Groupon, Ticketmaster team for bargain ticket site

The parent company of Ticketmaster and one of the hottest startups around have partnered together for a new site that will offer limited-time deals for concerts, theater and other live events.

Live Nation and Groupon today rolled out GrouponLive. The site will act much like the main Groupon service, offering bargain pricing on a variety of events, targeted near where customers live. The service will begin offering deals at some point before the summer concert season.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Howard Stringer finally addresses Sony hack

Hounded by critics for remaining silent despite the theft of personal information from 100 million accounts, Sony’s CEO is finally speaking out.

Sir Howard Stringer, in an open letter to customers, addressed the data breach yesterday for the first time since the crisis began on April 20.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Checking in with Star Wars: The Old Republic

Electronic Arts’ is betting big on Star Wars – to the tune of nearly $100 million.

“Star Wars: The Old Republic” is one of the video game publisher’s biggest titles of the year – arguably of the last 5 years. While the game’s not scheduled to come out until this holiday season (and could potentially slip to 2012), this seems like a good time to run down the latest on one of the few titles that could give “World of Warcraft” a run for its money.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Sony offers more details on data theft

Sony is stopping short of making direct accusations, but pointed an accusatory finger at the collective group of hackers who go by ‘Anonymous’.

The company, in a letter written to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, said it does not yet know who was behind the attack, but it had found a file planted on the server of Sony Online Entertainment named “Anonymous”. (SOE just yesterday announced it had discovered hackers had accessed and stolen information from 25 million accounts.)

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Sony to pair game demo with Battle: Los Angeles Blu-ray

For all the talk of film and video game synergy, you don’t see a lot of real world applications. Now, Sony’s putting its money where its mouth is.

The company will include a demo for the upcoming “Resistance 3” in the Blu-ray release of “Battle: Los Angeles”. The game is expected to hit store shelves in September.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Google TV 2.0 en route?

Google TV hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm, but the search giant isn’t giving up on it.

Google is expected to showcase a second generation of the device next month at its I/O developer conference. Whether the company has mended any fences with the networks, however, is less clear.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Redbox to add video games to 21,000 kiosks

Film rental giant Redbox wants to add another jewel to its crown.

The company, best known for its rental kiosks in areas like pharmacies, grocery stores, fast food restaurants and convenience stores, is adding videogames to the mix, with new, legacy and children’s titles coming to 21,000 locations starting June 17.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Critics take aim at Sony over PSN hacking

With the shock wearing off after yesterday’s announcement about the scope and magnitude of the hacker attack on the PlayStation Network, Sony is now having to deal with the ugly public relations fallout.

Gardner analyst Avivah Litan says the incident is the largest theft of personal information to ever occur. That has spurred politicians in two countries to demand answers. And, as expected, the first of what will likely be several lawsuits has already been filed.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

PlayStation Network hack worse than anyone expected

After six days of silence, Sony has revealed more about the security breach of its PlayStation Network – and it’s much worse than expected.

The company says hackers obtained personal information for all of the service’s 70 million subscribers. Still unclear is whether the credit card information on file with the service was compromised.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

EA COO jumps ship

Video game industry veteran John Schappert, who has served as chief operating officer at Electronic Arts for the past two years, has quietly left the company.

Schappert’s last day was yesterday – and media reports indicate he plans to join social gamers maker (and EA rival) Zynga in an undisclosed role.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog