Although not officially confirmed yet, the grapevine has named the casualties of Electronic Arts' "cost-cutting measures." Studios that experienced significant layoffs are Mythic Entertainment, the guys behind Warhammer Online, and EA Tiburon, the studio responsible for Madden and other titles under the EA Sports banner.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Xbox 360, PC) is shaping up to be quite a game. Jorgen Tharaldsen, the product director for Funcom, has shared quite a number of details about their plans to include cross-platform connectivity between the Xbox 360 and PC version of the game, the possibility of a PlayStation 3 version, and more. To find out what he had to say, check out the full article.

We have received assurance from Rockstar Games that they are working on the freezing problems of Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) is also working on the issue for their PlayStation 3 community but they have maintained that only a "limited number" has been struck with this problem. More details after the jump.

If you picked up a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and have been suffering freezing problems, you might want to know that a fix is already being developed. To find out more, head on over to the full article by clicking on the "read more" article.

The people behind the UK Playstation PC Store has revealed that certain user accounts may have been hacked. If you regularly use the service, you might want to read more about this issue. To do so, head on over to the full article by clicking on the "read more" link below.

Gather 'round the campfire and strum that guitar as we share another terrible tale of customer service gone wrong, and this time it's about a staff of a popular chain of stores stopping a gamer from buying Assassin's Creed (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)) outright. Check out the full article for the entire details.

Sony Computer Entertainment UK (SCE UK) announced today that in order to provide better customer service, it will be employing the services of multi-channel eService solutions company Transversal.

Transversal will be providing customers with "fast and accurate" answers to their online inquiries. Aside from this, SCE UK will also be opening a technical forum where users can discuss and share their know-how to get the most out of the technology, functionality, and solve issues together. In order to help solve callers' issues, Transversal will also be employing the use of their own software which has been tailored to search through posts and find relevant information. SCE UK Director of Customer Services Andy Barker explained,

As it is impossible for our contact centre staff to be technical experts on every third party router available, we are encouraging our customers to share their knowledge and expertise through online communities and Transversal is helping enable us to do this. This will enhance the overall customer experience and enable them to get the most of out of the breakthrough functionality within the PS3.

Furthermore, SCE UK mentioned that aside from the already mentioned "help avenues," PS3 customers can also get technical support over the phone or via the in-built visual step-by-step set-up tutorials that comes with the system. Likewise, Transversal CEO Davin Yap assures fans that their company will do everything to provide quality service.

At the moment, 96% of all online questions that are answered by SCE UK make use of Transversal's technology. Also, 47% of customer contact is now being handled online through Transversal web self-service.

Amazon-using gamers will not be pleased with this latest development. QJ reader Ted tells us of his recent experience in trying to order a PlayStation 3, and apparently, it wasn't a particularly positive thing.

The highlights in displeasing PS3 fans are as follows:

Step 1: Open up a 20GB PlayStation 3 sale for 30 minutes, causing quite a number of people to order.
Step 2: Upon ordering, link to anything remotely resembling unavailability, yet send a confirmation notice to the person ordering.
Step 3: Wait three days.
Step 4: Send an email after the above-mentioned three days saying the item isn't actually available.
Step 5: Make sure your sincere apologies have a postscript at the bottom of the email indicating that it's an automatic email that can't be replied to.

The customer discussions on the ordering page are currently very agitated with the matter. This information, while saddening to read, is unfortunately not surprising as Amazon also managed to create a waiting game of sorts out of Wii orders.

In any case, we've also placed a copy of the main body of Ted's email to us below. Some minor editing though for swearing, though we understand the need for stress relief right now.

For Ted's email, click on "Full Article."

We've just walked away from Faux News' Bill O'Reilly as he made his most recent rantings on iPods (he flamed iPods via  podcast - the man's a genius...not!), PS3s, and videogaming.

Yeah, you gotta admit that old sourpuss left everybody feeling equally sour. We resent what O'Reilly did, stereotyping all addicted game nerds into one group.

FYI, there's more than ONE twisted gaming stereotype, Mr. O'Rly, and courtesy of Lore Sjoberg over at Wired, we're laying down some of the apparent misfits we're sure you guys have spotted (or identify with) when you go online.

Please don't take this seriously.

The Power Craver:
These are the guys who play just for the pure powertrip factor - and consider future downgrades (ie "Nerfing") to characters they're using as a personal attack, hence something to bellyache about. Think how FMA's Edward Elric looks at Col. Mustang:  "The guys with the God Complex."
Punishment: Forced to admit that no matter how powerful they are in-game, they're still some cheap-ass cashier at a convenience store in real life.

More on these stereotypes after this jump!

Before	After

I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for a book report way back in High School. You're probably familiar with how the story goes. Victor Frankenstein thought of breathing life into an inanimate object by means of alchemy. He intended the creature to be beautiful, but when it had awoken he was disgusted. At this point you could be wondering what is has to do with the PS3. I thought of it, after reading this post by Steroyd, about the evolution of the PS3.

What people fail to realise is that the PS3 is the creation of the consumers and devs.

What were the problems with the PS2 according to people?
2 controller ports isn't enough.
Online is crap.
No Built in ethernet port.
Had to purchase a Memory card after you bought the system.

What did devs want out of next gen.
More Ram
More processing power.
Ease of development.
More disc space?
Hard drive standard

What were the complaits after E3 last year.
2 HDMI ports is overkill.
7 controllers is overkill.
3 ethernet ports is overkill.
The controller looks horrible.
Didn't talk about online much.
No playable games.
Games won't play like that (or was it look)

Anyway Sony modify the PS3 according to the complaints, and the result is...
It's too expensive.
They copied Xbox Live.
They copied the Wii.
Sony Lied and took out the ports.
Games don't look any better than on the Xbox 360 (with the same 6 month time frame as the Xbox 360 had last year).

Sony bends over too easily, but i'm kind of glad because i'd prefer that than Nintendo's "we know best" policy.

Although it is very admirable that Sony wanted to satisfy their customers with a product that has their likes and dislikes in mind, such a feat may never be possible. Just the thought that they actually do take customers' feedbacks into consideration, is something to be said about the Sony, since multi-billion dollar companies hardly listens to consumers (they have the guys at customer service for that). But I think what Sony is not seeing is the cliche that you can't please everybody. If you always bend to their wishes you'll spoil them rotten. Sony has the biggest fan base, as far as consoles go, and for Sony to be able to please every single one of those players and developers is an impossible feat.

So let's ask ourselves, "Who created who?"