In this scene from the thrilling climax to the Max Payne movie, Max faces off against his deadliest foe yet: a small plot of dirt in a railyard just outside Renovo, Pennsylvania.

Industry and multi-console news

• Former Sony Europe CEO Chris Deering claims only 3 in 10 games recoup their development cost.
• Analyst Michael Pachter says the Warner Music exec complaining about low license fees for music game tracks is missing the point. "His flip comment disregards that the songs downloaded on Guitar Hero are not songs--they are videogame files with an embedded sound track. The value of the music is near zero without the game file, and nobody downloads Guitar Hero content to play on their iPod."
• The collector's edition of Red Alert 3 will include, among other things, a "beta key to a future C&C game." The question is, what game?
• The NPD Group has released a report on gamer demographics. It features useful trivia for your next cocktail party, such as PS3 owners being more likely than Wii or 360 owners to have a second next-gen system.
• Eternity's Child creator Luc Bernard is giving up on making games. He's still supporting Eternity's Child on the PC, and the WiiWare version will still be released, but won't be releasing any future projects as games.
• BlizzCon 2008 tickets are now on sale.
• The OFLC's website confirms that a modified version of Fallout 3 is cleared for release in Australia.
• Gamasutra has an interview with Simon Jeffery on the evolution of Sega. He mentions that Yu Suzuki is no longer a Sega employee -- "He's kind of his own man right now."
• Frontier’s David Braben says console versions of Elite 4 are being considered.
• An online poll at What They Play finds respondents more concerned about their kids playing GTA than watching porn. Then again, a separate poll on the site found that people were more offended by sex (and gay men kissing) than severed heads in video games, so maybe the more important point is that online polls are crap.
• Edios has a new Lara Croft model to tour around and show up at events. It seems like they have a new one every few weeks.
• Midway Austin has laid off 90 employees and canceled a game in production called Criminal.

PC and mobile news

New media: Crysis Warhead screenshots

• Eurogamer has an interview with Will Wright about Spore, militant atheists, and the failure of the Sims Online.
• Gamespot has a Q&A on Star Trek Online.
• Game Power 7 plans to publish what they are calling the first 3D MMORPG for the Middle East and North Africa region.
• The first episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is now available through Telltale Games' website.
• 300,000 units of Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone have sold through in 20 days. Quoth Sega of America president Simon Jeffery: "That's a substantial business. It gives iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform."
• IGN lists the best PC games left to come in 2008.
• Warhammer Online and Paul Barnett briefly showed up on the Tonight Show for some reason.

Nintendo news

New WiiWare title: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
New Virtual Console titles: Break In, Star Parodier
New media: Mushroom Men featurette on the game's music

• Microsoft has disputed Nintendo's claims about third party sales on the Wii.

Sony news

• Adjustable difficulty settings are coming to PixelJunk Monsters and Eden.
• The official Playstation blog has details on Warhawk's v1.5 update, tentatively scheduled for August 27.
• Sony is discontinuing sales of the PSP extended battery kit. GamePro interprets this as an indication consumers are happy with the system's battery life, which may be a bit of an assumption. Personally, I didn't know the thing existed, but then I never use my PSP in the first place.
• Konami has launched a Metal Gear Solid 4 Beginner Site in Japan to help newbies get better acquainted with the game.
• Amazon's deal of the day is GRID for $39.99.

Microsoft news

• This week's Live Arcade titles are Bionic Commando Rearmed and Fable II's Pub Games.
• The achievements for Fable 2 have been revealed.
• Jonathan Blow may not need to worry about the pricing on Braid, as it's projected to see first week sales of over 20,000.
• MTV Multiplayer talks to the creators of Geometry Wars 2 about fixing the problems of the original game, the design of certain game modes, and what's in store for the future.
• Apparently the freezing issues with Ninja Gaiden II are still going on, but Microsoft and Tecmo are working on it.