The relationship between console makers and 
cable companies can be a dicey one. Both compete for consumer eyeballs in the living room – and dip their toes in the other’s waters from time to time – but have avoided any sort of direct battle so far. Were they to square off, the brawl would likely be an epic one.
It might be time to start looking for ringside seats.
The holiday season kicks off tonight for gamers. At 12:01am
, “Halo Reach,” the first blockbuster of the fall/winter goes on sale. It will lead the charge of a densely packed 3.5-month period of major game releases that will determine how 2010 turns out for the video game industry.
Now, normally, you wait for sales numbers before calling a release a blockbuster – but when you’re dealing with a new action-based “Halo” game, you can skip the formality. The franchise has sold over 34 million copies and consumed 3.3 billion hours of gameplay (that’s over 376,000 years, if you’re keeping score at home) since its launch with the original Xbox.
3D TV is being pushed hard by television manufacturers,
and while pick-up has been better than expected, it’s still not something the mass audience is clamoring for. Why not?
A new study by Nielsen offers some insight – but you can probably guess the two biggest culprits. The survey finds that the high costs of the sets and being forced to wear 3D glasses are the two key reasons people aren’t rushing out to buy the sets. The news gets worse for manufacturers, though.
When “Halo: Reach” goes on sale at 12:01 am 
Tuesday morning, it won’t just be the biggest gaming event of the year to date. It will likely be the entertainment industry’s biggest moment of the year.
Microsoft is betting big on the latest installment of its flagship franchise, and it has every reason to do so. Life to date, the company has sold more than 34 million ‘Halo’ games – and each major new release has shattered any Day One sales records set by the film, music or gaming industries.
The gaming world is exploding today with news that Zenimax 
Media, the parent company of id Software and Bethesda Softworks, has filed a trademark for “Oblivion”. Specifically, that trademark is meant for use in “motion picture film production; entertainment services, namely, providing motion picture theatrical films in the field of fantasy games.”
Inevitably, that has led to speculation that a film adaptation of the most recent “Elder Scrolls” game may be in the works. Don’t hold your breath.
[In this Gamasutra editorial, editor-at-large Chris Morris looks at Rockstar’s 
Red Dead Redemption and its much-delayed development cycle, examining whether taking your time in completing development on your game makes creative and business sense.]
Before Red Dead Redemption became the year’s best-selling console title to date (and an earnings savior), Take-Two Interactive Software took a lot of heat over the game’s five-year development span.
To be fair, it seemed legitimate at the time. Take-Two (and especially its Rockstar division) has never been the speediest of companies when it comes to getting games on store shelves.
While Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD is absolutely not 
a game you want children to play, it’s a very good game for adult action fans. The world is lush and filled with interesting characters and has over 50 challenging missions. Like most GTA games, it’s filled with sidequests that extend the amount of playable hours considerably. An iPhone version of the game has been available for a while – but the graphics are notably better on the iPad version. This is, arguably, the best looking version of the game to date. (It has also been published for the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.) Players can also use any iTunes music they have on the iPad as one of the in-game radio stations whenever they’re driving in the game. Even better, the iPad version does not charge extra for these features.
While August sales figures gave the video game 
industry yet another dose of bad news, at least Electronic Arts had something to smile about.
Software sales for the industry as a whole fell 14 percent last month to $403.5 million, according to NPD Group. That’s the worst performance for the month in three years and more than twice as bad as what some analysts were expecting.
No one had real high expectations for last month’s 
video game sales. And that’s probably a good thing, since it turned out to be the worst August in three years.
Software sales fell 14 percent last month to $403.5 million, according to The NPD Group – more than twice as much as some Wall St. analysts were expecting. Hardware sales, meanwhile, were 5 percent below 2009’s level, at $282.9 million – and the Wii had its worst sales month since the system’s launch.
InCrowd is a useful social media tool that hopes to make use of 
Facebook’s new Places functionality, but it faces an uphill climb. Foursquare is the reigning king of the location-based app hill and users of that platform don’t have a lot of reason to make a change. On its own merits, though, InCrowd is a different enough take that it will likely find a substantial audience. Its clever use of rewarding players who constantly check in and penalizing people who don’t (you lose popularity points if you don’t check in at least once per day) makes it a compelling game. Also, users can have fun customizing their avatars. Figuring out how to post your location is incredibly easy and user reviews and comments about those venues can act as a good filter. For example, if you’re unsure about a restaurant, you can quickly access the thoughts and experiences of people who have been there — both friends and strangers (though there are more established ways to do that, as well).
Chris Morris: Journalist 