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The Week in Review news piece summarizes and highlights the most important gaming related news and rumors over the past week. This weekly article will keep you plugged in and in-tune. The biggest newsmaker of the week was undoubtedly the news pouring out of EA. It appears the company has hemorrhaged $641 million over the last fiscal year. Ouch! On a brighter note they also released a ton of important info for the company going forward (more on that later). With an expanded E3 going forward, it looks as though Activision Blizzard has decided to make their presence felt again after last year’s absence. The game-publishing giant has confirmed that they will be attending E3 2009 . However, news has come out today that suggests that the Blizzard side of the Activision Blizzard one-two punch won’t be hawking their wares at E3 2009. EA confirmed the rumors from two weeks ago that The Sims 3 will be substantially delayed until June 2. Whether EA has delayed the game because of problems, a better financial outlook, or a bit from column A and B is up for debate. However, EA also revealed that The Godfather II game will be getting pushed back from the end of February to between April and June. This new launch window is set to give the game a better chance at market. Competing with the likes of GTA IV: The Lost and Damned, Killzone 2, Fallout 3 Expansions, and Street Fighter IV would certainly be a tall order for The Godfather II. Maybe The Sims 3 really were moved for similar reasons. Guinness World Records 2009: Gamer’s Edition has awarded America’s Army PC game five Guinness World Records. The records include:
EA also made it clear that Wii is the undisputed leader and that they were going to readjust their software support to reflect it. According to CEO Riccitiello, fully one half of EA’s software offerings will be focused on the Wii going forward. On that note, Dead Space will be getting the Wii treatment. It will likely be a new twist on the game rather than a straight port. We also got a number of key development studio acquisitions this week. For starters, Crytek went ahead and picked up Free Radical of Nottingham, England. Second, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment acquired Snowblind Studios . Finally, Ubisoft purchased Action Pants of Vancouver, Canada . The Xbox 360 and Netflix partnership seems to be bearing fruit. According to Netflix, over 1 million Xbox 360 users have registered for Netflix’s movie-streaming service in the past three months since the two companies formed their partnership. And last, but certainly not least, Sony’s European boss David Reeves told The Guardian that the manufacturing of 65 nanometer chips will be dropped in favor of 45 nanometer chips. This change will reduce production costs for Sony and is promised to reduce heat through greater energy efficiency. It is projected that such reductions in production costs could pave the way to future price cuts. Look for the new chips to drop in the middle of 2009. Thanks so much everyone and we will see you next week! |