While many have been planning on playing the newest installment of Grand Theft Auto this year, Take-Two has just announced in a press release that both the Playstation 3 and Xbox360 versions of the game have been delayed until the second fiscal quarter of 2008. The cause of the delay is apparently due to Rockstar requesting “more development time”. This may be a shock to many, however rumors were floating around that there have been technical issues developing both consoles. While purely speculation, this coincides with the rumors that Microsoft may be allowing developers make games with a hard drive requirement.

You can read the official press release here.

It would appear that there’s more to reveal at the San Diego Comic-Con than just neat toys and teasers for comics. TokyoPop, which is the #1 publisher of manga and graphic novels in the US and the and the largest supplier in the world, has seen fit to team up with in a marketing partnership with the largest touring video game music concert, Video Games Live.

“We are extremely excited to form this exclusive marketing alliance with Video Games Live,” quotes Marco Pavia, Director of Marketing at TOKYOPOP. ”There is strong crossover between manga fans and gamers. Some of our hottest manga is video-game based, including Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry 3, .hack, and Archlord. Forming this partnership with the sizzling Video Games Live concert series was a perfect fit.”

For those who don’t know, Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present, and tours the country in concert-style featuring music from popular games such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy.

This partnership makes TokyoPop the exclusive sponsor for Video Games Live, and will be sponsoring shows for the world-renowned tour for the rest of 2007, including special promotions and giveaways for each stop in the tour. Exclusive live video of the concerts will also be featured on the TP.com website.

This, of course, helps bridge the gap between video games and anime/manga a little closer. With big-name games being released as manga and anime, such as the new Devil May Cry anime (and the manga which has been out for a while), this could help signal the beginning of a large-scale boom in game-based manga and anime being created in the near future. Shall we be seeing things such as Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania manga and anime on the horizon? We can only hope.

After the success of LEGO Star Wars, the next game announced was to be LEGO Batman, but now out of nowhere we get a trailer for LEGO Indiana Jones!

I won’t complain about more LEGO games, but I was kind of hoping I’d get Batman first… Oh well, I can’t wait to see how the infamouse Nazi face-melting works on LEGO characters. Or ripping a LEGO heart out of a LEGO Chest.

Little known fact to everyone who dreamed about being a producer: you don’t need hundreds of dollars worth of studio equipment to make hits. All you need is a Playstation, a little patience, and some skill. This week’s lost classic is one of my favorite games that isn’t really a game. Probably one of the earliest and most thorough music composition tools available on a video gaming system, Codemaster’s MTV Music Generator allows you to make some nice compositions. You simply pick a few of the hundreds of sound samples included, lay them down on the track, adjust the pitch, length, and timing, and there you go. You can even sample tunes off a compact disc, although it takes up a lot of memory. After you are done, you can add a light show to go along with your music. Just take some time to learn the ins and outs of this disc, and you can crank out some nice tunes in minutes. It was way ahead of its time, and its only limitation is the Playstation 1 itself. As stated before, sampling off a cd can easily take up a lot of space on a memory card, and there is no way of exporting an MP3 of your music (which is strange, as the manual states that you are granted royalty-free commercial releases of your creations). Also the collection is geared more toward techno and R&B, so users interested in making hip-hop tunes will have to improvise a little. Even so, this is a nice start for aspiring producers who don’t have a lot of money to spend on expensive equipment. There are two sequels that have been released, and there are several other games (such as the recently released Traxxpad for PSP) that expand on the functionality offered here. With a little more work and functionality on future products (such as say, an MP3 exporter), it could be possible for our Playstations and Xboxes to become vital equipment for up and coming musicians and producers.

Over at that big ComiCon in San Diego, ABC and Ubisoft released this short teaser for the LOST video game. Don’t see much, but it looks like its all in-engine, not some pre-rendered tease video. Analysis for LOST freaks after the jump.
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Hey, wasn’t this series supposed to end with the third installment? I guess Capcom either forgot, or wasn’t done milking it yet. Either way, I’m not complaining. This is one of the greatest franchises of last generation, and it’s always great to see another installment of Capcom’s demon-killing samurai saga rather than another Street Fighter 2 remake. It also takes the formula and makes some nice changes to it, while still keeping what makes the series so enjoyable to begin with.
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From the LA Times

I never thought I’d see the day. Tony Hawk, Transformers, Spider-Man, and especially Guitar Hero have propelled Activision into the top slot among the highly competitive world of third party game publishers.

It won’t last of course: EA will launch Skate to takes sales from Tony Hawk, a new Medal Of Honor to go against Call of Duty, and Rock Band may be the upstart to finally slow sales on Guitar Hero. Oh yeah, and EA Sports will have Madden on shelves and Peter Moore at the helm this fall.

Well, its good to know that there is another contender for the top slot.

Here is 26 minutes of Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, and Suda 51 talking. Why is that important? Because they’re the creators of Metal Gear, Resident Evil, and Killer 7; respectively. Arguably the most influential minds of the playstation generation. Next year’s biggest games will no doubt be Metal Gear Solid 4, Resident Evil 5, and No More Heroes, so these guys will only get more influential.