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EA Montreal is restructuring its workforce. Some individuals are being moved to digital projects, including mobile and social games, while others will be dismissed.

"These are routine changes which address the cyclical nature of the game industry," an EA spokesperson told GI.biz. "A very small number of employees will be impacted - many will be assigned to new projects at EA, others will leave the company."

Just last week, EA told Joystiq that it's growing and plans to hire hundreds this year. EA expects headcount to be up by the end of 2012.

#nintendo Last year? Man, last year sucked. Nintendo bled loads of cash. Sure, the Nintendo 3DS was neato, but the rollout was rocky. And the Wii? That just gathered dust in anticipation for the upcoming Wii U. More »

#nintendo Today, Nintendo announced its first annual operating loss in the company's history. Sluggish Wii sales and a strong Japanese yen hurt Nintendo—not to mention a rocky rollout for the Nintendo 3DS. More »

Nintendo Direct, the all-Nintendo-news, some-of-the-time video series from official Nintendo headquarters, is hitting the airwaves tonight. Technically, it's noon EST tomorrow, April 21, but folks in the US can expect announcements from the Japanese feed starting at 8:30 p.m. PST tonight, Friday, April 20. The European announcements will hit at 1 p.m. CET (4 a.m. PST), April 21.

Nintendo hasn't revealed what it will discuss tonight, but it has left us a trail of clues. CEO Satoru Iwata sent out invitations to this weekend's Nintendo Direct on 3DS' Spot Pass, showing him with a giant, suspicious Kirby plushie. Kid Icarus: Uprising's Masahiro Sakurai tweeted to expect Uprising news and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy's Masanobu Suzui suggested fans should watch the feed, Andriasang translates.

We'll have our eyes and fingertips ready to roll for any breakout Kirby-Kid-Icarus-Theatrhythm crossover news tonight, because really, it's not like we had any plans on a Friday night or anything.

American author John Beiswenger has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Ubisoft and Gametrailers that claims the Assassin's Creed franchise stole core ideas from Beiswenger's novel, Link. Link was published in 2002 and the first Assassin's Creed game dropped in 2007.

Beiswenger claims the Animus in Assassin's Creed is a direct copy of his Link device, which allows users to access ancestral memories and relive specific moments in history, much as the Animus does. Beiswenger says his novel discusses "assassinations" and has "spiritual and biblical tones" also found in Assassin's Creed. And then there's the battle between good and evil that Beiswenger says Assassin's Creed stole right from the pages of Link.

Beiswenger is suing Gametrailers for the Assassin's Creed trailers that he says infringe on the same Link copyright. There are 11 counts against Ubisoft and Gametrailers in total, and only most of them made us laugh.

Beiswenger is seeking up to $5.25 million in damages and a cessation of further copyright infringement. We're pretty sure that second part is already happening, so perhaps Beiswenger will get something out of all this paperwork after all.

YouTube is padding its ranks with next-gen gaming console programmers, looking to "build the next generation game-console-based TV experience with YouTube video content," a Google Jobs listing found by IGN reveals. YouTube already has an app on Xbox 360, but apparently it wants to build a presence across all next-gen platforms, seeking someone with "deep technical knowledge of Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and/or Nintendo Wii."

YouTube is seeking someone to "deliver a compelling lean back experience with monetization and e-commerce offerings (ie, pay-per-stream, ads)" and "develop leading edge User Interfaces and delight users with innovative media rich solutions." Looks like YouTube wants to figure out how to take our money, but wants to make us happy about it. That's better than wanting our money, but making us depressed about it.

Now if YouTube would develop a PC app, it'd have all the important consoles covered. Oh... wait.

Taking to Twitter once again, Beamdog's Trent Oster has made it painfully clear that Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will not be ported to the Wii U. When asked about the possibility, Oster told a fan that "we don't do Nintendo development," adding that Beamdog's "previous experience with Nintendo was enough to ensure there will not be another [Nintendo project]."

Oster's issues with Nintendo extend from Beamdog's WiiWare port of MDK 2. A 6,000 unit sales requirement before a developer receives payment - combined with a drawn-out certification process soured Oster's feelings for WiiWare. He also noted that the Wii's "exceptionally low attach rate" is "bad for devs" and essentially makes the Wii "a toy."

