Gamers Evolved

LucasArts has made plans to fire close to 100 more employees and to shut down internal development after it has shipped off Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. A source says that the company will be adding to the 75-100 employees that were fired last week and will return to outsourcing many of their projects to other studios.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the first internally developed title since they released the Republic Commando in 2005. They were going to use it to mark the return to producing games within their own home – but that plan seemed to have backfired.

EA has put a stop to all production for the PS3 version of Red Alert 3. They will be focusing all of their attention on the PC and Xbox 360 versions to make sure that they are released on schedule.

 “We can confirm that the development of Red Alert 3 for PS3 has been put on hold. EALA is focusing resources on development for PC and Xbox 360 which will ship simultaneously this autumn,” said EA PR manager Jonathan Goddard.

A game based on the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series will be coming out on the Nintendo DS and Wii. ‘Rebel Scum’ – a Star Wars fan site – released the information and stated that the ad is in the manual for the up and coming Lego Indiana Jones game.

The game is said to be released this fall. The animated series is a storyline that is between Episodes I and II. A theatrical trailer will be released for the game on August 15th.

Michael Hollick is the voice of the immigrant star – Niko Bellic – in Rockstar’s newest game Grand Theft Auto IV. In an interview with the Times Hollick stated that he made $100,000 for the 15 months that he worked on the game recording his role. The game itself has made over $600 million in only two weeks – but Hollick won’t see any of that money.

“It’s tough, when you see Grand Theft Auto IV out there as the biggest thing going right now, when they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don’t see any of it,” Hollick told the Times. “I don’t blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games.”

Nintendo revealed a few new titles that are going to be released for the service in Japan. These new titles include Star Soldier R, Doctor Mario, and Pokemon Farm.

While the initial announcement seemed more geared towards low-budget, independent developers, major publishers are interested as well. Square Enix will reportedly upload the entire Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles game to the service.

The new Wii titles will be shipped out for the U.S. sometime in 2008.