With recent hits like Tekken 6 and Tales of Graces, you’d think that things would be up over at Namco Bandai. Unfortunately, due to lackluster sales of games that weren’t Tekken, the company has had to revise its forecast for the fiscal year ending this March and is now expecting a net loss of ¥8.5 billion (~$93 million US).

The company is arranging to start what they call the “Bandai Namco Group Restart Plan,” a restructuring strategy for its group companies. There will be a reshuffling of some higher-ups, but most tragic is the reduction in personnel. Under the plan, an estimated 630 jobs will be cut by March next year through voluntary retirement.

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Videogamer.com received word from an “employee at a major international publisher” that Nintendo is planning on announcing a new platform at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“Just heard a rumour that you may be interested in: Nintendo are going to announce a new platform at GDC. Some devs have already started work on it.”

The source couldn’t specify whether this was a new handheld or console or even a successor to the DS or Wii, but they did reassure that Nintendo is indeed working on new hardware. The source also made sure to clarify that the GDC announcement is still just a possibility and not a sure thing just yet.

Nintendo was contacted about this rumor, but the company refused to comment. No real surprises there.

Source [via NeoGAF]

It’s February 3, and that only means one thing: Bill Murray finally broke out of his time loop in Punxsutawney!

In non-Groundhog Day related news, SEGA announced that they will be publishing High Voltage Software’s Wii 3D fighting game Gladiator A.D. and renaming it to Tournament of Legends.

Originally meant to focus on gladiator on gladiator battles, the game has seen a bit of a premise change as well. Now, the roster of fighters branches out to include mythical warriors like the valkyrie, minotaur and gorgon, all beating the hell out of each other for whatever reason.

There are promises of intense one and two player fights, a range of weapon and magic based attacks and a rich weapon fighting experience.

We’ll see.

Tournament of Legends is due out May 18.

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