We contacted Oster for clarification on Beamdog's experience with Nintendo, and he tells Joystiq, "It's pretty simple."

#nintendo With Nintendo expected to make a big push with its next generation hardware at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June, legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto tells Spanish publication El Mundo that his plumber pal and plant lackeys will be there in full force. More »

Your prey in Assassin's Creed 3 extends beyond that of mortal man. No, you won't be fighting ghosts, you silly goose - bears, deers, and a smattering of other Northeastern US fauna populate the lands of AC3, offering yet another avenue for your assassination arts. Oh, and yes, this is another leak. Really.

If you had the power to do anything with The Legend of Zelda franchise, what would you do? Remake Oracle of Ages/Seasons? Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto wouldn't mind coming back to A Link to the Past.

Miyamoto said he'd be "interested in creating something new maybe based on, or starting from, A Link To The Past" in an interview with Edge. "I think it's important to bring some really new software." It shouldn't come as a surprise, since he's already said he wants to see a remake on 3DS, but there's a big hurdle in his way. With his work on an original game ongoing the impending Wii U launch, time must be a very precious commodity at Nintendo nowadays.

"To be very honest and open, it really depends on the directors that have time at the moment as well," he said. "Some directors, I can give them the title and I know they will do something great with it. Other directors I'm not so 100 percent confident [in], so they're the ones I'd rather take a more remake approach to the title. It really depends on that as well."

It seems if Miyamoto is confident in a director, he'll give them free reign to produce whatever their vision is. A remake, on the other hand, is considered more appropriate for less experienced directors - no offense to Grezzo, who did most of the work on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D.

Nintendo Germany will not be attending the Gamescom convention in Cologne this summer, reports VG247. Instead of attending the massive event, Nintendo will be hosting "a number of sampling events throughout Germany" allowing fans to try out the Wii, 3DS and, of course, the upcoming Wii U.

Nintendo's absence is notable for a couple of reasons. First, the company always attends the convention. Second, skipping the largest games convention on the planet seems like a strange choice, especially given that Nintendo is releasing a brand new console later this year. Gamescom 2011 drew in 275,000 attendees from around the globe. That's a lot of hearts and minds that could be swayed with a little hands-on Wii U time. To put that in perspective, see the video above? That was Gamescom 2011. Now imagine all those people not playing a Wii U.

Nintendo's statement regarding the matter - which sheds no light on the company's reasoning - can be found after the break.

#rumor Citing unidentified sources, Mike Gwilliam of the Forget the Box media collective has reported that the full bill of materials for the Wii U comes to about $180, with roughly $50 of that going to the controller. As Nintendo calculates labor, marketing and other costs, we're to expect a machine costing no less than $300 at retail, Gwilliam reports. More »

War! Yet another handful of leaked screens from Assassin's Creed 3 have hit the web, this time featuring a Revolutionary-sized battle and General Israel Putnam being a general badass.

Hirokazu Yasuhara, co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, has begun working at Nintendo Software Technology in Redmond, Washington, Gamasutra reports. Yasuhara worked at Sega from 1988 until switching to 2K Sports in 2000, Naughty Dog in 2002 (senior game designer for the Jak & Daxter and Uncharted franchises) and finally Namco Bandai, which he left last month.

Nintendo Software Technology generally develops DS and DSiWare titles, having worked on Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem and Metroid Prime Hunters.

Despite Assassin's Creed 3 creative lead Alex Hutchinson's recent fighting words with the internet over its "boring" ideas for potential AC settings, he told us this morning that he still loves you. Or something like that. "It's part of a bigger discussion. Obviously any setting is potentially awesome," he said in a brief PAX East show floor followup. "The point we were making was that some settings are more familiar in video games than other settings. And the two particular ones that were mentioned are very familiar video game settings."

Hutchinson is referring to both the World War II and Feudal Japan ideas brought up during an interview with OXM recently. "The exciting thing is that the game can go anywhere," Hutchinson said. "We've had versions of the assassin ... people have thrown ideas around for probably literally any setting that people would think of. But when you get right down to it - when we're doing the actual nitty gritty of spending the time on it, spending a couple years making something - we wanna go to a setting that other games haven't gone to." As for the aforementioned pair of settings? "We're trying to find places that will surprise people."

