Gamepro report's: While interest, investment, and sales of Nintendo Wii are through the roof, outspoken analyst Michael Pachter says traditional games will still grow, though not as fast as mainstream ones.

"The market for next-gen games is not close to exhaustion," says Pachter, when asked how promising of a future the Xbox 360 and PS3 have in a post-Wii world. "As consoles come down in price, the manufacturers will sell more of them, and the market will continue to expand."
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Quote from MWgamer.com
"After Yesterdays post about Sen Gayle Slossberg comments on a GTA 4 rape scene. I took it upon my self, to contact the senator to ask her about the comment she made. She sent back this email"
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GamePolitics: Yesterday it was Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg fretting about a non-existent rape scene in GTA IV. Today, police in Nassau County, New York allege that six teenagers charged with robbing a man at a supermarket were emulating Grand Theft Auto:

"Nassau County police cops have arrested six teens for robbing a man at a supermarket... The police add the teens arrested were emualting [sic] the characters from the video game Grand Theft Auto."
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Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg is eager to do something about the rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV, she told the New Haven Advocate.

But she faces a major hurdle: There is no rape scene in the controversial game.
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Posted by Don Reisinger

After playing through Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, it became quite clear to me that video games have supplanted film as entertainment leaders. The game shines on so many levels, it's difficult to recount them all here. But perhaps more than anything, it allowed me to become a part of an environment that goes above and beyond anything I've ever experienced in a movie.

And after playing through this instant classic, I can't help but wonder if the video game industry has finally realized that it commands mainstream attention and must favor a new type of gaming that creates unprecedented entertainment value.

I'm a firm believer that video games have replaced movies as the de facto leader in entertainment. Games offer greater entertainment value, usually have better stories, and generally appeal to people far more than any movie currently in theaters.
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Lawyers who sued the makers of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" profess to be shocked that few people who bought the game were offended by sex scenes buried in its software. Any purchaser upset about hidden sex in the violent game could file a claim under a settlement the lawyers struck with its maker, Take-Two Interactive. Of the millions of people who bought the version after its release in 2004, exactly 2,676 filed claims.

The civil lawsuit was filed after the disclosure of the sex scenes, accessible only to savvy players using third-party software, sparked fulmination in the U.S. Congress and excitement online. The suit charged the company with defrauding buyers by failing to disclose the sex scenes.

"Am I disappointed? Sure," said Seth Lesser, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs. "We can't guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don't care. The merits of the case were clear."

Far bigger than the payout to plaintiffs will be the fees sought by the lawyers who brought the class action. Lesser and his colleagues at 10 other law firms have asked for more than $1.3 million - compared with less than $30,000 that Take-Two Interactive's lawyers say it will spend to resolve the claims for $5 to $35 each, or a clean copy of the game.
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Rockstar has released a new patch for GTA IV that should quash the majority of freezing and online connectivity issues on both the PS3 and 360 versions of the game.The new patch, which should install itself next time you play the game with your console connected to the internet, tightens the nuts and bolts on many of the errors that had gamers in an uproar shortly after launch.Here's the official list of repairs:-Fixed an issue ... » Read More

Rockstar has just released a patch for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of GTA IV. The new patch will supposedly fix various issues that players have been experiencing during online play.
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Anyone that's interested in seeing a Grand Theft Auto movie shouldn't hold their breath. It seems that Rockstar can't make a film out of the game due to a legal settlement.If you've spent some time perusing the bargain bin of Blockbuster, you might know that a film called Grand Theft Auto was made in the seventies by Ron Howard - yes, that Ron Howard.It was hardly a success, but according to Hollywood Daily it worried ... » Read More

Shacknews reports:A film based on the open-world criminal antics of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series is likely to never happen due to a 1977 movie of the same name, according to LA Weekly film columnist Nikki Finke.
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MCV: The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has called on Rockstar to remove a joke 'paedophile' website from GTA IV.
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MTV Multiplayer writes: "What's good enough for Solid Snake was almost good enough for Niko Bellic.

But the creators of "Grand Theft Auto" have confirmed to MTV Multiplayer that a plan to give Niko Bellic a portable music player was removed from the game late in the "GTA IV" development cycle.

Snake has his iPod. Niko, as recently as a couple of months before release, had a cell phone that could play music from game's radio stations. Edge magazine mentioned the feature in its cover story prior to the game's release. But it was cut.

Instead, Niko can only listen to music in cars and a few buildings, pretty much the "GTA" franchise norm. So why did Rockstar keep it that way? Here's what they told us¿"
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The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is up in arms over a parody website within Liberty City's virtual virtual world that, they claim, "glamorizes" child pornography.
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Jack Thompson was visited by a pair of US Marshals after he wrote a letter to Florida Bar member Judge Moreno, claiming Moreno was giving him fewer rights than a prisoner at Guantanamo bay.According to Games Politics, Thompson wrote the letter on Friday expressing his frustrations that he can not obtain judicial relief in his battle against the Florida Bar."We find yesterday that enemy combatants at Guantanamo are to get ... » Read More

MCV: The Sun reports that spoof URL leaves fans of Rockstar franchise disgusted
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Top industry analyst Nicholas Lovell has said that despite the huge success of GTA IV, it won't save Take Two from EA's advances, with the publisher needing a "white knight" to step in to rescue it.

Lovell said the GTA?IV launch has had "no meaningful impact" on the firm's value, as the market had already factored its success into the share price.

"I don't believe that the success of GTA has saved Take Two. EA says Take Two is worth $26 a share; the stock market says it is worth up to $27.95," Lovell told MCV.

"That's not a very big difference, and it still seems likely that investors would seek the certainty of EA's cash over the uncertainty of Take Two's shares, especially now GTA has released.
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A recently-released trailer for THQ's Saint's Row 2 has been criticised as being "unusually pompous" for its digs at Grand Theft Auto IV.Industry analyst Mike Hickey commented on the trailer, which makes fun of GTA's in-game social activities like bowling, watching TV and going to a cabaret club."The trailer directly attacks Grand Theft Auto IV in game content, an unusually pompous position in our view, ... » Read More

The ominous news was delivered by two separate analysts firms, Lazard Capital Markets and Wedbush Morgan Securities, as part of their monthly NPD preview report.

"We do not believe the recent release of GTA IV has generated meaningful incremental demand for the Xbox 360 or PS3 platforms," said Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets.

Analyst Micheal Pachter added that further price cuts could do more than GTA IV to boost console sales.
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Despite record-breaking sales and levels of hype never before seen for a video game launch, Grand Theft Auto IV had no discernible effect on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 hardware sales for the month of May.
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Volition's Scott Philips said that GTA and Saints Row 2 will be ahead of the pack by the end of the year.

"We think there is going to be two dogs at the end of this," he said. "You're going to have GTA and Saints Row 2 and then everybody else."
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