A French retailer going by the name of "la société SAKURA" has been selling some counterfeit merchandise based on Square Enix's Final Fantasy and Fullmetal Alchemist properties, it seems, and the company has decided to sue.

Kotaku brings up an interesting point on the matter...

According to data from European sales tracker GfK Chart Track, Gamesindustry.biz is reporting the following lifetime numbers for each current hardware system in the UK:

Nintendo DS - 9.1m
Wii – 5.4m
Xbox 360 – 3.9m
PSP – 3.3m
PlayStation 3 – 2.2m
DSi – 0.3m

The total install base eclipses 24 million.

Within the last 12 months, each hardware system has sold this much:
Nintendo DS - 2.7m
Wii – 2.3m
Xbox 360 – 1.7m
PSP – 1.1m
PlayStation 3 – 900k
D...

"It’s been reported today that Sony are having difficulty making million sellers out of their first-party PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) releases in North America. Since the PS3’s North American launch in late November 2006, only Insomniac’s launch title Resistance: Fall of Man has managed to surpass one million unit sales in the territory."

Famitsu publisher Enterbrain has announced today that Nintendo's latest Wii title, Wii Sports Resort, which had released in Japan last Thursday on the 25th, has sold 353,827 units in its opening week, with four days on the market like most other new releases.

To put into perspective:
Wii First Week numbers:
1.) Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 816,198
2.) Mario Kart Wii - 608,147
3.) Wii Sports Resort - 353,827
4.) Animal Crossing: City Folk - 303,204
5.) Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Que...

You know those little warnings that show up on games that you can play online that say the company or ESRB are not responsible for online interactions? Well those are called unclassified/unrated games, and soon, the Australian government could be banning them.

After learning that ZeniMax has acquired id Software, the out-of-nowhere acquisition/merger news train continues. This new news comes from Electronic Arts, where the publisher has announced that Mark Jacobs, General Manager of MMO developer Mythic Entertainment has left EA effective yesterday, June 23rd. This comes as a part of EA's restructuring of their role playing/MMO development group, with Mass Effect and KOTOR developer BioWare being merged with Mythic Entertainment (Dark Age of Came...

"The most recent statistics show the continued dominance of the current generation of consoles by the Xbox 360 (with a 21.1% usage minutes). The Wii and Playstation 3 come in third and fourth places with 17.6% and 10.5% respectively.

The statistics for the previous generation of consoles is not as kind to both Microsoft's Xbox consoles. Being used much less than the Playstation 2, which has a 21.6% showing, ranking the system the most played console for the month of April."

Enterbrain, the publisher of Weekly Famitsu magazine, has just announced that it has just moved up the release dates of future installments by one day to Thursday for its popular weekly magazine. It is expected that this is due to the fact that scans and information from Famitsu are leaked every Wednesday onto the internet, and this was done to minimize the impact of those leaks.

These new release dates will come into effect on August 20th. The source link leads to Enterbrain's PDF pres...

After being sued by Take-Two back in May for breach of contract concerning Duke Nukem Forever, developer 3D Realms and affiliate Apogee Software responded with a counterclaim on June 19 for a breach of contract by Take-Two, concerning an unannounced title tentatively known as 'Duke Begins' and further details on Duke Nukem Forever.

Take-Two's original lawsuit against 3D Realms back in May dealt with Duke Nukem Forever, which the developer had reported that it could not finish development o...

Speaking to The Times, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick yet again expressed his desire for Sony to cut the price of the PlayStation 3 console, but this time went one step further. Kotick threatened that the publisher, the largest third party video game company, may have to pull its support for both Sony platforms, the PS3 and PSP, if a price cut for the PS3 doesn't happen and sales continue to lag.

Said Kotick:

quote Bobby Kotick, Activison Blizzard CEO

"I'm getting concerned about ...

"iPhone is the future of video games or so one might think after yesterday’s news that Simon Jeffery, President of SEGA of America, is jumping ship for a role at an iPhone publishing upstart. Plus+ Publishing, a new branch of ngmoco (the folks behind the highly acclaimed Star Defense and Rolando) will be headed by Jeffery and serve as a harbor for smaller developers from the crowded storm of App Store releases.

Or so we think. Plus+ Publishing appears to share more than a passing resembl..."

