attendees from approximately 60,000 to a mere 5,000--and changing the venue from the spacious Los Angeles Convention Center to segmented locations in Santa Monica, California.

In December, the ESA said that the E3 Media & Business Summit would be returning to the LACC, but that this year's show would remain a scaled-down affair in line with the 2007 expo, which was invite-only. Though the ESA no longer plans to occupy the LACC in its entirety, the convention center will have at least one noticeable void on its show floor. Earlier today, Activision (and by proxy Vivendi) said it would not be attending this year's media event, and in fact would not be renewing its membership with the trade body at all.

Rock Band hits

Earlier today, American media conglomerate Viacom reported a solid first quarter. The MTV parent company posted revenues up 15 percent year over year to $3.1 billion, with net income spiking a significant 33 percent to $270 million, up from $203 million for a year prior. While Viacom has its hand in all manner of media, including film, TV, and radio, the company specifically called out the the Harmonix-developed Rock Band as a particular contributor to growth.

specifically Reporting on its earnings, Viacom said that since Rock Band launched in the North America last November, MTV Games has shipped more than 3 million bundled units. Viacom will undoubtedly soon have more cause to celebrate MTV Games and Harmonix's rhythm game. In April, the game's publisher said that the Xbox 360 version would finally arrive in Europe on May 23, with other editions slated to follow later in the summer. Harmonix also said that a Wii version of the game will release in North America on June 22 for $169.99, complementing the already available Xbox 360, PS3, and PS2 editions.

Rocketmen expansion Came From Uranus

Rocket science is widely accepted to be not easy, and Capcom seems to have hit upon that fact with Rocketmen: Axis of Evil. Though A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.'s downloadable title was initially slated to arrive during the latter part of 2007, it didn't in fact blast off on Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network until March.

Fuel tanks thus in working order, Capcom is wasting no time on the first expansion for Rocketmen. The publisher said today that Rocketmen: It Came From Uranus will be available for download over XBL on May 14, with the PSN version clocking in a day later. Gamers can pick up the expansion for $4.95 (400 Microsoft points), and the original Rocketmen is required to play the add-on.

We Ski gets gold

Nintendo is set to launch the Wii Balance Board as a bundle with Wii Fit on May 19, but the first game compatible with the peripheral will actually arrive in stores a bit earlier. Namco Bandai Games America today announced that We Ski for the Nintendo Wii has gone gold and is set for retail release on May 13.

More sedentary gamers will have a choice in controls, as We Ski supports the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as well as the board. It also includes freestyle, slalom, mogul, and downhill racing game modes, more than a dozen different tracks, customizable characters, and support for gamers' own Mii avatars.

Sony sales

Sony's PlayStation 3 was late to the next-generation console party in Australia, arriving three months after the Wii's local release and a full year after the Xbox 360's launch. However, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia (SCEA) seems to be more than happy with its performance so far, saying that the PS3 has sold 238,000 units down under since its debut in March 2007.

The 238,000 figure comes from SCEA directly and not from official industry trackers GfK Australia (who do not include bundle deals such as Sony's PS3 giveaway with Bravia televisions in late 2007/early 2008 in their figures). The last official count from GfK featured figures for the end of 2007, which had the PS3 at 155,000 units sold, compared to more than 300,000 for the Wii and 306,000 for the Xbox 360. In January this year, SCEA head Michael Ephraim told GameSpot AU that more than 28,000 PS3s had been given away as part of a holiday promotion in which every purchaser of a new Sony Bravia LCD received a free console. The 238,000 figure means that the PS3 has easily eclipsed the first-year sales total for the PlayStation 2, which clocked in 146,000 in sales for its first 12 months. GfK has yet to release figures for Q1 2008 hardware sales in Australia.

GTA4 PS3 fix

Reports of Grand Theft Auto IV freezing up have been circulating message boards since the game's launch Tuesday, but Rockstar Games has been tight-lipped as to the reason or the remedy, passing off requests for public comment onto Sony. While the majority of complaints appear to be coming from PlayStation 3 users, Xbox 360 owners with glitch-ridden game experiences have also voiced their frustrations online.

