What's happened in the business of video games this past week...
QUOTE | "Rot from the core." - EA CEO John Riccitiello talks about the fierce Call of Duty vs. Battlefield showdown and luring the core audience away from CoD.
QUOTE | "Triple bump." - Epic's Cliff Bleszinki explains the advantages of releasing Gears 3 in September: he anticipates the title will experience multiple sales bumps and hopefully hit 10 million units.
QUOTE | "A lot friendlier." - Wii U is gaining support from third parties and Activision's Eric Hirshberg says Nintendo's new console will definitely be much more suited to core gaming.
STAT | 14% - The decline the U.S. games industry saw in May (the lowest sales month since Oct. 2006) and also the same percentage of growth PS3 saw for the month despite the PSN outage.
STAT | 100% - The somewhat surprising growth the PlayStation brand has seen on Facebook this year, doubling its fan count to surpass Apple's iTunes among the top 10 brands.
QUOTE | "We want greasy hamburgers." - Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford says sales numbers show that customers are enjoying Duke Nukem Forever like fast food, despite the flood of harsh reviews.
QUOTE | "On the rise." - Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg's belief that Call of Duty as a brand still has plenty of room for growth as consumers keep demanding more.
QUOTE | "Same five games over and over." - Speaking in a special "Better Know" Q&A, EA boss John Riccitiello's assessment that there's never enough innovation in the industry.
TWIST | E3 is a grand spectacle for the games business on a global scale, but the lack of any real surprises at the show could be a sign that the Expo is losing some of its luster.
QUOTE | "Undertapped female gaming market." - Interpret's new study shows that women comprise 50% of the market and yet developers and publishers are not doing enough to tailor games to their tastes.
This Week In the Business courtesy of IndustryGamers.com
(Top photo: Shutterstock)