Kingsley told computerandvideogames.com that he was delighted to be involved with the project. “I’m a voice in a new video game shortly – “Fable III”,” Kingsley reported. “I’m a wonderful wizard character who is the king of Mist Peak.”

Kingsley is one of a growing number of big name actors who have begun embracing appearing in video games as a legitimate form of acting. “It’s very energising and good for us actors to realise that (acting) is so diverse now,” Kingsley says. “(Games) are as big a jump now as I suppose when cinema was invented, when people went from the stage to the cinema thinking, “It’s not really acting, is it?” Now it’s video games – and it is acting. It’s very demanding.” “Fable 3” is set to be demonstrated in its entirety at this year’s E3 expo, and is scheduled for release later in 2010. Microsoft has already stated that the release will come with “mini games” that will be compatible with their much hyped new motion – and emotion – sensing device, Natal.

Kingsley will be continuing his association with the video game when he appears in the video game cinema adaptation “Prince of Persia” (starring Jake Gyllenhaal), which will be released in theatres worldwide on the twenty first of May.

“I view the medium as having the potential to eclipse film and television,” he said in the interview. He admits, however, that the need to invest more in these technologies is something of a double edged sword in the current economic climate. “It’s not a trivial investment for people,” he conceded.

“Part of my concern over the next couple of years is when you look at an economy that’s not growing and you look at all the economic challenges we face, not just for video games but for all businesses.” However, Kotick’s comments have been met with a high degree of skepticism from gamers, who have both pointed out the essential difference between games and non-interactive media such as films and television, as well as highlighting that Activision are not exactly well known for “character development and storylines” in their own games releases thus far.

That Kotick went on to say he believes this development could occur within the next five years has been met with not so much skepticism as outright mockery in most areas of the web.

Muzyka revealed his thoughts on the upcoming release of “Mass Effect 2”, the challenges inherent in getting gamers to emotionally invest in their games characters, and the noticeable absence of a PS3 version of the new game. Muzyka says he thinks the sequel is “a really refined evolution of the “Mass Effect” experience. We’ve took a lot of feedback from gamers and the press and internally. I think it’s just an awesome game, when you play it feels real tight and tense… I think one of our visions is to really create an emotional engagement with the game and that can be done in a variety of ways. One of them is through characters and story, to get you to make choices that matter and to have characters that feel like real, living characters – digital personas that you actually care about… The small things matter. You need to have digital actors that are credible and believable… if you can make players believe in your characters, the possibilities are endless.”

Muzyka was cagier about the lack of development for a PS3 version of the game, however. “I think a more accurate way to frame it is to say we’ve announced we’re developing “Mass Effect” for 360 and PC. Right from the beginning we said we wanted to deliver “Mass Effect” on the 360. Right now all we’ve announced is we’re working on 360 and PC.” When pressed again on the PS3 issue, Muzyka simply reiterated, “We haven’t announced anything on that” – twice. Make of that what you will.

Frazier says that sales for the rest of the year will have to go up nine percent for 2009 to break even, noting that “Of all genres, the music/dance genre has suffered the greatest declines this year, with nearly $390 million less revenues than the same period last year.” Jesse Divnich, analyst for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, however, does not feel the need to panic just yet, pointing out a swathe of big musical game releases coming out in the second half of the year, such as “DJ Hero” and “Lego Rock Band”, as well as the hugely anticipated “The Beatles: Rock Band”. “Probably the greatest single factor that drives sales in the music category is marketing,” Divnich says, “This is an audience that doesn’t go to GamesSpot every day and the best way to reach them is traditional brute force marketing… I think Activision has realised that the genre has reached its peak and they have one last season to drive this category. The genre’s going to be around forever, but we have to face the fact that it has peaked for the time being.” He’s not overly concerned by the overall slump, either. “We have to keep in mind the industry has grown seventy percent in the last three years. So we shouldn’t sniff at the fact we’re down a little bit this year.”

The developer maintains that the delay will allow the new game to be released alongside the re-launch of its online Battle.net networking service, as well as to give extra time to further refine the release. In a statement, the Irvine CA-based developer revealed, “Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game… The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the “Starcraft II” experience and will be an essential part of all our games moving forward. The extra development time will be critical to help us realise our version for the service.” “StarCraft II” was originally announced as a single product, but at the 2008 Blitzcon, Blizzard made the statement that it would be split into a trilogy, with the first of the planned three games to be subtitled “Wings of Liberty”. The game has still not entered an open beta-testing phase, although the company has been accepting volunteer applications for the past three months, also adding in today’s statement that more news on the beta-tests will be announced “in the future”.