You'll recall that back in February, Activision threatened to sue Electronic Arts over Brütal Legend, to which an EA rep replied that that would be like "a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy."

Yeah, well, the husband actually went and sued the wife.

After 14 years of profits, Sony posted its first annual net loss for the fiscal year ended March. As part of its plans to turn things around, the company has announced that it will cut the number of its parts suppliers by half in order to slash costs.

Monday morning in Virgina, a 6-year-old kid misses his bus to school. What's a kid to do? He's about to be late! Well, obviously, take your family's car and get your tardy butt to the campus, of course! And that's just what the kid (name undisclosed, so we'll just call him "Lil Nicky" - you'll know why in a bit) did. Aren't kids just amazing these days? If they're not fighting battles in court to legalize hedgehogs, they're driving themselves to school.

*Update* CNN video included!

 Michael Pachter is at it again, analyzing and giving his thoughts on matters concerning the game industry. This time, he laments how much money could have been made if a timely game tie-in to the blockbuster The Dark Knight was released. He says Warner Bros. and EA may have missed out on US$ 100 million. More after the jump.

Good news, Rock Band fans! We've got some juicy new details related to the upcoming Rock Band 2. Find out the platforms the game will be headed on, the number of tracks, and the general release date of the game after the jump!

Atari just received a warning from NASDAQ stating it may be delisted for low stock market value. Even after patching things up with FUNimation, it seems the video game company is in the red once more. Find the details at the full article.

 

Looks like the HD-DVD format is being left out in the cold this holiday season. Following Blockbuster's announcement of a Blu-ray exclusivity deal, this new announcement from Target is looking like the format wars' final nail on the coffin.

The Associated Press has just released a statement that Target, second-largest retail outlet in the US, will be bringing the Blu-ray under the spotlight this holiday season. They're going to be pushing up Blu-ray players and discs all the way to the front displays, specifically, the endcaps of the store aisles.

Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray player will be sold come October for US$ 499, and flanking it on the shelves would be Blu-ray movies from Sony Pictures and Walt Disney.

It might be worth of note that Target would still continue selling HD-DVD items, like the Xbox 360's HD-DVD add-on. But it seems as if, on the disc player side of things, the retail chain will only carry Blu-ray players from Sony and not HD-DVD players (with an exception to Toshiba's HD-DVD player which is available on the Target website). So, like the deal with Blockbuster, Sony's hand on Target looks like a pretty secure lock-out.

Target is to make its official announcement of the deal with Sony come Thursday.

Does this mean the format wars are over? Well, for Blockbuster, it seems just that. Associated Press just released a statement that Blockbuster will exclusively carry high-def discs in Blu-ray format in 1,450 of their stores. This decision came from an analysis done in 250 branches where they carried both Blu-ray and HD-DVDs. It was found that more than 70% of the consumers rented out Blu-ray discs over HD-DVD. Blockbuster senior VP of merchandising had this to say:

The consumers are sending us a message. [...] I can't ignore what I'm seeing. When you walk into a store and see all this product available in Blu-ray and there is less available on HD DVD, I think the consumer gets that [more studios are releasing films in Blu-ray].

True enough, most major studios are supporting the Blu-ray. Another factor, of course, would be the release of the PlayStation 3, which gave the Blu-ray format a big push in sales. It's now believed that Blockbuster's decision could be the first step in shifting the balance and will allow other retailers to follow suit.

The North American HD-DVD Promotional Group, however, sees Blockbuster's decision as unfounded. Ken Graffeo thinks that basing their move on the Blu-ray flims' success over the first three months of the year was too short-sighted.

Despite it all, Blockbuster will still keep renting out HD-DVDs in their original 250 locations and online. But as it stands, that's 1,450 stores with exclusive Blu-ray, and 250 offering Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Now do the math.

According to an Associated Press report, Sony will be talking with the Church of England regarding their much-reported complaint that the Manchester cathedral is a setting in the Insomniac Games sci-fi shooter, Resistance: Fall of Man.

The Church of England has demanded an apology from Sony, and maintains that Sony has not asked to use Manchester Cathedral in the game.

A Sony Computer Entertainment spokeswoman, Nanako Kato, acknowledged that the church depicted in the game does have a resemblance in some parts to Manchester cathedral. She said, however, that they weren't really aiming to represent a specific church in the game, but instead create a backdrop that felt like an authentic old church.

Kato goes on to say that more time may be needed for the talk between Sony and the church due to the sensitive nature of the topic.  Said Kato, "Many historical buildings are used in entertainment such as movies, including Godzilla and the Tokyo Tower and King Kong in Manhattan."

Despite the many reported losses that the games division of Sony is reportedly getting due to the less than dominant performance of the PlayStation 3 so far, it is surprising to hear that the company still predicts profits for the fiscal year.

The company as a whole forecasts a record profit for the fiscal year through March 2008 at US$ 2.7 billion. This profit is attributed to booming sales of flat-panel TVs and digital cameras.

So when can we expect the games division to recover?

According to an Associated Press report by Yuri Kageyama, a Sony executive said that Sony will lose about US$ 413 million in this fiscal year, and recovery from the losses won't come until the arrival of more games to play on the PlayStation 3. Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara said that what's most important for Sony right now is software.

Yuhara declares: "In every region, our software lineup will be strengthened."

Great. So yet another executive/analyst/company spokesperson says that the PS3 needs more games. That's certainly something we haven't heard before?

However, given that the company reports that they're still foreseeing a massive influx of profits, especially from their HD TVs, perhaps their High Definition strategy for the "Next Generation" is more on track than others have thought.