Rumours are rife to say the least that Microsoft and Electronics Arts are seperately looking at Sega as a possible purchase in the near future following an article in the Asian Wall Street Journal.

Apparently MS have approached a least one investment banker about a possible Sega acquisition and EA have allegedly made noises at Japanese game makers about a joint buyout.

Updated throughout the day.

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Score one point to the good guys today in the fight against software piracy and copywrite infringment.
The pro-piracy website ISO News has had its domain name siezed by the U.S. Government as part of a plea bargaining agreement.
Visitors to the site are now presented with a U.S. Department of Justice Seal and a lengthy statement that starts:

"David Rocci, a.k.a 'krazy8' pled guilty in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on December 19, 2002, to conspiring with others to violate federal copyright laws by illegally importing, marketing, and selling modification, or "mod," chips. Mod chips illegally circumvent built-in security protections and allow individuals to play pirated games on game consoles, such as the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony Playstation2. Rocci and his co-conspirators used www.iSONEWS.com as the exclusive outlet to market and sell their mod chips to individuals in the illegal warez scene. As a result, the iSONEWS website is now the property of the United States government. Individuals involved in this conduct face up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $500,000 for each count charged. To learn more about United States v. Rocci, click here."

Infogrames announced today that the man of steel [pause for dramatic effect], Superman, is set to double whammy the Nintendo stable.

The cel shaded Superman: Shadow of Apokolips is to be ported from its current PS2 incarnation onto the Gamecube (with some extra features) and the Gameboy advanced is set to receive an isometric prequel to the Gamecube title in the shape of Superman: Countdown to Apokolips.

For more details see the games GC website here and the GBA webby here.

Updated throughout the day.

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EA have announced via the team comments section that their flagship online driving game Motor City Online is being wrapped up.

The reason for the closedown is dwindling subscriber numbers and dwindling sales of the game. The servers will be shut down at midnight on 29/8/2003 (GMT). You can read the full details at the above URL.

Updated throughout the day.

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A Beta Patch for Starfleet Command III has been released. This patch, unsupported by either Taldren or Activision, should hopefully address most issues with the game.

Given a recent post to the SFC3 boards (now sadly removed) detailing the state of patching, how Taldren want to release a patchm how Activision don;t want to test any patch fixes made, which is delaying the official patch, and Activision's insisitence on a single patch for any game (part of their 'customer service' ethos - patch the game once and forget about it forever), it seems an agreement has been reached and the beta patch has been released.

You can grab the US patch from the above link, or the UK patch from here, or read the fix list (rather a long one considering it's a beta patch) here.

Microids have released patch number 3 for their pre-rendered adventure game Syberia. You can grab it from the official website.

After last week's announcement of the FilePlanet (subscription required) exclusive release of the Freelancer demo, Microsoft have, as promised, made the demo available for free download. The demo, at around 150Mb in size, has also been mirrored on 3D Gamers.

The trial version offers the chance to explore the entire Liberty System, giving access to more than a dozen bases and five flyable ships. Experience the trading system, sample the open-ended nature of the game and immerse yourself in the intense combat of Freelancer today.

Updated throughout the day.

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Updated throughout the day.

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