Is EA the next victim of the Madden Curse?

It’s too early to know whether the infamous Madden Curse will hit this year’s cover athlete, but if the wave of recent troubles related to the football franchise is any indication, the hex might be working its mojo on Electronic Arts itself.

Already concerned with how the seemingly unavoidable lockout of the real NFL season will affect sales of the upcoming Madden 12, the company has seen a number of key personnel depart Madden maker EA Tiburon in the past few days, which raises some questions about what fans can expect in 2013.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

App Review: Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12 for iPad

Compared to its peers, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12 is one of the best golf games on the iPad, but judged against the larger console gaming category, it falls a bit short. The swipe mechanic used to take shots works fine most of the time, but occasionally adds more power than you expect — and little errors in the angle of your swipe can have tremendous consequences on screen. However, these controls do provide you with the ability to shoot the ball at a slight angle and add some English to it, which affects its landing. The commentary is also sometimes inappropriate for the situation on screen — not in an offensive way, but it often seems disconnected to the player’s situation. Players can create their own character or use one of the pros, but it doesn’t tremendously affect gameplay. All of this said, the game looks great and the Closest to the Pin challenge is one of the better Facebook integrations of any app. Dedicated duffers might like parts of this app, but casual fans of the sport — and young players — are likely to get frustrated.

Read more at Common Sense Media

Apple sues Samsung over Galaxy phones and tablets

Apple’s legal team is certainly off the leash these days.

On the heels of suits filed against HTC and Nokia, Apple has filed suit against Samsung, accusing the company of using Apple’s intellectual property in several of its devices, including the Galaxy S 4G phone and Galaxy Tab tablet computer.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Will Nintendo Release a Wii Successor in June?

While the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were born with 10-year life cycles in mind, the Wii hit the market with a much shorter projected lifespan.

With no support for high-definition graphics and shaky online multiplayer functionality, everyone including Nintendo knew the Wii would show its age first and would probably be the first console in need of an update.

Now there’s growing talk that the company could announce its successor as early as June.

Read more at CNBC.com

Handheld Gaming: Forget Apple, What About Nintendo vs. Sony?

As the iPhone has stolen the media spotlight and been touted as the sole competitor for Nintendo’s dominance of the mobile gaming market, Sony has been somewhat left in the shadows.

That’s understandable, to a point. The company’s first handheld gaming system – the PSP (PlayStation Portable) – never quite lived up to its promise as a true rival to Nintendo’s dominance of the market. And despite the company’s efforts to refresh the PSP brand over the past six years, it never hit the cultural zeitgeist that many expected.

Read more at CNBC.com

Reports: Nintendo to unveil new HD game console

The Wii has never been the workhorse console of this generation.

To keep it affordable and attractive to a mass market audience, Nintendo eschewed high definition graphics and, for the most part, online play when it was introduced. Five years later, though, it’s showing its age. And if online reports are to be believed, the company is ready to pull the curtain back on its next console system.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

Open mic night hits the Web

Andy Warhol mused that everyone got 15 minutes of fame in their life. Now a new Website is offering wannabe musicians 3-6 minutes of that.

Launched in January, TheStage.tv – a live streaming site, allowing performers to perform for whoever’s watching – has attracted more than 1,300 performers to day – who have put on over 50,000 performances.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Analysis: Should Nintendo Launch The Next Generation Now?

With rumors circulating that Nintendo is planning to announce its next generation console at E3 this year, Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris discusses whether the company should make its boldest move to date.

The rumors have been gaining steam for a couple of weeks now. Nintendo, they say, is planning to announce its next generation console at E3 this year.

While the company, not surprisingly, isn’t commenting on the chatter, it’s hardly going out of its way to downplay it either. And the second quarter lineup for the system (along with growing whispers about a looming $50 price cut in May) didn’t do anything to quiet speculation.

Read more at Gamasutra

Nintendo 3DS sells well, but outshined by older model

The launch of the 3DS was a certifiable hit — but not a grand slam.

According to data released by sales tracking group NPD, the first-week sales of Nintendo’s new handheld system beat out the first-week sales of its predecessor, the DS, thanks to a price tag that was $100 higher. Unfortunately, that price tag also might have kept some from buying it: just under 400,000 3DS units were sold in its first week, about 100,000 units short of the original DS when it launched in November of 2004.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

World’s biggest Pac-Man underway

Most of the time, Pac-Man is limited to a strict diet of 240 dots per level — but this is the era of supersizing. And the little yellow guy is going on a high-calorie diet.

Namco-Bandai and Microsoft, along with Soap Creative, have released a new, free-to-play version of the arcade classic that links hundreds of user-created mazes together, effectively creating the world’s largest game of Pac-Man.

Read more at Yahoo! Games