Just 
over a week after Nintendo rolled out its new Wii U console, the video game company is introducing another one. U.S. shoppers, however, won’t be able to get their hands on it yet.
The Wii Mini, a shrunken version of the now-officially-last-generation console, is going on sale December 7th exclusively in Canada. It will cost Great White North gamers (and those Yanks who slip across the border) a mere $100.
The 
Madden video game franchise has always prided itself on its realistic play. Now the NFL is looking to ratchet up that realism by several degrees.
Over the past few years, the NFL has been exploring ways to gather all sorts of new data points from players during games. But this season it’s getting serious about it — and that could dramatically impact the biggest football video game franchise on the planet.
Year 
after year, a Call of Duty game hits store shelves and within about 24 hours, Activision’s PR team is shouting from the rooftops about the series setting a new entertainment industry sales record. The most recent release, Black Ops II, is no exception.
But several other gaming franchises have had blockbuster opening weekends as well, earning more in a one- or five-day period than most games make in their entire lifespan.
Here’s a look at the 10 biggest debuts in gaming history.
If 
you’ve ever been to a video game retailer, you know how persuasive those clerks can be.
One Denver salesperson, though, tops them all. He managed to talk a would-be robber out of committing a crime by pointing out to him that it was “messed up” to attempt to rob a locally-owned company.
When 
Jennifer O’Connell’s six-year old daughter was playing the Hasbro board game “Guess Who?” with her brothers, she noticed something was a little off.
The game, which encourages kids to guess which character their opponents have chosen based on facial characteristics, features 19 boys and 5 girls. That, the toddler thought to herself, didn’t seem fair, so she decided to hip Hasbro to the issue. And in the end, she proved to be a heck of a lot more cognizant than the corporate automatons she reached out to.
While 
there’s no shortage of cheap TVs, affordable laptops, and bundles of DVDs on Black Friday, it’s also an incredible time to buy new video games.
This year in particular is seeing some amazing prices. As the industry struggles to boost its retail sales and two console systems hit their twilight years (we’re looking at you, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), publishers are slashing prices left and right. It might mean a few hours of lost sleep, but for savings like these, that’s not a tremendous sacrifice.
Be 
careful mocking a teen playing video games. He or she may well be in a position to save your life someday.
A study at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston decided to pit a number of groups against each other to see who performed better using virtual surgery tools. The contestants? High-school sophomore gamers, college gamers and medical residents.
In the end, the high-school students won.
There 
are plenty of Zynga investors who want to cry after watching the stock has plunge so precipitously over the past year. One of those is CEO Marc Pincus.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Apple director Bill Campbell, who was brought in to advise the social giant’s founder earlier this year as things imploded, says Pincus was “discouraged” and near tears over the state of the company.
Activision’s 
cash machine is still running smooth.
In what’s becoming a November tradition, the latest Call of Duty game is once again the biggest entertainment launch of the year. Activision announced Friday that Black Ops II earned over $500 million in its first 24 hours.
Call 
of Duty: Black Ops II is getting rave reviews, and judging by the early numbers we’re hearing, it’s bound to be another seriously big seller.
But not all versions of the game are created equal.
Chris Morris: Journalist 