While the big fellas struggle to figure out how to make digitally distributed content profitable, smaller dev houses like RedLynx are handily succeeding. The Trials HD developer claims to have moved 1.5 million digital units worldwide (of all of its games) in 2009, though, as RedLynx itself points out, "most RedLynx games have also free promotional web versions available, bringing the company's key titles to an even wider audience."

Aside from putting out the Summer of Arcade XBLA release Trials HD last year, the Finnish company also made Monster Trucks Nitro on PC and a couple of iPhone games, assuredly assisting that 1.5 million statistic. CEO Tero Virtala looks forward to the coming year, saying things look "even better," and adding that RedLynx is "bringing 8-10 new games to market." We really, really hope the company brings more copies than that if it wants to move past 2009's sales. Come on, guys -- simple math!

With a previous appearance in Rock Band as DLC, it's no surprise that known face melters Lamb of God are apparently creating an original song for the upcoming Iron Man 2 game, now scheduled for release on May 4 (just three days before the film's release).

"The music of Lamb of God definitely evokes the intensity of Iron Man action," explains Sean Ratcliffe, veep of marketing for Sega. Meanwhile, Lamb of God's drummer Chris Adler says that some of the band's members are "real game and comic fans," making them all the more excited "to play the game and hear our music as Iron Man kicks a**." Us, on the other hand? We're going to take full advantage of the soundtrack swap function and rock out to some even edgier P.O.D. jams upon the game's release. It just really makes us feel so alive, ya know?

Among the handful of Ubiscoops about 2010's releases coming out of today's investor call, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot brought up the tactical Tom Clancy franchise Ghost Recon. Beyond the already revealed platforms for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Guillemot detailed the franchise's further ubiquity, saying the next Ghost Recon game will "be on all platforms: 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, [and] DS." He noted that the Wii version of Ghost Recon will "be done by a different team" with a "different approach ... created for that Wii population." Presumably, the game will involve standing on the balance board to approximate a sniper's breathing -- and it'll also be made up entirely of mini-games. Whoa, whoa -- calm down there killer. We're just joshin' ya!

He also confirmed something we've been mentioning for months now: "There will be more competition in the first eight months than in the last four." Get your calculators and spreadsheets out, folks -- early 2010 is gonna be a bruiser like we've never seen before (on our bank accounts, that is).

There's no doubt about it -- Q-Games head Dylan Cuthbert is very much interested in making more content for the latest in the PixelJunk series of games, PixelJunk Shooter. When he spoke recently to G4TV, Cuthbert said, "for PixelJunk Shooter we still have a ton of ideas on the drawing board and the engine has lots of potential we want to use before moving onto our next idea." He also teased the possibility of a full-on sequel, front-loading his last statement with, "normally sequels are just a re-hashing of the ideas in the original."

Given the PixelJunk's all-over-the-place history with DLC and re-releases and Encore versions, we poked Cuthbert for clarification. When we asked which of the aforementioned options we might see for PixelJunk Shooter, Cuthbert told us: "It hasn't been decided yet, as it depends on how much content we end up making. Whatever we end up making, though, it will be even better than the first installment with loads of new stuff. (Obviously I know what some of that stuff is, but I can't say -- all I can say is that fans will be extremely pleased.)" So, there you have it, folks! We're gonna see ... umm ... something else from Shooter.

Sure, $679 million may sound like a lot of money (it sure does to us!), but when you're a company CEO reporting that number to investors and it's 2.7 percent lower than last year's equivalent time period ($697 million), it's not quite as impressive. And that's just what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had to do earlier today when the company reported its fiscal Q3 (October 1 through December 31) sales for 2009. Given the publisher's French HQ, we're not privy to the period's revenue until later this year.

In discussing plans for the upcoming year, the company cited "at least seven franchise titles" being launched this year, calling out this morning's (finally) officially-announced Ghost Recon: Future Soldier among others, leaving one (presumably unannounced) title unmentioned. The publisher then indicates "at least two new brands (R.U.S.E. has already been announced)" will see the light of day in 2010 -- leaving one unannounced new brand. Getting murkier yet, it appears "at least 5 online games" will be heading to the information superhighway, though only three are mentioned (yep, you guessed it -- that means two have yet to be revealed). With GDC, PAX East, and E3 not too far off (already?!), there's still plenty of 2010 left for announcements.

