The rumour mills kicked into high gear yesterday after a Shacknews story was posted regarding a ‘mass exodus’ of key members from the Duke Nukem Forever team departing 3D Realms. Reportadly 10 (or more) major members of the team have left with multiple departues occurring in the past few days. Scott Alden, Will Bate, Brian Cozzens, Keith Schuler (a 16 year vet of Apogee and 3D Realms) and many more have been confirmed to have left the team since December of last year, creating more doomsday predictions for one of the gaming industries most legendary projects. However, many look at this as the possibility that the project is nearing completion, where it wouldn’t be surprising to see large amounts of members leave a 10+ year project as it winds down and their roles become significantly reduced. Either way, Duke Nukem Forever still proves it has the ability to move media mountains with just it’s mere mention in a news story.

Read more: Key developers of DNF departing from 3D Realms

According to a recent post on a Japanese gaming site, there is a rumour hitting the streets of Tokyo that the Xbox 360 will be receiving a price drop as well as a new colour on December 7th, 2006. Naturally this is only a rumour on a foreign language games site, but, it has some legs with some respected Japanese sites carrying the rumour and confirming with ‘insider sources’ suggesting that the ‘price drop’ will come in the form of a bundle with DOAX2. Many more rumours to come for sure..

Read more: Xbox 360 rumoured to drop in price and feature new colour in Japan (Japenese blog posting)

It almost feels like EA day here at Playthrough HQ, but it’s not, we swear, we just love juicy gossip involving the industry in our own back yard. There are currently rumours swirling around the industry that an acquisition of German games developer Crytek may be in the works by mega-publisher EA, who already have publishing and licensing agreements in-place with Crytek. EA has been quite active recently in the German market, infusing the once-struggling local industry with an influx of resources and work. A recent article in German newspaper Die Welt quotes EA’s VP and GM of International Publishing Gerhard Florin as stating that Crytek is a “very, very interesting candidate” for an acquisition. However, an interview later with Crytek’s co-founder, Faruk Yerli, confirmed that a conversation has taken place between EA and Crytek, but refused to indicate if an acquisition is pending. Yerli also mentioned that Crytek is considering an initial public offering on the German stock market.

Read more: EA executives hint at Crytek purchase