Having established a position of power in the film 
rental industry, Redbox is deepening its move into the videogame world.
The company, which has been running a limited test of game rentals, is substantially expanding the experiment, adding game rentals to thousands of its self-service kiosks in the West, Midwest and East Coast.
Up until now, PlayStation 3 owners who 
wanted to stream a film through Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature had to manually insert a disc into their devices. As of Oct. 18, they won’t have to bother anymore.
Next week, a system update will make instant Netflix streaming a native application on the game console – putting it in parity with the Xbox 360, which had exclusivity on dashboard streaming until now.
Given the economy, it’s no secret that this
holiday season is likely going to be a cautious one – but a new survey by the NPD Group shows that entertainment companies might have a rough go of things at retail stores.
NPD has released its annual holiday retail outlook– and while most shoppers say they plan to spend about the same as last year, the general lack of “must-have” products has people less enthusiastic about movies, video games and electronics than they were last year.
When you’ve produced the biggest-grossing film 
of 2010 to date, you earn a little R&R.
Darla K. Anderson chose to take that in Kauai, her favorite of the Hawaiian isles, after “Toy Story 3,” which has grossed north of $1 billion worldwide. Batteries recharged, she’s now deciding what her next project will be at Pixar — and toward the top of that list is sweet revenge.
Openfilm.com, a Website dedicated to 
offering independent filmmakers a chance to get its foot in the door, has found its first winner.
“Help,” a short by Val Lauren, has taken the top prize – which earns the director $50,000 in cash and $200,000 in financing. The film tells the story of a man on a desperate mission to save his dying mother’s life.
Christopher Nolan might have 
the Midas touch when it comes to making movies, but he hasn’t had a lot of luck in the videogame arena. But that’s not dissuading the writer / director / producer, who plans to bring his hit film “Inception” to a console near you.
“We are looking at developing a videogame based on the world of the film, which has all kinds of ideas that you can’t fit into a feature film,” Nolan told reporters at a press conference in Rome, according to a report in Variety. “That’s something we’ve been talking about and are looking at doing long term, in a couple of years.”
[Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris examines the “shaky steps” of the game industry to ensure long-term access and viability for older games, amid controversy over a GOG.com shift.]
Game industry enthusiasts take an odd joy in pointing out that retail sales for this industry now regularly beat the annual Hollywood box office receipts. It’s a fun headline that makes it look like games are winning the culture war – assuming you resist that urge to scratch the surface.
The reality, of course, is that Hollywood smokes games when you compare apples to apples. Movies don’t disappear once their theatrical run ends. There are pay-per-view revenues, DVD and Blu-ray sales (both the original release and the inevitable director’s cut), initial network rights, syndicated network rights and more. Games? Well, they tend to disappear after a brief stay on retail shelves.
As a film, Jaws was a masterpiece of its time. As an app, it’s a bit 
toothless and, frankly, boring. Playing Roy Scheider’s character of Chief Brody is not particularly exciting — and it’s hard to work up any sympathy for the dozens of swimmers who stay in the water after the shark attacks. Less than perfect onscreen controls make the game even more exasperating.
The fun of Jaws is Bruce the shark. And you never get to play as him. While there is plenty of diversity in the levels, none are particularly engaging. The developers did do one thing perfectly, though: They made certain that the classic Jaws music plays heavily into the game — acting as an audible clue for players.
The gaming world is exploding today with news that Zenimax 
Media, the parent company of id Software and Bethesda Softworks, has filed a trademark for “Oblivion”. Specifically, that trademark is meant for use in “motion picture film production; entertainment services, namely, providing motion picture theatrical films in the field of fantasy games.”
Inevitably, that has led to speculation that a film adaptation of the most recent “Elder Scrolls” game may be in the works. Don’t hold your breath.
Microsoft’s Zune media player may not be 
making any noticeable impact on Apple’s dominance of the personal media player space, but it does have at least one corporate fan: United Airlines.
The Redmond-based tech giant and United are extending the Zune partnership they kicked off a couple months ago. On the Zune Insider podcast, product evangelist Dave McLauchlan noted that the airline will be providing Zune HDs to passengers on flights to Hong Kong and Australia as part of the expanded test.
Chris Morris: Journalist 