This came up last week but i decided not to post the news, this was until i read today that investors are dropping out. Take Two are under further investigation into mini games "Hot Coffee's" and other similar things including anything else that shouldn't be in games made by Rockstar games.

Last week the investigation was launched into Rockstar Games and Take Two dating back a full 5 years. The investigation will look at hidden scenes included in any of the games published and at documents that say the company's officers and directors knew they were being made. I am not aware of anything being in Manhunt that shouldn't be but there are a few smaller things that we are calling "Easter eggs" such as hidden save points and objects even characters like Piggsy are hidden unless you use the Trainer provided in the downloads section of the site, it just goes to show you never know what could be hidden away. As it is going back 5 years Manhunt will definatly be investigated.

As mentioned above inverstors seems to be dropping out one financial analyst said he would "avoid the company's shares until the criminal investigation is concluded." Take Two's shares have dropped to a new 52 week low, also mentioned on Gamespot was the following.

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan said he was maintaining a Hold rating, but suspending any price target for the stock.

Pachter said that due to the criminal nature of the current investigation, the future for Take Two is uncertain.

The subpoenas leave us baffled, and raise the specter of quite serious consequences," ," We believe that other parties may have also received subpoenas, as it is customary for a criminal investigation to include all parties involved in the alleged criminal activity. Although we are in no position to know what the grand jury hopes to accomplish, we think it is likely that current and former Take-Two employees and directors will be asked to testify in the future.

It can't help that Take Two's also being sued at the same time for the game The Warriors also made by Rockstar Games for using a character's likeness that the actor Roger Hill claims he didn't allow to be used, in the movie he played the character Cyrus. He is suing for $250,000 a Take Two spokeman said "The company has a valid third-party license for the rights to use Roger Hill's likeness and the character of Cyrus in The Warriors video game and related marketing materials."

Source(s): Gamespot, IGN.com

The Penny Arcade Expo sent out a press release the other day stating that Rockstar games would be at the event in August. The following was quoted from the press release.

On the exhibit floor PAX '06 attendees can expect to get hands on with yet-to-be-released games and products from the likes of exhibitors Microsoft, Nintendo, Nvidia, ArenaNet, America's Army, Turbine, NCSoft, Ubisoft, Mythic, Sabertooth Games, Foundation 9, Rockstar, Flying Lab, Creative Labs, The Behemoth, Garage Games and Red Octane among others. .

Rockstar Games have a few games in development so any one of them could be playable but it is more likely to be one of the few mentioned in the Take-Two Second Quarter Fiscal. The list of expected games for 2006 were GTA Vice City Stories in October, An additional PSP title based on another premier brand which could be Manhunt, and finally Bully which is most likely of the 3. We might also see trailers from other games set for a next gen release including the new western title yet unnamed and GTA4. It is most likely though that we will get a trailer for GTA Vice City Stories.

Gamespot (as well as MTV and Total Video Games) has recently made an update confirming the rumour that GTA IV and all next-gen Rockstar titles will be using the same graphic rendering engine as Rockstar presents Table Tennis. Every Rockstar North game released from the launch of the PS2 including, Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and Manhunt as well as The Warriors has used the RenderWare rendering system.

The RenderWare engine was developed by Criterion Software, who is now owned by EA. And as such Rockstar has to pay royalties to EA games for ever Rockstar title sold (that uses RenderWare). This isn’t exactly good for business, especially when they are Rockstars biggest rival on the market.

Rockstar voluntarily admitted that the RAGE engine would be used in all upcoming Rockstar Games, including the next GTA.

RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) was developed internally at Rockstar. For those of you that don’t know what a graphics engine does, in short it is basically how a game looks and moves. This can be seen as only a good thing as all Rockstar games will benefit with every title released and with 7 development houses (and counting) it will surely improve. With that said, Rockstar presents Table Tennis has received much praise in both departments so it seems that they are off to a flying start.

Given the royalty conundrum and the desire for cutting-edge graphics, many assumed that the next GTA would be based on an all-new engine. So when word began to spread that MTV was saying GTA IV would be based on RAGE, industry watchers nodded approvingly. After all, the technology--which stands for Rockstar Advanced Game Engine--was developed in-house at Rockstar, meaning no royalty payments to third parties would be necessary. Furthermore, Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis shows that RAGE is capable of both impressive graphics and physics, two areas that drew fire from GTA detractors.

This likely only applies to next-gen games, so current-gen and PSP games are off limit. But imagine Manhunt 2 on next-gen systems using the RAGE graphics engine for such things as baseball bat execution 3. Digital violence will never have looked so good.

For more on the RenderWare engine click here. Or if you would like to know more about Rockstar presents Table Tennis and sample how this engine works click here.

Take-Two Interactive has released their second quarter fiscal and financial results for 2006 as well as a list of expected games for 2006/2007. If you recall back to January (or click here) they expected to release a ‘sequel of a Rockstar brand’ within fiscal 2006, unsurprisingly the unnamed Rockstar sequel has been removed from the upcoming fiscal 2006 schedule.

With that said, under the ‘Upcoming Products’ section of the update it does say the following:

Additional products planned for 2006 from Rockstar Games include Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for the PSP, scheduled for October release, an additional PSP title based on another premier brand, and Bully.

Under the companys expected 2007/2008 release schedule they had the following to say:

For 2007 and 2008, the Company anticipates a strong next generation lineup from Rockstar Games including the simultaneous launch of Grand Theft Auto IV on PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360 in October 2007, along with sequels to several of Rockstar's other successful franchises.

Even thought the un-revealed game has been delayed, it is still in the works. So perhaps it has been shifted over to next-gen consoles or perhaps even ported down to the PSP instead. Maybe we will have an answer by the year end.