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.

Peter Svensson of the Associated Press reports on a technology that could be seen in future chips made by IBM for other companies, including the Cell processor used in Sony's PlayStation 3.

Apparently IBM has discovered that chips with miniscule nano-sized holes in them can run faster and use less energy. IBM has announced that this novel now way of creating chips could be potentially one of the most significant advances in chip manufacturing in years.

This new technique in chip manufacturing was invented at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose California, and the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, N.Y.

It was adapted for commercial use by the University at Albany and IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development Center in East Fishkill N.Y.

IBM says that the technology could be integrated to existing manufacturing lines and applied to current chips, boosting performance by 35 percent or cutting power consumption by around the same percentage. IBM also noted that they expect to use the technique by 2009.

A better Cell by 2009? Cool.

A few hours ago, we reported that Ken Kutaragi, the mind behind Sony's PlayStation consoles, will be stepping down from his post as Sony Computer Entertainment CEO on June 19. A lot of speculation and analysis have surrounded the news, so here's a look at what some analysts have to say about it.

The reason. Both Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson and IDC analyst Billy Pidgeon seem to believe that Kutaragi's resignation is due to the PS3's less-than-stellar initial showing. Speaking to Bloomberg, Wilson said that it's "likely an indication Sony corporate isn't satisfied with the initial success of the PS3." Pidgeon, meanwhile, told the Associated Press that "Sony had too much hype and not enough delivery."

Other analysts, though, believe otherwise. "It can't be his fault that the cost of the box was so high, and I have a tough time believing he insisted on Blu-ray," Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter told GameDaily. "They probably just all agreed it was time to move on. Sony didn't have a great lineup of first party software for the PS3 or the PSP, and didn't get as much third party support this time around.

The replacement. The general concensus among analysts is that Kaz Hirai's move into Kutaragi's old position is a good thing overall for SCE. "I think Kaz Hirai is great, and the company probably doesn't need a visionary for another 10 years," said Pachter. "They need an operations guy, need to drive costs down, and need to develop more software support (internal and external). Hirai will be great at that."

John Taylor of Arcadia Research echoes Pachter's opinion, noting that with Hirai at the helm, Sony might redouble its efforts to make the PS3 - along with future products - more net-centric. "Kaz brings a new level of awareness of Western preferences and technology trends to SCE. He has firsthand experience with dealing with Microsoft's online momentum in the U.S. competitive environment."

The Associated Press reports that a shareholder revolt at Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. this week "offed nearly as many executives as virtual characters in the video game company's violent titles," and that this shareholder revolt of sorts has led to the increase of Take-Two's stock.

Strauss Zelnick, former chief executive of BMG Entertainment, is the company's new non-executive Chairman. Ben Feder, formerly a senior executive at News Corp., a global media conglomerate, is set to replace Pal Eibeler, to former CEO and president of Take-Two.

The Associated Press article then decided to give some folks who are not so pleased with the content that Take-Two has distributed some focus. The article goes on to cover the many facets of videogame violence and the problems Take-Two has with Child Advocacy groups and legislators who are displeased with the content they release.

Yes, a whole lot of quotes from CEOs of non-profit organizations, some snippets of info about Hot Coffee, and descriptions of Grand Theft Auto and Bully that portray the titles as gore fests and not environments that give players the freedom to act irreverently.

Perhaps Take-Two's woes has more to do with management than with their content. It can be recalled that Take-Two's former chairman and CEO, Ryan A. Brant, became the first chief executive to be convicted of backdating stock options. The exec pleaded guilty last February in a New York state court to first-degree falsification of business records in a deal that lets him avoid incarceration. How GTA-esque.

Video game industry analyst Tom Gardner, CEO of Alexandria, Va.-based investment company The Motley Fool, notes:

Sometimes institutions play football with small public companies, and they can inflict a lot of damage if companies don't have a large enough ownership stake to protect against institutions that squeeze out profits in the near term.

...But in this case, the institutions look quite good: You have backdated options, hidden porn, accounting issues and mismanagement. You have management that was at best incompetent and at worst dishonest.