Remember back in late January when the world was all abuzz with iPad news and, more specifically, we named a handful of game genres we'd like to see on the upcoming tablet? If our spidey sense is functioning correctly, the recent announce of "Gender Wars: The Battle" -- a "turn-based tactic game" (read: RTS) -- seems to indicate Last Flight devs Bloober Team are avid Joystiq readers (obviously BT got its ideas from our post -- don't be so foolish!).

The game (as described by lead designer Peter Bielatowicz) is intended to be "easy to pick up and play" with what sounds like paired down tactical commands for "casual players." Producer Piotr Babieno explains the iPad development focus by saying, "We believe that tactic games will be one of [the] best and most successful games on [the] iPad platform." He also notes that the game will be released at a "very low price" to entice players to get hooked on the "series" and prepare them for future "Gender Wars" titles. And no, neither Beilatowicz or Babieno explain why it's called Gender Wars, but we'll hopefully find out when the game releases this March alongside Apple's new device.

It may seem at this point that we're kicking an already downed and plenty insulted victim here, but we couldn't help but note the shockingly low price of a Tony Hawk: Ride bundle -- complete with board, unopened -- discovered by Gamertell at an Arlington Heights, Il. Goodwill store. Two Wii versions of the game were on sale for just $74.99 (down from $119.99 MSRP) -- a Goodwill employee said the game's presence could be explained by donations from local retailers, listing Kohls, Sears, Borders, and Target as potential donators. Alright, alright, we'll admit it -- the price drop isn't that steep, but a near $50 difference on a barely four-month-old game sounds pretty decent to us.

Presumably, one of the aforementioned retailers was more interested in the shelf space (and the tax write-off) than waiting for the game's fairly cool sales to heat up. Either way, if you're looking to get your ... ahem ... feet on the game, maybe your local Goodwill could offer a better deal than the other brick-and-mortars, eh?

PopCap today announced that the iPhone port of Plants vs. Zombies is heading to Apple's handheld on February 15, seemingly aiming for the exact day that it had originally approximated for a delayed release. What's more, the publisher has also released the first trailer for the game (seen above), showing off the port's pared down touch-based controls and getting us even more (trepidatiously) pumped for the impending release. Sure, some other games are releasing this month or whatever, but do those games grab us by the dopamine receptor and refuse to let go? Yeah, didn't think so.

In a time-honored Peter Moore tradition, the EA Sports head recently opened up for an interview on a variety of subjects in the game industry. This time, the oft fake-tattooed gentleman exposited on the future of OnLive and his company's investment in the upcoming PlayStation Motion Controller (supposedly named "Arc"). "I don't know about OnLive," Moore told CVG, responding to the question of whether or not the cloud gaming service will become the "iTunes of gaming." He does, however, see opportunity in burgeoning distribution and pricing methods. "If a consumer's got five bucks to spend on some cool DLC; if they love Tiger Woods but want to be able to play online and invest $10 or $15 over a period of time ... those are the things we need to look at."

As far as his interest in the "Arc" goes, he says that he's seen the hardware in action and thinks it'll be a "great complement to what's out there." He directly points out its distinction from the Wii's motion controller and reconfirms EA Sports' development of games with Sony motion in mind -- he even names tennis and golf as prime contenders as each sport lends to an "authentic sports motion" (at least with what he's seen on the Wii). Frankly, we're just about as excited as could be to finally show off our lacking sports skills as games based on sports creep closer to reality.

Right off the bat, you should know this: for EA, losing $82 million in the third quarter of a fiscal year is an enormous improvement. Compared to the same period last year ("Q3" for EA is October 1 – December 31), the company lost 559 million fewer actual physical dollars. Yes, really. Now that we've told you that, we should also note that the publisher pulled in 24.85 percent less revenue year over year (down to $1.243 billion in Q3 2010 from $1.654 billion in Q3 2009). That said, Playfish had "two of the top ten Facebook games" for the quarter! Good thing EA spent $300 million on those folks, eh?

Okay, okay, real talk: the company also points out that it was the "#1 packaged goods publisher in North America and Europe" for its entire fiscal year. CEO John Riccitiello even notes that Mass Effect 2 is "the first blockbuster of 2010." And hey, with 2 million units already shipped, we tend to agree.

