Strategy Informer  

Viacom is suing shareholders of music game developer Harmonix for $131M, because the publisher claims "earn-out payments" made in its 2006 acquisition of the studio, intended to keep Harmonix management locked in after the deal was done, were miscalculated.

THQ CEO Brian Farrell believes that the next generation of consoles won't require discs at all, he pronounced to an audience at Cloud Gaming USA. The lack of a disc drive would result in cheaper consoles and result in more mass-market adoption. Farrell said stated there would be "no physical goods cost for game makers, no inventory, no markdowns, and all the money spent by the consumer would go to the developer or publisher".

Destructoid received a leak from an anonymous focus group target that Disney is sending out questionnaires through online marketing to gauge interest on various aspects of an unannounced Epic Mickey 2 game.

The fallout from Nintendo's projected earnings - 82% lower than expected - continues, as Nintendo is tightening its belt as the company has started to cut overhead, starting with Nintendo CEO Saturo Iwata.

UbiSoft has announced their latest music game, The Black Eyed Peas Experience, a dancing game in the vein of Dance Central and Michael Jackson: The Experience.

Arvind Bhatia at analyst firm Sterne Agee has stated that although the processing power of the console is yet to be confirmed by Nintendo, a number of developers said that the Wii U will be notably more powerful than both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and estimate a 50% better processing power. Of course, with the Xbox 360 being 6 years old and the PS3 being 5 years old, the Wii U better be more powerful.

One of the strangest, most intriguing rumors yet is from 01net, a site that has been amazingly accurate in past leaks - the site was the one that broke (correctly) the Sony NGP's specs. This rumor is that not only does Rockstar have a Wii 2 dev kit, but is developing Grand Theft Auto V for the console.

Activision put the Tony Hawk franchise on hiatus for 2011, but now there are reports that the licensed skateboarding legend will return next year.

Wedbush-Morgan securities analyst Michael Pachter is predicting that Microsoft will announce an Xbox 360 price cut at E3 2011, which will force Nintendo and Sony to follow suit with Wii and PlayStation 3 price cuts.

Representatives of the US congress, Kevin Brady (Texas, Republican) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Florida, Democrat) have announced the Congressional Caucus for Competitiveness in Entertainment Technology (E-Tech Caucus). The rare pro-videogame industry government caucus is comprised of 39 members to work toward sustaining a robust computer and video game industry by educating Members of Congress and the American people on the industry’s economic, educational and social benefits.