Electronic Arts' oft-extended deadline for its hostile takeover of Grand Theft Auto owner Take-Two Interactive Software will expire today, the companies have confirmed.

With the takeover threat no longer looming, EA will sign a confidentiality agreement that will provide it with the "in-depth management presentation" that Take-Two is using in the "formal process to evaluate strategic alternatives" it mentioned back in March.

The owner of multiple successful properties, including Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Civilization and BioShock, Take-Two was first presented with EA's unsolicited $2 billion buyout offer in February. It declined the offer, prompting EA to pursue a hostile takeover.

"We are continuing to consider all alternatives that will maximize value to our stockholders," noted Take-Two CEO Ben Feder. "We are engaged in discussions with other parties as part of a formal process to generate greater value and will act quickly to assist EA in moving expeditiously through our process."

Below are letters exchanged between EA CEO John Riccitiello and Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, which further explain the decisions... Read more

Speaking on various elements of Sega of America's operations, company president Simon Jeffery critiqued publisher Electronic Arts' handling of the core gamer market.

"EA has always struggled with the hardcore gamer," Jeffery told VentureBeat. "I think they look at Gears of War and Halo and wonder why they can't do that. EA has to do something about that. They have tried on and off over the years. It's just like Activision had to come out from doing hardcore games and do more for the masses."

Jeffery further described what he sees as changing tastes among core gamers, moving away from lengthy, epic experiences towards pick-up-and-play titles.

"We are seeing a shift, even in hardcore games, to snackable gaming," Jeffery explained. "Call of Duty 4 had a shorter single-player campaign and... Read more

Electronic Arts today announced it will be publishing new efforts from acclaimed studios Epic Games and Grasshopper Manufacture as part of its EA Partners program.

The new Epic property is being developed for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 by wholly-owned subsidiary People Can Fly, which previously created the action-shooter series Painkiller and handled the PC port of Gears of War.

"Epic is excited to work with EA Partners to launch our next big IP on the global stage," said Epic Games VP Mark Rein. "EA Partners gives independent developers like Epic the muscle of a global publisher like EA, along with the focus and flexibility of a smaller team committed to working with our individual needs."

Directed by No More Heroes (Wii) designer Goichi Suda, Grasshopper Manufacture's new title is an action-horror game in development for the PC, PS3, Xbox... Read more

Publisher Electronic Arts wants to turn EA Maxis' upcoming life simulator Spore into a feature film and a television show, creator Will Wright has revealed.

"With Spore, we're looking way outside the game space, such as TV, movies, etc," Wright explained to Reuters. "We're basically planting the seeds to spread Spore out to a much wider group of people than would ever play a computer game."

Due out on PC and Mac September 7, Spore tasks players with creating and managing a lifeform from its cellular phase to galactic domination. A less ambitious Nintendo DS version, Spore Creatures, is due out the same day, and a free creature creator is already available for PC and Mac users.

Wright, the creative mind behind EA's widely successful The Sims franchise, stressed that the company will be "much more intelligent about harvesting other market opportunities for Spore than we were with The Sims," noting his belief that "Spore potentially has a wider net to cast [outside of video games] than The Sims did."

Electronic Arts recently partnered with United Talent Agency to help create movies and televion shows based on EA properties, with a live-action The Sims movie and animated MySims television show already in the works.

Publisher Electronic Arts has unveiled Celebrity Sports Showdown, a new Wii-exclusive sports compilation title which features a baffling array of celebrity appearances.

According to MTV, the title makes use of big-headed, cartoonish likenesses of musicians Fergie (pictured left), Nelly Furtado, Leann Rimes and Keith Urban and sports icons Paul Pierce, Mia Hamm, Sugar Ray Leonard and Kristi Yamaguchi.

Those celebrities and others will be battling it out in 12 activities including canoe paddling, dodgeball, inner-tubing, fighter-jet racing, slalom skiing, curling, canoe paddling, volleyball spiking and more. As with most sports mini-game compilations on the Wii, the game said to be modeled after Nintendo's Wii Sports.

Celebrity Sports Showdown marks the latest in a series of utterly bizarre marriages between the gaming and celebrity worlds. Earlier this week, pseudo-celebrity Kim Kardashian was revealed as a playable character in EA Canada's FaceBreaker, likely created using the title's in-game character customization system.

Developed by the EA Playground (Wii, NDS) team at EA Canada, Celebrity Sports Showdown is aimed for release this holiday season.

Independent developer Valve is "happy to have that conversation" should the company be approached with a buyout offer, marketing VP Doug Lombardi has revealed.

That said, he noted that the independent studio behind Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Portal and the Steam digital distribution platform is "doing pretty well" and is "really happy with what we're doing."

Lombardi also heaped praise on publishing partner EA, describing the relationship between EA and Valve as "really good," with Valve yet to see the fabled EA "boogeyman." id Software president John Carmack had previously said that Valve's positive experience with EA was a key factor in its decision to let EA publish id's Rage (PC, PS3, 360, Mac).

