Horrible news, here. Remember the update about Microsoft’s Gamerscore Blog being retired? As it turned out then, the staffers didn’t look like they were getting laid off of anything, but simply shuffled or absorbed into other parts of the company.

Well, as it turns out NOW that the staffers weren’t being shuffled or absorbed at all – rather, it was all a preface for them getting the boot. The retrenchment of the Gamerscore Blog staff, it seems, is but a part of Microsoft’s 1,400-employee layoff plans.

This disturbing update comes directly from former Gamerscore head honcho Chris Paladino’s Twitter account.

Chin up, guys. You had a good run.

Gears of War 2 is quite the fine single-player experience. Multiplayer not so much, what with all the bugs and the exploits that anyone who can look up an instructional youtube video can learn and grief people with. Well that’s all changed now, with the arrival of the promised title update that does away with all the physics-defying and game-breaking malarkey, as well as a few neat extras. And yes, the update itself has already gone live, so fire up those Xbox 360s to get it.

I’ve included the complete list of fixes below, but the main gist of the update is that all of the game-breaking multiplayer exploits have been fixed. No more Ninja Jumps, no more wall-penetrating chainsaw kills, no more unlimited ammo and CERTAINLY no more invisibility. Good on you, Epic!

In any case, here’s the complete (and massive list) of fixes:
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More rumor-mongering coming from IGN, and this time the word on the vine concerns that of SEGA of America. It seems that the current economic crunch is affecting even the American branch of SEGA, with the company rumored to have laid off at least 30 employees to cut costs. What particular department in SOA that’s getting their resources slashed is something we don’t know yet, what with the company keeping mum on this issue – but yeah. They might be laying off people as we speak.

IGN cites an unnamed source inside SEGA itself.

Rumors are rumors, and sometimes they’re nothing but. However, we wouldn’t really be surprised if this particular bit of news turns out to be true, what with Free Radical going under, Sony and Microsoft doing the same workforce-demoralizing tactics and so on. We just hope that the crew making up SONIC Team (bless their hearts) gets their offices locked down and all their shit boxed up nice and tight in the company parking lot.

Sony boss Howard Stringer will be the bearer of bad news this Thursday, it seems. Japan’s Nikkei Daily has put out a report that the head honcho is slated to announce the company’s plans to cut 2,000 full-time jobs from the payroll as well as shut down two television manufacturing plants – quite the drastic economic downturn countermeasure, if you consider the fact that they’ll also be cutting managerial and executive bonuses. Ouch.

Of course, Sony may not be in such a dire situation as its plan might make it look like. The 2,000 position elimination thing? They’re going to do it by attrition – i.e. by leaving positions vacated by resignation or retirement unfilled. That means if someone in Sony either resigns or retires, he or she will not be replaced. Much better than simply laying off people left and right.

As for Sony’s Playstation division, there’s no word out yet if it’s going to be affected by the cuts. After all, that bit about 2,000 jobs being cut is only a fraction of the original 16,000 expected body count. We’ll update you as this situation develops.

We’re not too sure on how to take this news seriously, but for the most part, it seems harmless: Gamerscore Blog, one of the bigger ways that Microsoft had used to reach out to the gaming community is now being retired. No, there wasn’t any bloodletting involved (or so they say), it’s just something companies call ‘re-appropriation of resources’. Meaning that the staff of Gamerscore Blog didn’t get canned, they just got placed somewhere else.

For instance, the stuff we usually went to Gamerscore Blog for will be viewable on the Xbox 360’s Inside Xbox Channel. The bloggers who had manned the retired blog can still be read on Xbox.com’s Voices page. And the infamous Major Nelson? He’s not going to stop blogging and podcasting any time soon, you can make sure of that.

Not quite good news, but any news is better than rampant sacking.

There were so many ways that the DS could have evolved. Nintendo could’ve made the top screen touch-sensitive. The whole thing could have been compacted to fold up into a convenient Gameboy SP-sized package, like one of those shoop’ed ads circulating the interwebs from long, long ago. But no, they had to come up with the Nintendo DSi, which is basically a re-designed DS without the GBA port and dual 0.3 megapixel cameras. Well at least the screens themselves are bigger, and there’s some potential with homebrew ( the DSi also offers SD card support and internal storage as new features ). We’ll take what we can get.

