It appears that the 80GB PS3 MGS4 bundle has finally been done in by the La-li-lu-le-lo. Our trusted Wal-Mart operative -- who has yet to fail us on a mission -- informs us the status of the bundle within the megacorp's computer is now "deleted." S/he tells us this means that there are no plans to receive any more shipments. We've contacted Sony for official word regarding any plans to restock the model.

We always knew the $499 bundle was a limited edition, so this isn't exactly a "!". What we are wondering: Will the model in the bundle be repackaged with a new game? Is this the end of PS3s with any type of PS2 backwards compatibility?

Speaking at the outset of this year's Leipzig Games Convention, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli revealed that the developer's graphical tour de force, Crysis, cost an estimated $22 million to create. Yerli has previously lamented the effect piracy has had on the title, but reiterated that it's still recouped the development costs, saying, "If it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be able to stand here."

Best known for their stunning visuals, Crytek's game engines are also guilty of bringing even the mightiest of gaming PCs to their knees. While the upcoming, heavily-optimized Crysis: Warhead promises a significant performance increase even on mid-range systems, Crytek is already cooking up its next GPU melter, which Yerli says should be ready by 2012. That's when he anticipates GPU tech making the next major leap in its evolution; until then, he expects fellow developers to focus more on what they already have to work with, by means of stylized graphics and hardware accelerated physics.

Source – Crysis cost 22 million to make, IGN
Source – Crytek: New engine in 2012, IGN

For better or worse, Silicon Knights has finally kicked Too Human out of the nest, seemingly not too concerned about whether it will actually fly with most gamers. In fact, while the developer still intends to finish off the planned trilogy, it's not going to be doing so anytime soon.

Speaking with CVG, SK boss Denis Dyack confirmed that his studio's next game is going to be "Like nothing else we've ever made before." The dev has been working on a new title for Sega, which not too long ago was allegedly leaked in video form under the title The Crucible. Sega was quick to deny any connection between SK and a game with that name – which would be good for Dyack, since it was clearly a third-person action/horror game. You know, totally unlike Eternal Darkness.

"We've been lucky enough to make Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness, Too Human ... and if you look at all of those they're all really different," Dyack said of SK's plans for its new IP. "We want to continue to do that, to keep fresh. That's really what's important, and making sure that we continue to make new IPs but also continue to innovate in the genres that we try to... create content in." We think it's safe to assume that, whatever this totally fresh new project is, it won't be using the Unreal Engine.

Clarifying its stance on rhythm game compatibility issues, Microsoft's Gamerscore Blog announced today that all the instruments for Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Revolution will be "cross-compatible" on Xbox 360.

Sony announced yesterday that PlayStation 3 would feature full cross-compatibility among the three games as well. Guess that leaves only Nintendo to make it official.

Update: The Instrument Compatibility Matrix has been updated
[Thanks, Mike]

According to DFC intelligence figures cited by Dave Perry, Sony has lost more money on the PlayStation 3 hardware than it made on the PlayStation 2 during its five most popular years. In pure numbers speak it's lost $3 billion on the PS3, which is about equivalent to everything it made selling PS2s during its peak years. This story would actually have a lot more impact if Carl Sagan was around to say "beelyuns."

Perry, best known for his stint at Shiny Entertainment, was speaking at the really long-named Games Convention Developers Conference, which appears to be both a Convention and a Conference, and was just using the figures to underscore how much Sony was spending on hardware development. However, the 1UP article doesn't mention until near the end that the original PS2 lost money in its first year, and that Sony (and the other console makers) does this so it can make bank on the software/games that people need to fuel their systems.

In all fairness, the article goes on to explain that Microsoft lost $4 billion on the original Xbox, and has had to spend over $1 billion replacing faulty hardware in the 360 and extending the warranty for original purchasers. So, we tend to think $5 billion trumps $3 billion. The real winner in this struggle? Nintendo. It has been churning a profit on that little Wii since it hopped out of the gate. Rassin' frassin' wand-wagglin' profiteers.

FIFA 09 cover athlete Maurice Edu has been traded to another team, meaning EA Sports will, yet again, have to change the box art on one of its games. Edu, who would have been featured on the cover wearing his Toronto FC jersey, will now wear the uniform of the US Men's National Team -- not Scotland's Glasgow Rangers, which is the team he'll actually play on. EA Sports tells IGN that the cover of the game will ship with the correct art -- no "print out" version necessary.

This would be the second time in a month that EA Sports had to dump extra resources into changing a cover due to an athlete changing teams. Earlier this month the publisher had to fix the art for perennial high-profile American football title Madden 09 when cheesehead favorite Brett Favre unretired and left for New York New Jersey.

MTV Multiplayer has been the host for a lively discussion of box art credits recently (as has the delightful David Jaffe), and a new post may add fuel to both sides' fires. The site has created some mock-ups of what your favorite game boxes may look like if the dev team got credit on the cover.

The immediate reaction as we perused boxes like God of War and Halo 3 was one of revulsion, but the more we think about it, it might be kind of cool to see boxes used to portray games as a team effort rather than just touting the IP within. What do you think?

The crack refinement corporation disguising itself as a game company -- also known as PopCap Games -- has announced that the Bejeweled franchise has sold over 25 million units across all platforms. The definition of "all platforms" would consist of online, mobile, retail, "in-flight" and other channels.

