With EA going after Take-Two, and the recent merger between Vivendi and Activision, Japanese developer Square Enix revealed it is considering taking stakes in game developers to combat rising competition from established game publishers and other entertainment companies. To fund any investment it has an additional 290 million shares, worth $9.20 billion, at its disposal. Square Enix will announce its financial results shortly, which analysts expect to exceed expectations by as much as 50%.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian will expand beyond the film and feature 20 playable characters, each with different weapons and abilities, as well as a two-player offline/online "drop-in/drop out" gameplay mode.

You are a fugitive and you’re being ruthlessly hunted by the very government you once served. The key to your survival is to improvise, adapt and overcome, your environment becomes your weapon. It has been very quiet surrounding the latest installment of the Splinter Cell franchise, and according to the Xbox World 360 print magazine that is because Ubisoft has sent the title back to the drawing board, forcing a delay until as late as early 2010. More details expected at the UbiDays end of this month.

Gumboy Tournament is an arcade game that combines single player, multiplayer and team-match – all in one. Once again the player can explore many fantasy levels, great graphics, a lot of environment interaction and light and particle effects.

Packard Bell's ipowergames 2008 are taking place in eight European countries this year : Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United-Kingdom and Switzerland. Two multiplayer video games with strong and supportive communities will be played during the ipowergames 2008, Infinity Wards' team-action FPS Call of Duty 4, and Simbin's racing sim Race 07.

The demise of the SEGA Rally series doesn't mean the end of racing games for SEGA, there is still the anime/drifting inspired Initial D franchise, under development for the PS3 as Initial D: Extreme Stage, although currently only scheduled for release in Japan.

Another day, another batch of game trailers was released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for:

• Euro Truck Simulator - Trailer
• Baja [ALL] - Developer Diary #2
• Project Origin [ALL] - Blood Comparison Trailer
• TrackMania United Forever - Trailer
• 
  We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...

Gothic 4 is set 10 years after the last installment and situated on multiple southern islands, each with unique flora & fauna according to various climate zones. The game will feature a day & night cycle, changing weather, and depending on the time of day altering spell casting abilities. Oddly enough 'market research' revealed that Europeans prefer muted and gritty colors, while Americans prefer bright and beautiful, so JoWood plans to release it with two different color palettes. Go figure!

Castle Crashers is a four-player game for the Xbox Live Arcade, where players are knights on a quest to regain a stolen idol. Originally scheduled for release last year, when Microsoft decided to increase the Xbox Live Arcade allowed file size, The Behemoth decided to delay the game in order to add even more content.

With only two months to go until 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit kickoff, the ESA said with early RSVPs they were going to meet their attendance goal of 4,000 individuals, and released the full roster of exhibitors currently scheduled to participate.