Anyway, IGN seems to be on the vine with the latest regarding the latest model of the Nintendo DS, citing numerous but unnamed sources in their report that the redesign would cost around US$ 179.99, and will be launching in the Americas on April 4. That’s a bit of a hefty price, but it’s a good thing, considering that the Nintendo DS lite is still selling like hotcakes (selling 1.5 million units in November), making the DSi more of an optional upgrade than anything else. I’m sure I won’t be plunking money down on it.

It’s no surprise that Nintendo has won this gaming generation in terms of sales. Yes, we know about the shovelware and yes, we know that the Wii and the DS do have gimmicks, but even the most hardcore fanboy can’t deny the fact that Nintendo is literally making a killing, even with the recent economic crunch. Sony’s laying off people, Microsoft is planning to lay off people, Nintendo is in fact hiring more people to cart the ridiculous scads of money they’ve been making from the bank to their secret underground vaults, where they also store the world’s only supply of Nintendium. They’ve dominated each and every NPD chart since the history of forever, and it looks like they’re not stopping.

Take this latest NPD Group update, which tackles the sales of all videogame consoles last December (i.e. December of 2008). Here’s the actual list, first:

* Nintendo DS – 3,040,000
* Wii – 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 – 1,440,000
* PSP – 1,020,000
* PlayStation 3 – 726,000
* PlayStation 2 – 410,000

Oh, look, Nintendo’s at the top. No surprise there. What’s surprising is that for the entire month of December, Nintendo has sold over 5 million consoles. That’s both the Wii and the DS hardware sales combined. According to NPD, that makes a new record high – breaking the PlayStation 2’s record of 2.7 million sales for a month alone. And that’s just for the US. Nintendo is making so much money, it should be a crime.

Of course, now with all your money, Nintendo, isn’t it time to do something about your software? Come on. We’re literally eating right out of your hand. Take some risks! Be creative with your IPs! Super Mario Galaxy was great, Twilight Princess was pretty cool, but it’s always been more or the same. Ask Rockstar to help direct the next Zelda. Have Suda 51 develop the next Mario game, anything. Break the mold. PLEASE.

What ho, vault dwellers. Having a buggy time in Fallout 3? Well, no matter what your version of it is, things should be looking up right about now, as Bethesda has just released a very big patch update for the post-apocalyptic RPG. Yes, they just released it yesterday, and it fixes whatever flavor of the game you’ve got: the PC, the PS3, and even the Xbox 360 one. It’s also available in five different languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish) and will be required to play the upcoming DLC pack that’s slated for January 27, Operation: Anchorage.

Here’s a list of the fixes:
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More updates about Sony feeling the economic crunch: it seems the entertainment electronics giant is expected to post its first ever loss in 14 years, and the second ever since the company itself was established in 1958. Just how much money is Sony expected to report losing? Around ¥100 billion – or US$1.1 billion.

That, my friends, is a pretty high number, and one that might be even double that, if the guys at Nikkei are to be believed – the reasoning for this estimate coming from the massive job cuts (around 16,000) that Sony itself has deemed essential. Huge shame, then, since the company had originally predicted a 200 billion yen profit for the year of 2007-2008.

Meanwhile the magnificent bastards over at Nintendo were spotted to be celebrating still, bathing in the showers of their money-printing machines.

Sony, come on. Get your act together.

Remember Bob’s Game? That DS RPG that the creator, someone supposedly named ‘Bob’ himself put in a staggering 15,000 hours of hard work on? That indie game that Nintendo apparently doesn’t want to be completed, blocking it by way of denying its creator an SDK purchase? If so, then you might remember that ‘Bob’ himself bit the bullet by staging a 100-day protest inside a room, barricaded from the outside world, only to come out when Nintendo finally relents and gives him the SDK he sorely needs to make Bob’s Game ready for retail. Well, it seems that it will be a while before Bob’s Game actually makes it to the store shelves, as it seems that Bob himself has given up the good fight, letting himself out after only 30 days of being cooped up in his own room. Bear in mind that it’s quite the furnished room, and has all the amenities and luxuries of any room, and he even has a way to communicate with the outside (as well as a shower and food) – which is why him giving up even before the halfway mark a bit puzzling, and a bit sad.
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