Michael Pachter already predicted it, but now it’s been semi-confirmed. Activision blogger Dan Amrich believes more people will leave developer Infinity Ward, perhaps to join Respawn Entertainment.

In a discussion on Facebook in a Activision/Bobby Kotick hate group, Amrich said the studio still has some talent left in it, despite numerous employees taking their hats and leaving.

“More people will probably go too, looking for new situations,” he said, “Maybe they will join Respawn, maybe not. I’m confused, because by leaving, they are giving up their bonus — and the more people that leave, the bigger the bonus gets for the people who stay.”

Amrich also added he had no idea of what really happened between Activision and the former heads of IW, except what was released into the public domain.

“First thing I asked myself was, “What really happened?” Why would Activision fire the guys so publicly after so much success?,” he said.

“What brought that drastic measure about? And until Activision goes to court over it or files its own legal paperwork in a countersuit or something like that, we will not know. We know one side, but like you, I am dying to learn the other.”

Sony has issued a full status update on the crippling PS3 bug issue which has been plaguing consoles throughout the world. The issue is apparently being caused by a bug in the system’s clock functionality.

SCEE has released a full statement in which the company aims to have the issue resolved within the next 24 hours.

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Yay, more controvery! From, you guess it, another politician. This time it’s Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ turn on the soapbox. Apparently Sony’s PlayStation console is “poison” that will lead children down the capitalist “road to hell”.

In Chavez’ weekly radio-TV show “Alo Presidente”, he asked Venezuelan manufacturers to make “educational” toys and dolls in order to replace more capitalistic counterparts like the Barbie doll.

Chavez has already bashed Nintendo for promoting “selfishness, individualism and violence”, but decided to take on Sony as well.

“Those games they call ‘PlayStation’ are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, ‘you’ve got to find Chavez to kill him.’”

He went on to say that any game that “bomb cities or just throw bombs,” are sold by capitalist countries to sow violence so they can “later sell weapons”. The games also “promote the need for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol so they can sell them. That’s capitalism, the road to hell,” he added.

Wow… I love the bombastic and uninformed.

We ofte hear about situations were publishers are accused of trying to recieve favorable reviews for their new games. The latest to face these accusations is Ubisoft, pointed out by German magazine Computer Bild Spiele for demanding a high schore for Assassin’s Creed 2.

“Our reviews are tough, but fair. We will not give up our independent scores for the sake of a timely review,” explains the magazine in its latest issue. “This holds true for Assassin’s Creed 2. The publisher asked us to guarantee the score ‘sehr gut,’ otherwise we would not receive a review copy, thus we will publish our review in next month’s issue. We’d be more than glad to give the game a ’sehr gut’, but only if it deserves it.”

My German is lackluster at best, but I do believe “Sehr Gut” means “that’s good”, or simply “good”. Anyway, it’s basically an A-grade, meaning Ubisoft was only willing to give away a copy of the game in exchange for a positive review. Personally I’m hoping this isn’t true, because a company like Ubisoft really doesn’t need to resort to these kinds of tactics. Shame on them if it’s true.

The Wii’s upcoming gorefest, Madworld, is being regard with suspicion in certain countries. THe game will not be seeing a release in Australia, Germany and Japan. At least not yet.

Publisher Sega and developer Platinum Games will regularly provide the ESRB with up-to-date code, making the board “part of the process” in the gorefest’s development.

Those worried about the gaming being censorced shouldn’t worry, as Madworld is still shooting for the highest M rating possible.

The game launches in March

According to CVG, the newest addition to the GTA franchise will contain a mini-game in which you sell known narcotics such as heroine, cocaine, weed, ecstasy, acid and downers.

“We wanted to have a drug-dealing minigame in lots of the GTA games,” said Rockstar Vice-President Dan Houser. “We played with it a little in Vice City Stories, because it worked really well juxtaposed with the main story.”

“It works well with what GTA is, with driving around the map, and it gives you another thing to think about – another layer or piece of the puzzle to keep you motivated.”

According to Houser, dealing drugs is related to the main story of the game: “It does intersect with the main story,” he explained, “and things you learn from it work with the story, but it mostly runs on its own.”

Controversy anyone?