Source: Self-explanatory British Web site Gamesindustry.biz.

The official story: "Sorry, I really can't comment on this."--Lionhead rep.

What we heard: Buried beneath the avalanche of schmoozing at this year's D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Create, Entertain) awards were several tantalizing rumors. The one wagging off most attendees' tongues at the event was that Lionhead Studios had become the subject of a bidding war between two major publishers. According to Gamesindustry.biz, the suitors vying for the British developer were France-based Ubisoft and the monolith of Redmond, Washington, Microsoft.

While Lionhead reps were adamant about their inability to comment on the buyout rumors, many in attendance at D.I.C.E. were confident the confusion would be cleared up on Friday. Why? Because one of the main speakers on the final day of the Las Vegas game-industry event was Lionhead chief Peter Molyneux, who was slated to be on a panel with Sims creator Will Wright.

However, earlier today, Lionhead reps confirmed to GameSpot that Molyneux had abruptly canceled his D.I.C.E. appearance for undisclosed reasons. The executive's no-show, the second of the event after Valve Software CEO Gabe Newell called in "sick" on Thursday, threw even more fuel on the fires of speculation. Many D.I.C.E. attendees theorized that Molyneux's presence was required at Lionhead due to the advanced state of negotiations for the studio's imminent purchase.

While it must be emphasized that no official information about any potential deal has been released, a Lionhead buyout is well within the realm of possibility. Though the developer scored a solid hit with Fable in 2004, its subsequent releases have struggled. The Movies, Lionhead's Hollywood mogul sim, saw its console ports canceled by Activision "due to underperformance on the PC." (However, there are reports that it may still come to non-PC platforms.) Black & White 2, the EA-published sequel to Molyneux's deity-centric strategy game, barely sold more than 102,000 units between its October ship date and the end of 2005, according to industry trade group NPD. With the fickle winds of retail not blowing entirely in Lionhead's favor, the studio might be very tempted by the safe financial harbor a major publisher could provide.

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus that it's official...but that could change very soon.

Source: Sega has filed a US trademark application for a game by the name Yakuza, as can be found at the United States Patent and Trademark Office Web site.

The official story: Sega representatives declined comment.

What we heard: When Sega first unveiled Ryu ga Gotoku, it seemed to be a distinct departure for producer Toshihiro Nagoshi. After making all-ages fare like Super Monkey Ball and F-Zero GX, Nagoshi was exploring the seedy underbelly of organized crime with an open-ended, gritty game about the yakuza, commonly referred to as Japanese mafia.

Taking its cues from classic yakuza films like Kinji Fukasaku's Battles Without Honor or Humanity, Ryu ga Gotoku casts players as Kazuma Kiryu, a yakuza on the outs with his former outfit, who now wants to take revenge for a decade-old betrayal.

With the criminal-underworld setting and free-roaming setup of Grand Theft Auto, attention to detail and a twisting story that might bring up memories of Shenmue, and brutal bare-knuckle street fighting, Ryu ga Gotoku seemed like a natural for the American market. The only question was whether Sega felt it was worth the investment to localize the game's significant amount of Japanese text and speech.

But considering that the game's name would certainly have to change in order to get an American release, "Yakuza" would be an appropriate title that would give some gamers a good idea of the subject matter. And since there's nothing else on Sega of Japan's upcoming release list for which that title would fit, this is as concrete a sign as you're likely to get without an official confirmation.

Bogus or not bogus?: Looking not bogus.

Source: A post on Star Wars fan site theforce.net, and a disappearing post on rebelscum.com.

The official story: A two-parter: "We're not involved in the next Lego Star Wars game"--Eidos representative; "We have nothing to announce at this time."--LucasArts representative.

What we heard: A long time ago (April 2, 2005), on consoles (Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, PC) not so far, far away, Eidos released the Traveller's Tales-developed Lego Star Wars. The game combined two things that every retro-loving geekazoid cherishes: the sci-fi universe created by George Lucas and those fun, interlocking blocks cooked up by the Danes.

While hardcore gamers may not have thought much of the E for Everyone-rated so-cute-it's-cuddly game, the general public lapped it up like a frothy beverage at a Mos Eisley cantina. According to SCi Entertainment, Eidos' parent company, the game has sold more than 3 million copes worldwide, with particular interest coming from the States. With such success, it makes sense that a sequel would be in the works.