Gamasutra sat down with Square Enix President and CEO Yoichi Wada and Eidos CEO Phil Rogers during E3 last week, and came away with the companies' intended plans for the future. Remember, Square Enix took over the troubled Eidos, but the publisher would retain its independence within the Square Enix Group.

One of the major plans? To begin collaboration on IPs leveraging each of the companies' available assets and strengths. This includes the sharing of IPs, the first of which can be see...

The NPD Group has released their hardware and software numbers for the month of May, representing sales for the United States for the four week period of May 3rd to May 30th.

Notables this month:

• UFC 2009 Undisputed has a good debut
• Wii sales see harsh drop from May 2008

Hardware numbers:
NDS: 633.5k (158.38k per week)
WII: 289.5k (72.38k per week)
360: 175.0k (43.75k per week)
PS3: 131.0k (32.75k per week)
PS2: 117.0k (29.25k per week)
PSP: 100.4k (25.1k per week)

2009 Year-to-...

In speaking with Gamasutra earlier this week, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello discussed the company's increased focus on the Wii and working towards the company's turnaround from the financial troubles EA saw last holiday season in an overcrowded HD console market.

In an announcement made by Peter Moore at their E3 press conference last week, EA Sports Active had sold 600,000 units worldwide in its first two weeks. According to Riccitiello, "The number one platform is expanding the m...

"The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward. We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform. [...] I didn’t come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish. I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun."

Video game publisher Electronic Arts today announced that the first week sales for its recently released PC/Mac title The Sims 3 totaled 1.4 million units. This is the strongest PC game launch in EA's history.

The Sims 3 has received favorable reviews and impressions, and features a much more basic form of DRM in the form of a simple disc check.

Industry analyts Jesse Divinich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), and Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan are expecting double-digit drops for the game industry, when the NPD Group's sales numbers for May 2009 are released later this week.

Divinich expects a 15% decrease in software sales, partially attributing it to the decrease in the average selling price of a title. Expected top performers from EEDAR include Electronic Arts's EA Sports Active, which the publisher ...

OXCGN's major XBox Partner Xbox Australia interviews John Wedl, Content Director for Forza 3 at E3. Discusses many details about the game letting more facts out about the game, plus there's 23 new screens to ponder over . . and they look cool to, but you be the judge and check them out yourself.

Video interview and detailed write-up for Forza 3 nuts.

Video game publisher Activision Blizzard formally sued game developer Double Fine Studios on Wednesday. The point of contention? Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend, the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 game starring Jack Black.

Activision Blizzard claims that it still has a valid contract for the title, and had invested roughly $15 million in the game. The lawsuit issued by Activision Blizzard states that Double Fine transferred rights that were owned by the company to the now-current publisher Electron...

"Mario is back in a big way. Nintendo's Tuesday E3 press conference featured many hardcore games and a few for the casual gamers. But it was the two Mario games that made me smile."

"Sony took the stage Tuesday during E3 to announce a laundry list of games. Some of the most impressive were on the PSP and the recently announced PSP Go! There are several exclusives, new IPs, and the suddenly popular motion control. Also know that the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves beta starts tonight, at midnight. Let me just say that God of War III looks sick."

"Nintendo began their Pre-E3 Press Conference at around 5:30pm GMT this evening, with a mission to not only prove that their strategy hasn’t ended with Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training, Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and that they could back-up those promises made to deliver games for the Hardcore Gamer as well as their financially beneficial new market, but also remain ahead of the competition, with Microsoft’s Project NATAL revealed yesterday with the clear goal of stealing a piece of the Wii p..."

"Realtime Worlds gave us a look at APB, which looked incredible and further thrilled at showing some actual gameplay footage of the game. BioWare made an awesome entrance and showed off their upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic. Apparently, the game will be the first FULLY-VOICED MMO in history. They also showed the first ever cinematic trailer for the MMO. Knocked the whole press event out of..."

"At approximately 6:28pm GMT this evening, Microsoft kick-started this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) with their invitation-only Press Conference, highlighting the forthcoming year of Xbox 360 events. Electronic Theatre now brings you the full rundown of the event, with an insightful analysis of how each revelation will affect you, and the way you play games."

Announced during their press conference, Microsoft are to team up with the minds behind Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm to bring all 3 of them to the Xbox 360 later this year.