Xbox Gaming in South Africa

So Gearbox's sleeper hit Borderlands has managed to shift two million units since its October release. That's not too bad for a game nobody even noticed until it got a last-minute makeover. Besides, it turns out everybody just loves skags. They're adorable.

Unfortunately, two million Borderlands sold couldn't make up for stuff that didn't sell, so publisher Take-Two's posted a $138.9 million loss for fiscal 2009. That's quite a drop from the $97.1 million income of fiscal 2008, although that did include the ginormous Grand Theft Auto IV.

“Our company and industry experienced a very difficult economic environment in 2009. We believe that 2010 will continue to be challenging and our outlook, while disappointing, reflects a prudent approach to managing our business," said Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two chairman. "The fact remains that Take-Two is in a fundamentally strong position to build long term value. We have an outstanding portfolio of hit franchises based largely on internally developed and owned intellectual property, a team of extraordinarily creative and talented people, opportunities to extend our business to new media and markets, and the financial resources to support our strategies.”

“We are excited about our product line-up for 2010, which includes BioShock 2, Mafia II, Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption," added chief executive officer, Ben Feder. "We also have just announced Spec Ops: The Line, an intense military third-person shooter, for fiscal 2011. Our broad portfolio reflects the fantastic creative assets that will be the source of our long term success. Moving forward, we plan to build our company by continuing to focus on select high-potential titles, leveraging our successful franchises and applying our creative abilities to emerging opportunities. We also intend to strengthen our business through increased cost management, improved operational efficiencies, and the timely delivery of our titles.”

2009 has a been a tough year for the gaming industry, but thankfully as gamers we haven't been disappointed. Just try and choose your Game of the Year 2009, and see how hard it is (and be in for a chance to win Borderlands). But even with many areas of the gaming industry suffering heavy losses this year, with what we know of 2010's excellent line up of new games and hardware, I'm sure most won't be too worried.