14 DAY TRIAL // This week has been oddly dominated by news related to Take Two and its biggest franchise, Grand Theft Auto. The company released its financial results for the third quarter of the financial year and things are not looking good, with losses of about 55.5 million dollars and with Red Dead Redemption, BioShock 2 and Max Payne 3 delayed to 2010. But there are other things that you need to know about.
On Monday, Microsoft confirmed that some lucky French guys managed to get their hands on Halo 3: ODST, which is set to be released later in the fall, by penetrating the supply chain which the company has. Apparently, those playing the game before the release date will not be banned from Xbox Live. And speaking of Microsoft, it seems that the company is to blame for the fact that the PC version of Champions Online from Cryptic is set to arrive on September 1, while the Xbox 360 version has no date yet.
Sony dominated the news on Tuesday, with the Japanese console manufacturer explaining that the battery of the new PlayStation Portable Go! will be non removable so that piracy levels for the handheld can be controlled and also releasing the 3.00 firmware version for the PlayStation 3 on the same day as the Slim version went on sale.
On Wednesday, we found out about the losses at Take Two its plans to put out its big games, like BioShock 2 and Max Payne 3 between January 31 and July 1 of 2010. Meanwhile, Electronic Arts, the company that tried to take over Take Two and failed in 2008, gave some hints that the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4 would not be arriving anytime soon.
On Thursday, we found out about the rather tough reaction that Strauss Zelnick of Take Two had when confronted with some question about Grand Theft Auto V and intrepid gamers also blew the lid of the secret tracks, which Harmonix had been talking about as included in The Beatles Rock Band that arrives on September 8.
On Friday, GTA V was again mentioned, as analysts came to agree on the fact that Take Two would announce another game in the series in 2010. Announce, maybe, but not something related to a release. For that we probably need to look forward to 2011. At the same time, scientists proved that Tetris could be good for the brain, increasing efficiency and leading to more gray matter production. So, videogames might actually be good for you.