PopCap also noted that the Bejeweled series has been downloaded 350 million times from the interwebs and makes up one third of the company's billion-plus downloads. The game has earned over $300 million in revenue through sales and "tens of millions" in online advertising. Jason Kapalka, co-founder of PopCap, says online distributors wanted no part of the game when it released eight years ago -- he vividly remembers buyers telling him, "It's not even a game."

Patrick Aiello, the producer for the upcoming film Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (starring Kristin "Lana Lang" Kreuk!), believes Street Fighter IV will launch alongside the film. Aiello tells GameDaily that the "film and game release dates will coincide." According to IMDB, the Street Fighter movie currently has a release date of February 27, 2009.

Although hardcore Street Fighter fans may be upset that the game isn't coming out at the end of this year as originally announced, there's always the option of playing it in arcades at diverse locations on this little planet.

It's the hottest thing for Hollywood fat cats to do: In-between making things explode and vacationing, they'll attach their name to a video game so, as long as the young people of the universe are spending more and more time away from the movieplex, at least they're spending time with your (brand) name. Peter Jackson; Steven Spielberg; John Woo; Jerry Bruckheimer; Vin Diesel – you get the idea.

Variety is reporting that Tony "Top Gun" Scott was similarly attached to Midway's recently canceled – albeit never announced – Austin project, Career Criminal. Of course, Midway won't confirm the information since, well, it never announced that the game existed in the first place, remember? The silver lining: Scott's free to work on our long-dreamed-of video game adaptation of The Last Boy Scout. Think about it: Bruce Willis' likeness and voice, that's the stuff hits are made of.

Flagship Studios' founder Bill Roper recently spoke with 1Up about how the Hellgate London developer ended up becoming another cautionary tale for young developers out there. Roper explains that the revenue model on Hellgate was broken and much of the money coming in went into keeping the game online, instead of expanding content like it should have.

Roper also admits the quality of the title wasn't great. He blames the PC market for being "lousy last year" and concedes Flagship didn't have unlimited money to hold on to Hellgate any longer. He also confesses that the company overreached trying to make "an MMO and an RPG and a shooter," attempting to please everyone and (obviously) satisfying very few at the end. Roper explains the Flagship Studios disaster in 1Up's interview in detail -- definitely worth a read for any aspiring studio head.

We couldn't be more excited about this news, so brace yourself: Jellyvision, creators of the You Don't Know Jack series, are coming back to the games business. As new head of Jellyvision Games Mike Bilder said in a recent release, the company's mission is now to "build huge new brands that run on every platform that makes sense -- the three consoles, PC, mobile, handheld, coin-op, Vegas. And, of course, we're going to start by truly reincarnating You Don't Know Jack."

We're giddy at the thought of games that, as company CEO Harry Gottlieb said, "combine the social dynamics created by great board games, with the thrill and story arc of great television game shows." But ... and we almost hate to say it out loud ... could this also mean that an English Seaman 2 might be just a little more plausible?

(P.S. If you want to warm up on some Jack right now, you totally can.)

IBISWorld, publisher of "business intelligence research," released a report today that foresees the video game industry growing 10% annually and hitting a high of $63.2 billion in global revenue by 2013. The report notes the industry currently brings in about $40 billion globally, "with a loyal client base regularly topped up by a fresh generation of users with older players failing to desert the sector at the age originally expected." Age originally expected? Are people expected to abandon movies, music or books?

Anyway, the report believes gaming parents are "ripe for the picking." It notes that 93% of gamer parents play with their children and, with half the games sold in 2006 being E-rated, that mom and dad are a viable market. Not to rain on the revelation parade, but didn't Nintendo already figure that one out?

GameDaily reports Joshua Larson, former VP of Games at CNET Networks and the man often blamed for GameSpot's Gerstmann-gate scandal, has been named VP of Business Development at in-game ad agency Double Fusion. Please let the deliciousness of that flow over you for a brief moment.

Double Fusion's President and CEO announced Larson's hiring along with several others, saying that the new folks share a love of games and a "history of strong results and success in their prior roles." Larson's previous role was to manage business strategy and product direction at GameSpot.com. He's been dubbed the point man in the firing of Jeff Gerstmann and the exodus which followed, leaving GameSpot an editorially tarnished brand. If "success" is determined through money and not reputation, then it's probably being used to describe Larson's small roll in CNET's purchase by CBS for $1.8 billion earlier this year.

We've already witnessed the news that made us go, "Wha?" -- Atari actually turned a profit this past financial quarter, even though it was just a measly $3.5 million smackers. GameDaily went a little more in-depth in their interview with brand-spanking new Atari CEO Jim Wilson to find out what the company's plan is for staying profitable and earning bigger margins, and we'll sum it up for you here: "We really, really, really hope Alone In The Dark continues to do well," and "Location, location, location!" Yup, it's trying like mad to establish a strong footing in the North American market.

The trouble with that scenario is that the most exciting Atari title we were shown at E3 was What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver for the DS. Atari is relying heavily on N+ and Backyard Sports to make a splash... but will it be enough to keep its head out of the water? The publisher needs a huge smash that can potentially turn into a franchise to keep things rolling, or else release dozens of marginally successful titles for the DS and the Wii to make things stick.

Either way, the interview is an interesting read. While we don't want to see Atari fade into obscurity and bankruptcy again, the company has a hard row to hoe.