14 DAY TRIAL // Hello and welcome to another edition of A Gamer's Week, your roundup of everything hot and interesting from the gaming industry in the last seven days. This past week has been a rollercoaster for gamers, as while upcoming games received new details, others were sadly delayed and scheduled for next year. Speculations were also abundant, partly due to analysts making predictions about what the second half of 2009 will bring for us. Also, the NPD numbers are in and we already have them dissected for you. Without further ado, here's this edition of A Gamer's Week.
Monday brought some great news for Electronic Arts fans, as the eagerly anticipated Need for Speed Shift title received the very first details on its drift mode. It seems that a lot of hard work has gone into it and it will certainly deliver a great experience for racing fans. Those who want to test their managerial skills in the FIFA franchise from EA Sports also got an interesting piece of news, as players of FIFA Manager 10 will be able to go head to head against other people online.
Tuesday saw a piece of news a bit sad for those who eagerly anticipated BioShock 2, as its publisher, Take Two, announced that the game had been delayed and it would take players on an underwater experience through Rapture in 2010. Until then though, it seems that the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wii remake will please every type of gamer, at least according to famous game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
Wednesday was a very interesting day for those who can't wait until November, when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be launched, as the community manager at Infinity Ward, which is making the game, revealed the Prestige Edition. Complete with an artbook, a steelcase and a pair of night-vision goggles, this special edition will certainly sell, even though it is priced at $149. This day was also dominated by the statement made by Chris Hinojosa Miranda and Taku Imasaki, who are the executive producers of the upcoming PSP version of Gran Turismo. It seems that while DLC or car damage won't be supported by the game, a stable framerate of 60 fps will be guaranteed.
Thursday was dominated by Wedbush Morgan's analyst Michael Pachter, who revealed that, according to his sources, a brand-new Grand Theft Auto game would certainly appear, either in 2010 or 2011. Let's just hope that his sources are right. This day was also chosen by EA Sports to reveal the concrete release date for its highly anticipated FIFA 10 soccer simulator. Those who can't wait to lead their favorite teams to victory will have to mark October 2 on their calendar.
The last day of the week saw Take Two's Ben Feder talk about the statements made by Pachter, and while he denied any new GTA next year, he revealed that there were a lot of stories in Liberty City that hadn't been told. Fingers crossed for some new DLC episodes for GTA IV then. Friday was also the day when the NPD group decided to share its charts about what sold and what didn't in the month of June. While hardware charts are still dominated by Nintendo, drops have been recorded across the board. In terms of software, Activision's Prototype dominated its opponents, even though only the Xbox 360 managed to break the top ten best-selling game chart.
Overall, it's been a pretty busy week. Until next time you can check out the dedicated games section here at Softpedia for all the latest news, tips and demos about your favorite titles.