As the video game industry 
prepares for its annual trade show, known as E3, it’s carrying a lot of baggage.
Social networking and mobile games continue to eat away at the market share of traditional publishers. A crucial Supreme Court decision, which could fundamentally change the way the industry operates, looms over its head. And many companies find themselves at a critical juncture in their evolution.
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.
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.
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.
“Call of Duty” might be the best selling 
franchise in the video game industry, but Activision-Blizzard is looking to double down on its earnings potential.
The company has unveiled a subscription-based online service called “Call of Duty: Elite” that will provide extra content for players, including map packs and social network functionality for players.
The past month hasn’t been a good one for 
people concerned about online privacy.
First, hackers stole personal information from 100 million accounts at Sony, then Symantec announced that Facebook might have accidentally leaked its users’ information to advertisers and other third parties for several years without realizing it.
The breaches, coupled with some high-profile credit card hack attacks, have people worried—and rightfully so. If they’re not safe with some of the biggest holders of personal data around, is their data safe anywhere?
Just days after Sony brought its PlayStation 
Network back to life after one of the biggest online security breaches in history, the company may have another problem on its hands.
Sony has blocked user logins on all PlayStation Websites after reports began to circulate on gaming sites and on hacker message boards about an exploit — essentially, a hole or oversight in the system’s security that hackers can use to gain access — that could allow third-parties to take control of user accounts.
Sony’s network woes may have dominated 
headlines in April, but they didn’t do much to hurt overall sales in the video game industry.
Software sales, the most closely tracked data, climbed 26 percent to $503 million, according to The NPD Group, which tracks video game sales. (Analysts had expected a 15 percent increase.) This is the first month software sales have posted a year-over-year increase since November and only the third time they have done so in the past year.
While April was an awful month for Sony, 
the Easter Bunny may have brought some good news for the video game industry as a whole.
The NPD Group will report monthly sales figures after the market closes Thursday and analysts expect sales to rebound solidly, with software sales (the industry’s most closely tracked number) poised to increase by up to 15 percent over April 2010.
Chris Morris: Journalist 