While April was an awful month for Sony, 
the Easter Bunny may have brought some good news for the video game industry as a whole.
The NPD Group will report monthly sales figures after the market closes Thursday and analysts expect sales to rebound solidly, with software sales (the industry’s most closely tracked number) poised to increase by up to 15 percent over April 2010.
For the past few weeks, the online multiplayer 
game “Wizard 101” has been toying with its users. The expansion pack – called “Wintertusk” – came with a soundtrack that the developer teased was from a well-known musician, but it wouldn’t say who.
The guessing game can now end, though: Nick Jonas is the artist behind the music.
We certainly have no problem getting caught up in the fun of playing 
games, but the people who create them have their pocketbooks to worry about, too. In this column, finance expert and GameSpy contributor Chris Morris guides you through the tricky corridors the gaming industry’s financial side, touching on big-time business decisions and how they matter to the common gamer.
Sony’s not in an enviable position these days. New data breaches are still coming to light after an unprecedented cyber-attack on the company’s online systems. Personal information for over 100 million user accounts is in the hands of possible identity thieves. And the company, after a seemingly endless series of public relations disasters, announced recently that it frankly didn’t know when the PlayStation Network would be fully operational once again — though it was hoping to achieve that by the end of May. Ultimately, this rollercoaster ride from hell has to come to an end. And believe it or not, that’s when the real hard work begins.
Certainly, rebuilding a complex network from the ground up and uncovering the carefully concealed tracks of a sophisticated hacker (or group of hackers) isn’t easy, but it’s goal-driven work that Sony has some semblance of control over. When it comes to repairing its reputation and restoring people’s faith in the company, Sony will encounter a flood of external factors — some fair, some unfair.
Not content being the queen of social 
media, Lady Gaga is now taking her act to social gaming.
The iconic pop star has teamed with social games maker Zynga to create GagaVille, a newly created FarmVille farm which will give her little monsters the chance to hear unreleased songs from her forthcoming album, “Born This Way,” before anyone else.
You still can’t use people’s names in 
Scrabble — but according to the latest update of one major Scrabble dictionary, words like “Grrl” and “Innit” are just fine.
The publishers of the Collins Official Scrabble Words book have added 3,000 allowed words to the game’s vocabulary, including several slang terms, tech jargon and familiar corporate names.
As if Facebook weren’t a big enough time 
suck, one of the most addictive titles in the video game industry is set to invade the social network.
“Civilization World,” which has been development for years and in closed beta testing for months, may finally go live to the general public this summer, says developer Sid Meier.
After a series of false starts, the owner 
of Penthouse magazine and over two dozen adult Websites is finally going public.
FriendFinder Networks says it expects to raise $50 million from the public offering of 5 million shares (priced at $10 each). The company said it expects trading to begin Wednesday on the Nasdaq market under the symbol FFN.
After months of rumors, Google has 
made its entry into the cloud music space official, testing an online storage system called Google Music.
The search giant unveiled the service Tuesday at its input/output developer conference, putting Apple and Amazon squarely in its sights.
Archery sims are fairly rare beasts in the gaming world, 
but when they’re done right, they can be a lot of fun. SplitApple has that essence of fun, but it lacks many features that seem natural to the genre, ultimately making it fall short. There’s no GameCenter integration at the time of this review, and the tournament mode feels stunted (taking place in just one location). Moving targets would also seem a natural part of the game. Thankfully, developer MKO Games recognizes this and is promising an update in the future. The graphics are quite smooth, though, and aiming your bow is just challenging enough to stay interesting, but not frustrating. Right now, this is an overpriced app, but if developers follow through on their promises to add more game modes and target types, it might be worth a look.
There are plenty of racing games in the iTunes 
App Store, but the Asphalt series has always been near the top. Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD is another winning installment, offering a fun, fast-paced experience with plenty of tracks, cars, and detailing options. It’s also a long game that lets users feel they really got their money’s worth from the app’s reasonably high cost at the time of this review. The problem is, this sixth version of the series is pretty close to the fifth. Aside from the ability to get an acceleration boost by collecting nitro symbols on the track and the elimination of unlocking “girls,” it’s a virtual clone, in fact. And the multiplayer is so-so at best. That puts the series at risk — and developer Gameloft will need to shake things up if it wants the inevitable Asphalt 7 to stand out from the crowd.
Chris Morris: Journalist 