Despite analyst predictions, it looks like we won’t see a new full-scale installment in the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise next year.

Take Two Interactive Software shot down the whispers today in a call with analysts after delaying “Bioshock 2” and drastically lowering its earnings expectation for the year.

“Our goal for fiscal year 2010 is to operate the company profitably  … without a new multi-platform ‘Grand Theft Auto’ release,” said Ben Feder, president and CEO of Take Two.

Pressed by analysts on whether that would mean a new GTA is completely out of the question for next year, he added “I don’t think any more clarification is required.”

The chatter about “GTA V” started in March, when Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter predicted the game would hit next year.

"When the next version of GTA comes out in late 2010 (not yet announced, but a reasonable expectation), there should be an installed base of approximately 60 million consoles in the addressable market,” he wrote. “We don't think it is reasonable to estimate that sales of GTA will double the prior version, but we think that a 25-30% penetration is reasonable, suggesting 15-18 million units sold."

More downloadable content is likely next year, but it now appears the next ‘full’ game won’t be hitting until sometime in 2011. 

It's hard to blame Take Two for keeping the game in 2011. For years, the company has tried to prove it's not a one-trick pony, but investors have remained doubtful. If they're able to pull in record profits without a "GTA" in that year's release list, they may finally convert some of those skeptics into believers.  

Two big titles that were originally planned for release this holiday season have fallen out of the pack.

Sony has delayed “Heavy Rain” until 2010, while Take Two Interactive has done the same with “BioShock 2”. The moves are bound to upset some fans, but could ultimately prove beneficial for both titles.

“Heavy Rain” is an original IP – and would have found itself up against some serious competition during the holiday period. Historically, big sequels rule the sales charts at the end of the year. With eagerly awaited installments in the “Call of Duty” and “Splinter Cell” franchises leading the way, it’s very possible that “Heavy Rain” would have fallen by the wayside as consumers curb their spending.

It happened to EA and “Mirror’s Edge” last year. The game was a sales dud, never gaining any traction against bigger titles.

The story’s a bit different for “Bioshock 2”. As the sequel to one of the biggest games of 2007, it has an established fan base. The new game, though, isn’t being made by the same development team that created the original. Four studios are working on “Bioshock 2” at this point, which has set off warning bells for fans. The game did not have a particularly strong showing at E3 last month either.

 “The decision to shift a release date is never an easy one, especially with a product as highly anticipated as ‘BioShock 2’,” said Ben Feder, CEO of Take-Two in a statement. “We felt that it was essential to invest the additional time to ensure that this title will deliver what its fans expect and deserve.”

Technically, Take Two did not officially say the game (which was originally due in early November) will not be released this year. It simply moved it out of its fiscal 2009 earnings release schedule. But reading between the lines, it sounds like this could be a noteworthy delay.

The original “BioShock” was scheduled to be converted into a film helmed by Gore Verbinski, though that production was stuck in a holding pattern earlier this year. Producers are considering moving the production outside of the U.S. to take advantage of a tax credit.

I should warn you: This post will probably not be good for your productivity.

Bethesda Softworks has decided to release “The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall” as a free download starting today. The move comes as the company celebrates the title’s 10^th anniversary.

This is the title that really set the role-playing game franchise on its path and is generally considered one of the best RPGs ever released. It’s certainly one of the largest. The world of Tamriel here is bigger than any modern Elder Scrolls game, giving you well over 100 hours of gameplay.

Since the game is 10 years old, it may take a little maneuvering to get up and running on your system. Bethesda has put together a walkthrough to help people install the DOSBox emulator (and the game), so they can start playing.

Rob Thomas admits he’s not much of a gamer. And given his commitments to his burgeoning solo career and his duties as frontman of Matchbox 20, that’s not surprising.

That said, he does own an Xbox 360 and a PlayStation 3. And, as the father of an 11 year old boy, he’s been known to pick up a controller from time to time. The game of choice in the Thomas house? “Rock Band”

“There’s something great about watching [my son] playing a Pixies song with me on ‘Rock Band’,” he says. “[The game] puts a kid in a world they’re familiar with, but unbeknownst to them, they’re being exposed to this great assortment of music.”

It’s ironic, then, that the game features no songs by either Thomas or Matchbox. Fans of the game have requested them in forums, but haven’t gotten a response yet. As for Thomas, he says he’d love to see his music added to the game.

“We haven’t been asked,” he says. “If we were, we obviously would do it.”

Are you listening Harmonix?

(While he’s not a gamer, Thomas is one of the few musicians who’s on the cutting edge of digital marketing. Read more about how he’s using the technology to expand his fan base at Technotainment.)

Last July, when Microsoft took the wraps off of its Xbox Live Prime Time program, it promised the games would allow people to compete for “real world” prizes. So far, it has failed to deliver on that.

That begins to change this Friday, though, when players of the U.S. and Canadian beta of “1 vs. 100” will be competing for up to 10,000 Microsoft Points and a new Xbox LIVE Arcade title in every round. (Each two hour episode of the live show generally features between eight and 13 rounds.)

Players who are playing as part of the mob (or, the “100” in the game’s title) or “the One” will have a chance to win the points and games. The great unwashed in the crowd still just get to play for ego boosts and sweepstakes entries, which puts them in the running for a Zune or an HDTV home theater system.

That’s a bit nicer, though hopefully Microsoft will offer players in the game more than just points and LIVE Arcade titles when the game comes out of beta and launches its regular season. That (at least, according to Shane Kim -- corporate vice president of strategy and business development for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business -- was the plan at the beginning.

