Valve Software’s Steam has been the big dog 
in the PC digital distribution space for a while now, but one of the industry’s biggest publishers is ready to take it on.
Electronic Arts has announced Origin, an updated “direct-to-consumer gaming platform” that will let people buy titles directly from the company, rather than via retail or another service. Given how heavily EA is betting on PC games in the year to come, it’s not an altogether shocking move.
Common sense might indicate that the
best place to hop online would be in the vicinity of where the most Internet innovation is taking place. Common sense is sometimes wrong.
Silicon Valley might be where Internet sensations grow up, but if you’re looking for a truly high-speed connection, you’ll need to head about 850 miles north.
Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris 
considers how important E3 now is to the gaming industry, noting that “the industry has changed – and so have the marketing strategies of its players.”
As the circus comes to Los Angeles and the gaming industry prepares for the weeklong bacchanalia that is E3, there’s already plenty of hype about what to expect, what will be said and what will be the biggest thing at the show.
These are all fun questions – but as E3 enters its 17th year, it’s worth a look to see if the show is as important and as relevant to the industry as it was in years past. While E3 used to be a Mecca for game developers and publishers to show off their wares, the industry has changed – and so have the marketing strategies of its players.
Just days after threatening to undertake an 
operation that it called “the beginning of the end for Sony,” a hacker group claims to have compromised the personal information of over 1 million users of SonyPictures.com.
The group, which calls itself LulzSec, is the same one that took over PBS Websites over the Memorial Day weekend, posting false news stories that rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive and living in New Zealand.
Hackers say they have once again penetrated 
Sony’s Website , and this time they’re releasing the information they found.
The hacker group LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for the takeover of PBS’s servers over Memorial Day, released a file Tuesday afternoon online that it says contains personal information for over 1 million users of SonyPictures.com.
If you live in Tennessee and a buddy 
offers to loan you his or her login to Netflix, it might be wise to politely decline.
A new law in the state, signed into legislation yesterday, makes it a crime to use another person’s log-in to stream video or music – even if that person has given you permission to do so.
The skies are getting cloudy 
in the virtual world.
As cloud storage options grow, the technology is edging closer and closer to the mainstream—and that’s creating some confusion. The abundance of options, combined with the general lack of mainstream education about the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, has a lot of people scratching their head.
While there’s a lot of general confusion about what, 
exactly, cloud computing is, identifying the industry’s big players isn’t too difficult.
Some have very public faces. Others operate in the background. But they all play a key part in this emerging field, which is just as important to less-than-thrilling business necessities as it is to your home entertainment. And a fair number of players have a foot in both ponds.
Early adopters of the Nintendo 3DS have been a pretty 
patient bunch. New games for the system haven’t exactly been rushing to retail, and there’s only so much you can do with that 3D camera. But relief is on the way.
Nintendo says the long-awaited 3DS eShop will launch June 6 — and to celebrate, the company is letting owners of the handheld system download a copy of Excitebike 3D Classic for free, if they grab it within the first 30 days.
The Angry Birds are getting ready 
to fling themselves at Hollywood in an even more aggressive fashion.
Rovio Mobile has acquired Finish animation studio Kombo and plans to use the group to expand its push into new areas of the entertainment biz far beyond the company’s gaming roots.
Chris Morris: Journalist 