A leaked retail calendar has allegedly outed the existence of a new Battlefield game and a video game based upon upcoming Batman film The Dark Knight Rises. According to a report by MCV, a release schedule from "a major UK High Street retailer" includes a video game tie-in for The Dark Knight Rises. The report claims that the game would be a full retail title rather than a downloadable release. Also included is a game called Battlefield Evolved. While no details are available, MCV speculates that the title may be a collection of Battlefield 3 along with its upcoming DLC. EA already has a high-profile Medal of Honor game coming in October and likely wouldn't time the release of a new Battlefield game so closely. Finally, Grand Theft Auto V is reportedly listed with an Autumn 2012 release window. None of this information has been confirmed, and all of it should be taken with a grain of salt. Previously, EA president Frank Gabeau made comments about Battlefield 4, but the title was never formally announced. Warner Bros. has also never announced a Dark Knight Rises video game and Rockstar has not commented on a Grand Theft Auto V release window. Source: http://au.games.ign.com/articles/122/1220475p1.html

Sony released its earnings report for the 2011 fiscal year. Among the slides, numbers and endless walls of text Sony unleashed on the world can be found a hodgepodge of good and bad news for the electronics giant, including plenty of new details surrounding its coveted PlayStation brand. THE BAD NEWS PlayStation 3 sold 13.9 million units during the 2011 fiscal year, down 400,000 units from the year before. Sony rightly points to the Great East Japan Earthquake and its aftereffects, disastrous US tax loopholes and other intangibles as contributors to its massive $6.4 billion dollar loss. But obviously, problems are far direr for Sony than that. As such, the company wants to refocus on some of the things it does extraordinarily well. One of those things, of course, is the creation of gaming hardware and software. The Consumer Products and Services (CPS) sector that houses the PlayStation brand took the biggest hit during Sony’s 2011 fiscal year (which stretched from April of 2011 through March of 2012). Sales are down 18.5 percent year over year, though the PlayStation brand certainly had little to do with the loss. In fact, Sony itself reports that LCD television sales are lower, something that was “expected from focusing not on pursuing unit sales but on improving profitability,” and that “CPS segment sales are expected to increase significantly year-on-year,” including in the realm of cameras and VAIO computers. The PlayStation brand is never mentioned. Where Sony does begin to mention the PlayStation brand is in terms of units sold in both hardware and software. PlayStation 3 sold 13.9 million units during the 2011 fiscal year, down 400,000 units from the year before. PlayStation Portable is also down year over year, from 8 million units sold down to 6.8 million units sold, though this is certainly to be expected. And PlayStation 2 is still trucking along as well, selling 4.1 million units, down from 6.4 million units from the year before. This brings lifetime sales of the PlayStation 3 to 63.9 million (analyze the full numbers here). Meanwhile, lifetime sales data from September of 2011 has PSP at 71.4 million units sold (per Eurogamer). PlayStation 2, last reported in total over a year ago, was sitting at 153.19 million units sold (per Sony). (An analysis of available data at Sony’s corporate site shows that, since stats started being kept there during the 2006 fiscal year, 54.2 PlayStation 2 consoles have been sold, with 62.2 million PSPs having been sold in the same time period.) THE GOOD NEWS The PS3 is a mere 3.3 million units away from the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales with a year’s less time on the market. It’s within these sales numbers that some good news can be found for Sony, especially in terms of the PlayStation 3. Obviously, PS2s being sold some 12 years after it came out is nothing but a net gain for Sony, but now, the PS3 is a mere 3.3 million units away from the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales with a year’s less time on the market. According to Eurogamer, 67.2 million Xbox 360 consoles are in the wild as of less than a month ago. Whether you average out units sold-per-months on the market or opt to remove a year’s sales from the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 is in a surprisingly strong place right now. If the consoles spent the same amount of time on the market, these numbers suggest PS3 would actually be winning that race. Software sales are also very positive for Sony. 156.6 million games were sold on PlayStation 3 during the 2011 fiscal year, up 8.7 million games sold from the year before. Even with a slight dip in PS3 sales, games are still selling very strongly. However, PSP and PS2 game sales are currently tanking. 