14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the big gaming companies didn't really take much time to re-enter their usual pace of development as, although this is just the second work week of this year, we are already seeing some very interesting developments for a lot of them. While some boast the big sales that their products have had over the last month or even the last year, it seems that others are preparing for the worst and are taking major cost-cutting measures in order to assure a decent profit. So, without further delays, here's this edition of A Gamer's Week, a round-up of the most important things that happened this week in the game industry.
On Monday, a major disturbance in the workforce was reported by a few sources close to big gaming corporation Electronic Arts, which claim that, although the company has already laid off about 1,000 employees, more cost-cutting measures will be implemented. As such, it seems that the EA Mobile label has already felt the full force of these new measures, with the corporation having fired 45 employees. Let's hope that there won't be further layoffs and that everyone working for the big company will have their position secured. On a lighter note, it seems that the Red Alert 3: Uprising expansion will have the same amount of pretty girls as the original, in order to entertain players between missions. Even though Gemma Atkinson will still play the lovely lt. Eva, it seems that actress Holly Valance will also appear in this future game. With the way things are going, it looks like the Red Alert 3 cast will be more similar to some of the blockbuster Hollywood movies.
Tuesday saw some major corporate chest-beating, as Activision Blizzard reported that its very popular Guitar Hero franchise had reached a new height in terms of sales, with the latest iteration in the series, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, having reached 1 billion dollars in sales. That's right, coupling the retail copies, the instruments and the priced DLC songs, it seems that Activision Blizzard is poised to become one of the most profitable gaming companies out there, giving Nintendo a real run for its money. Not to be outdone by Sony's clever charts in which it portrays the fact that the PlayStation 3 is better than the Xbox 360, Microsoft declared, through the voice of its group product manager, Aaron Greenberg, that, although the PS3 was a better product, it wouldn't want to swap places with it. Let's not forget that, because of the low price tag for the Xbox 360, people are much more interested in it than in the more expensive PS3.
Gaming industry analysts took the stage on Wednesday, when they predicted that we would see a lot of price cuts for consoles this year. Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Morgan, deemed certain that Sony would indeed slash the price on its PlayStation 3 product, in order to make it more attractive to cost-conscious consumers. He then predicted that Microsoft, not wanting to lose its edge on its Arch rival, might also employ a price cut on its Pro model, which was selling quite well. But the Redmond-based company limited itself to emphasizing the fact that it would continue to back up the Xbox 360, as Robbie Bach, an executive of the company, stated that this console generation would definitely be the longest that we have ever seen.
Rumors started flying around on Thursday, as the latest edition of Game Informer speculated that the team at Rockstar might already be finishing up another addition to the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto series. The magazine mentioned GTA: Vice City, a game that appeared only a year after GTA III, as a prime example in order to back up its claims. Until we hear from Rockstar, this is still a big rumor. But one thing was for sure that day, as GameStop stated on its site – Guitar Hero: Metallica would appear in North America on March 29. Also, a leaked schedule from Activision claimed that Europeans would get a chance to rock out with the famous band sometime in May.
The last day of the week wasn't as filled with news as the other ones, and thus it allowed me to test the PC version of Mirror's Edge. Although I did have some very bad encounters with the asphalt in the city where Faith lives, the game offered some very stunning environments and was a breath of fresh air compared to all of the dull colors found in other games. But if the gaming companies made no announcements, the NPD group decided to make public all of the sales data for the month of December and for last year. As expected, the big winner is Nintendo, followed by the Xbox 360. The PlayStation 3 sadly, with its high price tag, didn't really register large sales.
As a conclusion, this week has been a very busy one, filled with interesting news. For the latest information, head on over to the Games section of Softpedia, where you can find all the news plus downloadable games and other resources.