Just before today's sure to be thrilling investor's call, EA released a fact sheet to the folks gearing up for the hour-plus finance-a-thon -- a fact sheet that revealed two "TBA" EA Sports Active games set for release on consoles in the third quarter of the company's fiscal 2011 (October 1 through December 31, 2010, in human being time).

We've yet to hear anything on a new EA Sports Active title for the Wii, though we did hear some rumblings at E3 last year that the franchise would be headed to Sony and Microsoft's respective motion-based outings. And considering the unannounced titles are set for release in line with the announced release of Microsoft's Project Natal, and perhaps just after the PlayStation Motion Controller, there's a good chance that these pending EA Sports Active releases are for those platforms -- maybe one for Natal and one PlayStation; or one for Natal and Playstation and one for Wii.

The plasma party may be almost over for those of you still gripping tight to your Xbox 1 and copy of Halo 2, playing game after desperate game before Microsoft shuts the online servers, but Bungie is looking for fans to join staff members in a last hurrah on April 14. Community manager Brian "Sketch" Jarrard proclaims on Bungie.net that, "We're all saddened at the realization that an era is coming to an end," before asking fans to "mark your calendars now - on April 14th let's all rally to go online for one last hoorah." And sure, he might not explicitly mention the emptying of various malt beverages from 40 ounce glass bottles, but that's why we read between the lines. It's right there, people!

Considering the Xbox 360 received the lion's share of Modern Warfare 2 purchases, it comes as a bit of a shock to us that the already released on PS3 and PC "care package patch" is just now being submitted to Microsoft for certification. That said, developer Infinity Ward's community man Robert Bowling tweeted as much to Game Informer's Andrew Reiner approximately 24 hours ago when Reiner asked about a possible release for the much anticipated fixes.

As Bowling has pointed out before (and details in this forum post on the subject), the patch is set to remedy the following (you might need a pillow for all of this pure, unbridled excitement:

• Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized.
• Fix for "infinite care package" exploit.
• Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry.
• Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s.
• Fixes to prevent various XP hacks.

And no, there's no date given for when it's coming out. So stop asking. (Seriously.)
[Via Game Informer]

The original Bad Company spinoff in the Battlefield series kept the franchise's setting firmly in modern times, but if the Bad Company 2 ESRB description is true, you'll be seeing a return to WWII in the sequel. At the very least, the game's opening will bring players back to the Pacific side of the war, with the ESRB description saying, "In single-player mode, players conduct missions on an unnamed Japanese island during World War II and then move into the modern day through jungles, deserts, and snowy terrain."

Just like we've discovered in our way too many hours with the game's multiplayer demo, the description details the inclusion of "melee attacks with a power drill" (yes, seriously) and the characters use of profanity "during cutscenes and in the heat of battle." And yes, we're just as excited by the former as you might imagine.
[Via BigDownload]

Hey, you remember EGM, right? The gaming mag that folded in January 2009 when 1UP/EGM was sold by Ziff-Davis Media to Hearst/UGO? And then the original publisher Steve Harris purchased it for a relaunch earlier this year, only to find out that the relaunch was pushed to April? We have to imagine that, by now, you're positively itching to put your money down on a subscription (if you haven't already subscribed to Kill Screen, of course). It would appear that your wish has been granted, as EGM has officially opened the door to its subscription portal, promising savings of 70 percent off the newsstand price.

For 32 issues and access to "EGMi: The Digital Magazine," US customers are looking at dropping $14.99, while 64 issues (as well as the aforementioned digital mag access) will cost $24.99 -- Canadian subscribers are looking at $34.99 and $54.99 for 32 and 64 issues, respectively, minus the digital version. Though we've yet to receive any real idea of the magazine's content, Harris has already signed on ex-EGMers Dan "Shoe" Hsu and Demian Linn, as well as the Co-Op folks, to fill those shoes (or "Hsu's," as it were). We'll certainly find out more this April when the first issue is scheduled to hit subscribers and newsstands.

Update: To be clear, the $14.99 and $24.99 subscription deals actually equal a half year or full year of physical magazines (one per month; six and 12, respectively), as detailed in the fine print. "Your subscription includes either six print issues and 26 premium digital issues of EGM[I]: The Digital Magazine for a total of 32 issues OR 12 print issues and 52 premium digital issues of EGM[I]: The Digital Magazine for a total of 64 issues." Confusing enough for you?