Japanese magazine, GeMaga, recently published an interview with Polyphony Digital’s president, Kazunori Yamauchi. Two points were made clear in the session. He first discussed Gran Turismo 5, mentioning that it is still charted for a 2009 release, even though there is still a bit of give and take, so we may or may not see it in 2009.

The more important news however, is the rumour that Polyphony Digital may be expanding its line of games. We know PD as being racing oriented, but Yamauchi mentioned that the company wants to try something new and create a totally new, different and distinctive game. So does this mean they will be stepping into a new genre? Stay tuned.

It seems that EA will not be axing Blackbox Studios after all, but will be merely relocating them to Burnaby Studios instead. This is going to take place in June of 2009. Somehow I feel that this may have been a good and bad decision at the same time. From my point of view, if Blackbox continues to make Need For Speed, they would only produce rubbish, so that’s why I had my fingers crossed and hoped that it would have gone over to Criterion Games. It seems this is not the case. So, no matter how you looked at the situation, NFS is doomed.

EA has now confirmed the closure of 9 of their game production studios, including the Canadian Black Box division. The consolidation and restructure process is said to save the company about US $120 million in annual costs, and they also plan to chop off 10% of their overall work force.

With this point, the fate of Need For Speed may not be in 100% jeapordy. We reported a few days ago that NFS may be handed over to the folks at Criterion Games studio, so what may have been a failing gaming, still has the potential to be a success. However we have to wait for word as to what the fate of NFS is.

Like many gaming corporations, EA has been hit with the reality of a declining economy, and is bit-by-bit cutting back on their expenses. News has emerged across the net, claiming that EA’s Black Box division will be eventually shut down, meaning that future Need For Speed titles may soon see no light of day.

In a report from globeandmail, it is reported that EA has decided to cancel the construction of their new gaming development studio in Vancouver, mainly because of slow holiday sales and the decline of the general economy. With such a negative reaction to NFS: Undercover sales had slumped and according to the NDP sales for November 08, Undercover didn’t make the top 20 either, which clearly showed that it didn’t sell well. There have also been reports that future NFS developments have been canceled.

“These are challenging times, they’re uncertain times for our industry and across the board…We continue to be firmly rooted in Vancouver.” - EA spokesman Colin Macrae

He also commented about a number of staff reductions but chose not to go into any detail. At this moment, this news is still not 100% confirmed by EA officials themselves, but it’s an impending reality and also it is sad to see such a long running title come to and end on such a low note. EA’s Black Box division may have had the chance to revive things since the CEO’s plans to have 2 separate teams work on the game seemed promising, but now we don’t know if that may ever come to light. Stay tuned for more updates.

If you happen to browse through SimBin’s game list recently, you would see that a new project has been added to the “In The Pipeline” section. It is entitled Codename Toad. In SimBin’s recent community newsletter, there have been hints of a new racer in development as well, which are said to add to the whole RACE 07/GTR Evo - The Game line up. Now, they guys at VirtualR discover the added project to the site. Now the real question is “What series to they plan to cover?”

Here is a snippet from the newsletter we received recently.

“We have secured licenses for a couple of highly requested series and we think our next scheduled title will come as a big happy surprise to all racers around the world.

The release which is scheduled for release 2009, should lock into the new GTR Evolution base the same way as STCC does, meaning rules, cars, tracks and features specific to this new series will instantly become available in GTR Evo and STCC if you also own those.”

This basically tells us nothing, but there have been many thoughts about the community, with many hoping it would be BTCC. I myself still do not have enough insight into SimBin’s history to clearly make an assumption, so I am just as lost as most others are. Tell us what you think they could be brewing up.

Blimey! Games has announced that they are in no way affected by 10Tacle’s financial problems, this comes after the news that 10Tacle declared bankruptcy of August 6th.

“Blimey! Games Ltd would like to announce their continued growth and healthy balance sheets, despite 10Tacle’s recently declared insolvency. We at Blimey! Games would like to announce that this will in no way affect our company, or our products. Work on our Ferrari project continues, and we have also recently signed an unannounced but major brand for a top publisher. Our studio has recently taken on many new staff and we are very happy to be working on several upcoming and exciting projects.”

“Despite 10T’s unfortunate and recently announced insolvency, Blimey! Games is in a very strong position. We have recently signed an unannounced major project for a top tier publisher which secures our continued growth, and our Ferrari title remains unaffected. Work will continue as normal at our studio.”

So we can now breathe some sigh of relief because upcoming titles such as Ferrari Project can continue its developmental process. Now we wait to see what happens to 10Tacle.