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A countdown website has gone live, teasing a new project by Piranha Bytes and Deep Silver. Simply dubbed RPB at the moment, the site still has five more days to go to give us a glimpse of the role-playing game’s world.

A FAQ is currently online, as well as a discussion board offering gamers the chance to discuss the game before it’s fully unveiled.

Project RPB is the current working title, combining Piranha Bytes and “role-playing game.”

Playable demos of FaceBreaker and Madden NFL 09 are now available on Xbox Live Marketplace.

A 1.1GB download, the Madden NFL 09 is not a sample of the actual game itself, but rather a mini-game using the game’s holographic interface. It’s dubbed “Madden Test”.

On the other hand, the demo for FaceBreaker is a proper one, offering a Fight mode with three characters and two rings, along with solo and multiplayer modes. Custom characters can also be created, which can be used in the Fight mode.

NFL 09 is set for release on August 12 for PS2, PS3, PSP, DS, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii. Meanwhile, Facebreaker is set for release on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii in September.

Continuing its support for Sony, Naughty Dog designer Richard Lemarchand went on record to state how good he thinks the PlayStation Network is over Xbox Live, and how Sony is planning to improve it.

The Uncharted developer, speaking with IGN, said that the PS3’s trophies build off of Xbox 360’s Achievements, noting that the social aspects provided by the system could become “the norm across all gaming systems.”

“I like the fact that you can pull them up and look at them in-game anywhere you are on the PS3 interface,” he added. “I think there’s going to be other things coming down the pipe that’s going to give PSN as a whole a competitive edge.”

While he would not divulge details of upcoming additions, he was excited by web connectivity and user-oriented content systems offered in Sony’s upcoming lineup.

Sources speaking to VentureBeat revealed that internet giant Google is testing software that could bring the company’s AdSense advertising system to PC and console games. The software is said to make use of video game characters to introduce video ads, saying something similar to “and now, a word from our sponsors,” however cheesy that may sound.

The technology is reportedly going to make use of Google’s contextual advertising system and is functional in console games, computer games and mobile phone games. It has been in testing phase for several months.

Google is yet to make an official announcement about the software. It currently has several competitors, including Massive Inc, which, earlier this year, extended its reach in the industry.

While the release of the Wii MotionPlus accessory caught developers off guard, it enabled gamers to dream of 1:1 motion-accurate lightsaber game from LucasArts, or anyone else for that matter.

Gamers may get their wishes fulfilled soon, as AiLive has revealed LiveMove 2, a piece of middleware designed to help developers easily incorporate Wii MotionPlus support into their games. They have a demonstration video up in which a developer uses a laser sword to knock around objects, including human figures.

Following Activision Blizzard’s announcement that they are streamlining operations, Vivendi Games today announced that it has returned the rights to develop and distribute games based on the Bourne series of novels to the late author’s estate.

“Our colleagues at Vivendi Games did a tremendous job of capturing the spirit and allure of Robert Ludlum’s writing with The Bourne Conspiracy,” said Ludlum Entertainment CEO Jeffrey Weiner. “The gaming community’s strong response is clear indication that future Ludlum games will deliver both popularity and profitability for years to come.”

High Moon Studios, developer of the recently released Bourne Conspiracy, is currently having its staff “realigned” thanks to the merger between Activision and Vivendi.

Ludlum Entertainment did not mention its plans for the license, or which developers will take on development duties of future titles in the franchise.

Having established itself on the big-screen, Capcom is now looking to dominate comic books worldwide. Hence, they today announced their partnership with DC Comics to create a comic book series based on the publisher’s popular gaming properties Resident Evil and Devil May Cry.

“Capcom is thrilled to be partnering with DC,” said Germaine Gioia, senior VP of licensing for Capcom Entertainment, Inc. “Comics are a critical component in Capcom’s merchandising strategy for our most cherished franchises, as they target the same discerning, loyal fans that care most about these established brands. DC’s undisputed development and distribution strength within the comic industry make them an ideal partner to further expand two of our most successful and sophisticated gaming properties.”

