EA SA debuts Christmas titles

The annual sneak preview of Electronic Arts` (EA) Christmas games line-up, EA Imagine, took place at the company`s offices in Fourways yesterday. Several titles for PC, PlayStation 2 and GameCube were demonstrated. The company has already started to roll-out the new titles, with the multiplayer-focused "Battlefield 1942" hitting the store shelves. Most of the games on demonstration were pre-release versions. However, some of them, like "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" look amazing and had some seasoned game reviewers shivering in anticipation for their full release. EA SA MD Ryan Jones believes this will be the biggest Christmas on record for the company in the local market. He attributes this to EA`s key franchises like Harry Potter and Soldier of Fortune. Jones says that while the PC market is still strong, it is becoming less significant as the PlayStation 2 market is growing at a staggering rate. Other titles to look out for during the next couple of months include "007 NightFire", "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", and "FIFA 2003".

IBM is getting ready to unveil the next release of its AIX 5L operating system for the pSeries servers. Sources close to the company say it could make the announcement as early as next week. This is close to the time when IBM is expected to announce AIX 5.2 technology that brings dynamic logical partitioning to its Power4-based Regatta family of servers. IBM is not expected to announce enhanced Power4-II processors for its pSeries though. Sources say the company will only introduce these new processors to coincide with its Analyst Day on 13 November when IBM CEO Sam Palmisano will speak about Big Blue at Wall Street. [More at CBROnline]

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