32.2 million PSP games were sold in the 2011 fiscal year, down from 46.6 million games sold the year before. PS2 games sales have also cratered, pushing only 7.9 million games, down from 16.4 million the year before. WAIT, WHERE'S VITA? You may have noticed the conspicuous absence of the PlayStation Vita so far in Sony’s reports. Having only come out in the tail end of the fiscal year, its absence actually makes sense. But Vita’s sales-to-date are very much public, even if not in Sony’s official financials. During an earnings call reported by Gamasutra, Sony’s CEO and President Kaz Hirai noted that only 1.8 million PlayStation Vita units have been sold through March of 2012. “As a starting phase, I think it was a good start,” he said. “For a game platform, like Vita, the software is the key to success – how good the software is, that is the key to business success. We have to reinforce the software area in order to improve the business; that is the basic line. Vis-à-vis Vita, at this moment, there is no decline or lack of motivation as a portable platform. This is a very important product indeed for us, and therefore we still have a very high motivation to develop this further. There is no change.” All of this adds up to one thing: you can count on PlayStation Vita getting a price cut at E3. Hirai therefore concluded that “software and services must be strengthened. In other words, the collaborative approach is very important, so is third-party. And from first-party studios, the titles will be presented one after the other, so please look at them and give your evaluation based on them.” This could very well be a nod to E3, occurring in June, in which Sony has teased that it may have over 20 new games to reveal. For comparison’s sake, it’s worth noting that for the 1.8 million PlayStation Vitas sold, Nintendo has sold 17.13 million 3DS handhelds, per Nintendo’s own data. Nintendo 3DS also suffered from sluggish sales early on, as is well-known, but not nearly as bad as Vita’s stumbling sales. All of this adds up to one thing: you can count on PlayStation Vita getting a price cut at E3. WHEN IT'S ALL SAID AND DONE Now that Sony’s numbers are all on the table, eyes are firmly planted on the future. PlayStation 3 still has an incredibly strong lineup of upcoming games, both in first-party exclusives and third-party games it shares with its competition. And while the PlayStation 4 certainly exists somewhere in the bowels of Sony’s many corporate offices, we haven’t heard anything about it, and almost certainly won’t in 2012. The biggest question mark continues to be PlayStation Vita. As Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami so aptly put it, “there aren’t enough good games for it yet… Once there are more great games it should do well.” We couldn’t agree more.

Hello Everyone, Welcome to Abyssal Gaming 2.0. As usual there WILL be bugs and what not, so if you find them, you know how to let us know! We hope you enjoy the new look, increased performance and added features. Abyssal Gaming is open to everyone, let your friends know we are here to stay and prosper, no matter who tries to say otherwise! So here's whats new since the last major announcement! Congratulations to our new Moderator Mickket! Congratulations to our new Moderators throughout the last few weeks, Mark88880 and Paderson We welcome LDShadowlady officially to the network. She is my personal favorite channel on youtube. Her videos are hilarious, and are guaranteed to make you giggle like a little girl until you burst with laughter. We also launched the official LDShadowlady Public Server at the end of April, you can find out the information on our new Server Information page. We also welcome SolidSnake745 as an affiliate as well. He does some very entertaining stuff with old technology. Check out his youtube channel! 40PF Is officially running rap battles on the forums, check out their forum for more information! In the works, a new TEKKIT server (This server WILL be whitelisted and run by our new Moderator, Mickket) It will obviously require a Technic client installed. More information will follow. We have a new website logo by one of our resident artists, Ayjayo. We have brought back the nice little games and chat engine on each page. All features are accessible to all users. We are currently running podcasts every week to 2 weeks, with random visitors and topics. They are pretty interesting to listen to, and often the images that accompany are hilarious! (lol Sharpness) Check the episodes so far on the Youtube Channel We have launched an events Teamspeak server. If you are running an event and need a free Teamspeak channel, message me directly and you will be given a channel as well as channel admin to it. Otherwise its free to use; EVENTS.ABGN.NET The server is a 500 Slot, so everyone is welcome. We still use TS.ABGN.NET:9993 as our primary server, so don't go changing to that to talk to the regulars. Thank you for being a part of our community, it is you the users who make it what it is today, and for that we want to thank you over and over. We hope to see you soon on our servers, Teamspeak and forums and hope you enjoy your time here. Thank you and Kind Regards, Tarquin, Abyssal Gaming Network

EA Has announced the next stage in the Crysis story, Crysis 3! Crysis 3 is due for launch in 2013, and the new CryEngine that they are using to build it, is perhaps one of the best I have seen, just look at the water and shadow effects.