"We set up the deal so that it turned out that if EA was this evil empire, that it wasn't going to last forever," Lombardi explained to Gamasutra. "But it's turned out that all those scary stories--maybe some of them were true, and maybe some of them are history; I don't know--haven't appeared to us. We haven't seen the boogeyman."

"EA was very progressive about saying, 'We understand who you guys are. We understand what Steam is. We don't want Steam to go away,'" he continued. "Well, they might want Steam to go away, but they're not asking us to make Steam go away."

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has spoken out, claiming that the company that once published a Jurassic Park-branded fighting game and a James Bond racing effort is no longer "in the business of exploiting other people's licenses with bad quality games."

"I think what redeems our industry is quality and I think we take a step back every time we take a license and exploit it with a crappy game--that's not what we're about," Riccitiello told MTV Multiplayer. "We've been there, most of our competitors are there or have been there. That's not what we do. We're not really after that market."

While not all of EA's licensed products have been as "out there" as the fighter Warpath: Jurassic Park, many of the movie-inspired EA-published titles--such as Batman Begins, Catwoman, Superman Returns--have been derided as subpar.

Riccitiello expressed his belief that "a lot of the intellectual property we create are better than the license," stressing the studio's recent push towards creativity with internal titles like Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Boom Blox and Spore.

"That doesn't mean there isn't room for great licenses," he clarified, providing Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL, and Harry Potter games as examples of quality license use.

Earnings from Electronic Arts' PC and PlayStation 3 publishing and development businesses contributed to net revenue of $804 million in the company's fiscal year 2009 first quarter, the publisher revealed today.

The figure marks a $409M year-over-year increase above EA's 2008 Q1 revenue of $395M, led by PlayStation 3 sales amounting to $139M. PC software followed at $86M, while Xbox 360 sales came in third with $81M in the quarter ending June 30, 2008.

Meanwhile, net loss for the quarter was $95 million, down from $132... Read more

During an investor conference call today, EA Sports president Peter Moore offered new details on the studio's attempts to reinvigorate its PC sports title offerings.

"We are retooling these titles [on the PC] to take advantage of the online connectivity in a bigger and more meaningful way," Moore said today, noting that EA's usual sports offerings--Madden, NCAA Football, NBA Live, etc.--will reappear on PC in 2009.

He also said the company is toying with subscription programs to reward players, but offered no further details on either subjects.

EA Sports had previously announced that several EA Sports franchises would not appear on PC this year, citing "serious business challenges" and a... Read more

Electronic Arts amassed over $90 million in direct digital sales in the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, the company announced today.

The sales figures include revenue generated by the company's EA Store, which offers direct downloads of its catalog of PC titles and a variety of games for mobile phones, as well as games and content on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network.

In addition to games, the company also offers music via the EA Store's EA Trax division, serving direct downloads of soundtracks from such titles as EA Maxis' SimCity Societies and EA Montreal's Army of Two.

Soundtracks featuring licensed music such as the Madden NFL and NBA Live series are offered via Apple's iTunes music download service, and are likely not counted as part of the $90 million revenue figure.

Following a not so impressive first month on retail shelves, EALA and Steven Spielberg's physics-driven puzzle action title Boom Blox has sold over 450,000 copies since launch, publisher Electronic Arts revealed today.

The news arose from an investor conference call held this afternoon, in which EA CFO Eric Brown said the title met the publisher's expectations since its launch in early May.

The company did not specify whether the figure accounts for sales solely in North America or units moved worldwide. Boom Blox was released in Europe a few days after its North American debut, and made its debut in Japan earlier this month.

However, that figure is likely worldwide, as that moving that amount in North America would have caused the title to appear among NPD's ten best-selling games at least once during the past few months.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello added that the title "continues to sell well."

Publisher Electronic Arts is planning to sell a line of PCs that will be branded and marketed as machines that can handle Crytek's beefy PC shooter Crysis.

The computers will come in several configurations, and will be released alongside Crytek's upcoming stand-alone expansion Crysis Warhead, according to some blogger.

While Crytek has mainly blamed Crysis' modest sales on PC piracy, many have pointed to the game's demanding system requirements as another culprit. Crytek has been working to optimize the engine and increase framerates for the Warhead expansion.

Crysis Warhead is scheduled for a September release.

Electronic Arts today announced that it has inked a deal with with United Talent Agency, described as a "leading Hollywood talent and literary agency," to help create movies and television shows based on EA properties.

The studio listed Army of Two, Need for Speed, Dead Space and Mirror's Edge in the announcement as examples of its popular efforts--suggesting these properties are likely candidates for transition to film or television.

Left, Mirror's Edge. Right, Dead Space.

One of the biggest video game publishers in the industry, EA's many properties encompass a variety of genres, including its sports titles, the mythology-rich Command & Conquer strategy series, Skate, and the evolution-simulator Spore.

EA films and shows already in the works include a live-action movie based on The Sims franchise, an animated television show inspired by the MySims games, a direct-to-DVD animated Dead Space prequel, and another unspecified animated effort.

