Controversial games publisher Take-Two revealed that its Q3 2007 fiscal results has seen a 14% year-over-year drop in revenue, following first and second quarter losses with a $58.5 million net loss, though its far less than that of last year.

However, the company had good news for itself: BioShock is popular. The obvious fact was made more obvious as they revealed that the Xbox 360 demo was the faster to hit 1 million downloads on Xbox Live Marketplace and that the company has shipped 1.5 million units of the game worldwide. Though they wouldn’t provide exact sales numbers, the company believes that BioShock is “one of the fastest selling games in video game history.”

Take-Two plans to capitalize on the success of the game by hoping to make it into an ongoing franchise. Company chairman Strauss Zelnick stated that a “two-year schedule would be optimal” for the game, comparing it to that of GTA. “I’d expect we’d apply roughly the same strategy to BioShock because [it] is shaping up to be a very important franchise.”

In other news, the call revealed that PS3 action game L.A. Noire and PSP music game Beaterator have both been delayed. They are now expected to ship sometime in Take-Two fiscal year 2009, which begins in November 2008.

Nintendo has revealed that the $19.99 Wii Zapper (pictured here) will hit North America on November 19 and will include one game: Link’s Crossbow Training. As implied by the title, the game will have players enhance their proficiency in archery in a style similar to that of Twilight Princess.

More big bands have joined Rock Band’s kickass lineup. As reported by 1UP, songs from KISS, Soundgarden and Red Hot Chili Peppers will appear in the game as master tracks. The songs are “Detroit Rock City” by KISS, “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden and “Dani California” by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The abovementioned songs brings the game’s set list to 34 songs, ranging from the ’60s to now.

The very trusty and reliable mole over at Ars Technica has dropped details that Sony will drop the price of both its consoles - PS2 and PS3 - this Holiday season. Their informer is saying that the 80GB PS3 will be sold for $499, while a new 40GB model would be introduced at $399, with Spider-Man 3 on Blu-ray thrown in on both packages.

He also notes that the PS2 price will drop down to a more palatable $99, which has been expected for a long time now. Sony is expected to make these announcements at this week’s Tokyo Game Show. However, until the company makes such announcements, these are to be taken with a grain of salt.

A new website for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes game has awakened, offering news, screenshots and other media from the upcoming adventure title.

New ATI Catalyst drivers have been released, updating it to v7.9. Some new features in the update include a video converter and various performance improvements. The Linux version of the drivers are expected “soon”.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA has released beta v163.67 drivers for GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series cards. The drivers are for various editions of Windows XP, 2000, 2003 and Vista.

The promised Enemy Territory: Quake Wars demo was released last Monday. A full listing of torrents and mirrors can be found on the game’s community website.

Meanwhile, they note that ATI users will have to download and install this hotfix in order to run the demo; the next update will integrate the hotfix. Also, the id Software website offers addresses of a couple of public demo servers where it seems to be possible to get pwned by the ones who made the game.

[id] Public Demo Server - 192.246.40.231:27733 (Campaign)
[id] Xian’s Stopwatch Happy Funhouse - 192.246.40.230:27733 (Stopwatch)

New developer Faramix has announced that it has licensed Unreal Engine 3 and that it is now working on The End, a first-person shooter planned for release in 2009 for PC and Xbox 360. Though the announcement doesn’t offer much on the game, this job posting does. Here’s the scoop:

Miles Caden is haunted by his past. Once a proud military officer and happy family man, he now lives in a perpetual state of regret. Not long after the fateful accident that left him and his best friend dishonorably discharged, he lost his wife to a tragic car accident. Depressed and desolate, he slips into a life of alcoholism. Only his cousin, Chaz, took him in, as he was forsaken by the rest of his family. Nothing seemed to be going right, until one day Chaz offered Miles the chance to get back his dignity. A chance to pull his life together. But nothing comes for free, and Miles has to decide how much he’s willing to lose in order to regain his former self.

A placeholder site is now live, though it doesn’t offer anything at the moment.

Joystiq reports that Master Chief is the first videogame character to be immortalized by Madame Tussauds, the famous wax museum. The 7′2″ tall and 275 lbs statue is towering over weaklings in the Las Vegas branch of the museum. If you’re in the area, then be sure to check it out.

According to this MCV report, Microsoft is looking to offer content from the BBC on Xbox Live. The report cites The Times as quoting Ross Honey, senior director for media at Microsoft, that his company had spoken to BBC and several other European media companies. “The BBC is a great content provider,” he said, adding that they are working to make it happen.

