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There may be very good games on PlayStation Vita, but sales are wretched—only 2.2 million worldwide, Joystiq confirms

50+ layoffs at EA-owned Bejeweled studio PopCap, according to industry Tweets like this one. Update: PopCap comments

How Dota 2 Exposes The Shortcomings Of The Video Game Industry

There’s no question that Defense Of The Ancients (Dota) is big. It’s a big deal. It’s also an immensely complicated game that has evolved over years of intense play, modding, and sprawling evolution. It’s not very much like any other game out there. And for that reason, it could be argued that Dota 2 lays…

Looks Like We’ll Know the Wii U’s American Launch Date and Price by September 13

Nintendo is holding a major Wii U press event in New York City on September 13, hosted by Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. An invitation sent to select media outlets today promised a day that will let us learn “more about how the Wii U will change the future of gaming and entertainment.” Sure,…

Report: Nintendo Power Shutting Down

Ars Technica has an article up saying that the long-running Nintendo Power magazine is ceasing publication. Multiple sources at Nintendo Power publisher Future have told Kotaku that Nintendo Power is ending and that the broad factual strokes of the Ars Technica report ring true with what’s been circulating within the company. Nintendo Power was one…

Diablo III Used To Look A Lot More Like An MMORPG

Original design plans for Diablo III involved an MMORPG-like chatroom that would replace the menu-based Battle.net interface, says Diablo co-creator David Brevik. Instead of just scrolling through chatrooms, you’d cross through towns and interact with players by trading and selling items. Speaking to Eurogamer, Brevik outlined the idea: One of things we originally designed for…

It Lives! Here’s 10 Minutes of Gameplay from NBA Live 13 [Update]

After more than two months of nearly total radio silence from EA Sports and the NBA Live team, skeptical sports gamers figured the series’ return was either in trouble, delayed, or even secretly canceled. This video spotted by Operation Sports, which shows 11 minutes of the game from boot-up to the first quarter horn, suggests…

PlayStation Plus Members Can Now Shoot Things Dramatically In The Dust 514 Closed Beta

For those who didn’t purchase access earlier, or get their names drawn from CCP’s hat after signing up on the web, there’s one last way to guarantee access to the Dust 514 closed beta. But it, too, will cost you some cash. From now through September 4, PlayStation Plus members can all jump in to…

Unintimidated By Apple, Nintendo’s Boss Says The World Still Needs Dedicated Gaming Handhelds

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata can tell you when Nintendo would stop making its own handheld systems. He can tell you, hypothetically, when a line of machines that has gone from Game Boy to DS to 3DS would end and Nintendo’s games would appear on the hardware made by other companies instead. Last week in San…

Nearly Thirty Years Old and Lode Runner is Still Kicking My Ass

I first played Douglas Smith’s classic platformer, Lode Runner, on an Apple II computer in 1983. I wasn’t very good, but then I was also only ten. Nearly three decades later Tozai Games has released Lode Runner Classic for Windows Phone 7, with versions coming soon for iOS and Android. The simply running and digging…

Dance Central 3’s Weaponized Dance Moves Make You Shake Your Ass for Justice

You know that feeling when you finally get your hands on the BFG 9000 in Doom or the gravity gun in Half-Life 2? It’s a sensation that you’re about to become nigh-omnipotent, able to blast enemies out of existence withlittle effort. It gives you goosebumps. Harmonix wants you to feel that way about the Macarena…

The Hardest Games Only Truly Open Up When You Get Better At Them

Think about some of the hardest games you’ve ever played. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Guaranteed at least a considerable portion of those games must have come from your childhood days, on consoles long forgotten. When I think back to the games I’ve found most difficult, I remember how, with time and practice, they seemed to…

In Remember Me, Social Networks Are Being Used Against Us. You Know, More Than They Already Are

What if a game let you go inside of the heads of characters and manipulate their memories? A year ago a small Paris-based studio called Dontnod revealed a game called Adrift that let you do just that. Adrift separated itself with the pack with the concept of manipulating, stealing, and even creating memories as a…

Everyone Needs Companion Cube Women’s Briefs. Everyone.

The fine folks at Jinx have rolled out a fresh batch of Valve products, featuring some amazing Portal 2 shirts and a pair of underwear that you’ll need to incinerate to earn your freedom. I showed the Companion Cube underwears to a female friend of mine this morning, who responded with “OMG everyone needs those.”…

Warhammer Slaughters Its Way From The Tabletop to The Handheld

Games Workshop’s vintage tabletop series Warhammer is trying once again to leave a memorable impression on the video game world, this time with a mobile title called Warhammer Quest. While its sci-fi sibling 40K has had a number of high-profile success stories, the original fantasy series has struggled when it comes to digital entertainment, with…

EA is Working to Shut Down a FIFA “Hack” Loophole That Made The Company Millions

Last year, a ton of Xbox 360 owners began complaining that they’d been “hacked”, and because much of the money stolen ended up being spent on EA’s FIFA 12, it was believed the game was somehow responsible. It wasn’t, of course. The truth, at least in some small part, was far more complicated than that.…

A Pretty Little Game Trailer to Finish Off Your Day

Or, depending on where you are in the world, start it! This clip is for Toybox, an interesting combination of a puzzler and a shooter that can best be described as the video game equivalent of trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. It looks fun, but part of…

An Arcade Cabinet That Looks as Good as it Plays

Tom Goodfellow’s custom arcade cabinet, christened the Replay, isn’t here for the games inside it, or the things it can do. It’s here because it looks terrific. Call that vain if you must, but that’s the point. It’s a designer arcade cabinet. Goodfellow sums it up as: A design of simple clean lines that has…

Pokémon vs Zombies: Now With “Gameplay” Footage

No doubt inspired by these recent gifs on the very same topic, reader Steve has gone and made a video with “gameplay” footage of the greatest game that never existed: Pokémon vs Zombies. What makes it great isn’t just the fact it’s combining two blockbuster series. It’s that it’s combining two series that, as you…

Incredible Star Wars Posters Are The Good, The Bad & The Ugnaught

Artist Timothy Anderson has combined two of mankind’s greatest creations – Star Wars and spaghetti westerns – and combined them in this series of posters, in which George Lucas’ sci-fi trilogy is shown off like they were the kind of movies Clint Eastwood would star – and squint in – a lot. The bad news…