Electronic 
Arts’ college sports franchises have been sacked by a U.S. federal appeals court.
In a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that EA had used the images in its video games of several ex-NCAA athletes without their permission in its NCAA football and basketball series. The decision comes two weeks after EA lost the rights to put the NCAA logo and name on its games beyond this year.
Nintendo’s 
Wii U woes are dire.
As part of a quarterly earnings announcement Wednesday, Nintendo said that in the three-month period ending June 30, consumers worldwide bought just 160,000 units of its next-generation console.
Chris 
Morris notes that “the embankment Microsoft faces is a lot smaller than it was a short time ago”
Coming out of E3, the momentum for the next generation was clearly on Sony’s side. Microsoft, through a series of unpopular decisions and confusing, conflicting public statements, was quickly wearing down the goodwill it had built up with the Xbox 360 – at least among core gamers.
Within a week of the industry trade show’s close, though, Microsoft started making changes – big ones – to win back the doubters, reversing its DRM and used game policies. Last week, those changes continued as the company changed its mind on indie game self-publishing. And with an estimated four months or so before the Xbox One hits shelves, who knows if Microsoft is finished?
The 
story of Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth, so far, has largely taken place high above the earth, in a floating city hidden amongst the clouds. For their next chapter, though, they’re headed down to Rapture.
Irrational Games surprised fans Tuesday by announcing the release of new downloadable content for BioShock Infinite — including a trip back to the same underwater city as the original BioShock– after maintaining a virtual cone of silence since the critical hit’s release.
In 
1983, video game companies were riding high. U.S. sales hit a peak of $3.2 billion (the equivalent of $7.3 billion today) and developers couldn’t make games quickly enough.
No one knew it at the time, but the industry was about to dive into a crisis that remains the most serious publishers, developers, and console makers have ever faced.
The crash that followed 1983 almost destroyed the video game industry, nearly relegating video games to the same cultural scrap heap as Pet Rocks and bell bottoms. It came about due to a confluence of events — some eerily similar to where the industry finds itself today.
High-profile 
Twitter meltdowns are fairly common, but they don’t often result in the cancellation of entire projects.
But that’s exactly what happened over the weekend when Phil Fish, the mercurial creator of indie game sensation Fez, was so affected by an escalating series of tirades on Twitter that he declared he was quitting the industry and canceling development of Fez II.
New 
Zynga CEO Don Mattrick has a lot of work ahead of him.
As the company continues to see users abandon its games at an alarming rate, it has reversed course on its plan to pursue real-money casino games in the U.S., a combination that led to investors punishing the stock Friday.
Bobby 
Kotick, the sometimes controversial CEO of Activision-Blizzard, is leading an $8.2 billion buyout from parent company Vivendi, a move that will restore independence to the world’s largest video game publisher.
The agreement will occur in a pair of purchases. Activision, as a company, will acquire 429 million shares for $5.83 billion in cash, while an investor group headed by Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly will separately purchase another 172 million shares for $2.34 billion. Kotick and Kelly have personally invested a combined $100 million into the company.
By 
almost any measurement, 2013 has been an embarrassment of riches for gamers. The Last of Us earned some of the highest scores of any game this generation, BioShock Infinite is a critical darling, and the reboot of Tomb Raider was masterfully done.
But while the hit to miss ratio has been skewed towards hits, the misses have been painful. The only thing worse than a bad game is a game that was supposed to be good, but totally failed to deliver on its promise. You know, like these five stinkers:
Just 
as Monopoly fans come out of their mourning period for the dearly departed iron game token, Hasbro’s tinkering with the formula again. And purists are likely to be outraged.
A new version of the game, Monopoly Empire, is tailored for the short attention span of today’s youth. Among the changes? Plenty of real world brands to own — and no pesky jail to slow things down.
Chris Morris: Journalist 