Hello everyone! The Abyssal Gaming Network has a lot going on at the moment, so let me update you all on what's new! Public Server Upgraded! The Public server has finally been upgraded to 1.2. We have more punishments for the griefers and more features for the donators. Premiums get MobDisguise as usual, although the commands have changed (Updated command list) VIP's get even more mobs as well as the ability to use the baby mob command! Yay! (Updated command list) In addition the Inventory Save function has been upgraded for VIP's, it now saves your experience as well! Premiums will continue to enjoy the lack of inventory loss when a creeper comes up behind you! New Server! There is a new server in our midst that you can apply to join here It is called the Hardcore Survival Server. It is a server designed for the tough players who think they have what it takes to legitimatly build a beautiful creation while dodging their enemies, both mobs and players. Features include hardcore PVP, no anti-griefing measures and a reward for the best build at the end of each month. More information can be found in the application thread! To make it harder to hide, here is a Live map of the server: http://www.abgn.net/r/9 Also coming soon is a creative server. This server will be whitelist building for the artists amongst us, and everyone can come visit. We will announce more closer to release. Site Features The Abyssal Gaming Network has always had a lot of resources, but now we have put them up to the public. Webhosting can be purchased from our website under the services tab at the top. We may not be the cheapest in town, but we have the service and knowledge to help anyone get setup with a new website. Coming Soon: Minecraft Server Hosting [ Click here for Services section ] In addition to the hosting, we have a TinyURL generator for any links that are too long to share with others! Part of this service includes a small widget for your browsers Bookmarks toolbar that will automatically turn the current URL into a TinyURL. Want to give it a shot? There is no limit as to how many links you can compress. Here is a link (Shortened using the TinyURL): http://www.abgn.net/r/8 One last feature (unused for now) is that we now have a downloads section. You will see it populated very soon with misc files. In addition the Image Hosting now works for all registered members. Affiliates With More to come, we have partnered with a few small affiliates. None of us are huge and famous, but we all have our specialties and love doing what we do for the fans. You will be able to find an entire fan section for each partner on our forums. 40 Psychic Frames (40PF): These guys do voicing, music and general audio including parodies. Their stuff is hilarious and worth a listen! Dreadlow Gaming: Ledo is a good friend to abyssal gaming and will be running the official RPG Server of Abyssal gaming once it is ready (This could be a while off). in addition he is also working on custom Single Player mods for the Abyssal Community which will be found in our new Downloads section mentioned above. We have a few others in the works, but nothing is confirmed, so you will see no mention until they are. Logo(s) Although not final and 100%, we have a new logo for our forum and social networking done by Ayjayo himself. We hope you can join us in thanking him for the time he has spent with us to create this imagery and the time he will spend helping us further in the future. Thank You Ayjayo! As you can see we have been busy, we have wanted to release content but the limitation has been that 1.2 plugins haven't fully updated. Even now there are plugins missing that we needed, we chose to forgo on those for now as they weren't mission critical. I have held of this giant announcement until we actually had a list of items to announce! I hope everyone can enjoy what we have to offer.