When the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sex-minigame scandal hit the mainstream media last year, legal action swiftly followed. A series of class actions suits were filed against Take-Two Interactive, owner of GTA publisher Rockstar Games. One plaintiff was Florence Cohen, who claimed she suffered emotional damage after learning of the minigames in San Andreas, which she had bought for her grandson.

Along with many others, Cohen's complaint sought class-action status for all purchasers of San Andreas. Over the course of the past year, many of the San Andreas suits have been combined in a federal court in New York City. There, lawyers for Take-Two have argued that some suits be dismissed on the grounds that they could only be filed in the states where the plaintiffs actually resided, not federally.

Yesterday, according to the Reuters news service, a judge ruled against Take-Two, saying that she would consider granting all plaintiffs class-action status. "If class certification is granted, the court will have the benefit of a well-defined class and a more fully developed treatment of potential choice of law questions," U.S. District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram was quoted as saying. ...

Although the Wii won't be on sale for weeks, Nintendo is already enjoying robust financial numbers. Today in Tokyo, the company reported a 54.4 billion yen (around $459.5 million) profit for the first half of its fiscal year, which ended on September 30.

The figure is a 48 percent increase from the 36.63 billion yen (approximately $309.2 million) the company reported during the same period the prior year. The Kyoto-based game giant rang up 298.82 billion yen (approx. $2.52 billion) in overall six-month sales, a massive 69 percent increase from the 176.36 billion yen (around 1.49 billion) it took in from April-September 2005.

To anyone following the game industry, the reason for Nintendo's success will be unsurprising. The company announced it has sold more than 10 million units of its DS handheld this year, a trend which accelerated after the sleeker DS Lite was released this spring. So far, the company has sold 26.82 million units of the DS and DS Lite since the platform debuted in late 2004.

Brisk sales of DS hardware translated to brisk sales of DS software. New Super Mario Bros. has sold 6.76 million units worldwide since it went on sale in May. Another popular game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, sold 4.59 million units during the April-September period--bringing its lifetime sales total to 8.51 million units. The game hit Japan in May 2005, arrived on US store shelves in mid-April 2006, and came to Europe in June 2006.

Despite its surging sales, Nintendo's full-year outlook remains the same since it revised the figure upwards three weeks ago. The Mario factory now predicts its net profit for its entire business year, which ends on March 31, 2007, will be 100 billion yen (about $850 million), a 20.5 percent increase from its previous estimate of 83 billion yen (about $705 million). ...

Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell has said that the company is doing "better than we hoped" after the company's Entertainment and Devices division posted a 70 per cent rise in revenues.

During the three months ending September 30, Microsoft's overall revenues rose by 11 per cent to hit USD 10.81 billion (EUR 8.53 billion). Operating income was also up by 11 per cent at USD 4.47 billion (EUR 3.53 billion), and net quarterly income stood at USD 3.48 billion (EUR 2.75 billion) - the equivalent to USD 0.35 (EUR 0.28) per share.

Revenues for the E&D division were up from USD 606 million (EUR 478 million) a year previously to USD 1.03 billion (EUR 813 million), which Microsoft attributed to a high demand for Xbox 360 consoles, software and peripherals plus the Xbox Live service.

A total of six million Xbox 360 units have now been sold - 3.6 million in North America, 1.7 million in Europe and around 700,000 in the rest of the world. Record cumulative attach rates for software and peripherals have been achieved in the US, and there are now more than 4 million users of Xbox Live.

However, the E&D division still made an operating loss of USD 96 million (EUR 75.8 million) - down from USD 173 million (EUR 137 million) during the same period last year, when the Xbox 360 had yet to go on sale.

Commenting on the recent reduction in manufacturing costs for the 360 during a conference call, Liddell said, "We are seeing lower cost per console... we're doing slightly better than we hoped for." He added that Microsoft expects the console to be "cost neutral over the console's life".

Microsoft forecasts that 10 million Xbox 360 units will have been sold by the end of 2006, by which time console owners will have a catalogue of 160 games to choose from.

"We believe that the functionality of the Xbox 360 console, games portfolio, and online offerings are well-positioned relative to forthcoming competitive consoles," the company said in a statement.

"We also believe launching in advance of competing consoles will provide a strategic advantage for the long-term success of Xbox 360." ...

EA has officially opened the doors to its new Chicago studio, confirming that three titles are already in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Only one of these has been named so far - Def Jam: Icon, a new instalment in the popular series of fighting games. EA would only confirm that one of the other titles is a licensed game, and the other is an additional fighter based on new intellectual property.

Kudo Tsunoda will take on the role of vice present and general manager at EA Chicago, which is based downtown. Many of the studio's 150 staff previously worked on the Fight Night boxing games, and a further 100 employees will be hired over the course of the next year.

"We are pushing next-generation development and technology to the limits and looking for the best talent to help us to create innovative games," Tsunoda said. ...

Sony's chief financial officer, Nobuyuki Oneda, has warned that the games sector "is weak" and presents "a major challenge" after the company posted a drop in profit of more than 90 per cent.

During Q2, Sony's profits fell from YEN 28.5 billion (EUR 190 million) to YEN 1.7 billion (EUR 11 million) - with the loss attributed to costs incurred by a laptop battery recall and PS3 development.

The games division made a YEN 43.5 billion (EUR 289 million) loss, attributed to the investment required for manufacturing, marketing and research costs for the PS3. Sales and operating revenues also fell by more than 20 per cent to hit YEN 170 billion (EUR 1.13 billion).