Details recently sprang up on Star Wars fan sites theforce.net and rebelscum.com that an upcoming Xbox Magazine has the first info on the sequel, set to take place during the timeline spanning Star Wars through Return of the Jedi (pictures have since been removed from theforce.net, and rebelscum's post has been deleted altogether).

Before sci-fi freaks storm Eidos' office looking for a Wicket Lego figure, there's one piece of news they should know: Eidos isn't involved in the rumored project in any way. Says an Eidos rep, "We're not involved in the next Lego Star Wars game. We only had distribution rights for [Lego Star Wars Episodes 1 through 3], so I'm not sure what the deal is."

"The deal" may be that LucasArts has decided to reclaim the now-popular license for itself. The publisher is owner to all things Star Wars and likely had dollar signs in its eyes when it saw the success Eidos had with Lego Star Wars. However, LucasArts reps saw through our Jedi mind tricks and flatly said, "We have nothing to announce at this time."

Is there any doubt that a Lego Star Wars sequel is in the works? No. Has LucasArts formally announced the new game? No. Will the company do so in the next few weeks? We'd bet our droids on it.

Bogus or not bogus?: In the words of Yoda, "Bogus it is not."

Source: A post at pro gaming blog Kotaku citing "an insider with Nintendo" as the source of the information.

The official story: Big surprise: "Nintendo does not comment on rumors and speculation."--Nintendo rep.

What we heard: While the DS Lite release date was undoubtedly the biggest issue brought up by Kotaku's source, he/she also mentioned a pair of other possible Nintendo plans: a "pearl pink" Game Boy Advance SP for release later this year and a discounted Player's Choice line for the Game Boy Advance that will feature games like Super Mario Advance and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

Though the pink GBA news isn't exactly earth-shattering, the Player's Choice line seems like a long-overdue idea for the GBA. Nintendo announced last week that GBA software sales were down almost a third from the year before. That means the time is ripe for the company to cut the prices on its most popular games in order to squeeze more bucks out of the system before it's completely overtaken by the DS.

Finally, the mid-May projection for a North American DS Lite release seems entirely possible, although a little underwhelming. Ever since the Game Boy Advance release, Nintendo has been narrowing the time frame between its handheld debuts on either side of the Pacific. With the GBA, it was under three months. The SP arrived in US stores within a month and a half of its arrival in Japanese stores. And the DS actually debuted in the US, with Japanese gamers getting their hands on the system a scant two weeks later. Most recently, the company's Game Boy Micro redesign had a slightly staggered release--there was a week and a half between its release in the two territories.

If it follows the Game Boy Micro's lead, the DS Lite would hit US store shelves within a couple of weeks of the Japanese March 2 launch. On the other hand, Japan has been experiencing a pronounced shortage of DS systems of late, and it would make sense for the company to concentrate on its home market first before launching the hardware elsewhere. That could be one explanation for the May release date, which Kotaku editors told GameSpot was "solid."

Bogus or not bogus?: Tentatively not bogus. Regardless of the source's authenticity, this is all stuff Nintendo should be doing anyway.

Source: Page two of an article on News.com, owned by GameSpot parent CNET Networks.

The official story: Nintendo did not respond to requests for comment.

What we heard: Just under two weeks ago, Cisco Systems announced that it was launching a new home entertainment division. The move was a new direction for Cisco, which has made billions supplying networking hardware to huge corporations. However, it had been suspected ever since Cisco bought Scientific-Atlanta, a leading maker of cable boxes, last November for $7 billion.

Cisco's announcement has led many a tech reporter to ponder what company might be next on the cash-flush tech giant's shopping list. Yesterday, one such reporter, News.com's Marguerite Reardon, published her own prognostication article titled, "Is TiVo next on Cisco's push into homes?"

But while the first page of Reardon's article focused on Cisco scooping up the troubled maker of the popular--and highly addictive--personal video recorders, it was the second page that got gamers' alarm bells ringing. After clicking on a link marked "Nintendo another possible candidate," readers were treated to Reardon's reasoning for a Cisco-Nintendo union.

