What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Rot from the core.” – EA CEO John Riccitiello talks about the fierce Call of Duty vs. Battlefield showdown and luring the core audience away from CoD(new Image()).src [[link]] = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); QUOTE | “Triple bump.” – Epic’s Cliff Bleszinki explains the advantages of releasing Gears 3 in September: he anticipates the title will experience multiple sales bumps and hopefully hit 10 million units QUOTE | “A lot friendlier.” – Wii U is gaining support from third parties and Activision’s Eric Hirshberg says Nintendo’s new console will definitely be much more suited to core gaming STAT | 14% – The decline the U.S. games [[link]] industry saw in May (the lowest sales month since Oct. 2006) and also the same percentage of growth PS3 saw for the month despite the PSN outage. STAT | 100% – The somewhat surprising growth the PlayStation brand has seen on Facebook this year, doubling its fan count to surpass Apple’s iTunes among the top 10 brands. QUOTE | “We want greasy hamburgers.” – Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford says sales numbers show that customers are enjoying Duke Nukem Forever like fast food, despite the flood of harsh reviews. QUOTE | “On the rise.” – Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg’s belief that Call of Duty as a brand still has plenty of room for growth as consumers keep demanding more QUOTE | “Same five games over and over.” – Speaking in a special “Better Know” Q&A, EA boss John Riccitiello’s assessment that there’s never enough innovation in the industry. TWIST | E3 is a grand spectacle for the games business on a global scale, but [[link]] the lack of any real surprises at the show could be a sign that the Expo is losing some of its luster. QUOTE | “Undertapped female gaming market.” – Interpret’s new study shows that women comprise 50% of the market and yet developers and publishers are not doing enough to tailor games to their tastes This Week In the Business courtesy of IndustryGamers.com (Top photo: Shutterstock)