3D Reams, developer of Duke Nukem Forever, has shut their doors.  As being reported on ShackNews, however, it is unknown if the shut down is due to funding issues as originally reported.

Joe Siegler, 3D Realms webmaster, has been quoted as saying “it is not a marketing thing”, so we at least know that it isn’t some weird release event for DNF.

Sadly, Duke Nukem Forever is STILL in development. *sigh*

Earlier today, the decision was handed down in a Swedish court that the PirateBay 4, the four people that run PirateBay.org, are guilty of assisting in making copyright content available. The charge is that they will all spend one year in prison each, along with fines totaling around 3.6 Million. Rest in Peace, Age of Torrenting, for soon enough you shall be laid in the clay of the fallen fads of the internet.

In a recent report over at kotaku.com, it sounds like the Mortal Kombat developers team wants to open up their own studios. It’s mentioned in the piece that they’re already in talks with production companies as well as talks with Midway, their current parent company.

Here’s an excerpt from the article,

Sources said that the Mortal Kombat team has become increasingly “frustrated” with the handling of Midway’s bankruptcy filing. MK staffers also expressed irritation from being in the position of delivering million unit-selling titles on time and on a bi-annual schedule while other projects at the company languish in development.

Midway representatives, when contacted for comment, opted not to discuss the Mortal Kombat team’s plans, saying that the team was in “good shape.” They did, however, want to stress that Midway itself is not withholding any owed payment to the Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe developers.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the Mortal Kombat team evolves and moves onto being a full fledged game developer.

Today the following message was posted on Filefront.com, long time standing file hosting service and staple of mod makers, game creators, and all around internet folks.

We regret to inform you that due to the current economic conditions we are forced to indefinitely suspend the FileFront site operations on March 30, 2009. If you have uploaded files, images or posted blogs, or if you would like to download some of your favorite files, please take this opportunity to download them before March 30th when the site will be suspended.

We would like to give a warm thank you to all of you who have been part of the FileFront communities we have built together. Your support has had a meaningful impact for all of us here at FileFront. Again, we want to give you a sincere “thank you” for your support over the years and wish you all the very best.

Keep gaming alive,

FileFront Management and Team.

Contact_us@filefront.com

TGM wishes them the best, and hopes that a service can step up and fill the void that we’re sure will be left after March 30th.

Apple today announced the latest update to the iPhone and iPod Touch software, version 3.0.  Some of the new features include…

• Stereo Bluetooth
• In-App Downloadable/Purchasable content
• ‘Spotlight’ Device-Wide Search & App Launcher
• Push Notification
• Cut, Copy & Paste between apps
• Turn-By-Turn GPS Apps allowed (just not using Google Maps)
• Embed Google Maps in non-Turn-by-turn apps
• Apps can now inter-operate with iPhone and iPod Touch accessories
• Landscape keyboard in most core Apps
• MMS support, send pictures or audio to other cell phones
• Voice Memos
• CalDAV and .ICS support in Calendar

The SDK Beta is available now to members of the iPhone Developer Program and will be released this Summer.  The update will be free to all iPhone owners and cost $9.95 to all iPod Touch owners.  Original iPhone owners will not, however, recieve Stereo Bluetooth or MMS.

Coming from darkzero.co.uk, it’s been announced that CryTEK will be introducing a brand new game development engine at the Game Developers Conference Expo this year. It’s slated to be the greatest and most advanced Developer’s Platform ever put together in one singular program. Make what judgements on this you will, but I think this is wasted time and money in this day and age.

As it stands, the current graphics coming out of the CryTEK DPs are already over the top of what the everyday system can handle. It stands that Crysis still won’t run on my system on it’s lowest settings, and I can currently play World of Warcraft on it’s highest settings without any hiccups or issues. With that kind of benchmark, I really scratch my head and ask myself what CryTEK wants to do by advancing their platform, graphics, and tools even more. I understand they’re out to sell copies of their software and prove they’re the premium game developer that they feel they are, but seriously? More powerful graphics? Do they want no one to be able to play their games? This is silly in my opinion, you have to let the general public catch up with what you’re putting out.

This has been a random opinion from your neighborly CEO, Leto.

Apple today unveiled the 2009 line of iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Mini systems as well as the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule devices.

The new Mac Mini now includes the NVidia GeForce 9400M (128MB to 256MB shared memory) integrated graphics while supporting up to 4GB of internal memory itself.  Not really a “power-house” for gaming in the graphics chip side of things, but definetly a Mac system with some staying power.  This update also sports 802.11-N wireless networking, five USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, Mini-DVI and DisplayPort video outputs.

The new Mac Pro tower system now comes with either a 2.66GHz, 4-core or two 2.26GHz 4-core (called 8-core) Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors, 18x dual-layer SuperDrive, 640GB hard disk, 3GB or 6GB internal memory and an NVidia GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of memory.  This is the great grand-daddy of the Mac Mini, sparing no expense with the power it delievers.

Before now, the Airport and Time Capsule line of devices have all been single-band, broadcasting either a B/G, G, or N based wireless network.  With the new Airport and Time Capsule will have the ability to broadcast two seperate wireless network, allowing for better placement of your wireless devices that currently fight for wireless bandwidth.  Currently, I use an Airport N for my main computer and an Airport Express B/G for my iPhone/Wii/360/DS.

See more at the Apple Store…