I hope noone was too upset about the lack of a Sunday update. It will probably be a regular occurance since there really isn't much going on that day news wise, and it's a pretty slow day traffic wise as well.

We kick off Monday with some old stories from last week that didn't get filtered in. (Monday is kinda slow too...). First up is the not so suprising news that there are definately two more chapters to the Grand Theft Auto series in the pipeline. The first is GTA: Sin City which will obviously be some Vegas like project. The second is the real sequel known as Grand Theft Auto ... wait for it ... 4!!!

From the rumour mill is news of a big merger (besides the Sqaure/Enix thing) coming up in Japan. Possibly involving Capcom and either Sega, Namco, or Konami. Of course so far this is all a bunch of baseless speculation, but...

Besides playing kick ass games the PS2 may be a tool for streaming media and pay-per-view content, if some people get their wish. Software folks BroadQ and and cable TV provider Advent Networks are supposably teaming up to deliver things like MPEG-4, Div-X, and MP3 goodies to PS2 owners with the proper network setups. How this will happen is still in the making, but the role of the PS2 finally being a "set top box" might be closer than you think.

Lastly a little Xbox news. (It's been kinda neglected so far...) In a recent conference regarding the system Microsoft confirmed that they would be increasing the budget for the system to ensure it's place as a viable competitor in the console wars. The amount was specified, but they've already alloted 2 billion dollars over five years. Basically this sends the message that Microsoft strongly wants to make the Xbox a success, no matter what the cost, and won't be abandoning their efforts any time soon. That's comforting news for those a little gunshy after that whole Dreamcast fiasco...

-Hanzo

Sources: Gamefront, Cnet, and the color clear!