And Hutchinson doesn't want you to hate him, internet. He also spoke to his statements regarding net denizens coming up with "the most boring settings" for future AC games. "If people think they have the worst ideas, I apologize for that," he told us. "But really, they're very predictable. The internet is not the place for insight, unfortunately," Hutchinson added with a laugh.

As for recent news that AC3 will be Desmond's biggest outing yet, Hutchinson said, "There's a big opportunity when the real timeline crosses the fictional timeline. Like, this is a fun idea. So there's stuff that we have to deal with. We feel like it's about time to pay off the people who've been sticking with the franchise for a long time." When asked if this would be Desmond's last appearance in the series, Ubisoft PR assassins jumped in and said, "I think people are gonna be entertained by it." We're not sure what that means either, but we'll be sure to keep asking.

"You can see this pocket on the pants," Brian Burleson, senior producer of Aliens: Colonial Marines says as he points to a promotional image behind him. It shows one of the Colonial Marines standing over a Xenomorph while another alien leaps at him from behind. "When we released this [image], someone said to us, 'No, the pocket is on the front of the cargo pants.' And we were like, 'Seriously?'"

That's where a lot of developers might stop caring. It's a licensed product that serious fans will probably snatch up anyway, right? How important is a pocket on a pair of cargo pants? But Gearbox Software said "We're going back in and fixing that."

The stakes are pretty high with Colonial Marines, and not just because the series has had passionate fans for decades. This isn't an inconsequential "what if" side-story like the Aliens vs Predator games, nor is it a retelling of any of the films in the franchise. It's an entirely new, canonical entry in the Alien mythology - a true, official sequel to Aliens and Alien 3 -- and the developers are taking that opportunity and running with it.

At a recent preview event for Aliens: Colonial Marines, developer Gearbox didn't let us play through the single-player portion of its upcoming shooter, but gave us a shot at commanding our own marine in multiplayer. Playing Team Deathmatch, journalists took the reigns as marines, while a group of Gearbox employees faced off against as us the frightening Xenomorphs.

If you're familiar with team deathmatch from other shooters, Aliens: Colonial Marines will do little to surprise you. The multiplayer is asymmetrical, meaning the two sides of the conflict are pretty different in terms of abilities and play styles. While we didn't get to play as the aliens, we did get to watch them be played, which showed us that there is a least a little here that makes this different from your everyday red vs. blue combat situation.

Nintendo's Wii U demo reel at E3 last year contained a clip of Aliens: Colonial Marines, but we haven't heard much about the version since then. Speaking with Gearbox President Randy Pitchford, we tried to surgically extract a viable specimen of information out of him, but he refrained from getting too specific.

"Nintendo still has a lot to announce with their platform, and it's not up to us to go ahead of them," he told Joystiq. "I think it's a great platform and I'm really excited about it, particularly with this game, there's a lot of exciting opportunities like, 'Wow, my motion tracker is there, and I can move it like this!'" he said as he moved his arms side to side. "There's just so much cool stuff."

"You can see this pocket on the pants," Brian Burleson, senior producer of Aliens: Colonial Marines says as he points to a promotional image behind him. It shows one of the Colonial Marines standing over a Xenomorph while another alien leaps at him from behind. "When we released this [image], someone said to us, 'No, the pocket is on the front of the cargo pants.' And we were like, 'Seriously?'"

That's where a lot of developers might stop caring. It's a licensed product that serious fans will probably snatch up anyway, right? How important is a pocket on a pair of cargo pants? But Gearbox Software said "We're going back in and fixing that."

The stakes are pretty high with Colonial Marines, and not just because the series has had passionate fans for decades. This isn't an inconsequential "what if" side-story like the Aliens vs Predator games, nor is it a retelling of any of the films in the franchise. It's an entirely new, canonical entry in the Alien mythology - a true, official sequel to Aliens and Alien 3 -- and the developers are taking that opportunity and running with it.

Despite first being announced by publisher Sega in 2006, development on Aliens: Colonial Marines didn't begin at Gearbox until after the title was revealed to the world.

"Everyone was just so excited that the deal got done," Gearbox President Randy Pitchford told Joystiq at a recent event for the title. "20th Century Fox, Gearbox and Sega all had to agree to do this and commit themselves to it. The fact that that deal even existed -- everyone on the business side was so excited that the deal happened that they just wanted to tell the world. So before we even started on the game they announced the deal."

