It may still be in limbo, but Atomic Games is doing everything to bring Six Days in Fallujah (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC) back to the world of the living. The developer has started shopping the game around to other prospective publishers.

It seems that God of War 2 director Cory Barlog has finally let us in on some of the details of the new project he'll be working on with film director George Miller. Suffice to say, they will be resurfacing a classic 1980's movie title and adapting it to the video game platform. To find out what this new project is all about, click on the "read more" link below for more information.

A lot of us God of War series fans will chew up whatever Cory Barlog news we can get hold of. It's just so hard not to be curious about what the master game maker is up to these days. In his latest interview with N'Gai Croal, Barlog seems ready to give us details on what his next project is. Read the full article and find out more about what the future holds for God of War 2's main man.

According to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, the New York-based NPD Group will limit the data it releases to its non-paying customers starting with the October hardware sales data, which is due for release later this month. Hardware sales data will no longer be available every month, and the Top Ten SKUs charts will be cut in half. Hardware sales data as well as the Top Ten software titles will instead be released on a quarterly and yearly basis. Find out more at the full article.

Moral Kombat, Spencer Halpin's controversial feature-length documentary about video game violence, will be premiering at the VideoGame Expo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 3. If you're in the area on that date, check it out. It should be a pretty interesting and thought-provoking experience.

In case you haven't heard about Moral Kombat yet, here's a backgrounder. According to a press release announcing the documentary's premiere, Moral Kombat is "a probative work that examines interactive entertainment as a medium and seeks to objectively portray the debate in a fair and poignant fashion". It's also the first high-def documentary shot entirely in HD three years ago.

The film includes testimonies from a few leading figures in the video game violence issue, some of whom will be present at the premiere for a panel discussion moderated by Newsweek's N'Gai Croal. Among those who will grace the Moral Kombat premiere are prominent anti-games advocate Jack Thompson and Lorne Lanning, video game developer and co-founder of Oddworld Inhabitants.

Microsoft and Newsweek are it again, this time wagering on the future of the PS3. Last time, Microsoft's J. Allard bet that Sony wouldn't reach its target goal of sales for the PSP.

This time around it's Xbox Live's director of technical strategy Andre Vrignaud who is making the wager against the same Newsweek reporter N'Gai Croal. Croal describes how Vrignaud wanted to wager with the same stakes - targetting Croal's dreadlocks - but instead they settled for a steak dinner in Gotham steakhouse. In Vancouver, no less.

Vrignaud predicts that Sony will be releasing a low-end PS3 with a 40GB hard drive on the holidays. It will not have WiFi or a memory card reader and will not be backward compatible. An external WiFi device will be available separately to accommodate those who still want the function. This low-end PS3 will be available for US$ 399 while the 80GB version will drop to US$ 499 as the 60GB version drops out of the market.

So in quick summary, here's the wager:

• Vrignaud's predicts a low-end PS3 worth US$ 399 will be out by November 23, Black Friday of 2007.
  
• Croal's side of the bet is that Sony will stick to only one PS3 type for the rest of the year.

Last time, J. Allard had to wear dreadlocks to make good on the wager when the PSP exceeded sales expectations. Croal has been known to give predictions in the past, but we'll have to wait to see who'll pay for that steak dinner.

Like other Namco Bandai games that we all thought were Sony PlayStation stalwarts, Beautiful Katamari is closing in on an exclusivity deal with Microsoft for the Xbox 360. So says an article in the Newsweek blogs.

The article says it got the information from sources close to Namco Bandai, indicating that Microsoft's aggressive drive to snare exclusives from Japanese developers is finally paying off.

This comes as a big surprise as many who have thought that Beautiful Katamari for the PlayStation 3 is a foregone conclusion considering all the press that's been written from official sources.

Newsweek's article cited the trend of Namco Bandai games pledging allegiance to the Xbox 360 as a potential indicator of things to come. So far, Eternal Sonata and Ace Combat have done just that. Neither Microsoft nor Namco Bandai have made comments or hints towards such a development in their business plans.

Readers are reminded that everything is still just a rumor. We will confirm or debunk the rumor as soon as official statements are made by the legitimate parties.

Will Xbox 360 have the Royal Rainbow all to itself? At least, that's what Newsweek's N'Gai Croal is speculating. He points out the trend that's been happening recently in Namco Bandai. Cases in point:

Ridge Racer 6 was released as a 360-exclusive launch title for the 360. It should be noted that the Ridge Racer franchise has always been associated with the PlayStation consoles. However, Ridge Racer 7 became a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Also, Ace Combat 6, the latest addition to the previously Sony PlayStation-only franchise, was introduced as a timed Xbox exclusive game - with a PS3 version to be released after some time.

