take-two-interactive posts

The current financial problems of Take Two Interactive are taking their toll on the publisher and now the company has admitted there will be layoffs at the corporate level, according to a statement from the company at Gamasutra. The statement was in response to earlier rumors posted on other sites that said the company was planning large layoffs that would affect 20 percent of the company's total work force.

Take Two has admitted there will be an unnamed number of people who will be laid off but that it will affect "our corporate departments only". Some of the changes are due to Take Two selling off its Jack of all Games distribution business which was announced last December. The statement added, "To be clear, there were no reductions made at the studio level." That means that Take Two's many internal development studios including its Rockstar Games locations, Irrational Games and Firaxis have not been affected.

We are now less than five months away from what is arguably the single biggest week in the game industry; the 2010 edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 as it is usually known. The expo's web site has now gone live for its 2010 version with registration now available for exhibitors, media and attendees to sign up to attend the show which will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 15-17.

The web site also shows the expo's current list of exhibitors and at the moment there are a few major publishers that are not on the list. The biggest no show is Take Two Interactive, home of the 2K Games and Rockstar Games brand. We've emailed Take Two to see if they have any plans to attend this year's event. Other current major no-shows include Namco Bandai, Southpeak and NCsoft. It also appears that Blizzard won't be joining its publishing partner Activision at E3 again (they bypassed last year's show) Again this list is still in the early stages and its possible that there will be additions made. It's also possible that companies not on the list will be in the LA area during E3 hosting off-site press events.

Update: Take Two has responded to our email request with their spokesperson telling us, " . . . we are planning on taking part as usual at this year's E3."

It's been a crappy 2009 for 3D Realms. The Dallas-based game developer let go of its internal development team and got into a still ongoing lawsuit against Take Two Interactive over the 12 years (and counting) development of their first person shooter Duke Nukem Forever. Yet the company's CEO Scott Miller claims that their main Duke Nukem franchise is still very much alive.

Shacknews has posted up some new info from Miller (taken from the first print issue of a new game magazine called Gamesauce) where he says, "There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year." Miller still insists that Duke Nukem Forever is not dead saying, " . . . yes, we released the internal team, but that doesn't correlate to the demise of the project." Even a long-in-development Duke Nukem movie is still in play with Miller saying, " the Duke film is making steady progress."

The article goes into specifics on how 3D Realms was able to stay in operation for so long without releasing Duke Nukem Forever. For example, Miller claims that they made $30 million with sales of Max Payne (which they worked on with Remedy) and made another $48 million selling the franchise to Take Two.

Fans that have been awaiting the release of Max Payne 3 are going to have to wait a little bit longer. Publisher Take Two Interactive announced today that the long awaited third game in the third person shooter franchise, originally scheduled for a "winter" release date, has now been pushed back to the fourth quarter of the publisher's 2010 fiscal year (which begins on August 1, 2010 and ends October 31, 2010).

Take Two Interactive also announced that its financial outlook for the current fiscal year will be lower than previously predicted. The biggest reason for a lower outlook was "the performance of its Major League Baseball titles in the fourth quarter". While Take Two said it had a "successful" game launch in Borderlands it was not enough to offset the company's other losses and it does not expect the company to be profitable for its current fiscal year.

Other PC titles from the publisher are still on track for their previous release dates. Take Two still plans to release BioShock 2 on February 9, 2010. In addition the long-in-development Mafia II is still expected to be released sometime in the first half of 2010.

Last month we got a chance to try out the new Monk character in Diablo III at BlizzCon. It was a lot of fun to run that character around the desert and dungeons and use his fighting skills and powers to take out various monsters. But what if you were playing Diablo III not as a top down isometric action-RPG but as a true first person shooter that still retained things like loot and item drops and some other elements?

That's basically what you can expect from Borderlands, Gearbox Software's upcoming sci-fi shooter that is shaping up to be a true sleeper hit. The PC version of the game was tucked away in Nvidia's booth during PAX 2009 and the Xbox 360 version, with four player co-op, was playable at the booth of the game's publisher 2K Games.

