That didn’t take long.
Verizon has halted pre-orders of the iPhone after less than a day, saying that they have sold out of their pre-sale units. Your only chance to get one now – short of waiting for the restocking, of course – is to wait until Feb. 9 at 3:01am and try to grab one online or show up at your local Verizon store at 7am on Feb. 10.
When Conan O’Brien and NBC parted ways in early 2010,
the talk show host had a lot of suitors. Most were the usual suspects – Fox, Comedy Central, HBO… but when word leaked out that Microsoft was interested, it caught a few people off guard.
Reports at the time said the company was considering launching its own programming channel for the Xbox 360 – and was interested in lassoing O’Brien as the tentpole. Neither party ever talked about the discussions publicly – or even confirmed them – but last month at CES, Jeff Ross, executive producer of “Conan” finally gave some details during the “Hollywood Creative Masters” Super Session.
WordUs2 (which, as far as we can tell, has a 
superfluous number at the end) is a love it or hate it game. It’s full of puzzles that can confound, stump, and aggravate you one minute, and fill you with a sense of euphoria the next. With a spartan, efficient design, it’s an easy game to learn to play — and if you’re the type of person who lives for word puzzles, it will delight you. But be warned that if you’re just a casual fan of the word games genre, the in-game dictionary can be full of baffling omissions (despite its claim of containing thousands of words) that can turn fun into frustration. In either case, it’s a great time-killer, potential vocabulary builder, and certainly has the potential to chew up several hours.
While the media has had a field day trying to 
convince people that the table market is being fought on a hardware front, it’s not. Ultimately, it’s the end user experience that makes the difference on whether someone enjoys the product.
Apple, to date, has had a vastly superior interface that – along with its headstart in the market – has allowed it to own a commanding share of the space. Android tablets, meanwhile, have all been built upon an interface that was never meant for devices other than phones. Today, Google changed that.
Nintendo may have pioneered the world of motion controlled 
gaming, but its days as the only player in the field are long over.
Microsoft and Sony, tired of seeing the Kyoto, Japan-based company steal the thunder of their souped-up videogame systems, have started to compete with the Wii on its own turf — and they’re seeing some notable success.
A by-the numbers look at the video game motion control market, breaking down Kinect, Move and Wii by price, availability, current catalog and additional benefits.
As Microsoft gets people used to the idea of controlling 
their Xbox 360 with Kinect, its hot selling motion sensor peripheral, the company behind that technology is aiming at a bigger market.
PrimeSense Ltd, which built the technology behind Kinect, says it expects at least one U.S. cable company to release a product this year allowing subscribers to change channels, access video on demand and more through hand gestures.
[Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris 
examines PopCap’s potential plans to IPO later this year, quizzing analysts from M2 and Arcadia on the pluses and minuses of a public Plants Vs. Zombies creator.]
The news that PopCap Games is considering a public offering is the stuff that gets the money wonks of the video game industry all atwitter. An indie darling, who leveraged the try-before-you-buy shareware model into multiplatform success? What’s not to love?
While you won’t find people betting against PopCap if the company does decide to make a formal filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that’s not to say every analyst thinks the move is necessarily the right one for the company.
Intel’s Sandy Bridge chip was perhaps 
the most impressive thing at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but the rollout of the next generations processors has hit a stumbling block.
Intel today announced it had discovered a flaw in a support chip that works with next generation – or so-called Sandy Bridge – processors, and has suspended shipments and will be replacing those that have already shipped with the affected support chip.
[Gamasutra’s editor at large Chris Morris talks to 
director Kevin Tancharoen on how the genuinely accidental YouTube release of his short spec film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth led to a gig with Warner Bros. making live-action episodes ahead of the new Mortal Kombat game.]
When the live action short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth hit YouTube in March 2010, people started buzzing. The film, starring Michael Jai White and Jeri Ryan, was not only cool to watch, it was reverential towards the classic Midway-originated fighting game series.
Director Kevin Tancharoen had hoped to use it to lobby Warner Bros. to sign him on to steer a reimagined MK film. While he didn’t quite make it to that level, the company has contracted him to direct a series of live-action shorts that will likely lead up to the release of the new Mortal Kombat game in April. Ironically, though, it all started with a mistake.
Chris Morris: Journalist 