261w ago - A state court has rejected a move to reinstate a lawsuit against makers of a video game played by a teenager who killed three of his family members in 2004.

The killings occurred on newsman Sam Donaldson's ranch in southern New Mexico.

The lawsuit had alleged that the video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" contributed to the killings because Cody Posey played the game "obsessively" and it trained him to act out the violence when he shot and killed his father, stepmother and stepsister in July 2004. He was 14 at the time of the killings.

Posey's father worked as foreman on Donaldson's ranch.

The lawsuit contended that Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and its subsidiary, Rockstar Games, and Sony Corporation of America should have foreseen that the game "would spawn such copycat violence." Sony produced the PlayStation 2 on which Posey played the video game.

The lawsuit was filed by Verlin Posey, brother of Paul Posey, the teen's father; and Pat and Leona Basham of Elephant Butte, parents of Tryone Posey, the teen's stepmother, and grandparents of Marilea Schmid, the teen's stepsister.

The teenager was convicted in 2006 and sentenced as a juvenile to remain in state custody until he is 21.

Jurors convicted Posey of first-degree...

262w ago - When a new issue of EGM drops, most of the time we tend to scroll right to the rumors and look for the newest bit of gossip. This issue in particular has some very interesting tid-bits.

First, EGM is reporting what we've been speculating for a very long time now: Bioshock is heading to the PlayStation 3 in September, and will come complete with all of the game's downloadable content, as well as improved visuals. This is a topic we've been talking about since before the game launched on the Xbox 360 last year.

We've long believed the game to exist somewhere within Irational Games (now 2K Austin), seeing as how development of Bioshock began for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as indicated by an early press release for the game. Now we have to wait and hope that EGM, or their sources are right about this.

Another notable rumor is that the Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle is going to be extremely limited, so if you don't secure yourself a pre-order sometime soon, you may very well be out of luck. So if you've yet to grab yourself a PlayStation 3, why not pre-order the year's best damn bundle before they're all gone?

And please don't pre-order these with the intention of re-selling them on eBay or something, if the bundles end up becoming a rarity and being worth something, it won't...

262w ago - Guinness World Records has announced that Grand Theft Auto IV has destroyed the competition by selling 3.6 million units and earning $310 million on its first day of release.

This feat has earned the game Guinness World Records for the Highest Grossing Video Game in 24 Hours and the Highest Revenue Generated by an Entertainment Product in 24 Hours.

GTA 4 has become the most profitable entertainment release of all-time, surpassing other video game, film and book releases.

The competition includes:

• Fastest-selling video game in 24 hours: Halo 3 at $170 million
• Fastest-selling theatrical movie in 24 hours: Spider-Man 3 at $60 million
• Fastest-selling book in 24 hours: Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows at $220 million

262w ago - According to a poster named intimidtr3 on the US PlayStation Boards, 2K games Tech Support have said that Sony are looking into producing a new firmware just for the earlier version of the PS3 to fix the GTA IV issues.

To quote: Hello Xxxxx,

There is an issue with the launch edition of the PS3 and this game, the game was checked over and passed as 100% compatible with the current version of the PS3, of course the earlier version has custom chips which mean that it is a very different animal from the current PS3 on sale.

Sony are aware of this difference and are looking into producing a new firmware just for the earlier version of the PS3.

Kind Regards,

2K games Tech Support

263w ago - Speaking in the latest edition of the Major Nelson podcast, perennial guest "e" has claimed that nearly half of all new Xbox 360's sold since GTA IV launched have also included a GTA IV sale.

"Roughly 40 percent of consoles going out the door had a copy of GTA going with them," he said.

It's unclear whether or not he was talking about the US or globally.

Microsoft release a ton of stats below, on the game last week, in which is claimed that 60 percent of all copies of the title sold in the US during it's first week on sale were for the 360 version.

According to a set of stats published on GamerScoreBlog, more than 2.3 million people played GTA IV on Xbox Live in the game's first week on sale. From the site:

- In the first week, more than 2.3 million people played Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox LIVE.
- GTA IV is now the number one played game on Xbox LIVE.
- Over the weekend, we saw the Xbox LIVE service reach 1 million concurrent users.
- Gamers have unlocked more than 12 million achievements worth over 100 million gamerscore points in GTA.
- Grand Theft Auto IV set a new record for time played, with the average gamer spending more than four hours playing the game on LIVE in the first week alone.

The...