Following up on earlier rumors of Pandemic Studios' closure, Kotaku reports that an internal Electronic Arts memo has confirmed the studio's fate.

Rumor has it that Electronic Arts will be adding more people to its list of cut employees. The target? Pandemic Studios.

Shortly after their acquisition of Playfish, Electronic Arts is set to streamline operations, sacking 1,500 employees from different levels, and canning 12 unannounced projects. Speaking in an investor conference call, chief financial officer John Brown gave out the details.

Electronic Arts' Need for Speed racing franchise has been on a downward spiral in the past few years, and even EA admits it. They're now taking steps to recapture the franchise's glory days, and among their gambits is tapping Burnout devs Criterion Games for a new Need for Speed title set for release in 2010.

Despite owing his fortune to his music, DMX has a few bones to pick with the music industry, condensing it all on a profanity-rich rant that lasts nearly two minutes. The rapper believes that the industry is holding out on artists like him, particularly with the CD sales. On that note, he also fires a few rounds at the video game industry for doing the same. It's all on video, and it's in here.

We've got a bunch of mystery games for you this Halloween week, as well as another one from the blood-curdling line of Ubisoft's Imagine titles, this time with Imagine Babyz Fashion. Headlining the line-up though would be Jak & Dexter for the PSP, the multi-platformer Lego Rock Band, and the new Need for Speed offering for handhelds, NFS: Nitro. Oh, and Band Hero featuring Taylor Swift is also here. Hopefully there'll be no Kanye to interrupt your game this time. Check out the full list in the full article.

Dead Space Extraction moved an underwhelming 9,000 units for the first week of its release, September 29 through October 3. This was revealed in NPD's software sales report. Jesse Divinich of EEDAR, however, says that Electronic Arts probably saw that one coming.

With the way Electronic Arts included the classic Road Rash games on EA Replay way back in 2006, plus the Road Rash trademark they filed back in August of this year, you'd think the publisher was set on bringing the bikes back on the road. Unfortunately, the game is currently not in development, or so the official word says. This video, however, says that it used to be.

Electronic Arts is most certainly proud to announce today the record-breaking launch of the latest iteration in the FIFA videogame franchise, FIFA 10 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DS, PS2 and PC). In its first week alone, said title has earned over 1.7 million copies throughout European retail.

I missed this, but apparently a couple of months back there was talk about Visceral Games working on a Jack the Ripper game. Nothing definite followed it up, but recent trademark filings by Electronic Arts seem to indicate that the rumor holds some water.