"A stretch? Not really," she wrote. "Microsoft, which is emerging as a key competitor to Cisco in the home entertainment market, is already in this market with the Xbox 360. Gaming has already proved to be a strong application for broadband, so it makes sense that Cisco would want to own a game device to help drive more traffic on its network. With its popular GameBoy [sic] product, Nintendo would also provide Cisco an entree into the mobile-handheld market." The fact that, unlike its cousin the DS, the Game Boy Advance has no Internet functionality did not dampen Reardon's enthusiasm for the potential buyout. And since it was released in 2004, the GBA-to-GBA wireless adapter hasn't exactly been a runaway hit.

Given that the Cisco-Nintendo article has "News.com" in the URL, many Nintendans took it as hard news. However, News.com also provides news analysis, and the piece is clearly marked as such in bold red letters at the top of its first page. In other words, the article is Reardon's informed prognostication about Cisco's possible next move--not official confirmation of any such deal.

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus for now--and highly unlikely to ever happen, in our own opinion, as Nintendo remains profitable.

Source: A former staffer of developer High Voltage involved in the company's recent layoffs told GameSpot which games were axed.

The official story: High Voltage vice president of creative content Eric Nofsinger would say only that both of the canceled games came from the same franchise, while repeated attempts to get a comment from VU Games were unsuccessful.

What we heard: The ex-High Voltage staffer (who wished to remain anonymous) told us the cuts were tied to the cancellation of a Leisure Suit Larry sequel for consoles and a Larry spin-off for the PSP. While the sequel had no title at the time of its cancellation, it was to follow Magna Cum Laude's Larry Loveage (nephew to the series' original star, Larry Laffer) as he went on spring break. According to the staffer, the game had been in development for roughly a year and a half when it was canned.

The other game allegedly axed was a Larry side story, a tryst if you will, on the PSP. That project was intended to bring the Japanese dating sim genre to the American market, albeit with a uniquely Leisure Suit Larry touch of perversity.

A High Voltage rep confirmed that there were two games canceled and that both games belonged to the same series. Hunter: The Reckoning is likely the only other series High Voltage has worked on that could reasonably be expected to field two separate projects in today's market. However, the last two Hunter installments, Wayward on the Xbox and Redeemer on the PlayStation 2, were outsold by Magna Cum Laude. Perhaps more important is that they were also outgrossed by Magna Cum Laude (no pun intended), as the Hunter titles more rapidly found their way into retailers' bargain bins. Leisure Suit Larry's sheer staying power (he's been working his mojo for almost 20 years now) and animal magnetism make Bachelor #1 a much more likely candidate to have two games green-lighted in the first place, even if they were regrettably canceled.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus.

Source: See below.

The official story: See below.

What we heard: When rumors first surfaced about Peter Jackson directing the Halo movie, many dismissed it as a fantasy cooked up by daydreaming nerds. But when it turned out that the King Kong director had agreed to executive-produce Halo, many were flabbergasted that such a perfect pairing could actually happen.

It was the Halo-Jackson news that made it hard to throw this week's bit of scuttlebutt straight into the crazy pile. While making preliminary plans for their annual sojourn into the deafening neon inferno that is E3, GameSpot editors spoke with a person who has many contacts within the Los Angeles film industry. The person in question said that the hot game-movie crossover project du jour was Half-Life, Valve Software's groundbreaking shooter.

While news of a Half-Life film would be hot by itself, what the film insider said next was more scorching than a habanero enema. He/she said that Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino had been hounding Valve executives to bring the game to the big screen, and that he was currently in negotiations with the developer. Most film fans were under the impression the director was in preproduction of his long-in-the-making World War II epic, Inglorious Bastards.

Alas, the image of Gordon Freeman smacking headcrabs to the tune of "Stuck in the Middle With You" was shattered by Doug Lombardi, Valve's director of marketing. After joking that Tarantino was in his office playing Counter-Strike: Source, he set the record straight. "As much as we'd love to meet with him, we've never been contacted by Mr. Tarantino nor 'his people,'" said Lombardi. "We've had many conversations with folks in Hollywood, but have no commitments for an HL movie at this time."

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus.

Source: A report citing a source close to the movie-based game's development from British trade paper MCV.

The official story: An Activision rep told us the company does not comment on rumors or speculation.

