GameCity 3 - This Time It's The Third

"It looks like our industry might have found its first Sundance. GameCity is a unique approach to a videogame festival that seems long overdue," Lorne Lanning.

Teen Mugs 9yo For PSP

A teenage boy kicked a nine-year-old English girl and then swiped her Playstation Portable in Great Hollands, Bracknell Monday.

The girl was walking with a friend when a man, aged 16 to 18, ran up and kicked her in the leg, before taking the portable. That's kinda crap.

Has the Playstation Portable become the candy of the 21st Century?

Man grabs portable PlayStation from girl, 9 [Get Bracknell, via Gay Gamer]

British Gov Doesn't Want Fat Kids Anymore

Sick of being fat? Well, the British government is sick of you being fat too, and they're not gonna take it anymore! British citizens could soon see incentives for putting down the controller and getting fit. In a report made by the Department of Health called Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives, the government makes recommendations to try and help Britain get fit, including getting the number of obese kids down by 2020 to the levels seen in 2000.

The £372 million anti-obesity initiative doesn't overlook video games, and encourages parents to regulate the amount of time kids spend playing online, using some of the available family timers for consoles. The report also says the Department of Health will research the "impact of this 'screen time' on children's outcomes", observing how playing video games affects kids' physical fitness and overall health.

Industry professionals in Britain say that they support the decision and are willing to collaborate:

No, I'm not talking about Tom Cruise. I mean THE Queen as in "The Queen of England." According to UK online gossip rag The People, Prince William was given a Wii for Christmas by his girlfriend, Kate Middleton. Once it was all set up and playable, the Queen decided she wanted to have a go at bowling and apparently quite enjoyed it. If The People is to be believed (and really, the way the article is written gives them the credibility level of The National Inquirer) the Queen is quite a gadgeteer owning a cell phone, Blackberry and even an iPod that holds 100,000 songs. Now, the real question here isn't whether or not the story is 100% true (which, if you ask me, is up for debate) but more interestingly, what exactly does the Queen have on her iPod?

MAKE WAY FOR THE Q Wii N [The People]
[via Videogamer.com]

England's Reading Problems Tied To Gaming

You know you're in trouble when you're below the United States on the International Reading Literacy Study league table. England has plummeted from the number three spot in 2001 all the way down to nineteenth in 2006. Why the sudden drop? Ask England's Schools Minister Ed Balls, whose name must be a constant source of amusement for school children across the country.

'Most of them have their own TVS and mobiles and 37 per cent are playing computer games for three hours or more a day - more than in most countries in the study.'

Video games blamed for reading problems [Metro.co.uk - Thanks Garwai]

NCSoft's UK Expansion

KotakuStalku: Peter Moore Hates England