Numbers 
don’t lie, but they can be massaged a bit.
Activision celebrated the launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts with its customary sales trumpeting, announcing that the game sold $1 billion in its first day of release. Sounds impressive — and it certainly is — but it’s not quite as stunning as you might think.
Is 
Call of Duty going to the dogs?
Activision has high hopes for Call of Duty: Ghosts, but critics aren’t particularly impressed with the latest installment of the industry’s largest franchise.
The 
Wii may be winding down its life cycle, but the Wii Mini is just getting started.
Roughly a year after introducing the scaled-down version of the last generation console to Canada, Nintendo has announced plans to bring the Wii Mini to the U.S. in the coming weeks. Nintendo declined to give an exact release date, saying only “mid-November.”
Nintendo 
prides itself on being a family-friendly company, but it seems to have underestimated the libido of some of its customers.
The gamemaker has suspended Swapnote, the messaging app available for its 3DS handheld, after discovering that gamers have been using the service to exchange inappropriate pictures and other material.
Sony 
has cleared up the few remaining mysteries about the PlayStation 4, though the answers may not please everyone.
In an exhaustive FAQ posted on the company’s official blog, Sony addressed dozens of issues as it nears the launch date for the PS4.
It’s a pretty long list — and an even longer read — but here are the most notable highlights:
The 
launch of next-generation consoles generally means one thing: A retail feeding frenzy. And this year, with both the PlayStation 4 (Nov. 15) and the Xbox One (Nov. 22) hitting the market a week apart, it should be especially ferocious.
The best way to ensure you get one was to pre-order, but that ship, for the most part, has sailed. Microsoft says pre-orders for the Xbox One sold out quicker than either of its predecessors, and the PS4 has been red hot since E3. Antsy gamers snatched up pre-order allotments for both systems from sites like Amazon and GameStop.
There’s still hope nabbing a launch day system if you haven’t reserved yours, though it won’t be easy.
How 
bad are things for the Wii U? Between the end of March and the end of September this year, Nintendo sold just 460,000 units of the system, the company confirmed in their latest earnings report.
Released last November, life-to-date sales of the Wii U stand at 3.91 million units, according to the company. That makes the Wii U one of the worst performing game systems of the past decade.
A bold claim? Yes, but take a look at first four fiscal quarters for other notable video game systems:
EA’s 
first-strike in the biannual showdown of the Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises is being embraced by critics, but perhaps not quite as lovingly as the publisher might have hoped.
Battlefield 4 is currently earning scores ranging from 81-88 on Metacritic — an unusually large range for a major release, and one that seems very split by platform.
Things 
are getting scary in the video game world – and that’s a good thing.
The horror game genre, which for the past few years has been relegated to familiar franchises and cheap knock-offs, is enjoying something of a renaissance. From big-budget studios to mom-and-pop indies, developers far and wide are pulling out all the stops just to freak you out. If you’re looking for some interactive Halloween scares — or are just a fan of giving yourself the willies — check out these 10 current and upcoming horror games.
Jeffery 
Craddock’s making sure his newborn daughter old-school gaming education starts early. Really early.
When Craddock and his wife Ashley welcomed their child into the world earlier this month, they chose a unique theme for their nursery: Mario. And they went all out with the decoration.
Chris Morris: Journalist 