What we heard: Every semi-cherished, vaguely nostalgic property of the '80s short of the The Bionic Six has received its own cinematic revamp recently, so it wasn't incredibly surprising when Dreamworks, Paramount, and Hasbro jointly announced this year that the Transformers would be returning to the silver screen in 2007. What was surprising is that the project would be live-action, directed by Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) and executive-produced by Steven Spielberg (who has shown a soft spot for robots with past productions like *batteries not included and Artificial Intelligence).

While there's little doubt that Activision would want the rights to a Spielberg-produced summer blockbuster chock sure to be chock-full of explosions and giant battling robots, there is some question about whether another publisher might be better positioned to secure the rights. After all, Spielberg has an established business history with Electronic Arts, having sold Dreamworks Interactive to the company in 2000, and having recently signed a deal with EA "to create three new original games."

Then again, Dreamworks has had a partnership with Activision for several years that has yielded a number of games based on its animated features like Shark Tale, Shrek 2, and Madagascar. But Paramount has already established ties with Midway to make movies based on its Fear & Respect and Area 51 games, and put out a pair of films based on Eidos' Tomb Raider franchise. Eidos would be a serious dark horse to make the Transformers game, as Paramount publicly blamed the poor reception of Eidos' Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness game for the second film's lethargic box office showing. Finally, Atari might be in the running as well, considering it developed the successful Transformers PS2 title based on Hasbro's Armada toy line and cartoon. Then again, Hasbro probably bought the robo-rights back from the publisher last year for a reason.

That's a whole lot of people with a possible shot at grabbing the Transformers movie license. However, Activision has an ace up its sleeve. One of the publishers' in-house studios, Treyarch, is responsible for some of the highest-grossing movie-tie-in games of all time. Treyarch developed the multiconsole adaptations of the films Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, which sold a combined 8 million units on all platforms--netting more than $290 million--according to NPD. If that kind of money isn't a major draw, we're not sure what is.

Bogus or not bogus?: Dare we say there's more to this rumor than meets the eye? Nah. Not bogus.

Source: An anonymous source with close ties to the Southern California game-development community.

The official story: Activision did not respond to requests for comment.

What we heard: After Activision warned investors that its holiday sales would not meet expectations in December, many wondered what went wrong. After all, the second-biggest third-party publisher released four Xbox 360 launch games, including platform top-seller Call of Duty 2. Its Q4 2005 was also stacked with new installments in some of the best-selling series of all time, including Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and Quake 4.

So when a well-placed source told GameSpot News that Gun 2 and True Crime 3 had been canned, it stood to reason that their predecessors must have badly underperformed at retail. So badly, in fact, that Activision reportedly decided to pull the plug on both at an early stage of development rather than sink further resources into series with a less-than-certain future.

A look at the November NPD game-sales report shows that True Crime: New York City did indeed fall far short of Activision's aspirations. Despite a massive marketing blitz hyping its November 15 release, it sold only around 72,000 units on three platforms--PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. Including preorders, it raked in a meager $3.6 million, a fraction of its blockbuster predecessor, True Crime: Streets of LA, which sold a combined 300,000-plus units during its first two weeks in stores in 2003.

During its first month on the, er, street, TC: Streets of LA sold more than 600,000 units. But although Activision spent millions in ad dollars hyping Gun's November 1 launch, the free-range Western action game moved only 240,000 units on five platforms (Xbox 360, Xbox, GC, PC, and PS2), generating $12.2 million during the month. By contrast, LucasArts' Star Wars: Battlefront II, released on the same day, sold more than a million units on four platforms (PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox), generating over $52 million in sales.

So are the two sequels' fates sealed? That question won't be answered for certain until the release of the December 2004 NPD report, which will show whether Gun or True Crime: NYC have any longevity on the charts. So far, the signals aren't clear. Both games got mixed reviews, meaning strong word-of-mouth is unlikely. However, both also reentered the game-rental top 10 in December, meaning that somebody was showing some interest. Also consider that both a PC TC: NYC and a PSP Gun are still on track for an early 2006 release--officially, anyway.

Bogus or not bogus?: True Crime: New York City probably won't get a sequel, but Gun--which was considered promising but unpolished--might.