Activision is a publisher that knows, and has come to love, peripherals. After all, they've helped drive the "Guitar Hero" franchise to well over $1 billion in revenue. (Unlike MTV, Activision typically makes money on its music hardware, though it did have some hiccups with "World Tour" drums over the holidays.)

Which is why it makes some sense it's going that route with the next "Tony Hawk" skateboarding game, coming this fall. Rumors that the as-yet-untitled game would use some kind of peripheral started last summer. But two sources who have seen the game first hand have confirmed that it will indeed eschew controllers and rely on a board-like peripheral. I'm told it won't be about precise balance (if you want to do that, just get a real skateboard). Instead it'll be about grabbing and manipulating the board to pull of all the tricks for which "Tony Hawk" games are known. Because the peripheral does a lot more than just measure where players are standing, I'm told it'll be available for the Wii version as well -- it won't just rely on the board that came with "Wii Fit," as EA's "Skate It" did.

In addition, my sources confirmed the wide speculation that developer Robomodo, formed primarily by former EA Chicago employees, is making the game.

Skateboarding games have always relied on complex button combos, Switching the interface to be based entirely (or primarily?) on a peripheral is a pretty radical shift. But after poor sales for 2007's Tony Hawk game, it makes sense that Activision is ready to take that risk. And helps explain why it was willing to put its annual franchise on hold last year.

If it's successful, Activision will have a revitalized new franchise that could stand beside its currently dominant trio of "Guitar Hero," "Call of Duty," and "Warcraft." Just as Activision has done with "Guitar Hero," you can be sure it will release numerous "Tony Hawk" sequels, spin-offs, etc. that all take advantage of the skateboard peripheral. Because if gamers love the board as much as they love plastic guitar controllers, they'll want lots more content to take advantage of it after they make the investment.

Activision is probably uniquely positioned to take this jump, since it has already invested so much in the logistics to get plastic guitar and drum peripherals manufactured in China and shipped around the world. Adding skateboards to that system will give it economies of scale that no other publisher could enjoy --  resulting in the kind of big margins that Activision management demands.

Here's a bizarre lawsuit: The guy who wrote the fight song for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas is suing Electronic Arts for allegedly using it, without permission, in "NCAA Basketball / March Madness," (same series, but the title changed) and "NCAA Football" games.

EA has been making the football series since 1993 and basketball since 2003 (according to wikipedia; I admit I have never played them), but I have no idea for how many editions used the song (anybody who does play them know?).

But if this guy really does have a case, then I would imagine the writers of a LOT of college fight songs are going to be looking for a payday from EA really soon.

EA declined to respond to the suit.

Info comes from Courthouse News Service via Variety.com's new blog HAL.

EA recently said that "Madden NFL '09" revenue is up 6% from last year in August, but NPD specifies that overall unit sales were up just two percent from last year. Given industry growth, a larger console install base, and the stronger critical reception this year, that's got to be a disappointment. Still, 2.3 million units is 2.3 million units and that's still a big chunk of money for EA and an easy number one for the month.

Looks like EA's going to have to do a better job selling (or is that developing?) "All-Play," though. Despite continues huge sales for the Wii, the more accessible version of "Madden '09" for Nintendo's motion sensing console sold only 116,000 units last month, way behind the 360, PS3, and PS2 sku's.

Overall, it was the slowest growing month so far in 2008 for the videogame biz, though most other industries would kill to be up 9%. "Too Human" was the only non-"Madden" new game to even make the top 10, and it wasn't an impressive showing, with just 168,000 units last month.

Here's the full data dump for videogames sales in 2008 from NPD:

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in August
Madden NFL' 09         360           EA                1 million
Madden NFL '09         PS3           EA                643,000
Madden NFL '09         PS2           EA                425,000
Wii Fit                      Wii          Nintendo        395,000
Mario Kart                 Wii          Nintendo        329,000
Wii Play                     Wii          Nintendo        200,000
Soul Calibur IV            360         Namco Bandai 174,000
Too Human                360          Microsoft        168,000
Madden NFL '09          Wii          EA                  116,000
Guitar Hero: On Tour  DS          Activision        111,000

Console       August unit sales      Lifetime-to-date
DS               518,000                    22 million
Wii             453,000                    12 million
PSP             253,000                    12.4 million
360             195,000                    10.9 million
PS3             185,000                    5.3 million

Category            August revenue  Change  Year-to-date revenue  Change
Total industry     $995 million        9%         $10.55 billion             32%
Hardware           $395 million        3%         $3.73 billion               20%
Software            $551 million        13%       $5.45 billion               43%
Accessories        $137 million        13%       $1.38 billion               24%