Super Punch-Out (SNES) Returns

EA will include Nintendo's classic boxer Super Punch-Out in their upcoming Fight Night Round 2 game. Little Mac, the main character from Super Punch-Out will also be playable (unlockable) to fight the 30 other real life boxers in Fight Night. Recently, Nintendo and Electronic Arts teamed up to put Mario's friends into NBA Street Vol. 3.

In yet more EA news, it is official - the publishing giant is rich. EA had net revenue of $1.428 billion in the last quarter of 2004. The company had 27 different games that sold at least one million units for the year.

Take-Two Interactive now has a new sports publishing label. 2K Games will publish both externally and internally developed (Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Venom Games, Indie Built, Frog City Software, PopTop Software) sports games under the 2K Sports brand.

Take-Two Inks Exclusive Baseball Deal

EA took the NFL license from Take-Two Interactive. Now, Take-Two has acquired a seven-year MLBPA exclusive deal to use the players' likenesses in all future baseball games beginning with the 2006 season. There is a catch, however. The console manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo) still have rights to produce their own official baseball games with the real players. So, Electronic Arts could just team with Microsoft, for example, to continue to release their EA Baseball games. Take-Two is currently working on securing other rights to baseball such as official stadiums, team names, logos, uniforms, etc.

In related news, Take-Two Interactive has purchased Visual Concepts (game developer) from Sega for $24 million, meaning Sega Sports no longer exists.

Sony has confirmed another design flaw in the PSP. Of the four main action buttons on Sony's Playstation Portable, the "square" button is not as responsive as the other three buttons. Sony states that this is actually the way the PSP was designed and game developers will just have to factor that "flaw" into the programming of their games. The button was so close to the screen that the button's switch underneath it was moved off to the right.

Finally, some rumors of Nintendo's next console, Revolution, have surfaced. Obviously, new Mario and Zelda games are in the works, but a new controller feature may be seen as well. The new controller could have motion and tilt sensitivity thanks to gyroscope technology. The other rumors consist of the following: broadband gaming out of the box, two processors will power the Revolution, and the game disc format will be HD DVD (not Sony's Blu-ray).

EA and ESPN Join Forces

More bad news for Sega. After Sega's contract for the ESPN branded games ends in 2006, Electronic Arts will incorporate the ESPN brand into their sports titles. EA and ESPN agreed to a fifteen year deal, with a ten year escape clause. EA may use the ESPN brand for any of its titles or any new sports games for the future. Of course, it did not make sense this year when ESPN's TV program NFL Matchup prominently featured the competitor's football game (Madden NFL 2005) as opposed to its own company branded ESPN NFL 2K5 by Sega.

EA Buys AFL Rights

Electronic Arts took another step today in crushing Take Two's and Sega's hopes of releasing a respectable football game any time soon by agreeing with the Arena Football League (AFL) for an exclusive deal. While the first game will not be available until the 2006 season, EA has certainly positioned itself as the only game publisher that will release any respectable licensed football game in the coming years (as well as alienating many gamers). Surprisingly, Arena Football is America's fastest growing sport, so there is a huge market for Electronic Arts to capitalize on now.

Free Grand Theft Auto 2

For those interested in playing Grand Theft Auto 2 for free may want to visit the following link to Rockstar Games. From this page, you can download GTA 2, as well as the original Grand Theft Auto and Wild Metal to your PC. All three games are free to download.