Midway has recently released its plan to bounce back from a bad cashflow. To cope with the almost quarter billion dollar debt (an estimated $240 million USD) Midway is cutting about 25% of its workforce and ceasing work on several unnamed games.

An Austin-based development branch, that created BlackSite: Area 51, will be shut down. Creative director Harvey Smith referred to the development of the game as “so fucked up”.

The Midway Chicago, responsible for the Mortal Kombat vs DC development, and San Diego branches will also be hit with layoffs.

Midway’s CEO Matt Booty explained the cuts, “…these initiates, along with other steps we have taken this year, are a response to the specific challenges we are facing at Midway, many of which have been amplified by the current economic conditions.”

Let’s hope this isn’t a cold every developer in the industry is going to catch.

Hardware problems is no news to Microsoft. The publisher had to cough up about $1.05 billion UDS to extend hardware warranties stemming from the infamous “Red Ring of Death” back in June of 07. But such is not the end of Microsoft’s hardware deficiencies.

The company is being sued by a gamer because of a complaint about the Xbox 360’s potential for scratching game discs. If the console is tilted while the disc is spinning the disc could be damaged. Microsoft was aware of this problem back in 2005 before the launch, even adding a warning in their manual on and the console itself.

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Apparently sticky notes are not the only office item you can use to create ingenious video game related art.

As shown below consuming two and a half semesters and using nearly 20,000 colored pins, students recreated an image of Super Mario Bros. The push pins give the image a pixilated feel, reminiscent of the game itself.

This is the work of the CIS Student Association at the University of the Fraser Valley, and it’s situated in the Student Computing Center.

Proving that SquareEnix knows just how far some fans will go to get more of the FF7 silver-haired villain they are releasing yet another statue of Sephiroth.

Reported to arrive May 2009 (date estimated, not confirmed) this particular statue is called the “Static Art Sephiroth”. AT 14 1/2’ this PVC statue also carries the hefty price tag of over $150 dollars.

For those you who simply can’t wait to have it in your hands the pre-order cutoff date for this figure is December 15, 2008.

You can’t deny, Sony sometimes know what sells well.

See the statue for yourself, after the cut.

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Say what you will of Jack Thompson, at least he always pays his bills. And he sure will do his damndest to let you know about it, too.

To recap, the attorney, notorious for his anti-gaming campaign, was disbarred permanently and ordered to reimburse the courts the legal fees that was used to prosecute him. This totalled up to $43,675.35 US dollars although it was recently reduced to $42,525.27 by the Bar.

Jack, not one to do anything without fanfare, has emailed the Bar about his payment because of concerns that it had not been taken from his account.

Dear Chief Justice Quince:

Please advise today what you and the Court have done with my check for $42,525.27 that was sent you on November 6 to be held in trust by the Supreme Court.

I find today, in talking with my bank, that the check has not been negotiated. I’m not paying any interest on this amount. You all had it from me on the date it was due.

Regards, Jack Thompson

We’ll keep you up to speed on any more details regarding this little on-going soap opera.

Despite giving no reason other than citing it being a precedent in a related case, Judge Jack Easton has banned two teens, 14 and 16, from owning or playing video games without parental permission. This sentence came down with sentences of probation and community service, because the Camrose teens stood by while their peers trapped a cat inside a microwave and burned it to death.

Even though the teens admitted to doing nothing to save the cat, still the judge dropped all of their charges of causing harm to the animal because he stated that the kids weren’t directly responsible for its death. The two teens were among the group who invaded a former friend’s home and assisted as they vandalized it while the family was on vacation.

Reasons for the video game banning weren’t given except that on the recommendations by medical officials even though there was no direct link found between the feline’s slaying and gaming.

A NHL game was included in this ban by the defense lawyer explaining that one of the teen’s liked to play it and he claimed it was violent. The judge then extended the ban to all video games without parental permission. The medical officials were contacted Monday regarding their recommendation to the judge; a response has not yet been received.

I don’t expect one either.

Get this: doctors in Italy diagnosed a 13 year old with “Playstation Addiction”. The kid, Lorenzo Amato, was originally thought to have suffered a stroke or a severe brain disorder by the doctors after the father brought him in.

This was concluded because of symptoms of lack of speech and lack of comprehension of his surroundings.

Later, when the doctors discovered that Lorenzo had completed a Playstation marathon, they declared it an addiction to the console.

“They eventually managed to take care of him once they understood that this was a strange kind of mental detachment connected to his Playstation,” said local politician Antonio Buccoliero who’d conversed with the doctors.

Saying that “If I even think about it I want to throw up,” Lorenzo instructed his father to discard of the system.

I bet I’m not the only bemoaning the loss of the console and wondering what’s in the head of some kids these days.

You know you’ve been playing too much WoW when…

Playing Wrath of the Lich King, expansion for the highly successful WoW MMORPG, for 24 hours took its toll on a 15 year old Swedish boy. What might have been a drive to accomplish the European feat of reaching level 80 in a one 27 hour marathon turned into an epileptic seizure.

