News (Page 3902)

Incoming Sega president Hisao Oguchi has confirmed that the company is in talks with Electronic Arts over a sales alliance in North America which would further the Japanese company's overseas ambitions.

Last week's article on the new legislation in Washington State which bans the sale of violent games to minors caused a strong response from both sides of the argument; here's one letter from a reader presenting the other side of the debate.

Atari is claiming today that Enter The Matrix has already sold a million units in the USA and Europe after only a week on sale, representing 25 per cent of the four million units which the company shipped to retail last week.

UK developer Kuju Entertainment has been chosen by Konami to develop an original home console game for the giant Japanese publisher, making it the first European development team ever to sign a major game with the company.

Sega Europe has announced that Gem Distribution will be handling the distribution of its titles to independent retailers and certain multiples in the UK and Ireland, resuming a relationship with the retailer which includes the launch of Dreamcast.

Legal documents filed as part of litigation between Matrix co-creator Larry Wachowski and his estranged wife have revealed financial details of the deals struck by Infogrames and Monolith to create games based on the hit movies.

International press freedom lobby group Reporters Without Borders has protested against the detention and deportation of European journalists covering the E3 trade show in Los Angeles last week.

Nintendo has reported a 36.8 per cent fall in net profit for the year ended March 31 due to poor sales of GameCube hardware and games - but the company still posted a 67.72 billion Yen (€494 million) annual profit.

Focus Enhancements, a company which supplies specialist video chips for the Xbox, has received the first order for its components from Microsoft - indicating that the software giant is expecting sales of the console to pick up.

Gary Locke, governor of the state of Washington in the USA, has signed into law a bill banning the sale of certain violent videogames to minors - including Enter the Matrix and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, both of which depict violence against law enforce

Demis Hassabis, founder of Elixir Studios, has announced that he will be stepping down as CEO of the developer, although he will continue to act as chairman and creative director at the company, which just secured $3 million new funding.

Publisher Acclaim has filed a financial report which indicates that it expects a net loss of between $40 and $50 million for the three months ended March 31st, compared with a profit of $4 million one year previously.

Hideki Sato and Tetsu Kamaya, Sega president and COO respectively, have both stepped down from their roles at the company over the recent merger debacle - just as the publisher announces its first annual profit in five years.

Sony has announced that it's to cut the price of the PlayStation 2 in Europe at last, with the console dropping from €249 to €199 in a move which brings the hardware price in line with the Xbox and GameCube.

Publisher 3DO has announced that it is "evaluating its strategic options" following lower than expected revenues in the first quarter of the year, and has issued a warning notice indicating that workforce cuts may be in store.

Both Microsoft and Sony have cut $20 off the price of their consoles in the USA, bringing them down to $179 - while Nintendo has announced plans to bundle the Game Boy Player accessory for free with the Cube.

The ambitions of mobile phone giant Nokia in the games market received a major setback this week as the company's pre-E3 conference was massively negatively received by most commentators.

The big guns were rolled out at Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference in Hollywood yesterday, but despite a stage packed with famous developers, there was little in the way of real news from the company.

In the end, Sony did decide to make a hardware announcement at this year's pre-E3 conference. Just not the hardware we'd expected. Instead, we were treated to our first glimpse of PlayStation Portable..