Time has a way of changing game plans, though.

It’s worth noting that residents of Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland and Vermont (as well as Quebec, Canada) are ineligible to win prizes due to laws in those areas.

LucasArts, which has resisted the digital distribution movement in gaming for the past several years, is jumping on board. The company today unveiled a partnership with Valve’s Steam distribution service to sell back-catalogue games online.

Ten titles will be part of the initial round, which will go on sale this Wednesday, July 8. The games, listed below, are a mix of older adventure games and more recent titles.

• Armed and Dangerous
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure
• LOOM
• Star Wars Battlefront II
• Star Wars Republic Commando
• Star Wars Starfighter
• The Dig
• Thrillville: Off the Rails

LucasArts has made a recent vow to revitalize its portfolio of games. In addition to the distribution deal with Steam, it is also working with Telltale Games to create content revolving around its popular “Monkey Island” franchise for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PC.

Expect more titles to be added to Steam (and possibly other digital distribution services) in the coming weeks and months.

Personally, I’m gonna hold out for “Grim Fandango”.

Often demonized by parents groups, video games just got a high-profile child-advocacy supporter.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop has issued a report detailing the potentially positive effects of games in helping to educate children and promote their well-being.

The report urges educators, the government and even the healthcare industry to launch research and development initiatives in the industry, so they might learn to maximize the impact video games can have on kids.

“Despite their reputation as promoters of violence and mayhem, digital games have in fact been shown to help children gain content and vital foundational and 21st century skills,” the report reads.

The increase in active participation in gaming (as found in many Wii games and the upcoming Project Natal by Microsoft) is pointed to as a paradigm shift in the industry, moving it away from its sedentary reputation. Beyond physical fitness aspects, games can also be used to promote a healthy lifestyle, says the report.

Among the other things children can learn from games, according to the report, are:

• Content (from rich vocabulary to science to history)
• Skills (from literacy to math to complex problem-solving)
• Creation of artifacts (from videos to software code)
• Systems thinking (how changing one element affects relationships as a whole) 

Of course, the report notes that children who play games should do so with adult supervision – and, obviously, it’s not talking about M-rated titles.

“We know enough about digital games and how they work to recognize their promise,” says the report. “Now we need to invest time and resources to turn this promise into a real “game changer” for America’s children.”

With no other bidders emerging for Midway Games, Warner Bros. has bought most of the company’s assets for $33 million, including the “Mortal Kombat” franchise as well as the company’s legacy arcade games, such as “Joust” and “Spy Hunter”.

The bankruptcy judge overseeing the sale apparently wasn’t swayed by Threshold Entertainment’s argument that film producer Larry Kasanoff was the driving creative force in the franchise. (The Chicago Tribune quotes the judge as saying the objections, as well as those of Vin Diesel-owned development studio Tigon Games were ‘resolved’.

A pair of development studios that Warner opted not to buy will be shuttered in just under two months if no bidders emerge for them. The Newcastle studio has worked on the “Wheelman” franchise, while the San Diego studio has created the “TNA” games. Warner did purchase rights to the “Wheelman” games, but not the development studio behind it.

Warner picked up some valuable assets at firesale prices in this deal. Expect another “Mortal Kombat”/DC crossover in the years to come and possibly some re-imaginings of classic titles. The company has been beefing up its video game division steadily over the past few years and has managed to assemble some talented teams. It should be interesting to see what they do with some of the licenses they now own.

Danny, Sandy, The Pink Ladies and the T-Birds are headed to Nintendo-land.

505 Games today announced it has secured publishing rights for a video game based on the iconic musical “Grease”. Working with Paramount Digital Entertainment, the company will create versions of the game for both the Wii and Nintendo DS.

Details are scant right now, though the publishers says the game will take advantage of the Wii’s motion-sensing controller and microphone, meaning you may get the chance to sing along with some of the play/movie’s better known songs.

Movie-based games based on older properties are hot these days. The just-released “Ghostbusters” from Sony and developer Terminal Reality was cheered by critics, gamers and non-gamers alike and is expected to be one of June’s top selling titles.

Paramount last year announced plans to work with Legacy Interactive on a game based on the films “Clueless,""Mean Girls" and "Pretty in Pink." The studio previously worked with Electronic Arts on two games based on “The Godfather” franchise, which have boasted solid, though not remarkable sales numbers.

Just one month after signing a deal to stream live programming via the Xbox 360 in the UK and Ireland, Microsoft has struck a similar deal for customers in France.

Canal+ has signed with the console maker to offer more than 3,000 live and on-demand films, sports and television programming to users of the system. The two companies plan to incorporate more programming and expand the partnership to other Microsoft devices in the future.

It was just last month that Microsoft and Sky TV unveiled a similar partnership, letting Xbox Live subscribers in the UK and Ireland gain access to Sky's Sky Player service without a set top box. One of the appeals of this sort of programming is being able to watch sporting content with online friends and chat in live time during the game.

For now, U.S. Xbox Live subscribers cannot access live programming, though they are able to stream films on-demand from Netflix. However, today’s agreement (as well as the Sky TV deal) suggests that the company is continuing to work on a way to enable more streaming programming for domestic audiences as well.

It’s all part of the company’s plan to make the Xbox 360 the entertainment hub of the living room. Both Microsoft and Sony have made no bones about their desire to displace other set top boxes as space becomes more limited in people’s homes.