Round-Up: Vaporware Awards, Upload Winners, Take-Two Rumors

Today's Gamasutra round-up includes news on Wired's 2005 Vaporware Awards, with video game titles high on the list, info on the winners of Rockstar's Upload creative competition, and the latest New York Post report on Take-Two's possible suitor, as well as today's GameSetWatch posts, product news and job postings. - Wired News has announced its 2005 Vaporware Awards, for products or software that were promised but never quite materialized. Several prizes in the top 10 list went to game-related products: lower in the charts were the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format discs, tied for #8; Valve's Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms, originally announced in 1999, was #7; Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which missed its original November release in favor of an unspecified 2006 date, was #6; and Blizzard's StarCraft: Ghost, which switched developers from Nihilistic to Swingin' Ape, was #5. The top two positions were also game-related: second place went to the aptly-named Phantom Game Service, whose brief hopes of being an actual product may have died with the departure of CEO Kevin Bachus, and the grand prize was Duke Nukem Forever, which has been in development for almost nine years, longer than any other game ever made. - Rockstar Games announced the winners of its fourth annual Upload competition for amateur artists. The winner of the Short-Subject Film division was Jason Koxvold, for his "You Drive" video set to the music of Citizens Band, while Best Multimedia Design went to Somnium Orbs by Nate Horstmann. Gabriel Lora took Best Deejay Mix for his 1-hour mix titled "Chill Sourcream," and Best Short Fiction went to Gary Britson's, "Riverbanking." Winning entries as well as runner-ups in each category are available to view or hear at the contest site. - The New York Post is claiming that Elevation Partners, a private equity firm that includes rock star Bono and former Electronic Arts executive John Riccitiello on its board, is rumored to be in talks to purchase Take-Two Interactive. Rumors of a buyout were first started by the Post last week, despite skepticism on the part of analysts that a public company would be interested in acquiring the firm. The paper's Elevation Partners story cites no named or anonymous sources, preferring to note that Elevation "is said to have teamed up with" venture capital firm Pequot Capital for the buyout. A legitimate purchase bid was made by Elevation Partners in 2005 for Eidos, which was ultimately acquired by SCi. - New posts on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include some dream picks for the U.S. version of DS game Ouendan, new info on the possible 'Pherotone' ARG, and bizarre claims regarding ZX Spectrum loading noises appearing in CSI Miami, among others. - Also updated today: product news including the announcement of Lifestudio:Head for the Xbox 360, and the latest Gamasutra job postings from companies including Amaze Entertainment, Backbone Entertainment, Crystal Dynamics, Guerrilla, Liquid Entertainment, Mind Control Software, NTN Buzztime, Obsidian Entertainment, Rockstar North, The Art Institute of California-San Francisco, The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago, Syandus, and Ternary Software.