Take-Two representatives may not have been willing to go on the record about the issue, but the publisher's tech support team does not have the same luxury when it comes to customer complaints. An inquiry into the Take-Two tech support site yielded the following array of suggestions on how to fix the problem.

Miyamoto tops Your Time 100

Last week, popular television satirist Stephen Colbert lamented the fact that he was not topping Your Time 100, the online complement to Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People list. This week, he will surely be grousing again, given that the final list shows him bested by his archnemesis, K-Pop singer Rain, who in turn was beaten by an iconic figure from the game industry.

"Time asked who you thought should be on the list of the 100 most influential people of the year," the magazine said on its official results page. "Over 200 candidates were given a rating of 1 to 100. And your #1 choice? Shigeru Miyamoto!" (Emphasis in the original.) It is the second year in which the Donkey Kong creator and Wii and DS design guru has made the online list, and last year he was also honored on its print equivalent.

Take Two shares wobbly post-GTAIV launch

From the day Electronic Arts first went public with its bid to buy Take-Two Interactive, the takeover target and owner of Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Rockstar Games has been consistent with its response. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick reiterated the opinion that EA's original $26 per share offer undervalued the company's worth when rejecting said offer during a shareholders' meeting last month. However, he also said the Take-Two board would be open to entering discussions after GTAIV went on sale April 29.

GTAIV came out this week to critical acclaim and record-setting sales, prompting Zelnick to tell the New York Times in a statement that the reaction to the game "vindicates our strategy of waiting until the launch with regard to EA's offer." On the day of the game's release, Take-Two stock nudged upward $.16 to close at $26.63.

Gold PGA Tour 09

Although they're no death and taxes, annual installments in Electronic Arts' many pro-sporting franchises are one of life's near certainties. The publisher has already announced a number of its usual suspects for the 2008 season, including Madden NFL 09 and its collegiate counterpart NCAA Football 09, and today it officially teed up Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii.

This year, Tiger will be sharing the spotlight with his real-world personal coach, Hank Haney. Commentary from Haney is the primary new addition to the game's single-player career mode, and according to EA, the dialogue will be customized to a golfer's individual performance in a round.

Skateboard controller

Spiking revenues in the game industry aren't limited to console makers and software developers. The accessories business has been booming from increased market penetration of current-generation hardware, as well. For the month of March, accessory sales jumped 58 percent over the same period last year to $220 million, according to the NPD Group.

It's no wonder, then, that new ancillary products continue to flood the market. Today, peripheral manufacturer Actiga Corporation announced it had signed a North American licensing deal with Microsoft to produce wireless controllers for the Xbox 360. The first product of this union will be a full-sized skateboard that will be compatible with the "popular skateboarding games" that will launch during the second half of 2008. Skateboarding games thus far available for Microsoft's console include Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, American Wasteland, and Project 8 from Activision as well EA's newest entrant, Skate.

Tecmo Bowl kicking off on DS

Nearly a year ago, Tecmo teased gamers with news of a new installment in its original football franchise, Tecmo Bowl. All the publisher said at the time was that the game would arrive in 2008 and that it was "not going to be on the platform you're thinking of right now."

It appears people weren't thinking about the Nintendo DS, as Tecmo today announced Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for the handheld. Based on the Tecmo Super Bowl games of the 1990s, Kickoff will include series staples like an arcade-style approach to the gridiron and cutscenes to emphasize big plays. The game may not have an NFL license due to Electronic Arts' exclusivity deal with the league, but Kickoff will feature a default 32-team league and customizable squads that allow users to choose colors, emblems, names, and more. Gamers will also be able to create their own playbooks.

EA-Land closing in August

EA had high hopes for The Sims Online when the game was first launched in December 2002. Billed as an experiment into mass-market massively multiplayer online gaming, The Sims Online proved to command nowhere near the attention of its inspiration--The Sims--with EA saying not long after the online game's launch that initial sales were "disappointing."

The game persisted, however, and appeared to be in for a revival earlier this year, when EA renamed the game EA-Land in February and said it would be making a number of changes to the title in the coming months. Those ambitions have now proven to be for naught, as EA has said this week that it will officially be shuttering the title as of August 1.

