Take-Two cutting staff by 20%

Reports are coming out that according to “senior industry sources” Take-Two plans to let go of 20% of its global workforce, or around 400 people. Cuts will come from both studio and publishing operations.

The latest cost-cutting move comes after the company sold its distribution arm, Jack of All Games, to Synnex. Not good news for anyone, and it remains to be seen whether this will impact any games releases.

Namco Bandai to cut over 600 jobs

By March 2010, Japan’s Namco Bandai estimated that net income was going to be ¥8.5 billion ($93 million) in the black. That figure has changed from profit to loss — a big loss at that. The company now estimates that it will be posting ¥31 billion ($342 million) loss this March.

To counteract these losses, Namco Bandai will undergo a restructuring. By the end of the 2010 fiscal year, Namco Bandai is planning to reduce its 7,000 person workforce by 630 staffers.

The decline in earnings is blamed on poor performance of key titles.

New Borderlands DLC Ups Level Cap

The next batch of Borderlands DLC will increase the level limit over 50 and star Scooter, the potty-mouthed mechanic from New Haven. After outing the news, level designer Jason Reiss wrote on the Gearbox forum (via Kotaku) that this upcoming add-on will be “the biggest DLC we have made”.

Mikey Neumann, Gearbox’s creative director, Tweeted that we’ll see “More Scooter!”, in response.

December 2009 NPDs

Yesterday, the NPD Group revealed its U.S. console retail numbers for December and for the full year of 2009. Year-end NPD results provide a key metric in judging the health and overall trending of the game industry.

Analysts have been aware for some months that the year 2009 was not keeping pace with the previous year, and this turned out to be true, down 8 percent to $19.66 billion.

Every market segment declined in 2009 — except for portable hardware, which rose 6 percent. Seven out of the ten best-selling games of the year were first-party Nintendo titles, and the number one game of the year was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

GameStop and several major publishers, like Electronic Arts, Take-Two and Ubisoft, all recently lowered their fiscal year forecasts on a weak market, and analysts awaited results of the industry’s performance in December to predict rebound potential in 2010.

But in slightly better news following a tough year, the video game industry saw December revenues up 4% to $5.53 billion — not only its best holiday yet, its best single sales month on record. Nearly all analysts had expected December to be flat, if not down.

However, video game software sales were still down 7% to $2.58 billion for the month. So, given the challenging climate that so many companies face, an overall boost is a ray of light for the year to come, even if game publishers did not feel the benefit.

Microsoft drops internal Natal chip

Microsoft has dropped a chip from its forthcoming Natal motion control system to save money. The chip has apparently been removed in favour of a software solution.

“The full Natal hardware/sensor combo always looked like an expensive proposition in a market where Microsoft really needs to turn a profit,” commented Eurogamer technology editor Richard Leadbetter, who helped research the story.

“The notion of offloading the processing to the Xbox 360 CPU in the name of lower costs and easier upgradability makes sense. Patching up older games to run with the new hardware now looks rather unlikely unless they have the CPU time to spare, but hopefully this will serve to focus developers on Natal-specific concepts as opposed to revisiting old classics.”

Project Natal is due out “holiday 2010″.

EA to close online servers

EA has released a service update with a list of online servers that will be shut down on February 2nd 2010, for good.

“Servers for the games listed below will be shut down on the indicated dates,” said EA. “You may continue to play the games online up until these dates, but certain community programs may begin to close down prior to the shutdown dates.”

• UEFA Champions League 07 PC and x360
• Facebreaker x360 and PS3
• Fantasy Football 09 x360 and PS3
• FIFA 07 PSP, PS2, PC
• Fight Night Round 3 PS2
• Madden 08 Wii
• Madden 08 PC
• Madden 09 Xbox1
• Madden 09 Wii and PSP
• March Madness 07 x360
• NBA 07 PSP, x360
• NBA 08 PS2, PSP, Wii
• NBA 09 Wii – Europe only
• NBA Street (2007) PS3 and x360
• NCAA Football 08 PS2
• NCAA Football 09 PS2
• NASCAR 08 PS2
• NASCAR 09 PS2
• NASCAR 09 PS3 and x360 – Europe Only
• NFL Tour PS3 and x360
• NHL 07 PSP and x360
• NHL 08 PC
• Tiger Woods 07 PC
• Madden 09 x360 and PS3
• Madden 07 Xbox 360

Darwinia+ soon on Xbox Live Arcade

Darwinia+ has passed Microsoft Xbox Live Arcade’s certification process, and is due for release in January 2010. The game is made by UK developer Introversion, responsible for the cult favourite DEFCON. It is best described as a combination of Darwinia and Multiwinia, and is apparently “a highly unique blend of stunning retro-arcade visuals and explosive real-time strategy gameplay“. The game even has its own haiku:

Retro fractal globe
Evil virus run amok
Save green sprite from death!

Modern Warfare 2 most pirated game

According to TorrentFreak, Modern Warfare 2 for the PC is the most pirated game of 2009, topping the list at 4,100,000 downloads, despite only being released two months ago.

The Sims 3, Prototype, Need for Speed Shift, and Street Fighter IV help round off the top five for the year, all of which appeared on the PC platform.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the highest downloaded Wii title with 1,150,000 downloads.

The report notes that the total download figures for this year have doubled since last year, and that the PC remains the main target for torrent downloads, with more than three times the downlods of the Wii and the Xbox 360.

Xbox thief gets busted

Jeremiah Gilliam, 22, broke into at least 200 cars and several homes. One of the things this light-fingered Bronx resident stole was an Xbox 360. Which he promptly took home, plugged in, logged on and played online. On the stolen Xbox account.

The original owner of the console noticed that someone was online with his account, and phoned the police. They contacted Microsoft and the relevant ISP, and an arrest followed.

Gilliam has been charged with grand larceny.

November NPDs

The NPD Group compiles sales figures for the USA on a monthly basis, including video game software and hardware. It shouldn’t be surprising that Modern Warfare 2 was top of the heap in November, with over 6 million sales. The usual Wii suspects abound, but console sales reveal a surprise – the PS3 is back at the bottom of the pile again.

Here are the rankings:

Software
1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) – 4,200,000
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3) – 1,870,000
3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) – 1,390,000
4. Assassin’s Creed II (Xbox 360) – 794,700
5. Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360) – 744,000
6. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 720,200
7. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 679,000
8. Assassin’s Creed II (PS3) – 448,400
9. Dragon Age: Origins (Xbox 360) – 362,100
10. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) – 315,000

Home consoles
1. Wii – 1,260,000
2. Xbox 360 – 819,500
3. PlayStation 3 – 710,400
4. PlayStation 2 – 203,100

Handhelds
1. Nintendo DS – 1,700,000
2. PSP – 293,900

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