MW2 Passes $3B

NOV. 27, 2009 • Thanks to strong sales of its new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 released earlier in the month, Activision Blizzard announced the franchise had surpassed $3 billion in global retail sales. Modern Warfare 2 posted more than $550 million in sales during its first fi.....

DSi LL Japan Sales

NOV. 24, 2009 • Japanese publisher Enterbrain reported that in it first two days on sale the Nintendo DSi LL sold 103,524 units. By comparison, the DSi moved 170,770 units in its first two days on sale in 2008. Two-day sales for Sony’s PSP Go were not available, but Enterbrain said 28,275 of th.....

Sony Plans Download Service

NOV. 20, 2009 • Sometime during 2010, Sony Corp. is set on launching a new download service specifically for its consumer electronics products. Games, movies and other entertainment will be available to new Bravia TVs, Reader electronic books, and Cyber-Shot digital cameras to start. The yet-to-.....

Xbox 360 Users Studied

NOV. 20, 2009 • The Nielsen Company and Microsoft Corp. have partnered to research how well Xbox 360 players respond to in-game advertising. The latter sees an opportunity to peel away ad dollars from network television and wants to better measure the effectiveness of in-ga.....

Singapore Invests in Shanda

NOV. 19, 2009 • The Government of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC) sovereign wealth fund took a 5.4% stake in China’s Shanda Games, the online game spin-off of Shanda Interactive Ent. GIC’s investment totaled $47 million. A month later, Shanda Games formed a joint venture with Kingso.....

EA Ends Pandemic

NOV. 17, 2009 • As part of a pledge to trim 1,500 jobs by April 2010 in order to cut costs, Electronic Arts shut down its Westwood-based Pandemic Studio. Around 25 of Pandemic’s 225 employees were to be relocated to the nearby EA Los Angeles facility. EA acquired Pandemic and BioW.....

China Sentences Hackers

NOV. 17, 2009 • Eleven individuals accused of writing Trojan virus code to scam online gamers were sentenced to up to three years by a Chinese court. The group was found guilty of stealing 5.3 million user names and passwords – access that was used to steal virtual goods and curre.....