"It is with mixed emotions that today we are announcing the EA-Land experiment will soon draw to a close," said EA in a statement on the game's official blog. "Since 2002, EA-Land / TSO has attracted a very special group of players (of which you are one) and we certainly appreciate your participation in the EA-Land community. The lifetime of the game has drawn to an end, and now we will be focusing on new ideas and other innovative concepts in the games arena. We’d like to thank everyone who has taken part in this online community as a unique experience in the virtual world."

Sony's echochrome incoming

t's been nearly a year since echochrome was first revealed during Sony's 2007 E3 Media & Business Summit presentation, but the visually minimalist PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable perspective-based puzzle game is finally arriving in the US.

A post on Sony's official PlayStation Blog today has revealed that both versions of the game will be available for download tomorrow for $9.99 each. Both editions can be downloaded via the PS3's PlayStation Store, and the PSP version will also be available through its own PC-based storefront.

Each version of the game tasks players with guiding an artist's mannequin through a series of 56 levels, overcoming obstacles and navigating hazards by repositioning the camera to make areas look safer and more straightforward than they actually are.

Blizzard acquire Diablo3.com

Activision is no stranger to speculative game name registrations, taking time out early last year to trademark Drum Villain and Guitar Villain, and it seems like its new stablemate Blizzard is treading a similar path.

A statement on Diablo3.com yesterday indicated that the site was changing its URL to DiabloFans.com at Blizzard's behest, and that it was in the process of transferring the old domain to the Diablo publisher.

Knowing that such an acquisition would send the Internet rumourmongers into overdrive, Blizzard made it clear to mockery, the administrator of the fansite in question, that "this shouldn't be considered an announcement" of Diablo 3.

Blizzard's denial hasn't done much to slow the rumour mill, however, especially given the fact that this year's Blizzard invitational is only two months away. Last year's equivalent event was the scene of the surprise announcement of Starcraft 2, and the Paris event would be an appropriate stage for Diablo 3 to be introduced to the world.

Against GTAIV driving

Much like its unfortunate series of protagonists, the Grand Theft Auto series seems to be continually under fire. The latest parental interest group to put the game in its crosshairs is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which commemorated Grand Theft Auto IV's release yesterday with its own official statement decrying the game.

Noting that drunk driving claims nearly 13,500 lives each year, MADD said that it is "extremely disappointed" that the game lets users get virtually drunk and then get behind the wheel of an equally virtual automobile.

"Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke," MADD said. "Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime, and it is also 100 percent preventable."

Crytek abandons console Crysis

Crysis, developed by German studio Crytek and released in late 2007, was one of the most highly praised PC-exclusive games last year. It won GameSpot's Best of 2007 Editors' Choice award for Best PC Game and a host of other gongs.

However, it seems that all is not rosy at Crytek HQ in Germany. The studio's director and founder, Cevat Yerli, recently spoke out about the problems currently besetting his firm, PC gaming in general, and how Crytek plans to address the issues it faces.

In an interview with Croatian magazine PC Play, Yerli said, "We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin... PC gamers that pirate games, inherently destroy the platform.

Forums aflame over GTA4 freezing

Last month, the launch of Rockstar Games' Bully on the Xbox 360 was marred by a bevy of crash bugs and other glitches. With this morning's heavily anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Rockstar finds itself dealing with still more troubleshooting trouble, as online forums are buzzing with reports of crashes.

Combing through crash threads on the Xbox.com forums, Sony's official message boards, GameSpot, and the NeoGAF forums, it seems that the issues are affecting PlayStation 3 users more frequently, although gamers with both systems are reporting problems. Reports of crashes on the 60GB version of the PS3 hardware are the most common, and tech support advice like deleting and re-installing the game doesn't appear to address the issue effectively.

Aerosmith only rocking Guitar Hero

Ever since Activision and Aerosmith confirmed the rumours that there was going to be an installment in the Guitar Hero franchise dedicated to the self-styled bad boys from Boston, questions have been asked about whether the deal extended beyond the scope of the game. A recent article by a US magazine indicates that the deal locks in Aerosmith to the Guitar Hero series for some time to come.

