Despite his fondness for authentic, handmade pirate headwear, Peter Moore was talking about video game pirates at the Leipzig Games Convention, telling Eurogamer that he doesn't think the rapscallions should be made to walk the plank. After all, that didn't work when the record industry tried to sue people for illegally downloading music, Moore reminds us.

Granted, this doesn't mean he wants people to run out and torrent the latest EA title but "there are better solutions than chasing people for money," Moore says. "I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."

So will Moore change his tune and start keelhauling PC pirates? Probably not, since he's "not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer." Avast, me buckos! Might we expect a subscription-based Madden on PC then?

People really love their used games. GameStop's Q2 results show the company repeated its last quarter and had sales of $1.8 billion again, reports GameDaily. CEO R. Richard Fontaine says the company produced record revenues in each of the regions it operates in and continues to kill puppies make obscene amounts of money compared to its competition.

GameStop stated that GTA IV, MGS4, Wii Fit, NCAA Football 09 and Battlefield: Bad Company were its best sellers during the quarter ending August 2. The company has high expectations for the rest of the year and raised its full year guidance. The money train ain't slowing down this year.

Oh, those sly PC hardware manufacturers. As if it wasn't bad enough that they keep building better, more powerful rigs every six seconds, id Software's Todd Hollenshead believes they also secretly benefit from software piracy. No stranger to the public flogging of the illicit C:\ scourge, the CEO candidly told GamesIndustry.biz that manufacturers typically "line up on the wrong side of the argument."

"They have lots of reasons as to why they do that," he said, "but I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content - even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs - is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games." Hollenshead believes that this is what motivates manufacturers to stick up for the law-abiding minority when it comes to issues like peer-to-peer sharing.

"I think that if you went in and could see what's going on in their minds, though they may never say that stuff and I'm not saying there's some conspiracy or something like that - but I think the thing is they realise that trading content, copyrighted or not, is an expected benefit of owning a computer." Heck, the only reason we got one was to steal quotes from Tom Bramwell's interviews.

NPD, Chart-Track and Enterbrain have announced the joint monthly Top Global Markets Report, an account integrating the point-of-sale data from the US, UK and Japan. We don't know what information will be released publicly from the report on a monthly basis yet, but for the clients of these groups it will provide global data from the leading markets.

After the break we've placed a small taste of what the report has to offer, with a chart showing the top five selling games year-to-date across the tracked countries. We're also following up with NPD regarding what impact this new report will have on the standard monthly US report and what information from the global report will be made public. We'll update as soon as we hear back.

Update: A NPD representative tells us: "The monthly report from NPD US will still be a standard deliverable. We're not sure if a regular media deliverable based on this new tracking product is something we're going to be providing. It all depends on partner reactions, client acceptance and things like that." Translation: Monthly NPD data goes on as normal, a public version of the combined global data is still up in the air.

Another lawsuit has been filed against Nintendo for alleged patent infringement in the Wii remote, according to Bloomberg. Maryland-based Hillcrest Labs filed the suit in Greenbelt, Maryland, and has also filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission seeking to block imports of the Wii console and remote. Hillcrest's technology, dubbed Freespace, is reportedly used by Logitech International and Universal Electronics.

There have been numerous lawsuits and patent claims on Nintendo's Wii and DS interface technology. We're wondering if any of these companies who are suing Nintendo for patent infringement will ever sue each other for the same violations. We won't be seeing the lawsuit go to court anytime soon, however, as it's been put on hold while the ITC investigates. According to Bloomberg, that could take about 15 months.

Hands on your buzzers. What two companies partnered during this year's Leipzig Games Convention to bring "key" PlayStation franchises to mobile carriers in the European market? Quickly now. 3 ... 2 ...1... buzzcrak! The correct answer, had you answered on time, would have been Sony and UK mobile games publisher Player X, though we can forgive your tardiness given that the duo's idea of a pivotal franchise is likely to differ from what you have in mind.

No, rather than whipping Kratos' Blades of Chaos with the number 4 key on your handset, or tapping a put into the cup with the 9 in a miniaturized version of Hot Shots Golf, the companies have announced plans to bring virtual quiz show Buzz! and Reflection's original PlayStation racer Destruction Derby to mobile phones this fall and in early 2009, respectively. True, neither of these inspire us to reach for our phones just yet. However, Sony adds that the deal, a first for Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios with an outsider, will continue to bring PlayStation luminaries to mobile phones in Europe for the next three years. Thanks for playing.

It appears that two of the Xbox 360 SKUs will receive a $50 price drop by the week of Sept. 7, making the 60GB model $299 and the Elite $399 -- we've yet to hear any change on the $279 Arcade meanwhile, the Arcade will drop $80 to $199. A few of our retail contacts, some of whom have given us good intel in the past and who all work for separate corporations, have sent us identical information regarding a price drop. Evidence of the Elite and Arcade price cut can be found in the gallery below.

Update: Oh mercy, it's been a long day. The Arcade is marked as $199 in the flyer as well (under the TV, to the left). Thanks, Strike Man.

[Thanks Patrick, Master X, and everyone else who helped.]

The Federal Trade Commission has stated that it will not oppose EA's pursuit of Take-Two Interactive. Following an investigation, the government agency concluded that no antitrust issue will occur, but left the door open to "take further action as the public interest may require."

This means all systems are go for EA and Take-Two to come to some sort of amicable agreement over how to bring the companies together. If that doesn't work, EA will probably just go back to throwing money on the table until Take-Two is ready admit she can't deny the sugar.

Source - Closing Letter to one EA attorney
Source - Closing Letter to one Take-Two attorney

[Via GamePolitics]

Go ahead, rub your eyes and read the headline again. The Japanese are so gaga over Tales of Vesperia that they've gone and bought up every last Xbox 360, Engadget Japanese's Ittousai reports to Joystiq. Sold out!

Granted, Microsoft isn't exactly pumping units into Japan, but even this sudden surge in demand has knocked the console manufacturer square off its feet. A statement on the Japanese Xbox.com (clumsy translation) explains that new shipments of the standard model won't arrive at retail until September, followed by shipments of the Elite and Arcade SKUs sometime later. But by then, pigs may have landed and Hell could be all thawed out.

[Via Engadget Japanese; Thanks Ittousai!]

Tecmo president Yoshimi Yasuda pulled a Mr. Hudsucker (minus the dying) and has left the company citing personal reasons. GI.biz reports his sword will be taken up by chairman of the board Yahuharu Kakihara as of Sept. 1.

Yasuda's personal reasons for leaving Tecmo might have something to do with the lawsuit brought by Ninja Gaiden's leather aficionado developer, Tomonobu Itagaki. Tecmo took a hit to its stock following Itagaki's departure (and subsequent fallout), so this changing of the guard might be a sign that the company is ready to clean up the mess and move on.

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.