Because the announcement was made so long ago, many gamers feel the game has been taking an exceptionally long time to come out. "I think there have been a couple of things that have kind of created that feeling. One thing is that it was announced before we were even started. Another thing is that there was an [Alien] RPG game in development by Obsidian which was canceled. And I think when that happened we hadn't even really shown this game or talked about it yet, so that created some confusion of, 'Wait, what was canceled?'"

#speakuponkotaku Does the Nintendo Wii U touch panel display have your mind reeling with possibilities? Commenter Gusi A. Rincon imagines an inventive way to keep your fighting game opponents reeling as well in today's short but sweet Speak Up on Kotaku. More »

At PAX East this weekend, 16 popular indie developers (plus one "bonus" developer) will congregate into a super-giant indie creature in the first-ever Indie Megabooth. Developers include Ska Studios, Strange Loop Games, Retro Affect, Dejobaan Games, Fire Hose Games, DrinkBox Studios, Pocketwatch Games, Carbon Games and the rest -- to get the indie love flowing, the previously mentioned developers are running an "Ask Me Anything" thread on Reddit, right now.

So far, we've learned that each developer gets 99 bitches a day and that most of them cried while playing Journey. Andy Schatz of Pocketwatch Games, Eitan Glinert of Fire Hose and Retro Affect's David Carrigg have also offered differing perspectives on the possibility of indie development for the Wii U, or any Nintendo system in general.

Said Glinert: "We're not. I don't know any small third party companies that make any serious money there. Nintendo sadly isn't serious about supporting non-Nintendo companies, and so it's not worthwhile for us to spend the time and effort bringing our games to their platform. Sad face."

Schatz disagreed with the doomsday sentiment: "Speak for yourself Eitan! I haven't announced platforms for Monaco yet, but WiiU is still a possibility! Nintendo is slow to change (which is weird given the crazy innovation on their software side), but the boulder is finally starting to move wrt their digital sales storefront."
Carrigg said Nintendo's eShop is "far behind" the XBLA and PSN competition, but Retro Affect has been talking to Nintendo and would "really like to work with them. I would not be surprised to see a Retro Affect game on a Nintendo platform sometime in the future."

James Silva of Ska Studios addressed the lack of deadly dishwasher games on PC, saying he wants to make PC titles, but for now that would be a problematic process. The AMA is ongoing (as of this posting) so head on over and uncover some you-specific bits of information from this mega-group of indies.

#rumor You might have read rumors swirling around the Internet today that suggest the Wii U will be out on November 18. More »

Need for Speed: Shift developer Slightly Mad Studios has raised over €500,000 ($663,750) for its crowd-funded game Project CARS. The studio is using the World of Mass Development (WMD) platform, with Slightly Mad CEO Ian Bell noting that it's "great to see" the project "performing well." He praised WMD, stating that "it allows developers to make the game they want to make, without undue publisher pressure." Checking the WMD project page, the current member contributions actually total €545,120 ($723,646).

As we've previously reported, the WMD platform is particularly intriguing because it provides funders with frequent early builds of the game, offering a chance to both enjoy the game before release and provide feedback on its development.

In Assassin's Creed 3, the Wii U's WiiPad will act as a link to the Animus, providing players a constant map and navigation tool, and displaying Animus database updates on the touchscreen without interrupting the main game, NintenGen reports, via the latest issue of Nintendo Gamer. The Wii U's Animus integration will also provide character bios and act as an encyclopedia for the game's goings-on, making fact-checks for historical accuracy easier than ever. The above trailer isn't specific to the Wii U, but does show off some character and weapon descriptions that the Wii U is purported to support.

The Wii U will provide weapon-selection options, meaning the switch between dual-wielding and single-weapon combat will be a one-touch process. The WiiPad screen will also be an alternate view for Eagle Vision, allowing players to move the controller itself to search their surroundings.

Today we have a heap of new Assassin's Creed 3 information for your eagle eyes to devour; scavenge for the good bits right here.

Ubisoft Montreal is kind of a big deal. Since being established in 1997, the company's first North American studio has been home to some of the biggest franchises in Ubisoft's entire portfolio: Splinter Cell, multiple Prince of Persia reboots, and Assassin's Creed.

