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EA Borrows $1 Billion to Help Swallow Take Two
by Tanner Smith | 05/09/08 | 6:02 PM PST

Well folks, this just got a tad more real.

Electronic Arts has taken out a $1 billion load from Morgan Stanley and lenders to help pay for the acquisition of Take Two, should it ever happen. The figure was revealed in recently released SEC filings. According to EA VP of communications Jeff Brown, "There's no news here. This is just a process point on something we announced in February."

As Kotaku points out, EA's got plenty of cash on hand to purchase Take Two, so why borrow more? "It helps us maintain maximum flexibility for any opportunities," Brown further noted.

Take Two hasn't given a comment at this time.

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Feature: The Top 5: 05.09.2008
by Kombo Staff | 05/09/08 | 5:46 PM PST

Every week, the game industry is blasted with enough news to make your head spin. It can be hard to keep track of the week's most important news stories. That's what The Top 5 is for. The Top 5 is a weekly column in which Kombo.com Senior Editorialist Lucas DeWoody looks back at the top 5 best, worst and most important news stories of the week, editorializing on each one as he goes along.

Without further ado, this week's Top 5 are…

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Stop Uwe Boll, Get Free Gum

Look in the bargain bin of any video store and you are bound to find such "classics" as BloodRayne II, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Deliverance. All of that crap can be blamed on Uwe Boll, reviled German movie director and bane of the gaming industry for his horrible video game to film translations. Being a crazed defender of his own work (three of which are in IMDb's bottom 100), Boll once claimed that if over one million people wanted him to stop making movies, he would retire. You all knew where this was going, right? Petitiononline.com jumped right on the cause. Currently the petition stands at 263,000+ signatures and growing. To make this even funnier, Stride Gum announced that it will give out a million packs of gum if the petition reaches one million by May 14.

Industry Consequences:



Go to StopUweBoll.org. There is likely no petition on Earth that could stop this man, but go ahead and sign it anyway. Maybe we can get another nice portrait out of him if it hits 750,000 signatures.

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The countdown continues inside.

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New Bizarre Creations IPs in 2009 Appear Likely
by Tanner Smith | 05/09/08 | 5:38 PM PST

Bizarre Creations, now part of Activision, is "deep in development" on two multi-platform titles (probably for the PS3 and 360).

The news came during Activision's conference call held yesterday (hear it at the 29:55 mark). Publishing CEO Mike Griffith noted that "Bizarre is deep in development on two multi-platform titles and we are looking forward to the release of our first new racing IP in fiscal 2010, which already looks very strong." For those not in the know, Activision's fiscal 2010 year begins on April 1, 2009.

Bizarre, take it away from the city with this one. The Project Gotham series was great fun, but I want to see where else you can take it. Oh, you're already considering it? Kudos to you then, good sirs!

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CoD5 Going 'Military Theater', Coming to All Platforms except PSP
by Tanner Smith | 05/09/08 | 4:38 PM PST



Infinity Ward set servers on fire last year by propelling Call of Duty into the modern era. If rumors hold true, CoD3 developer Treyarch will be stepping up to develop the next game in the series, which will probably launch later in the year.

According to Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith, CoD5 will "bring the intensity of the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare title to a new military theater." The game is scheduled to be released "on all four platforms we've participated on in fiscal 2008", meaning the PS3, 360, DS and PC. Oh, and it's coming to the Wii and PS2 as well.

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Feature: 8 Things We Want to See in GTA
by Phillip Levin | 05/09/08 | 4:30 PM PST


Grand Theft Auto IV has only been out for little more than a week, and yet we can't help but think about the future of the series. Thinking about future GTA installments, we've come up with a list of things we'd like to see in forthcoming installments of the GTA series. While reading it over, keep in mind we're aware that many of these things are unrealistic at this point in time because there are technological barriers that prevent them from being included in the immediate successor to GTA IV. What we've put together is a dream list -- an outline of just some of the biggest things that would help create the ultimate GTA game.

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In-car View
Grand Theft Auto IV already has an in-car view, but it's not too impressive. We want completely detailed, in-cockpit views for every automobile in the game -- see Gran Turismo 5 for an example of this in action. Considering GTA IV features a fairly detailed interior model of the taxi, which you get to see when you take a cab ride across Liberty City, we know that Rockstar can pull this off.

More inside.