"We view EA as an emerging entertainment force, not just because they are a great untapped IP rights holder, but because at their core they care most about how viewers respond to their stories and creative vision," noted UTA partner Richard Klubeck.

Following last week's E3 2008 Media and Business Summit, several industry veterans have weighed in on the usefulness of the conference, with many remarking that the show has outlived its usefulness.

However, Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences president Joseph Olin told Shacknews that no company wants to be excluded from E3, noting that the conference is still the largest annual gathering of its kind in the gaming industry.

"The venue itself, I don't think E3 is as exciting as the products that are within it," Olin added. "I think, perhaps [at] the old E3, the frame overpowered the print. And now, I think it really is the opportunity to focus on the work, which is the most important thing."

Olin's comments bear sharp contrast to remarks made by several industry leaders. Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello offered harsher words for the revised E3, which as of 2007 has shifted towards an invitation-only arrangement for attendees... Read more

id Software today revealed that Electronic Arts will publish its upcoming titles, beginning with RAGE (PC, PS3, 360).

id's John Carmack appeared on stage to show id's support of the new publishing arrangement, noting that more RAGE details will be unveiled at QuakeCon later this month.

The agreement comes as part of the EA Partners initiative, under which EA helps publish and distribute titles for smaller, independent studios, such as Valve's The Orange Box and Harmonix's Rock Band.

"The RAGE publishing deal is the epitome of EA Partners' mission: Provide the world's best developers with access to the world's best publishing resources," explained EA Partners general manager David DeMartini.

"The team at id Software is one of the best development studios in the world. We're excited to work with id Software to give RAGE a blockbuster launch on the global stage."

A new trailer of RAGE was also shown, highlighting angry mutants and the sounds of brutal dismemberment.

Valve's multiplayer-focused zombie survival shooter Left 4 Dead (PC, 360) will include two-person split-screen play in addition to four-person online cooperative survival play, co-founder Gabe Newell revealed at EA's E3 press event.

It was unclear if that functionality is limited to the Xbox 360 version, or if it will be included in the PC edition as well. The game will let players assume control of undead foes as well, though the exact details of that functionality have not been disclosed.

Newell also noted that the game's four survivor characters have been redesigned. The new character designs better reflect the characters' status as survivors of a recent outbreak instead of hardened battle veterans.

Louis, for example, has lost his dreadlocks and battle armor, replaced by blood-splatted dress shirt, a loose tie, and a bald head.

Left 4 Dead is slated to arrive November 4. More details on the playable undead are expected to arrive tomorrow during Shacknews' hands-on time with the title.

Electronic Arts today announced a new cross-platform community gaming system titled Nucleus.

Nucleus will be build into all of the EA Sports titles, Spore, and Battlefield Heroes. The system will allow players to play games together, and also track scores and other game data across platforms.

Maps, weapons and other Battlefield Heroes downloads will be managed on the service.

Napster creator Shawn Fanning then appeared on stage, detailing a new custom achievement system using the existing Rupture network, which was purchased by EA last month.

Using an open API implemented in scripting language Lua, players will be able to create achievements for eachother and challenge their friends to complete them across the Nucleus network.

At the Electronic Arts press event, Maxis designer Will Wright talked on his upcoming evolutionary title Spore.

Wright spoke of his goal of merging science and creativity, and the "awe-inspiring" user-generated content of the Spore Creature Creator. Based on the Sims character creator, Wright estimated 100,000 creatures by the launch of the game, but that mark was reached in 22 hours, with 1,000,000 after a week.

Close to 2 million now exist in the database, a number that actually exceeds the total of known species on Earth. Wright mentioned that based on the pace, the fans have amounted to 38% of God's productivity, or, as he dubbed it, .38G.

The designer then went over a few surprising creatures that were created, including a skeleton and the Portal cube. 85,000 YouTube videos have been uploaded of Spore so far.

Wright also revealed that the SETI Institute was a major inspiration for the game. "In the future, we're going to be working very closely [with the SETI Institute]," he said.

A short trailer was then show. Check back later for the new footage.

Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that it intends to bring the bestselling educational card deck series Brain Quest to the Nintendo DS, by way of its EA Casual Entertainment development studio.

Adapting the curriculum-based card game model to a digital format, Brain Quest will debut in the form of two separate editions: one for grades three and four, and another for grades five and six. The games feature fast-paced quiz games on a variety of subjects as well as a story-driven quest mode.

The games mark the first educational game out of EA's Casual Entertainment label, created by the publisher last year. Both Brain Quest titles will hit retailers this coming September.

Speaking at an investors meeting, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello noted his disappointment with Need for Speed: ProStreet, and said that EA had been "torturing a very talented group of people" at EA Vancouver with rigorous 12 month development cycles reports GamesIndustry.biz.

Though Need for Speed: Most Wanted was a recent series highlight, newer games like Carbon and ProStreet were not received as well.

Electronic Arts attributes this to the fact that EA Vancouver had been producing a new Need for Speed game every single year for the past eight years. That changed last summer, ... Read more