Details on the new series, including creative team and launch month, will be announced at a later date. Both titles will be published under DC Comics’ WildStorm imprint.

CVG reports that Tom Clancy’s HAWX has been delayed to early next year by publisher Ubisoft. It was previously slated for release this Fall.

In development at Ubisoft’s Romania studio, the game offers air combat simulation on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The delay puts it sometime between January and March of next year.

No reason for the delay was given.

Space may as well be the final frontier for gamers, too, as Richard Garriott, the eccentric creator of Ultima and Tabula Rasa, when he ventures into space this Fall, will deposit a “digital time capsule” on the International Space Station that packs the digital DNA of certain Tabula Rasa subscribers.

Dubbed “Operation Immortality” by NCSoft, the capsule will contain the “digitized DNA of select video game players and space aficionados” along with copies of all active Tabula Rasa characters as of September 2, 2008.

“Theoretically, if anything happens to the human race, it could be their DNA that is used to resurrect humanity,” said the rather proud Garriott.

The multiplayer beta for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 has begun, allowing the first 2,000 applicants to begin playing.

“We are starting the activation process with a very small pool of testers and will work to ramp this number up to thousands and thousands of Comrades around the world on a weekly basis, likely multiple times a week throughout the rest of this month and August,” wrote EALA on its website.

The studio hopes to add at least 10,000 more participants to the beta in the next wave. Currently the only way to register for the beta is to use the key that was bundled with the PC edition of Kane’s Wrath, an expansion to C&C3.

The full version of the game will be released this October on PC and Xbox 360. A PS3 version was recently cancelled citing a difficult development environment.

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Despite what everyone thought initially, Boom Blox has sold over 450,000 copies since launch. The game was the result of intense lovemaking between EALA and Steven Spielberg, which resulted in this awesome physics-driven puzzle game.

It wasn’t specified whether the figure was for sales solely in North America or units shifted worldwide. The game is available in all major regions throughout the world.

EA CEO John Riccitiello added that the game “continues to sell well.” It is exclusive to the Wii.

BioShock creator Ken Levine has started teasing about his next project, which is separate from the 2K Marin-developed BioShock 2.

“It’s going to be pretty crazy ambitious,” he said. “It’s important to us that whatever we do has the same impact on the gamer that BioShock did. And so, I think that the company’s position on us and what we do is that we’re going to be breaking down barriers and breaking down doors.” As for the BioShock sequel, Levine noted that he was “not substantially” involved with it. “I’m doing my thing and making my game,” he said. Levine also touched on rumors that he is difficult to work with and that this had caused many employees to transfer from 2K Boston to 2K Marin. “It’s not something I can respond to, there’s no point in it,” he said. “Look at the BioShock credit list and see how true that rumor is. My personality? I don’t know. Maybe I am an asshole.”

Nintendo today announced that its first quarter profit increased 34% compared to a year ago based on the strength of the Wii.

The company made a $996 million profit on revenues of $3.9 billion. They sold over 5.2 million Wii units, along with 3.4 million and 6.4 million copies of Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii, respectively.

DS sales dropped by forty thousand units in the same period last year. It still sold about 7 million units, bringing worldwide sales to 77.54 million units.

EA today announced that upcoming free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes has been delayed and is now expected to arrive late this year.

In development at EA DICE, the game was originally expected to launch this Summer.

“We decided to increase its focus on some of the social networking features,” said company CEO Riccitiello, stressing that the studio hopes to incorporate beta tester feedback and implement new features. “The last thing we want to do is jab it in the marketplace.”

Following word that freshly-formed publisher Activision Blizzard will not be picking up every Vivendi title as part of its merger, heavy metal action title Brutal Legend was seen as a possible casualty.

However, fans can now breathe easily, as an update to the Double Fine Action blog is assuring fans that the game has not been killed. “Brutal Legend is fine,” is all that is written on the blog, offering no further details.