Newsweek reports, via its Level Up blog, that Aerosmith's publicist has confirmed that the deal is "exclusive...for this game." Activision's vice president of music affairs was then moved to extend this, explaining, "We do have the band exclusively, and their catalogue should be exclusive to us beyond the one or two tracks they had licensed out to Rock Band before we made our deal." To date, only one Aerosmith track, "Train Kept A Rollin'," has appeared in Rock Band, and even then only as a cover version.

Canada PS3 Store to cut prices down

Things are looking up for Canadian gamers. Early last year, retailers in the country were jacking up prices on PlayStation 3 hardware to adjust for a weaker Canadian dollar. Since that time, the Canadian dollar has pulled virtually even with its American counterpart. The 40GB PS3 now sells for the same $399.99 on both sides of the border, and today Sony announced that it is adjusting prices on its downloadable-game store as well.

Citing the stronger Canadian dollar as the reason for the adjustments, Sony Computer Entertainment America said that the changes will be phased in before tomorrow's weekly PlayStation Store content update. PlayStation Store senior manager Grace Chen said in a statement that the company expects the new prices "will meet the expectations of our Canadian consumers."

Executive Shuffle: Hudson, Warner Bros.

Digital distribution over Nintendo's and Microsoft's respective online services has been a boon for Hudson Soft. The publisher has been quick to import gems from its days gone by to Nintendo's Virtual Console, and the publisher has found success over Xbox Live Arcade, in particular with Bomberman Live, which was deemed the Best Overall Arcade Game by XBLA users in 2007. Now, the man who has overseen this recent renaissance, as well as participated in the developer's '90s heyday, is stepping down after 20 years.

Hudson Entertainment announced today that John Greiner, president of the company's North American publishing operation, will be leaving the company effective May 15. Greiner began his career with Hudson in Japan in 1988, and was appointed president and CEO of Hudson Soft in 2003. According to Hudson, Greiner plans to "spend time with his family and pursue personal interests," and the US division's senior executive and chairman Seiichi Ishigaki will assume his responsibilities.

SCi rebuffs Infogames advances

The games industry has seen a flurry of corporate activity in the past year. From EA consuming BioWare, to Bizarre moving to Activision, and Bungie breaking free of Microsoft, many high-profile gamemakers have either been bought up or have forged new relationships elsewhere. Deals are also being brokered at the publisher level, with the potential takeover of GTAIV publisher Take-Two by EA and the nearly concluded merger of Activision and Vivendi Games.

Another player in the industry receiving investment attention is SCi Entertainment, the parent company of British industry veteran Eidos. SCi has been receiving a lot of attention of late, previously reported to be from companies such as Ubisoft, Midway, and Time Warner. This week, French publisher Infogrames was confirmed as the latest suitor. The owner of Atari was forced to respond to rumours surrounding an offer for SCi, and it confirmed that although it has made an offer, SCi has so far declined to accept it.

Fatal Inertia EX finally arrives on PS3

When Fatal Inertia was first announced, it was presumed to have been secured by Sony as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, but in November 2006 it was announced that the game would also head to Microsoft's Xbox 360.

In September 2007, the Xbox 360 game came and went with no sign or news of its PS3 cousin, save that it had been further delayed. Koei today confirmed that the game is finally on its way to PS3 owners via the PlayStation Network. It will reach the console in May, having been tuned up and redubbed Fatal Inertia EX.

The sci-fi racer sees gamers race heavily armed hovercraft in a variety of exotic locales, attempting to win races, achieve top speeds, or just be the last one standing. GameSpot complimented the original on the Xbox 360 for its imaginative weapons and good-looking locations, but it came under fire for its punishing difficulty and sometimes lacklustre course design.

Bourne declines game offer

As evidenced by Sir Anthony Hopkins' appearance in Ubisoft's movie-to-game tie-in for Beowulf last year, a growing trend in the film adaptation business is for top-tier Hollywood talent to cross over into the gaming spectrum. However, when High Moon Studios and Sierra Entertainment's Robert Ludlum's Bourne Conspiracy is released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on June 3, it will be both be a year behind the last Bourne film and noticeably lacking the movie's iconic star, Matt Damon, as Jason Bourne.

