i don't think Skate ever "fell off the map." i love 3 just as much as 1 and 2. if people bought the first three skate.s like they claim to want 4, though, then ea wouldn't have shut blackbox down. it never sold enough to warrant ea giving a shit if it was made well. blackbox gave a shit. it wasn't worth EA's time as a business investment. the hardcore aspect didn't generate many mainstream sales. hardcore was a nice little addition they threw in for the niche section of rabid fans. id be surprised if hardcore ended up in S4. ea isn't the type of company that wants to makes good games unless a large number of people will want to buy it, and a game like skate will never be that type of game. skate 3 sold 253,000 units (and that's including BOTH platforms), before it was reprinted. i don't know how many the reprint sold. whereas madden 10 sold 3.9 million in its first quarter. essentially, ea doesn't make indie games and i don't see them giving a shit about whether the game is good or not. i think a lot more of skate 4 would be stuff we don't like, and stuff that wasn't part of the first 3, than the stuff we love about the games. does a waiter/waitress keep checking the tables of people that only tip 3% every other time they've been to the restaurant, or do they put more of their time towards the people that have tipped them 25% in the past?