More layoffs are happening in the gaming industry, this time from NCsoft. But it's not as drastic as rumors that circulated this week claimed. Details after the jump.

It's a bit late, but given the timeliness of Jeff Brown's opinions of late, we thought this might clear up some air on the ESA issue. It appears that a copy of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) document accounting for the financial transactions at the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has made it to the hands of the media, and what has been discovered might be the real reason why major members are bailing from the premiere software organization. Check the full article for more details.

Activision, Vivendi, NCsoft, and Her Interactive have already dropped from the E3. It seems that another company is going to jump ship from the upcoming event. From the looks of things, id Software might soon follow suit as they are unsure about their plans for E3. Find out more in the full article.

Normally, a major event such as E3 would have all the big name companies attending it.  This year will be different, though, as five publishers have decided to drop out of the event altogether. Part of the reason may be due to reported bad blood between them and ESA president Mike Gallagher. More on this after the jump.

Consoles are getting pretty powerful, not only in terms of hardware but in connectivity as well. With that kind of foundation, MMOs have slowly made their way onto consoles; one of the more notable being Final Fantasy XI. But are games like FFXI only the first of many? Will MMOs soon be as popular on consoles as they are on PCs? NCsoft's president Chris Chung thinks so. Check out the full article to read more.

NCsoft is showing no signs of slowing down even after the big release of Tabula Rasa, and with NCsoft America under Chris Chung's management, massive games are inbound. In his latest interview, Chung talked about making PS3 titles, improving customer experience, and extending NCsoft's domination in Japan. Check out the full article for more details.

NCsoft Europe's director of product development Thomas Bidaux doesn't see the PlayStation Home as a system seller, but finds it very interesting and believes it can be successful depending on the Sony PlayStation 3's installed base when the network service launches.

"One of the limitations is linked to the PlayStation 3 - so the success of Home is 100 per cent tied to the PS3's penetration into the market," Bidaux said in an interview. Another factor is if Home can actually be attractive to users if it doesn't offer anything more than customizable avatars.

Bidaux, however, takes the partnership between NCsoft and Sony more positively than Home. "You don't want to roll out an MMO and make it obsolete because of a new platform a year after that. You want to have your MMO for many, many, many years - as many as possible," he said, before adding "so the PlayStation 3 is a good platform for us."

Just like Sony, NCsoft believes the console will stay around for a very long time. "It's going to be around for quite a long time," Bidaux commented.  As a relatively early adopter, he said the MMORPG giant company doesn't worry too much about the PS3's lifespan.

In a recent post on the PlayNC.com Dev Corner, Tabula Rasa creator Richard Garriott let out some tidbits of info about NCSoft's new relationship with Sony.

According to Garriott, the NCSoft-Sony deal will allow the former to develop titles across all of the latter's hardware platforms. The focus will be on the PlayStation 3 home video game console, but the PlayStation Portable handheld gaming system will also be getting its share of loving.

While no titles were revealed in the post, Garriott did mention that NCSoft's first PlayStation console titles will hopefully be out by next year's holiday season. NCSoft will also reportedly be concentrating on putting out titles based on a mix of old and new IPs.

Developing games based on new IPs will take longer, however. Garriott estimates that development for these particular titles will probably take a minimum of two to three years.

It also looks like NCSoft will be sticking to its tried and tested business models for its Sony products. According to Garriott, gamers can expect the usual traditional subscription models, micropayment systems and free-to-play games with membership options. Keep checking back here for more details.

In a follow up interview by GamesIndustry.biz, NCsoft Europe CEO Geoff Heath goes into more detail about their E3 announcement about a deal between NCsoft and Sony. NCsoft, the team behind Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and Lineage, announced an exclusive game development deal with Sony for the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable.

While the deal does promise exclusivity for Sony, Heath explains that NCsoft is only expanding its business and not replacing its strong foothold on PC games. So while they are planning to release video games for the PS3, the projects will be chosen from games that were mostly conceptualized for the PC.

Heath doesn't go into detail about the games themselves except to say that it won't be more of the same:

We can't keep recycling the goblins and the swords. [...] There's 2 million people playing Guild Wars, but there are 198 million people in Europe with PCs and broadband who aren't playing Guild Wars. So I say, let's go get them.

JoyStiq managed to score an interview with NCsoft boss Richard Garriot and Executive Producer Brian Clayton. The talk revolved mostly around the MMORPG industry and their (NCSoft) plans to support the PlayStation 3 with MMO-type titles. Their latest project - Tabula Rasa - was also touched; and surprisingly, they also signified plans to dabble on developing for the PlayStation Portable in the future.

According to Clayton, they're looking at a number of ways on how to beef up the PSP games frontline. A fully immersive and working MMO for the said handheld isn't that farfetched, with Clayton saying that they "see a number of opportunities with the PSP as a standalone MMO or as an extension to our full-blown MMOs on PC and PS3". Hmm... MMO game on PSP, sounds good 'ey? Their plans are best summed in this quote:

I would argue that developing a handheld MMO could be the largest challenge in game development. For example, the game needs to be developed from the onset to address limited communication tools, screen real estate and controls, which are all intrinsic to providing a quality MMO experience. We have a number ideas and solutions to address the above-mentioned concerns, but can't go into those details right now.

The full article awaits after the jump!