Although sales for the Sony group rose by 8 per cent to YEN 1.85 trillion (EUR 12.3 billion), attributed to an increase in demand for flatscreen TVs, the company incurred costs of YEN 51 billion (EUR 339 million) due to the global recall of 9.6 million notebook batteries.

Speaking at a news conference, Oneda said that without the battery recall and PS3 costs to contend with, "We would have been on track with the midterm plan, or more than that.

"But the game segment is weak and is the major challenge for us now," he added.

PS2 software shipments during the quarter were down by 3 million units to 47 million, but the figure for PSP software rose from 9.9 million to 12.9 million units. PS2 and PSP hardware shipments rose to 5.02 million and 3.89 million respectively. However, both hardware and software sales were down overall, with sales and operating revenue standing at YEN 170.3 billion (EUR ).

Earlier this month, Sony was forced to slash its financial forecasts for 2007. However, the company still expects to ship six million PS3 units by March. ...

RedOctane has announced that it will release proper, official wireless Guitar Hero controllers in the US next month, and they'll cost just US$ 59.99.

They will be compatible with either Guitar Hero 1 or 2 (the latter's due out next month in the US and Europe), and we're assured that they use the same mechanism, and have been created to the same high quality as the wired Guitar Hero SG controllers.

They're also going to be white, we're told (I don't know why I did that in italics either), but it's not clear whether the actual shape has changed at all.

It's also yet to be confirmed whether the wireless controllers will be released in Europe, so we'll be nagging our friends at RedOctane on a daily basis until we know for sure.

"RedOctane has long been committed to offering high-quality videogame accessories for gamers," said Dusty Welch, head of publishing at RedOctane.

"Being able to give our fans an option to rock the wireless guitar controller was definitely a priority for us, and it'll provide another exciting experience for players to achieve rock star status!" ...

Developer David Jaffe admits he'll probably end up working on more God of War games after the first one proved so popular, but right now he's falling in love with Sony's "e-Distribution Initiative" (EDI) - PlayStation 3's answer to Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo's Virtual Console.

Speaking to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, Jaffe said he'd happily do EDI games "until the cows come home", and describes his first game, Criminal Crackdown (also due out on PSP), as "cops and robbers meets basketball" or "a cross between Twisted Metal and Bomberman", where the criminals race around the environment as players take on the role of cops and bounty hunters, attempting to catch the crims and keep them long enough to transport them to jail for different points values.

It's playable "for 4 players, online, offline, 4 different maps, 10-12 different cars. It's a really good value and a lot of fun for players. If it's successful, we hope to support it with downloadable content." But that won't mean lots of microtransactions and 'consumables' by the sound of it. "I know there are a lot of guys much smarter than me that are very much into the microtransaction model - dollar signs don't really keep me awake at night," he tells Newsweek. "Concepts keep me awake at night."

It's not the only EDI game he's doing either. "This team and I are rolling onto a new one starting in about a month," he explains. "And there's another one in Santa Monica that we're about to start development on. This is really all I want to be doing now."

Because to Jaffe, EDI games are like pop songs, whereas big games like God of War are like operas. "For me, it's been a lot more fun to write pop songs than operas. And in the future, because I think these services are going to be really successful, I think it's actually going to end up being more lucrative to write pop songs, just like in the real world, than operas."

But that won't stop there being more God of War games, he adds. "I guarantee you'll get more God of War," he tells Newsweek, "'cause I don't think I have much of a choice. If it was up to me, he would have fallen off the mountain in the first game and actually died. It would have been like, 'All right, we're done. He's dead.' [Laughs.]" ...

Via Eurogamer

Activision has released a bit more information about PSP version of Call of Duty, including its official name and some screenshots.

Call of Duty: Roads to Victory, it's called, and it's in development at Amaze, who will be aiming to get the game done in time for a spring 2007 release.

Like the other games in the World War II first-person shooter series, you play as multiple characters - in this case an infantry soldier in the 82nd Airborne, a Canadian First Army rifleman and an elite British Para Regiment commando.

We're promised "mounted machine gun battles, sniper encounters and aircraft attacks" across "13 intense battles", with "scrupulously honed" control schemes, four of which will be available so you can choose the method of tossing grenades, targeting enemies and leaping between standing and prone that suits you.

On top of that, there should be multiplayer with support for between four and six people, and modes including Deathmatch, Capture The Flag and King of the Hill, as well as unlockable weapons, artillery, vehicles and armour to add some replay value.

Screens Here ...

Benjamin Heckerdorn -- that oh-so-crafy modding guru we love to love -- is at it again with his console-morphing antics, and this time the victim is the ill-fated "64-bit" Atari Jaguar. The mission? To create a portable, all-in-one, battery-powered version of Atari's flailing attempt to make it in the ever-competitive console market. Putting his blue-ribbon mod skills to the test, Ben rearranged the console innards into a 1-inch thick game board, connecting circuitry at will via his trusty soldering iron. He noticed a few oddities while dissecting the machine (aside from the controller's keypad overlay circa 1985), including a 32-bit main bus and a striking similarity between the cartridge input and your average PCI slot. Nevertheless, he was able to cram the entire system, a svelte LCD panel, and a set of stereo speakers into a homegrown enclosure that pays its dutiful respects to the Jaguar motif. Keep reading to peep another angle, and those itching for a bit of post-modern gaming
nirvana should hit the read link for the full skinny...

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