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Gaming industry analysts are becoming more vocal, and consequentially, more listened to every month, with gamers hanging on every word some star names say. Michael Pachter, the analyst for Wedbush Morgan is one such name, and his latest prediction is about the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto game.

We all know Grand Theft Auto 4, or GTA IV if you’re down with the kids, is going to be huge, it’s almost guaranteed. It’s a game which is seeming to unite Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 owners across the divide that is the console format war.

Everyone is eagerly awaiting the release, which has now been confirmed for both systems on April 29th. Pachter believes that it will be by far the biggest game of 2008, selling an incredible 6 million copies in its first week.

According to NextGen.biz, he said:

“We think that GTA IV will generate around $450 million of the [Take-Two’s] expected $1,073 million publishing revenue this year, and will generate an operating profit of around 30 percent, or $135 million. At the high end of company guidance, Take-Two will generate operating income of around $130 million, meaning that the game is responsible for 103 percent of overall company operating profit.”

That’s a pretty big claim, but it’s all part of Pachter’s continuing support for the Electronic Arts buy out of rival publisher Take-Two, which he seems to be all for.

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Bad news, Star Wars fans. Star Wars Unleashed is delayed YET AGAIN. The game that was to be the centerpiece of a multi-media Star Wars blitz (kind of like Shadows of the Empire) has crapped the bed one more time. It was supposed to be released all the way back in last September, but was delayed until early this Summer. Now it doesn’t even look like it will come out until this September 9th.

Since I’m a huge toy geek I find this situation quite interesting. The Force Unleashed was supposed to be a sort of multimedia event that tied the game into toys, role playing games, and at least one book. The numerous delays have ruined the release of the toys, because instead of a blitz with sales supported by the game there’s been a trickling of Legos and action figures here and there. Look I’d rather have a game that was well polished than a pile of crap, but this a bit FUBAR.

It’s another week of Rock Band DLC and boy am I relieved. After a few weeks of getting some songs I only mildly cared about (if not extremely lukewarm toward) there’s at least one song I totally dig. But before you get to hear my ranting which you care nothing about, here’s the songs:

* “Crushcrushcrush” by Paramore
* “Shockwave” by Black Tide
* “Beethoven’s C***” by Serj Tankian

What’s nice is that while this weeks trio isn’t available as a bundle, the are only being offered for 80 MS points on the Xbox 360 or $.99 for those with consoles that use real people money.

Videos and more of my useless opinions after the break!

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If you have not caught on, I have sort of a fetish for Tetris (seriously).

Well a couple of Tetris related happenings have come crossed my path recently, the first being something I hope to see you all in (then CRUSH YOU!).. a Tetris Splash Tournament being held on Xbox 360. This is the second one to be created and held just by other Tetris lovers on the official Xbox.com forums. User ‘cyno‘ has posted the information in a post here.

The long and short of it is, send him a PM that you would like to be in the tournament by March 12 (tomorrow) at 5:00pm. On the 14th, check the Tetris Splash forums and see the brackets.. easy enough? Well sign up and get to practicing! Want to see the best of the best from the last tournament, check this video below so you know what you are getting yourself into:

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So what are you doing reading this? Is there no Toys R Us, Best Buy, Circuit City, Blockbuster, Wal Mart… ANY store open !? Because you better be just taking a 5 minute break from playing Smash Bros if you are browsing the net.

If you don’t have a Wii still (understandably), I will excuse you from not playing Super Smash Bros Brawl, however you can still own the game! In a smart move by everyone else, not much is on the other systems this week. Condemned 2 is out, that is a very solid title for those in the “next gen.” PES for your football (soccer) fanatics.

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Ever since HD DVD as a format died a bitter death back in early February, there has been speculation over what Microsoft would do now that their decision to support the format has gone horribly wrong. Now it seems that they are at least talking to Sony about the possibility of a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, to replace the now virtually worthless HD DVD one.

Microsoft has already cut the price of the HD DVD drive to bargain basement levels, and now it seems they are keen to move on from the dead format altogether.

There are reports that not only could an Xbox Blu-ray drive be on its way, it might actually be fully integrated in to the console, rather than merely available as an expensive add-on.

According to the Financial Times, Sony Electronics US president, Stan Glasgow, claims his company is in talks with Microsoft about the possibility.

if this does happen, what’s interesting is that it would mean Sony making money on every Xbox 360 sold, as well as every Playstation 3, which regardless of sales figures would make it the big winner in this format war.

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of walking through geeks, dorks, and nerds that surprisingly, didn’t smell as bad as I thought they would. MegaCon 2008 is taking place in Orlando Florida for 3 days, it is a generally comic focused event, however throughout the years I have been going (over 10 years), it has expanded further and further into other geeky related realms, Sci-Fi movies/television, Toys, and of course… Gaming.