The first oddity can be answered by the fact that the game has as much to do with Robert Ludlum's novels than the recent Tony Gilroy-penned movie scripts--though, as noted in GameSpot's previous coverage, Gilroy contributed to the game's story. MTV's Multiplayer blog reports that the second is due to Matt Damon backing out of the role.

GTA4 mugged and stabbings

Midnight launches aren't always the gaming industry's proudest moments. The PlayStation 3 release in particular was riddled with launch-related crimes, including a mugging, a store robbery, a launch line hold-up, and a shooting.

Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale in stores around the world at 12:01 a.m. this morning, and already reports of criminal midnight launch madness are starting to filter in. BBC News is reporting on a pair of incidents, with news of a stabbing outside a Gamestation in Croydon and a mugging by another game store in Lancashire.

According to the news service, a 23-year-old man was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant as he passed a line outside the Gamestation. The victim was treated for several stab wounds and has since been released. The attacker, who police said appeared to be waiting in the line of about 50 to 100 people, was not apprehended.

In the mugging, an 18-year-old was robbed of his copy of the game and beaten as he walked home from the store with a friend. The victim was taken to the hospital with a broken jaw and a broken nose.

Police are asking for witnesses in both cases to step forward.

BioWare releases Mass Effect on Windows some time

Xbox 360 exclusives seem to be making a habit out of eventually being released on Microsoft's other platform, Windows, several months after the fact. In February, BioWare signaled that this trend would continue for its epic-scale role-playing game Mass Effect, with PC gamers offered a variety of tweaks, balances, and revisions to remunerate for the lagging ship date.

Today, BioWare revealed yet one more incentive for PC gamers to pick up the latest edition of Mass Effect. Those who preorder through participating brick-and-mortar retailers or online will receive $10 off of the game's regularly schedule $49.99 price tag. Those who purchase the game through BioWare parent company Electronic Arts' online storefront will instead receive Dead Space swag, including a poster and the first edition of the comic-book series that surrounds EA's survival horror shooter.

Rabbids on WiiBoard!!

With the launch of the Wii in 2006, Ubisoft's Rayman series careened into a decidedly off-kilter direction, abandoning its platformer roots with a new focus on zany minigames. A launch title for the platform, Rayman Raving Rabbids was praised as one of the first games to cleverly put to use the Wii's motion-sensing technology. However, the second installment, released a year nearly to the day later, was met with markedly less enthusiasm.

It now appears as if Ubisoft has a mind to bring the Rabbids back for another go-around, once again taking on Nintendo's new peripherals. The publisher today released a teaser trailer titled "Rabbids Secrets to Health and Happiness." While no details accompanied the teaser, the trailer makes much ado of the Wii Balance Board, with one of the series' patently insane Rabbids attempting to consume the board for its dietary value.

Nintendo recalls lapel pins

Product recalls are nothing new in the gaming industry, but typically the objects of concern have to do with the electronics themselves. Such is not the case with Nintendo's latest recall. The publisher said today that it is recalling all lapel pins sold or given away as promotional items at its Nintendo "Fun & Games" employee store in Redmond, Washington, and its Nintendo World Store in New York, New York, between 2004 and 2007.

According to Nintendo, the lapel pins are coated by paint that contains an unsafe level of lead, as determined by US government regulations. The pins, which measure approximately 1/2 inch to 2 inches per side, depict various Nintendo characters, and Nintendo said it will be replacing the items with uncontaminated versions free of charge. More information on the recall is available on Nintendo's Web site, and lapel pin owners can call Nintendo at (800) 431-0971 to arrange for replacement pins.

Battleforge in EA

Before being acquired by Electronic Arts last August, Phenomic had established itself on the PC gaming scene with the SpellForce franchise, which blended elements of real-time strategy and role-playing games. For its first project under the new regime, the Germany-based studio is working on another genre mash-up.

EA Phenomic's first game as an Electronic Arts subsidiary will be BattleForge, an online fantasy-themed real-time strategy game for the PC that borrows from the world of collectible-card games. Players will be able to buy new cards and trade old ones through an in-game marketplace, form guilds, enter tournaments and chat rooms, and wage card-game-war cooperatively with friends. EA is billing the game as the first fantasy RTS to incorporate social-gaming elements and community features.