Brutal Legend stars Jack Black as a heavy metal roadie who enters a fantasy realm and must fight using metal-themed weapons and enemies. It is being headed by Tim Schafer, the man behind Psychonauts, and is in development for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Shacknews reports that EA is planning to sell computers that will be branded and marketed as machines capable of playing Crysis, which has become the butt of many gamers jokes due to the game being highly demanding on the computer.

The computers will be released alongside the upcoming stand-alone expansion Crysis Warhead and will come in several configurations, though details weren’t provided.

Crysis Warhead is set for release this September.

EA raked in over $90 million in direct digital sales in the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, the company announced at its investor call today.

The figure includes revenue collected through the company’s EA Store, which offers direct downloads of its catalog of PC games and more. It also includes games and other content on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.

Additionally, the company also offers music via the EA Trax division, offering downloads of soundtracks from the Need for Speed series, among others.

Reporting from the same investor conference call, EA Sports president Peter Moore offered details on the company’s attempts to reinvigorate its PC sports title offerings.

“We are retooling these titles [on the PC] to take advantage of the online connectivity in a bigger and more meaningful way,” he said, noting that major franchises will reappear on PC starting next year.

Moore also said that the company is experimenting with subscription programs to reward players, but offered no details on the subject.

As for the performance of EA Sports, the company revealed that pre-order numbers for sports games are down compared to last year. However, both Moore and EA CEO John Riccitiello stressed that the company is not worried as sales have remained consistent.

While PC and PS3 are said to be the least popular platforms among gamers these days, these are the platforms which EA is selling most on. The company announced that PC and PS3 sales contributed the most to its revenue, with the latter bringing in about $139 million. PC software followed at $86 million, with Xbox 360 coming in at $81 million for the quarter ending June 30, 2008.

The company cited Battlefield: Bad Company and Mass Effect as examples of well-received games released in the last quarter.

“We are now seeing the early returns of the change agenda we started last year,” said EA CEO John Riccitiello. “Innovation and quality are rising, our games are more accessible and fun, and we have more new titles than at any time in our history.”

EA today announced in a conference call to investors that squad-based shooter Tiberium has been delayed.

The first-person shooter is set in the familiar C&C world, having gamers go at it directly in the battlefield. It was originally pinned for a late 2008 release, but the delay puts it in EA’s 2010 fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.

No reasons for the delay were given. It is in development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

With Fable 2 due out this October, Lionhead lead designer Peter Molyneaux revealed that the company plans on creating three more titles in the action-RPG series.

“We’ve got plans for Fable 3, 4, and 5,” he told GameTrailers. “It’s a big story arc, and you can see—if you play Fable 2, you can recognize things from Fable 1, so that’s pretty exciting.”

When asked about the studio’s other unannounced project,he declined to comment, but noted that it is the result of an “experiment that went incredibly well.”

Hideo Kojima’s interview with Variety isn’t exactly full of information on the director’s upcoming games, but he does say some interesting things.

Talking about Snake, he noted that the “final story of Snake equals closure for these fans… Therefore, the Snake that has existed over the past 10 years could have only existed during this time.”

He adds that he doesn’t know if he will be working on a new Solid Snake game anymore, but did say that “if there ever were to be a new Snake [game], he will be a Snake for a new era.” Whatever that means.

As much as we would like to speculate just how much the guys at Penny Arcade hate the PS3, it wasn’t the reason why Penny Arcade Adventures was late to the PlayStation Network. It was technology, who is to blame.

Vlad Ceraldi, president and CEO of Hothead Games, revealed that they had to redo the entire engine of the game for the PS3 release.

“At that point we were fully committed to getting the game done as soon as we could,” Ceraldi said. “So we focused on PC, linux and what we had already announced, the Xbox.”

“As soon as we finished and got approved we moved those developers to the playstation and they started working on it for the Playstation Network,” he said. “Until we got it running the way we wanted to look, we weren’t going to announce anything.”

“As soon as we did a full play through of the game we announced.”

He notes that future episodes of the game will be released on all the aforementioned platforms within weeks of one another.