Buzz on the web Tuesday afternoon is that the massively multiplayer space shooter, SubSpace, is getting close to shutting down. GameSpot News checked around and came up with the following.

　　First we contacted EA. The company said that the Virgin-developed title was not on a list of titles acquired in the recent Westwood/Virgin Interactive purchase.

　　After contacting Westwood, a spokesperson said that it was "business as usual," and believed the rumor started because some of the SubSpace servers had a technical glitch and had to be brought down in order to repair them. Those servers should be fixed later in the day on Tuesday. Westwood said that SubSpace wouldn't be going down.

　　The spokesperson said that EA hadn't acquired SubSpace yet because "the deal still being worked out." When we asked whether the SubSpace team was still together and working on the game, the spokesperson said that the team has been reassigned and was working in a new unnamed product that was similar to the SubSpace concept.

　　With the EA purchase, it seems unlikely that the company would want a title like SubSpace, a title that really didn't make big waves on retail shelves. Although SubSpace's health looks OK for the short term, its future is in question. A SubSpace convention is scheduled to take place soon (in Miami on Oct. 29), but could it be that gamers are seeing the last of their favorite space shooter?

　　Keep checking GameSpot News to see what turns up.