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Microsoft Slashes 5,000 Jobs

Microsoft is cutting 1,400 jobs today and another 3,600 over the next 18 months in the wake of today’s news of a 11 percent drop in fiscal second-quarter net income, the company announced today. The cuts will be in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT. These reduction will reduce the company’s annual operating…

Small Car Or Big Car, That Is The Question

To: Crecente From: Ashcraft RE: Mailbag: From Two Years of Harassment to the Anthropology of Kotaku I drive a compact car — streets are narrow where I live. What’s more, living in a big city in Japan, you don’t really need a car per se. However, with small kids, I do find myself using the…

Four New Spore Titles Unveiled for DS, Wii, PC

EA has officially announced several new titles, two for the DS and one for the Wii, and an expansion to the Spore lineup that will launch this year. Will Wright previously hinted at a DS title, but it turns out there are two DS titles that I misread the display screen at the event and…

Sony Financial Forecast Round-Up

Sony released its revised financial forecast, and now we’re releasing a round-up of that revised financial forecast coverage. Many international Japanese companies are facing hardly favorable economic conditions. Not only has the global market cratered, but the value of the yen has shot up. Sony isn’t alone by any means. Here’s the forecast round up:…

Fancy Lucasarts Coffee Table Book, Now Partially Free

I asked for the Lucasarts history book for Christmas. My family and loved ones betrayed me, and bought me underpants and video games instead. Oh well. Now I can read some for free! Gamasutra have a chapter of the book up, and while it involves neither Guybrush Threepwood, Purple Tentacle or Grand Admiral Thrawn, it’s…

Battlefield Heroes Beta Is Back On The Menu, Boys

Late last year, EA shut down the Battlefield Heroes beta, claiming they had a little house-cleaning to do before it could be re-opened. Well, cleaning’s done, because the beta is about to come back. If you’re interested in testing the game out – and really, it does look like a lot of fun – you…

World In Conflict Bundle Coming To The PC In March

Ubisoft are the proud new owners of Massive Entertainment, the developers behind World in Conflict. And Ubisoft have just announced a release date for World in Conflict: Soviet Assault. Good news, as the release of the expansion was up in the air following the demise of former publishers Sierra. Well, good news for PC owners.…

No, Resident Evil 5 Does Not Support 16-Player System Link

You may have read on the internet earlier today excited, happy reports of Resident Evil 5 somehow supporting 16 players via system link multiplayer. The evidence? None other than the game’s box art itself. Problem is, it was a typo. An innocent mistake. Capcom Europe have since rattled our mailbox to let us know: It…

Sony Planning “Headcount Reduction” In Game, Music, Movie Divisions

Job cuts are part of those restricting and cost reduction measures Sony plans to kick into high gear. Scariest of all, they involve a clinical sounding “headcount reduction.” Earlier today Sony stated a more ambitious company-wide cost cutting initiative would get the corporation back on track. For its motion picture, music and game divisions, the…

Final Fantasy XIII Site Bringing Trailer

Now, whether it’s a new trailer we don’t know. According to website Final Fantasy-XII.net, the clues to what the site can be found by decompiling the game site‘s flash. Forum member byoushinn discovered two files called “ff13-trailer-sd.flv” and “ff13-trailer-hd.flv” in the official FFXIII site’s flash. So two trailers, we assume, one HD. The countdown site…

This Is Where Sony’s Sales Are “Lower Than Expected”

As we’ve already heard tonight, Sony expect to make less money from their games division, thanks to lower than predicted sales. But just where are sales lower than expected? Let’s take a look. As you can see on the right, although software sales for the financial year will be down, Sony had already predicted lower…

Cave Announces Gothic Lolita Shooter Sequel

Developer Cave’s horizontal shoot ’em up arcade title DeathSmiles is getting a sequel. It’s called, you’ll never guess, DeathSmiles 2. DeathSmiles 2 will be officially announced at AOU 2009 arcade amusement expo according to a recent Cave financial report. DeathSmiles 2 is slated to be on display. The game’s prequel first hit Japanese arcades in…

Sony Will “Accelerate” Cost Saving Measures

We’ve already heard from Japan’s Nikkei Daily what Sony plans to do to cut loses. Now, let’s hear from Sony. Today Sony announced measures to improve profitability and drive growth — in short, start making money again. The three areas of focus according to the corporate giant: • Structurally reform Sony’s core electronics operations to…

Rejected Dead Rising Titles (And Why No Photography In Dead Rising Wii)

In the latest Bionic Commando podcast, there’s a list of rejected Dead Rising Xbox 360 titles — plus a response why there’s no photography in the upcoming Wii version. First, Bionic Commando producer and former head of localization Ben Judd runs through the rejected titles for the original Dead Rising. Keep in mind, these were…

Lost Planet Is A Big, Big Movie

The Resident Evil movies were B-grade stuff. The upcoming Street Fighter movie does not look promising. But Capcom are making more movies, and Lost Planet is one of them. And on that, they are not messing around. Capcom’s Toshihiro Tokumaru – the company’s character boss – has revealed that the budget for Avi Arad’s adaptation…

Sony Revises Earnings Forecast, Game Revenue Down

Sony has announced a revision of its consolidated forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009. How’s the gaming division doing? While the company is forecasting ¥260 billion (US$2.95 billion) in operating income losses and ¥150 billion ($1.68 billion) in net income loses. According to Sony, “In the Game segment, operating income (loss) is…

So, Did Any Gaming Types Make AskMen’s “Top 99 Women” List?

And by “Top 99”, they don’t mean the most eminent minds in their respective fields. So, with 2008’s list all done, did any games types make it? And by games types, we mean real people. Short answer is…yes. And sorry Nintendo fans, the Smile Machine didn’t make it. But these two did. Seems lonely men…

Noby Noby Boy Delayed

This morning, we kinda hoped Noby Noby Boy would be out later this month. “Any day now”, even. Sadly, tonight we’ve got word that it won’t be out this month. It’ll be out next month. On February 19. And it’s February 19 for a worldwide, simultaneous release. So, around a month or so. Not too…

Mario & Sonic Getting Winter Olympics Game

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was a big hit for SEGA. Big hits typically mean one thing: Sequels. According to this “exclusive” for Spanish Nintendo magazine Nintendo Acción hints at Mario and Sonic teaming up again for a winter games version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Here’s a translation from…

First Physics, Now AI Is Being Moved To Your Graphics Card

Once was a time a graphics card handled just that. Graphics. But these days? Nvidia cards already handle physics processing, and by next year both Nvidia and ATI cards might handling AI as well. Speaking with Custom PC, representatives from both graphics card manufacturers say that “they’re working on GPGPU-accelerated AI in games”, and that…