See any patterns? Croal supposes that Namco is in the process of "flirting" with Microsoft, though it could not let go of its long-time relationship with Sony. Well, whatever drama there may be, it's not impossible that the same thing will happen with the quirky little favorite that is the Katamari franchise.

Croal's source did mention that Beautiful Katamari, the upcoming sequel to the PlayStation 2 hit, We Love Katamari, will roll into the batch of video games that will be released as Xbox 360 exclusives, and will most probably be announced at the upcoming E3 event.

PS3 owners need not be alarmed, however. The Newsweek blogger did note that none of the games were entirely lost to Sony; they eventually made their way back into the PlayStation 3 console.

But he emphasizes that Sony's currently weak PS3 sales are what may be causing the problem. Sony is not strong enough to hold on to its supposedly exclusive games and franchises. Microsoft's aggressive courting of Japanese game publishers are also to be taken into account as well, and if the current trend goes on, everything that previously belonged to Sony may eventually be found alongside Microsoft.

 

Speaking to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, God of War's David Jaffe, noted several reasons why the planned PSP game Heartland was aborted. The said PSP game was supposed to depict an America invaded by China, and was supposed to feature a Chinese-American faced with heavy moral decisions.

Jaffe explains how Sony's response to the matter was mixed, and how the folks from Sony wished that Jaffe decide to make this game for their big black PlayStation 3. Here's his words:

The game was very much a liberal person's response to the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. When I was entertaining lofty thoughts, the idea was to create an experience that would try to make the players--whom I mostly assumed would be of the Western world--feel what it must be like to have their own homeland occupied by another country. SCEA and I went back and forth over if we would ever say it was CHINA vs. AMERICA as they were a bit worried about being so literal, but that fight had not yet occurred when we pulled the plug.

As for Phil (Harrison, Sony president of worldwide studios), his biggest issue was thinking a game so epic should be on PS3. But I was always pushing for PSP, saying that Heartland should do for the PSP what Halo did for the Xbox. But as you know, Phil's a total supporter of innovation and games as art and so he was more than willing to see if I had anything worthy to say, as well as the talents to say it through the medium.

Other reasons for the cancellation of the game include manpower problems as the WarHawk team kept growing while Jaffe's team kept shrinking. He explains:

If the team would have been the right size, we would still be in production with Heartland today. That was the main reason we killed it, not enough folks to make the game. Granted, I would be 40 pounds overweight again, sad, depressed, and maybe even divorced, as it would have consumed me just like God of War did. But that aside, the main issue that made it clear that we could not continue was that WarHawk kept taking our team members as they were further along in production and were the top priority.

Jaffe then later adds that he could have worked harder in SCEA to get more people for his team, but his "heart was just not in it".

Well, we do hope that this "pop song" phase of game making that David Jaffe finds himself in at the moment becomes rewarding enough for him, so that after all the Calling All Cars and all those "light" games he's into right now, he can find the heart to move back to making those game "operas" that we loved oh so much.

For the complete Newsweek interview, feel free to head to it via our Read link below.

Yep, you read the title right. We won't be seeing Sonic for quite some time in the future. When talking about the recent announcement of the Nintendo-Sega collaboration, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Sega president Simon Jeffery told Newsweek that they're planning to give their blue hedgehog a bit of a make-over, meaning no new Sonic titles in the near future.

We are actually undergoing a fairly considerable refresh of Sonic as an intellectual property, as a character. Sonic on the Wii is probably the first product that's come to market that reflects that. We're not going to be bringing another game out on the other platforms for quite some time, because we feel that it is time to reinvent Sonic, to make Sonic contemporary again. At the same time, even the recent 360 and PlayStation 3 games have sold extremely well.

Reinvent Sonic, eh? Wonder how that's going to end up. Well, they already have started going back to "the original Sonic" with Sonic and the Secret Rings. I say that's actually a good start. Of course, before you give someone some make-over, you'd have to revisit your roots first. It's going to be interesting to see how they will "make Sonic contemporary again" though.

We fished the picture above from a Neoseeker forums thread on Sonic art. Well, let's just hope that "Sonic In a Dress" remains as a fan's concept art, and not make it to the final drafts of Sega. (pink looks sooo good on blue though)