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Media: 76 Shots of Lost Planet: Colonies Edition
by David Oxford | 05/09/08 | 4:15 PM PST





76 images added to our gallery of the special Xbox 360 re-release of Keiji Inafune's frosty FPS, including 21 new screens which were released today.

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Rumor: Microsoft to Show-Off Motion Controller with New Banjo Kazooie Next Week
by Nathan Grayson | 05/09/08 | 2:42 PM PST

So, we're pretty sure Microsoft is hammering together some kind of motion controller -- even in spite of their many denials. Repeated rumors like this have a way of panning out eventually (see: Resident Evil 4 on PS2, Okami for Wii, and, ironically, Xbox 360's Banjo Kazooie 3). But when will Microsoft finally remove the cats from their tongues and confirm our beliefs?

Well, if Kotaku's sources are to be believed, we're looking at an unveil as early as next week. Now, don't clear out a some closet space for your Wii just yet -- Microsoft's little peep show might be press-only, with embargoes keeping those lucky journalists' mouths locked tight.

Here's where things get a little sticky, though: At the very least, whatever Microsoft pulls out of their collective hat next Tuesday (which, if nothing else, will be Banjo Kazooie 3) will be available for public viewing before the press event even happens. Either Microsoft has already been fairly candid with whatever they're going to announce next Tuesday, or Banjo's going back to the future.

But how do these two seemingly disparate tidbits relate to one another? Amongst the many rumors that have been spilling from Microsoft's colossal form, it's been hinted that Banjo and the Microsoft motion doo-hickey plan to team up in the manbear's latest outing -- much to Kazooie's chagrin, I'm betting.

With any luck, we'll have a clearer view of things when the fog clears on Tuesday.

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Codemasters Secures Formula 1 License
by Sascha Lichtenstein | 05/09/08 | 2:09 PM PST



Earlier this week, rumors surfaced that Sony and the powers behind Formula 1 racing weren't exactly seeing eye-to-eye on the price that Sony should pay to keep the Formula 1 license for another few years. The news didnt garner much of a reaction since disagreements of this sort almost always take place around contract renewals. Hell, the exact same situation occurred back in 2002 when Forumla 1 demanded $200 million for Sony's use of the license for 2003 through 2007, Sony scoffed and bargained the price down to $75 million. So everyone just kind of assumed things would play out in similar fashion. Whats that they say about assumptions?

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Guitar Hero IV Poised to "Innovate the Series"
by David Oxford | 05/09/08 | 2:04 PM PST

According to a report on Console Monster News, Activision CEO Mike Griffith has announced that Guitar Hero IV will be rocking store shelves just in time for Christmas. Further, he says that the new title will provide something fresh for fans, as the series is placing an emphasis on innovation in order to compete with Rock Band.

"We've put a lot of additional development resources, a lot of additional music licenses resources, a lot of additional hardware supplier resources against the title to fuel growth over next year," he says. "We're excited by the increased musical content and innovation we're bringing. We do expect a leap forward in innovation with our holiday launch, and we're about two weeks away from providing very specific details on that."

With Guitar Hero: Aerosmith set for release next month, that will also make for two installments of the franchise (not counting the DS game) in under a year's time. Word is that some of these innovations spoken of could include vocals and other instruments, and while innovational to the series, it's nothing new to the genre, thanks to Rock Band.

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Nasdaq Delists Atari
by David Oxford | 05/09/08 | 12:33 PM PST

They'd been warned time after time after time after time... and maybe a few other times, but that's all I feel like finding and coding.

Anyway, with all those warnings, one might figure that Atari, following their plans for unison with Infogrames, would finally pull itself out of the gutter and hold its head high for a change. Others would figure that it was only a matter of time before Nasdaq said "screw it" and just got on with their lives. Unfortunately for Atari, the latter were correct.

Atari now finds itself in possession of a letter that notifies them that their listing has been removed, and trading suspended. Atari officials will be requesting a review of the decision from the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, but that does diddly for them in the here and now. Instead, they expect they'll be quoted on the "Pink Sheets," which are an electronic quotation service that allows the continued trading of delisted companies, and maybe the OTC Bulletin Board.

Atari doesn't expect this to affect their planned merger with Infogrames, which was at one point hoped to stave off the delisting for just a little longer, but clearly did not.

