Rob Fahey (Page 127)

The Xbox product line-up received a major setback today, with Microsoft announcing its decision to cancel the entire range of XSN Sports titles for the console this year, citing quality issues with the games in the line-up.

British publisher SCi has announced that it is on track to deliver significantly better than expected results for the six months to March 31st thanks to strong back catalogue sales, with anticipated losses pared back significantly.

Both Activision and THQ have raised their financial projections for the current quarter as stronger than expected videogame sales throughout the first calendar quarter of 2004 made themselves known on the industry's bottom lines.

Microsoft is planning to slash the price of the Xbox in North America in the next couple of days, according to a report from a key US industry analyst, while other evidence suggests that the cut may extend to other territories.

Following a series of threats of legal action over the past weeks, Florida-based broadband console proponent Infinium Labs has finally filed a lawsuit against technology news website HardOCP over an article written last September.

Californian developer Oddworld Inhabitants is seeking a new publisher for its next Xbox game in the Oddworld universe, tentatively titled Stranger, as Microsoft no longer has any involvement with the title.

Sony has announced that electronics giants Samsung and Sharp are to provide the LCD screens for its forthcoming PlayStation Portable console, in a deal which could be worth up to €330 million annually.

Samurai action was at the top of the Japanese charts again this week, as Koei's Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires continued the success of the popular series with a number one debut and the market as a whole pushed past a million units once more.

The website for next September's multi-platform consumer games show at ExCeL, GameStars Live, has gone online, offering the public a chance to pre-book their tickets for the event.

Japanese publisher Capcom has shut down a number of its smaller development studios, with the Osaka-based company closing offices including Tokyo and Nagoya - with the main effect being that the firm no longer has an in-house PC development team.

The world's first public showing of software for the PSP has taken place at the Game Developers Conference, with an exclusive title from Backbone Entertainment being demonstrated during a presentation by Sony's Andrew House.

EA Canada general manager John Schappert has warned developers not to rush into creating titles for next generation consoles, admitting that EA missed "hundreds of millions of dollars" of revenue by abandoning PSone too soon.

The first details of the next N-Gage device, which is expected to be demonstrated at a press event in mid-April, have been revealed at GDC, with Nokia's developer relations chief discussing major revisions to the platform.

British developer Kuju has been signed up to create a first-party GameCube title for Nintendo, making it into the first UK studio to work on a home console title for the Japanese giant since Rare was sold to Microsoft.

The annual ECTS trade show is definitely set to go ahead this September and is actually in a stronger position than it was at the same point last year despite competition from the new EGN event, according to event director Andy Lane.

Following on from the announcement of its new XNA development platform at GDC today, Microsoft has released a number of videos showcasing the potential of the system and hinting at the power of forthcoming game hardware.

Third party support for Nintendo's GameCube continues to wane, with the console set to be bereft of a game based on the Euro 2004 football tournament while Lucasarts has confirmed that it has no more titles in the pipeline for the system.

Nintendo's Game Boy Advance SP passed the first anniversary of its launch in North America this week, with the diminutive handheld officially the fastest-selling console ever in the territory.

At its GDC conference later today, Microsoft is set to take the wraps off a new development platform called XNA which will be rolled out across all future game platforms, including Xbox consoles and Windows PCs.

Digital distribution solution provider Trymedia has announced the launch of a new version of its ActiveMARK security software which offers protection to traditional boxed PC games as well as downloaded titles.