Check out even more info after the jump:

Last month at E3, Gearbox Software showed off their FPS-RPG hybrid game Borderlands to the press. At the time the team said the game might be out in October but to not hold them to that date. Today, GameSpot reports that the final release date for the game has been locked and as predicted it will ship to stores on October 2 in the US. The game will ship on October 23 in other parts of the world.

Publisher Take Two Interactive has a lot riding on Borderlands' success, especially since it decided to pull the rest of its announced hardcore gaming line-up into the first half of 2010. The game itself was first announced two years ago but revealed a massive change in its art style only this year.

The saga of Duke Nukem Forever continues even as its developer 3D Realms and its publisher Take Two Interactive fight it out in court over the long-in-development game's release. Now it looks like "Duke Nukem's" Facebook page has been updated with some new images from the stalled first person shooter.

The new shots show off mostly creature model images with some glimpses at levels, including what looks like a boss battle near Hoover Dam. Even though most of the game's development team was laid off last May, 3D Realms continues to state that the company is still operating and that development of Duke Nukem Forever continues.

During Take Two Interactive's conference call to financial analysts today, company execs confirmed that three of their biggest upcoming games won't be released in the calendar year of 2009. Those games are the 2K Games-branded titled of BioShock 2 and Mafia 2 and the Rockstar Games-branded title Max Payne 3. All three of these games will now be released sometime in the first half of the calendar year of 2010.

This is a huge blow to Take Two Interactive, particularly for the release of BioShock 2, which was one of the most anticipated games in the industry and one that was originally planned for release in the fall of 2009. Take Two's new release schedule still contains Gearbox Software's Borderlands as coming out in their current fiscal year for 2009 (which ends Oct. 31) but it looks like with BioShock 2's delay Borderlands will be 2K Games' big holiday title this year. Take Two execs stated they do feel that the holiday period is getting crowded with titles and that BioShock 2's delay will actually benefit the game.

As we mentioned before the summer season is also the "silly season" where some games that were scheduled for release this fall get pushed back to sometime in the next year. Today, Take Two Interactive announced the latest such delay. BioShock 2 ,which they had planned to release in their fourth fiscal quarter of 2009 (which ends Oct. 31) will now be pushed back to sometime in their 2010 fiscal year which begins on November 1, 2009. Take Two stated the delay was ordered "in order to provide additional development time for the title." Technically that means the game could still be released sometime in the 2009 calendar year but Take Two has not yet specified a new release date for the game.

Because of BioShock 2's delay and other factors, Take Two is lowering its financial outlook for the rest of its fiscal year. Its current third quarter is expected to bring in between $120 milion to $130 million in revenue to the company (compared to their previous prediction of between $145 million and $165 million) and the upcoming fourth quarter is now expected to bring in $350 million to $400 million in revenue (compared to their previous prediction of between $420 million and $500 million). The entire 2009 fiscal year is expected to bring in between $960 million to $1 billion in revenue (compared to their previous prediction of $1.05 billion and $1.15 billion). Take Two will be holding a conference call at 4:45 pm ET today and we will listen in to see if there's any more info on the company's release date slate.

Update: As we mentioned here, Take Two has now confirmed that BioShock 2 will be released sometime in the first half of calendar year 2010.

3D Realms (under their Apogee Software parent name) has now officially responded to Take Two Interactive's lawsuit filed last month concerning the shut down in the development of Duke Nukem Forever. In the 20 page response filed on Friday (found by GamePolitics) with the US District Court in the Southern District of New York, 3D Realms/Apogee denies most of the allegations made by Take Two in its lawsuit.

However the response has also revealed that 3D Realms entered into an agreement with Take Two for an all new Duke Nukem game, Duke Begins. The agreement was made in 2007 and the development would be handled by an unnamed third party game studio, not 3D Realms, and published by Take Two's 2K Games brand. According to 3D Realms, Take Two/2K Games ordered work halted on Duke Begins in April 2009,something which 3D Realms says Take Two has denied.