VG247: World in Conflict developer Massive Entertainment may be up for sale, but VP David Polfeldt reckons it could be the best thing to happen to the firm.

Among Japanese game developers, Capcom's done really well this generation. The company has launched new IPs, gone multi-plat and even still churns out big arcade games. Part of the reason for that success, at least on home console titles, is Capcom's own multi-platform engine, the MT Framework. While other Japanese developers are just starting to acknowledge the need to launch truly multi-platform titles in this next generation, Capcom was ready from the get-go.

A new industry report released by IBISWorld, reveals women and older adults -- not the proverbial nerdy teenage boys -- are the new driving force behind the success of the video games industry as console manufacturers and software developers race to expand their offerings beyond the traditional action genre which has always appealed to youngsters. According to the report: *38 percent of U.S. gamers are women and the average player is 35 years old, *The average purchaser of video games is 39 years old, *24 percent of game players are aged over 50, *around a third of American households have a gaming console.

German videogame website 4players.de has revealed the list of all games to be present at the Games Convention 2008, which is set to start on Wednesday 20th.

Destructoid writes: "The British Board of Film Classification have thoroughly laid down the law on Will Wright's upcoming game of creature modification and evolution, Spore. The BBFC, which also rates some videogames, have decided that the ostensibly mild violence and the reference of a small alien species as "little buggers" is enough to warrant a PG rating. The rating means that there is a possibility that the game could "disturb" any child under eight-years-old. As to the reference, here is the BBFC's comment on the matter.

'?the language in the game comes late on, as the creatures and organisms at the beginning have no method of communication. Once players get to the space level, a group of aliens are referred to as 'little buggers' by a character training the player to fly a spaceship.'

Of course, violence also plays a part in Spore. According to the BBFC, the violence shown in the game is presented as a 'brief flash of red and a few spots of 'meat' which the organism must swim over to eat and grow.' After reading about the disgusting amount of gore in the game, I had to stop and take a deep breath. I am afraid I can no longer report on this decidedly nasty and terrible title. I can only hope that children never get their hands on Spore. Humanity's future could very well be compromised if developers continue to spew out this filth into our culture. What's next Mr. Wright? Are you going to include longer claws and teeth?"

via Eurogamer:

"Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack has alleged that Epic "defrauded" an entire chunk of the games industry when promoting Unreal Engine 3.

He claims the four-year development period for Too Human was so long because Epic was misleading about what Unreal Engine 3 could accomplish.

"[Too Human has] been a four-year development cycle and it would have been out even quicker, but we had to re-write the engine because of all the Epic stuff," Dyack told Develop.

"The trial is proceeding; we feel really good about our claims, and we're hopeful that justice will be done. We all feel really strongly that they have defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry."

Silicon Knights took legal action against Epic Games in July 2007, accusing the company of failing to deliver development kits in a timely fashion, not providing enough support, and focusing too much on Gears of War.

Epic said there had been plenty of access to SDKs, and deflected attacks by claiming Silicon Knights had shown Unreal Engine 3 to unauthorised parties. Epic also claimed SK used the engine to make a game for SEGA, breaching the terms of the licensing deal."

We have just seen a small part of Sony Computer Entertainment conference rehearsal here at Game Convention in Leipzig, and we are almost certain that a new trailer of Heavy Rain for the PlayStation 3 with ingame footage was broadcasted.

Kombo writes: Dennis Dyack of Silicon Knights has received a prestigious honor: Being banned from NeoGAF, with whom he's recently had some issues.

So, what was the last straw?

ComputerWorld Reports: "Microsoft Corp.'s head of engineering for the Windows 7 operating system said there are 25 "feature teams" of about 100 employees each working on the upcoming replacement to Windows Vista.

Windows 7 teams work on anything from external features, such as user interfaces, to under-the-hood areas such as networking, according to Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft senior vice president for Windows and Windows Live engineering, in a Monday posting at the new "Engineering Windows 7" blog.

"We create feature teams with n developers, n testers, and 1/2n program managers," Sinofsky wrote in a four-page blog that introduced his views on managing large-scale software development. "On average a feature team is about 40 developers across the Windows 7 project."

The problems with the Sony Playstation PS3 are well documented and are why the PS3 is running third and last for sales in this generation of the console wars.
However they have gradually got their act together and are catching up. But do they have what it takes to be a winner again?