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Would You Kindly Buy a Ticket for the BioShock Movie?
by David Oxford | 05/09/08 | 10:20 AM PST

Hey, remember when Take-Two was talking about a possible BioShock movie, among other things? Well, it looks like it's more than just talk, now... eh, maybe. You know how these things are. Development for Iron Man started in 1990, and I don't even remember how long Spider-man took.

Anyway, the next step has apparently been taken, as Variety reports that Universal has signed on to make it so. And for any doubters out there, Take-Two has confirmed it themselves. T2 Chairman Strauss Zelnick, who probably knows a thing or two about movies after his stint at Fox, handled the deal and says this one's actually going to get made. Unlike other movies based on popular FPS games, say one starring a big man in green tupperware.

So far, the setup is thus: Director Gore Verbinski (he did some movie about pirates and Johnny Depp) is heading the project, and John Logan, who wrote Aviator, might write this as well. Verbinski discusses it further in an interview, where he says he doesn't want the audience to feel betrayed, and so we'll be seeing Little Sisters and Big Daddies hopping on the R-train and taking it as far as it'll go.

No date is set, however, but Verbinski says he'll begin pre-production once Logan's script is finished and approved. Of course, knowing Hollywood, there's bound to be some snag between now and the time we purchase our tickets. Guess we'll just have to see.

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Activision: Hawk Flying Solo on DS in '08, Rakes in $3 Billion in Revenue
by Tanner Smith | 05/08/08 | 8:55 PM PST

Mighty Activision made $344.9 million in net income for their fiscal year ended March 31. That's $259.1 million above what the publisher made a year ago.

They did it without releasing a single title during their fourth quarter, which ran from January to March this year, despite raking in a net income of $44.2 million (up from a net loss of $14.4 mil) during the 3 month period. Net revenue rose from 1.51 billion to $2.90 billion as well.

With the success of Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero III, this comes as little surprise. CEO Bobby Kotick noted, "During the fiscal year, we were the #1 U.S. console and handheld publisher in dollars for the first time ever, according to The NPD Group, and we grew our worldwide share of the console, handheld and PC markets year over year."

The big news concerns Activision's future plans, of course. Guitar Hero will still be getting the star treatment moving forward, hopefully including some big changes to distinguish it from stepbrother Rock Band. The Tony Hawk series, which has arguably been stuck in Neversoft's gutter as of late, won't be getting the next console iteration until next year.

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Rumor: LucasArts Next to Bolt from ESA?
by Tanner Smith | 05/08/08 | 6:36 PM PST

LucasArts could very well be following Activision and Vivendi in their decision to exit the Entertainment Software Association (the guys behind E3).

As GamePolitics points out, LucasArts is missing from the member list featured on the ESA's website. This change has thus far gone unannounced, giving much speculation into the company's motives. The same scenario occurred shortly before ActiBlizzard made its announcement last week. When contacted, an ESA rep noted that he would "look into that."

Yes good sir, that's not a bad idea.

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South Park Season 11 DVD to Feature Rock Band DLC?
by David Oxford | 05/08/08 | 3:01 PM PST

Irony, thy name is South Park.

In what can only be called unexpectedly bizarre (or, conversely, a mistake), the 11th season of South Park, which featured the episode "Guitar Queer-o," will be on DVD soon. And to sweeten the deal for gamers everywhere, the DVD set will include three downloadable tracks for... Rock Band?!

Indeed, that is what's reported to be the case, from info being sent to US retailers, though no specifics as to which songs will be included. The theme is expected. My money (i.e. hopes) are on "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" and "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch."

Of course, just because it's a bit ironic doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. South Park is produced by Comedy Central, who is owned by Viacom and MTV Networks. And of course, MTV Games are the ones who make Rock Band, so...

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New Legislation Calls for ID Checks on M, AO Games
by David Oxford | 05/08/08 | 2:46 PM PST

Sometimes, there's just no pleasing some people.

Even with "major improvement" in the enforcement of the M-rating, Variety reports that there is a new video game legislation bill making the rounds, aimed at limiting the access teens have to harmful content.

Known as the "Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act," it was put forth Wednesday by Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah), who not only want ID checks to be mandatory for purchases of M rated and AO rated (excuse me a minute while I laugh) games, but also require retailers to post ratings system explanations in stores, lest they face a $5,000 fine.

Wait a sec, I've seen tons of retailers, rental stores, and so forth with ESRB ratings clearly visible, but I don't see the MPAA ratings posted at all. Double-standard much?