Ever since Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed 2 introduced Ezio Auditore in 2009, the number of studios working on the franchise alone has increased dramatically. For 2010's Brotherhood, four additional studios signed on for support: Singapore, Bucharest, Québec City, and Annecy. For 2011's Revelations, yet another was added (Ubisoft Massive), putting the total at six.

For this year's Assassin's Creed 3, the army of studios has been restructured to four: Montreal, Annecy, Quebéc City, and Singapore.

"Annecy is still doing an evolution of the multiplayer," Creative director Alex Hutchinson explained to Joystiq. As we already know, Ubisoft Annecy is working on some form of -- potentially co-op -- multiplayer."There're a few things that are being done in the Québec studio. So there's an evolution there," he said. Despite prodding, he wouldn't reveal what specifically that tease meant. "We cannot talk about specifically what they are working on." The Québec studio assisted with level design (among other things) in the past two Assassin's Creed titles.

Even though an army is attached to Assassin's Creed 3, it's Montreal that has been focused on the project for the past two and a half years. "80 percent of our team have come through from AC1, AC2. A lot of them didn't do ACB or ACR 'cause they were working on AC3," Hutchinson said. "The turnover has actually been scarily low for a franchise that's been going for seven years. You still have the same lead writer who wrote the first words on AC1, you have the same guy doing the navigation that did AC1."

"At its core," Hutchinson said, "it is a Ubisoft Montreal game." He told us, "The thing with other studios is that they have different skill sets. At the end of the day, it's what makes it sometimes harder to manage the game, but it also makes the game richer." It's a formula that, thus far, has worked astonishingly well for Ubisoft. We'll find out if the company strikes gold once more this October when Assassin's Creed 3 launches.

There are three main "cities" in Assassin's Creed 3: Boston, New York, and "The Frontier." Notoriously absent from that list is a city that I considered to be a lock in the Revolutionary War-based title - my beloved Philadelphia. Having spent six years of my life in Will Smith's place of birth, I hoped for a chance to explore its auspicious beginnings with a hidden blade. It also makes perfect sense for inclusion, given its history as the heart of the American Revolution. So why isn't it included?

Though the oft-neglected city was planned early on for representation in the game, creative director Alex Hutchinson told me it was eventually cut for gameplay reasons.

"When we started out, Philly was one of the cities that we wanted to do. In the end, we decided against it, 'cause when we mocked it up - as you know, being from Philly, it's an architecturally designed city, so it's on a grid. Which at first we thought would be cool - the first city in AC to be designed on a grid - and then you realize ..." Hutchinson said. His colleague picked up after him.

"Well it's on a grid and it's flat, and the avenues are super large. So that's like three things that made us say it doesn't work in an open world." Indeed, Philadelphia was architecturally laid out as a grid by Pennsylvania's first governor William Penn, modeled after European cities of the time.

But even the large avenues and rigid layout couldn't keep AC3 from Philly. "That said, there are key events that take place in Philadelphia," Hutchinson assured me. As for nods to everyone's favorite fresh prince during said events, we'll have to wait until October to find out.

[Image credit: Flickr user 'bengrey']

Back in late 2009, creative director Alex Hutchinson and a handful of others started drawing up plans for what would become Assassin's Creed 3. In those two years, the team rethought core elements of the series: cities, combat, and the franchise's signature "free running" mechanic. Even the engine, Anvil, was examined and updated (now dubbed "AnvilNext").

But before all of that, Hutchinson needed a setting and a character. He wouldn't tell us why or how he settled on the American Revolution (nor would he say what other ideas came up), but he did explain why he believes it'll be a success. "We really believe this is the strongest setting so far in an AC game. Why? Because we think it's the most relevant setting," he said during a group presentation. "This is the birth of the nation. But even for other countries, especially in Europe, it's a key historical event."

By the way, for all his U.S pride, Hutchinson is an Aussie and he lives in Canada. We assume he's spent a lot of time watching Independence Day.

#assassinscreed You can assassinate a bear in Assassin's Creed III. You can run around the battle of Bunker Hill, flanking the British to surprise them in their camp. More »

#assassinscreed As bizarre as it seems to be thinking of a proper Assassin's Creed game appearing on a Nintendo console, it's going to happen later this year when Assassin's Creed III is released on the Wii U. Leading many people to wonder, how's it going to take advantage of the console's unique control pad? More »