Video games is definitely one of those subjects that hits very close to home for many basement dwelling comic book fans (like myself), so to help support this love, people like to dress up as their favorite characters and have their pictures taken by strangers. Luckily, I love to take pictures, so please join me as I stroll through some of the gaming related people that were about, along with comparison shots in case you don’t recognize the characters:

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For the full month of February, Call of Duty 4 has been owning the Top 10 games on Major Nelson’s “Live Activity” lists. Where everyone and their mother had predicted Halo 3 would be the “Gears of War Killer” on the list, which it was, no one could have seen the mammoth amount of fun that Call of Duty 4 has brought us in the first person shooter department. Just connecting some dots here, Bungie’s month of March will be bringing some changes that may be related to their placement in the number 2 spot.

The biggest thing I have noticed that would easily entice a lot of players to throw back in their copy of Halo 3, is the DoubleXP playlists. Today at Noon is that popular Red vs Blue playlist variant, Grifball. I wish I could go into more detail on how this is played, but, I can’t lie, I am one of the followers of Call of Duty 4 now, so I haven’t played much of Halo 3 enough to even know what this is. I do know however, that double experience points cannot draw me back into a game that I have little care for now. Sad times. Check below for the full details on the update.

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Reports are all over the Internet today that the Xbox 360 version of Bully: Scholarship Edition is basically broken, with gamers complaining that the game is prone to continually freezing up and suffering all kinds of glitches.

Rockstar may have released their first game which isn’t pleasing gamers everywhere, and the reason? Because due to a lazy development port from the Playstation 2 to the Xbox 360, and a massive failure in the Quality Assurance testing process, the game has been released on to the general public with faults which can kill the game, and certainly make it unplayable.

There were rumblings across various gaming forums about problems with the game, but until a poster on Neo-Gaf pulled all of those together, they were too spread to indicate a serious problem.

Then, gaming news site Kotaku got wind of the story, and used their power to bring the issue to the attention of Rockstar Games, who have issued a statement explaining the nature of the problem, and promising to work towards a solution.

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If you’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of Street Fighter IV, then why not find out from the first ever national winner of the North American Street Fighter IV tourney? Over on videogaming 24/7 Dan Boutros has got a very in depth analysis of the new game from characters to the moves and why he likes/or doesn’t like each.

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This week’s Rock Band DLC brings us the Grateful Dead… yawn. Okay, I’ll assume that someone that’s reading this likes the penultimate jam bad so we’ll treat this like any other DLC update that is at least semi-interesting.

What’s different about this week is that there are six songs instead of the usual three. Of course they are available as a six song discounted pack for $9.99 (800 Microsoft Points) or individually for $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points).

If you’re interested in hearing what the songs are like and are not familiar with them (because you’re not some filthy hippy), Youtube videos of each of the songs follow as usual:

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An analyst on The Street.com recently questioned how long Guitar Hero can keep up it’s momentum. Watch the video and then come back here for our thoughts.

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This week’s Game Ads from the Days of Yore goes into the world of comic book advertising. As video games became popular, they over took the ad space that toys once held in comic books. I picked this ad simply because it demonstrates both one of the many types of odd game ads there were in comics and how low kids had to go in order to get information on the hottest games of the time.

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The most obvious use out of the Wii having internet and using a remote like controller, is getting a TV Guide Channel up. Though you are probably reading this on a computer where you can look up channel’s on TVguide.com this second, though you probably already have a TVguide channel that is part of your cable/satellite service, and though the lack of good television programming may keep you from watching tv at all, STILL..

.. a TV Guide Channel is a very obvious part of the Wii user interface (I didn’t say it was a good thing, just a very obvious thing). Below I have the very first user video of this service that has hit the net. Only having 205 views at the moment, this will be viewed and linked to in the days to come from desperate Wii fans looking for anything to check out Nintendo related as we all sit and wait for Super Smash Bros Brawl (except for you Japanese viewers, whom we are all jealous of):

This week brings us a not very spectacular week in gaming, but not the worst I have seen either. The big dog comes in the form of God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PSP, not only is it looking to be one of the top ten PSP games just upon its release (not a lot of compitition mind you), but it also brought with it the announcement of God of War III. On the other systems, Bully is out on 360 and Wii for those who did not get to enjoy this title on it’s PS2 release (like myself). If you are into baseball, this is definitly your week no matter what system you own. To finish things out, Homie Rollerz (DS) is finally out, I know you all had your copy on reserve for a while now, so time to head out to the store and pick it up. Now onto the full list:

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