Well it is not like they have ever made any good games so they deserve this.

I hope that Factor 5 doesn't crash and burn, I like the Rogue Squadron series too much. Yes, even Rebel Strike, misguided though it was.

The idea of Nintendo buying Free Radical, or Factor 5, or Silicon Knights is certainly exciting, but I don't see it happening.

....Sarcasm?

@Khuutra

Why sarcasm? Their games just suck. What they have ever made? Turrican or those RS games. Blah. Good that those kind of companies get out of business. :)

Timesplitters is one of the best series of console shootes out there, especially as multiplayer games, and the Rogue Squadron games have been the best Star Wars games for the past ten years, excepting Knights of the Old Republic. That pedigree alone is worth the two companies surviving.

Latest word on Free Radical is that they have a "skeleton crew" trying to keep things (barely) alive and maybe get projects back up and running. Or maybe they're just trying to find funding or a buyer while there's still something to sell.

All of this is rumour, and things are still developing, so maybe we should call off the funeral until after the doctor pronounces these studios dead.

Haze and Lair were both mediocre, but I wouldn't say either one really "sucked". Haze was just generic... it wasn't terrible. Just same-old, same-old. The framerate was great, but otherwise it was just-another-shooter. That's what the media hated about it -- an exclusive that wasn't special in any way.

Lair was actually not a bad game at all. You can gripe about the controls all you want, but if you trusted what the reviews said, you kinda missed out. It was the framerate in some missions, and not the controls at all (unless you lack some dexterity... a lot of people do, sadly), that was the problem.

Lots of so-so games, even decent games, are not selling this gen. The game needs to be exceptional enough to live up to any hype it gets, or it fails. The games industry is past its "golden age" is all. Publishers need to learn that mediocrity won't cut it any longer, and they need to stop pushing games out the door early.  Lair probably would have been fantastic, were it delayed another 6 mos.

Blame the PS3..great! And then say it's because they rushed the game out..contradiction?!

Saying it's because they released on PS3 is silly.

With both Lair and Haze there are signs to indicate that developers grossly underestimated the development cost and time it would take to complete the game they initially set out to produce. As a result of this poor estimate the games saw delays until the publisher lost faith the game could ever turn a profit and force the release of an incomplete game.

In my opinion, the reason these developers are going bankrupt is that people didn't anticipate that PS3 games could take 3 years to develop with budgets larger than $40,000,000; and in this environment few small developers can survive.

 I hate it when people accuse me of stuff I NEVER said or even suggested... Read the OP would ya! Or don't even bother at all!

Oh, and for the other guy who said these devs deserved it because all of their games sucked; Eat crow! Timesplitters is arguably more fun then Halo EVER was! And Silicon Knights made the brilliant game called Eternal Darkness, but that one is kinda rare!