Disney is swinging the axe at its gaming 
arm, cutting a substantial number of positions as it transitions from being a packaged goods company to a player in the growing digital videogame space.
Disney declined to give the number of people affected, but Mouse House insiders said as many as half of Disney Interactive Studios’ 700 staffers may have been cut.
Virtual City HD manages to take the best 
aspects of the Sim City franchise and strip those out for a portable gaming audience. The game is challenging, but not impossible — and gives players the choice between playing a task-driven game or building a city in any manner they choose. The game looks great, and developers have clearly taken pains to optimize the app for the iPad’s larger screen. The larger screen makes it easier to control the game, particularly when there’s a lot happening at once — but it comes at a higher cost than the iPhone version, which is virtually the same.
Word Solitaire: Aurora will quickly become a 
favorite title of word-game fans. The game takes the familiar concept of solitaire and transforms it into something new and unique. The campaign mode will keep you occupied for hours, and the global mode (updated daily) is a wonderful (and child-safe) way to test your skills against a diverse group of players. Word Solitaire: Aurora probably isn’t suited for young ones who are just learning to spell, but for those who can, it proves to be a delightfully entertaining diversion that just might teach them something without them realizing it.
Read more at Common Sense Media
As interest revs up in the cloud 
gaming world, venture capitalists are doubling down.
Playcast has raised $10 million in a Series B funding round to help it expand its ongoing rollout of services to telecommunications companies and cable television providers. MK Capital, a Chicago/Los Angeles-based venture fund specializing in digital media, and JVP, a leading Israeli venture capital firm focused on media, technology and content, led the round.
With $10 million in new venture capital, Playcast 
tells Gamasutra editor-at -large Chris Morris how it’ll compete with cloud gaming services like OnLive indirectly, by providing a standardized service that can be integrated into any number of set-top boxes.
Playcast may not be the most familiar name in the video game world, but it’s one that’s certainly turning the heads of venture capitalists.
The cloud gaming company has raised $10 million in a Series B funding round to help it expand its ongoing rollout of services to telecommunications companies and cable television providers. The company previously raised $2 million in funding in 2009.
Disney is swinging the ax at Disney Interactive 
Studios, cutting hundreds of positions, sources have told Variety.
Disney declined to give a number of people affected, but speaking off the record, people who were affected by the move said it could be as much as half of Disney Interactive Studios. Several vice presidents and directors were among those cut. (Variety has been unable to verify the exact count.)
Walt Disney on Monday laid off a significant 
portion of its gaming studio employees, sources familiar with the situation have told CNBC.
The company declined to comment on the layoffs or disclose how many people were affected by the move, but some insiders said the number could be nearly half of the 700-person division.
Another old-school video game is getting the
live action treatment – but in a different way than its peers.
While Universal is trying to bring “Asteroids” to the big screen and Namco is shopping a 3D series AND reality series revolving around Pac-Man, Warner Premiere has announced plans to create a series of live action digital shorts around “Mortal Kombat”.
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.
If the latest whispers are correct, we should get our first official look at Sony’s PlayStation Portable 2 before the end of the month. Sony, it’s said, has scheduled a meeting with select press outlets in Japan for January 27, 2011 to make the announcement. Regardless of the veracity of these particular rumors, we can all agree on one thing: The PSP2 is coming, and probably before the end of the year. And while I’ll give Sony credit for timing this announcement so it’s not caught in the blast zone of the 3DS launch coverage, something about this product has me concerned.
If we’ve learned anything from the iPhone’s success, it’s that the days of single-function devices are rapidly coming to an end — and products that don’t evolve are doomed. We don’t know anything about the PSP2 yet, other than vague talk about performance and graphical improvements. But amidst all the chatter (much of which has been coming from developers working with the systems), we haven’t heard any talk about non-gaming functionality.
“Duke Nukem Forever,” the longest 
running punchline in the video game industry, finally has a ship date – and all signs are the game will actually stand by this one.
After more than a decade in development, an apparent cancellation, an IP ownership transfer and a miraculous revival, the long-in-development game will finally hit retail shelves on May 3.
Chris Morris: Journalist 