Doctors described his body as “…systems had been disrupted by a combination of sleep deprivation, lack of food and the prolonged period of concentration on the game.”

Since the experience, the kid’s father is putting his foot down on the time spent on playing video games once he’s properly recovered. Let’s hope the boy learned his lesson on how to enjoy his games responsibly.

In one of the most wonderful display of attention-whoring we’ve ever seen, South Carolina inmate Jonathan Lee Riches has filed a third-party motion in the Federal Court in Arizona against is Blizzard, specifically at their famous MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

Riches has previously filed handwritten lawsuits against celebrities and politicians.

The reasons given for the lawsuit was that World of Warcraft allegedly “…caused Riches’ mind to live in a virtual universe where Riches explored the landscape of committing identify theft…Riches was addicted to video games and lost touch with reality…”

And, “Riches chose World of Warcraft over working a legit job.”

Now really, who’s fault is that?

We’ll keep you updated on developments…

It’ll cost you (Editor’s note: No kidding), but Square-Enix has just opened a store for Europeans to sink their cash into Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Valkyrie Profile and World of Mana inspired merchandise.

Among the items available are jewellery, figurines, mobile phone straps, key-rings, card cases and more. There’s also the black silver Sephiroth ring and a pendant modeled from Cloud’s arm bangles from Final Fantasy VII. The items are available for GBP 125 and GBP 140.99 respectively.

As of personal note, I found the Dragon Quest silver slime pendant particularly interesting.

There’s a few catches. First of all, you must “exceed £23.00 (€29,00) (including tax) to be processed”. And that there is a limit of three for any one item. Also, there’s no service for Northern Ireland, though there is plans to remedy that.

Have a look!

http://ssl.square-enix-shop.com/eu/index.php

Police believe they have discovered the body of a missing teen, Brandon Crisp of Barrie, Ontario, who reportedly ran away from home on October 14th because of a dispute involving his gaming console, an Xbox 360.

His parents claim that his grades had been slipping due to playing Call of Duty 4 and took away the console as punishment.

The 15 year old then disappeared, last seen biking on a trail around 5:45pm. A reward for information on him had topped $41,776 CAD. On October 24th what appeared to be his body was found with a blue-checkered jacket, tent, crackers and a bag of chips on a trail off Fifth Lane in Barrie, Ontario.

Sgt. Dave Goodbrand, involved in investigations of this case, told CTV. “It’s not confirmed because nothing’s confirmed until we have pathology, but we believe it to be Brandon.”

Nothing else has been released as of yet.

Despite the growing customer cash conservation because of the economic woes right now, Sony says the price is right for the PS3. While the Wii is going for $250 and the 360 is selling for $200 Sony will be sticking with its $400 price tag through the holiday season.

Their explanation? As stated by Sony managing director, Ray Maguire “We have a business to run and we have to make sure we’re doing the right thing for shareholders…”

What about what’s right for customers?

Sony are depending on titles to help make the sales this holiday season which they say will make the higher price tag not a “issue at all.”. Along with that, the integrated Wi-Fi and the Blu-ray player Sony feels they’ll stay “absolutely on target” even during a Christmas crunch that looks to be less than stellar.

We’ll see how the numbers tally in the coming months.

Blizzard just mentioned that this morning they reached 11 million subscribers and this number was reached while the expansion was in beta testing. There’s no doubt it’ll climb once the much-anticipated expansion is released. It’s still scheduled for a 13th of November release.

WoW is not new to success. It won best-selling PC game in 2005 and 2006 and its first expansion, The Burning Crusade became the fastest selling PC game of 2007, selling 2.4 million copies in just 24 hours, and million copies in a single hour.

The sales team must have had a field day.

CEO and co-founder of Blizzard, Mike Morhaime says that they are “..fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality constantly evolving gaming experience.” Mike has every reason to want to keep his customers pleased, what with cash that this MMORPG is raking in.

In order to play their Sony games online, participate in Home, buy games from the PlayStation Store, subscribe to a game, etc. gamers will now have to agree to a new set of terms and conditions. The company sent out the amendments to its customers last week, outlining a slew of new, and questionable, regulations regarding use of this product.

In the changed “Code of Conduct” players are unable to reveal their indentifying information (such as name, address or name or address of someone else or of a business, etc.). However, this same provision does not work in reverse—Sony explicitly stated that they could use gamers’ information for the purposes of advertisement. It’s unclear if this advertisement is strictly for Sony’s use or for them to also sell this to third parties to use.

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To those many unhappy fans around the world who were disappointed by the move in release date, as we reported earlier, Sony has given the new dates for the releases of this much-anticipated game.

As before, the American and Europe dates are not the same. While the new American release date is October 27th, Europe will have it on November 5th.

A simple recap as to why you’re waiting…This delay is because of two “expressions” found in licensed tracks in the game that are also in the Qur’an. How that affects the difference in release dates I’ve not figured out, but hopefully this little set-back will be the last one.

As always, we’ll keep you updated on these developments.