Last week, Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios announced that the end of the Gears trilogy was to be delayed from the spring of next year to the holiday season. While this decision has been called a ‘business’ move, the question obviously appears; Why? Why would Gears of War 3 first be coming out during the spring instead of the fall as the previous titles in the franchise have arrived during the holiday season for the Xbox 360? Was there a major unannounced title that has been canceled? Unfortunately, there is no ‘real’ answer for the public at this time other than this short quote from a Microsoft spokesman: “Gears of War 3 promises to be the biggest entertainment launch of 2011. The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the Spring of 2011. However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until Fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season.”

The real question now is when will Gears 3 be released. Both Gears of War 1 and Gears of War 2 were released on November 7th of their respective release years. The likely answer is that it will release November 7th, 2010. After Gears 3, it seemed like the series will be ending but this isn’t true. In February 2009, Greg Miller of IGN caught a quote from Gears writer Joshua Ortega talking about a prequel to Emergence Day. ”You will not be disappointed in the next ten years. It’s a ten-year plan. Gears is long-term. The lancer is the new lightsaber.” Let’s just hope that Gears doesn’t turn into the next ‘Star Wars video game franchise’. Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi, Gears style? No thank you!

Iwata

(IGN) Released in 1983, the Nintendo Entertainment System was the king of all-consoles with sales. Today, history has been made and the NES has been knocked down to number two by one of its own: the Nintendo Wii. Though the system has the weakest software sales for a Nintendo console, the Wii itself has sold more than any other console ever. Iwata simply said in words that don’t really seem to be put together as I would say them:

It has replaced NES to become the best-selling Nintendo home videogame console of all time.

While it is the best-selling Nintendo console, it most definitely is not the best that the company has put out for entertainment value. Even the previous console, the Gamecube, had more games to offer to the American and Japanese markets. Now that Nintendo has hit this milestone, will it begin to focus on the software part of their business? They have a new Zelda and Metroid coming out within the next year and a half, but what about first-party series that haven’t been seen on a Nintendo console within the last few years? Castlevania?