Sweden-based Massive Entertainment has been acquired by Ubisoft, according to a statement released by the company. Acquired from Activision Blizzard, Massive is the developer of the critically-acclaimed World in Conflict RTS series.

“Massive’s development team places great importance on its freedom to innovate and create games of the highest quality,” stated Martin Walfisz, president and founder of Massive Entertainment. “We are fortunate to have found in Ubisoft a publisher who shares the same values and understands our mindset. I have no doubt that our future together will offer significant mutual benefit and synergy.”

Just a wild guess here, but get ready for a new Tom Clancy title.

Everyone expects a sequel to be bigger, more intense, and overloaded with new stuff. Gears of War 2 takes this to heart, creating a sequel that literally overwhelms the first game to the point where it feels useless and weak. How there could ever be something on a larger scale than this is truly unbelievable.

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Rock Band’s DLC for the week of November 11 was announced today by Harmonix.

Foo Fighters: The Colour and the Shape (Full Album):

1. “Doll”
2. “Monkey Wrench”
3. “Hey, Johnny Park!”
4. “My Poor Brain”
5. “Wind Up”
6. “Up in Arms”
7. “My Hero”
8. “See You”
9. “Enough Space”
10. “February Stars”
11. “Walking After You”
12. “New Way Home”

All of the tracks are masters, and the only exception to this list is “Everlong”, which is featured in Rock Band 2. The tracks will sells together for 1600 Microsoft Points ($19.99) or for 160 Microsoft Points ($1.99) individually. They’ll be available on November 11 on the Xbox Live Marketplace, followed by the PlayStation Store on November 13.

Electronic Arts is closing their EA Casual label and merging it with its label dedicated to the sims, according to a report yesterday on Kotaku. In addition, EA Casual President Kathy Vrabeck will be resigning from the company as well.

We’ve learned a lot about casual entertainment in the past two years, and found that casual gaming defies a single genre and demographic. With the departure of Kathy Vrabeck, EA is reorganizing to integrate casual games — development and marketing — into other divisions of our business. We are merging our Casual Studios, Hasbro partnership, and Casual marketing organization with The Sims Label to be a new Sims and Casual Label, where there is a deep compatibility in the product design, marketing and demographics.

News of the merging comes almost a week after news of the company laying off 600 employees, which is another sign of game companies feeling the sting of today’s economy.

Electronic Arts Ditches Casual Label, Merges It With The Sims - [Kotaku]

NBC’s Heroes has taking hits from both critics and fans alike this season, and recently another blow came courtesy of Ubisoft. The company confirmed with MTV Multiplayer that their plans to make a game based on the series have been dropped, and they’ve given the rights back to NBC Universal.

Here’s the statement from public relations director Jaime Cottini:“The rights to the ‘Heroes’ video game have reverted back to NBC Universal. Ubisoft will no longer produce a video game based on the TV series.”

With this news, along with two of the show’s executive producers getting axed earlier in the week, it’s looking like Heroes might need someone to save it as well.

Ubisoft Drops Plans For Heroes Game - [MTV Multiplayer]

Bethesda Softworks announced yesterday afternoon that Fallout 3 has had a very successful launch period, shipping 4.7 million units to retailers worldwide.

Released on October 28 in North America at midnight store openings in over 2,000 retail outlets nationwide jammed with fans eager to get the game, Fallout 3 quickly became one of the industry’s top sellers around the world. For example, in the United Kingdom where it was not released until Friday, October 31 the rapid sales of Fallout 3 have led the game to be ranked number one among all video games, as well as being the number one game on each of its three platforms.

Great news for Bethesda, especially considering that the RPG wasn’t exactly the household name among most when they picked it up. Now, only if I had the time to actually play it….

For Insomniac, Resistance 2 is a critical sequel. It’s the game that will determine if the franchise moves forward, and the direction it will take. The mantra here seems to be “more is better,” and it goes without saying that Resistance 2 definitely has more. It’s not a revolutionary FPS, but it’s a fun ride that should deliver plenty of replay thanks to its online features.

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Nintendo’s new model of the DS is proving to be quite the hit in Japan so far. According to JPN, the new Nintendo DSi has been doing so well that it has already sold out in its within its fourth day of being out.

Enterbrain put cumulative sales of the DSi machine at 170,779 units as of Sunday, two days after the launch on Saturday. Including reservations, the DSi machines are believed to have vanished from Japan’s store shelves by Tuesday.

Unless you already pulled the trigger and imported, you’ll be able to grab one in our neck of the woods next spring.

Nintendo DSi Portable Game Machine Sells Out in Only 4 Days - [JPN]

If you’re one of the many millions of gamers rocking out to the video game cover songs on Guitar Hero World Tour’s GH Tunes service, you better grab the songs you want quick. Activision’s said from the start that they’d be pulling the songs if they went up for copyright purposes, but a tipster gave GoNintendo a heads up that the first of those removals will be happening soon.

Reader Jet Pilot has let me know that Activision is jumping on people using the Guitar Hero
: World Tour music studio. Apparently, Activision has a problem with those that are remixing classic video game songs through the music studio program. These tracks are being removed from GH Tunes, and in some instances, users have had their account blocked. I guess we can kiss those Pokemon, Mario, and Zelda tunes goodbye!

So, basically, if you want that sweet version of ElectroChocobo and don’t already have it, you better do it quick!

Activision removing remixed video game tunes from GH Tunes - [GoNintendo]

Video games are well on their way to becoming the top entertainment form here in the United States, but it looks like the United Kingdom has beaten us to the punch. According a recent study released by Verdict Research, the UK’s game market will grow by 1.37 this year, putting it ahead of both music and video sales.

“Games represent a relatively cheap, but also exciting and innovative pastime,” said Matthew Piner, author of the Video Games and Consoles Retailing report.

“As more people save money by staying in, a video game, although it may cost three of four times as much as a DVD or CD, offers much more longevity and hence better value for money.”

If their prediction is accurate, the video game industry would top out at over 4.64 billion pounds, compared to 4.36 billion pounds on music and videos.

Video games to become UK’s top entertainment form - [Reuters]