Hollywood 
loves a good high speed car chase — and EA’s Need For Speed franchise is chock full of ’em. It was only a matter of time before the two came together.
DreamWorks Studios has acquired the film rights to the racing franchise and is fast tracking it for a 2014 release, which will coincide with the series’ 20th anniversary. Filming is set to begin next year.
Over 
the past year, no tech company has had ups and downs quite like Zynga.
In the days leading up to its debut on Wall Street last December, the social game kingpin was heralded as The Next Big Thing, an unstoppable force in an evolving industry, with proponents pointing to the enduring draw of games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Words With Friends. Lately, though, the company’s stock has taken a brutal beatdown and those proponents have changed their tune.
The 
3DS is getting supersized.
Nintendo announced plans in an online video early Friday to roll out a new version of its 3D handheld system — called the 3DS XL — which will effectively double the system’s screen size. The handheld will go on sale in the U.S. on Aug. 19 for $200.
If 
you’re just now getting around to Diablo III, you might want to buy a retail copy instead of downloading one.
In its most recent patch of the game, Blizzard Entertainment has capped how far players who purchase a digital copy of the game can advance in the first 72 hours. Despite inevitable protests to the contrary, it doesn’t look like the company is planning to change its mind about the decision.
Doodling 
on your iPhone could lead to big money and big prizes.
CBS is developing a primetime game show based on Zynga’s popular Draw Something app. The network won a bidding war for the rights to the game and is reportedly fast-tracking the show as a possible mid-season replacement to step in when one of its new series ultimately fails.
If 
you’ve got a Civilization fan in your life, you might want to say goodbye for a little while.
This week’s release of Civilization V: Gods & Kings is being heralded as a terrific add-on to the much loved strategy series, adding a wealth of new content and ensures that the franchise’s well-known “one more turn” gameplay is as addictive as ever.
Microsoft 
left a lot of people hungry for details about its next-generation console system at this year’s E3. This past weekend, however, those people had plenty to chew on, courtesy of a leaked document that purports to offer plenty of previously unannounced details on the system.
The 56-page document, which first surfaced in the popular NeoGAF forums, presents itself as a road map for the Xbox system through 2015, including alleged details on the so-called Xbox 720, a unique glasses display, and a focus on cloud gaming.
Web 
surfers tend to be pretty loyal to their browsers. Once you figure out the shortcuts and placement of everything, it’s kind of a pain to upgrade to a dramatically revamped interface — or a new browser altogether.
The problem is, programming sites for those antiquated browsers can be a major headache. Now one online retailer is fighting back, announcing plans to add a 6.8 percent “tax” onto the purchases of anyone who visits their site using Internet Explorer 7.
Rockstar 
Games is considered a nearly bulletproof game developer. They take their time crafting their games, and their releases are always major events. The company’s last three blockbuster titles — Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption and last year’s L.A. Noire — enjoyed chart-topping success, a testament to the company’s dedication to quality and terrific sense of timing.
But the release of Max Payne 3 is putting their impressive streak at risk.
The 
obituaries started for the PlayStation Vita before the device even went on sale in the U.S. Some critics called it “overly expensive.” Others noted the odds of a dedicated game system succeeding in a smartphone world were formidable.
Three and a half months down the road, those critics haven’t let up — even as Vita sales have topped 1.8 million. And it’s not hard to see why.
Chris Morris: Journalist 