BBC has a huge library of content in both SD and HD such as Planet Earth, Doctor Who and The IT Crowd, most of which will be popular with the Xbox Live crowd.

The South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft” has won an Emmy award for Outstanding Animated Program, as announced by the organizers of the prestigious award body. Other nominees in the category were Avatar, Robot Chicken, The Simpsons and SpongeBob Squarepants.

To celebrate the event, Comedy Central is offering a 15% discount on the Season 10 DVD that features this episode. Just enter “WARCRAFT” when purchasing the DVD to get the discount.

A preview of the episode can be found embedded after the jump.
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Expanding its reach as a games publisher, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that it is setting up office in Europe, catering to the region. Its operation includes direct distribution, sales and marketing of its internally-developed titles, through the US-based production arm WB Games, as well as third-party games.

The company is currently setting up offices in London and is recruiting sales and marketing executives for it, as well as in a number of other territories in the region including Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

WBIE will release its first titles later this Fall - Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal on PS2, Wii and Xbox 360; and Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck on the DS.

The past week saw the addition of three new games on the American Virtual Console service. Here’s the scoop:

NES Play Action Football (NES, 1-4 players, rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): “Ready! Hut hut hut…” Nintendo takes to the gridiron with the classic football powerhouse NES Play Action Football. Featuring a distinct overhead viewpoint that creates an almost 3-D field, the action is more simulation-based than many of the more arcade-based games of the time. Play through four 15-minute quarters (in accelerated time) and even substitute players when your first-stringers get tired. Want more options? Each of the eight available teams has multiple running/passing plays to choose from while on offense, as well as a wide selection of defensive schemes that can be run when you’re on the other side of the ball. And in addition to viewing two full teams on the screen at once without any slowdown, you’ll hear voice snippets at key points of the game. Line up, and see if you have what it takes to win the Power Bowl.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, rated E for Everyone - Comic Mischief, 800 Wii Points): Sonic and Tails are back for another adventure as they again battle the evil Dr. Eggman (aka Dr. Robotnik), who is desperately trying to collect all the Chaos Emeralds to rebuild his Death Egg. Our heroes must again find the Chaos Emeralds before Dr. Eggman does, but winning the race won’t be easy this time - a new adversary, Knuckles the Echidna, has arrived on the scene and will do whatever he can to keep Sonic and Tails from reaching their goal. Grab all the golden rings, find various bonus zones and overcome Knuckles and Dr. Eggman as you rocket through the third chapter in Sonic’s adventures.

Neutopia II (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, rated E for Everyone - Mild Fantasy Violence, 600 Wii Points): Experience improved graphics and controls in this exciting sequel to the action role-playing game Neutopia. Take on the role of the main hero’s son and watch as the story begins with the apparent revival of Dirth, the evil demon. Once again you’ll need to rely on your magic compass and the information you’ve gathered to find entrances to labyrinths and defeat the bosses in them. Make your way through the field, which can be tricky at times, to search for and find hidden information and items, or move blocks and destroy walls to uncover secret rooms. Like the original, this game has a save function, a finely tuned difficulty level and a fast-paced story, making it truly an RPG that everyone can enjoy.

Alten8 has announced that it has partnered with artist/dark fairytale creator Luc Bernard to create and publish Eternity’s Child on Wii and DS. A fully hand-drawn game, Eternity’s Child will feature animation done traditionally by hand frame by frame and will be an interactive fairtytale with two-player co-operative mode and more.

The story of Eternitys Child and the orphan ‘Angel’ - the planet on which Eternity’s Child is set on. The planet was once filled with many living creatures and vast forests, however due to the pollution created by the habitants the icebergs melted and the whole planet was flooded and most of the creatures became extinct. The creatures without wings that were left became jealous of the ones with wings (that allowed them to survive the flooding), so the land creatures started murdering all the winged creatures until there was none left. To repopulate the world, many mechanical robots were created so that the world would not seem as empty as before, but most of those creatures got out of control and started attacking and destroying what was left.

The DS version will be a 3D platform game and will not follow the same story as the Wii version. No release date was mentioned.

Following up on the original announcement, Australian developer Micro Forte sent out word that it is developing the upcoming online-FPS Kwari. Steve Wang - Head of Studios for Micro Forté commented, “We’re really excited by the recent announcement of Kwari and even more so to announce our involvement in bringing this unique game title to the table.”

Kwari is being built on BigWorld’s award-winning technology suite and is due for release later this year. The game will have players buying ammo to participate.