A video game 
isn’t usually considered a particularly romantic form of expression.
But when Gary Hudston’s girlfriend Stephy celebrated her 21stbirthday this week, he relied on a game to help express his feelings — and what resulted is one of the best video game marriage proposals of all time.
The Easter Bunny apparently stuffed a 
few baskets with video games this year. The late holiday and a strong slate of titles overcame gloomy headlines of data theft to boost April video game sales by 26 percent, according to the NPD Group.
Hardware sales were also impressive, climbing 12 percent overall, though Microsoft and Sony had a lot more to celebrate than Nintendo did.
For only the third time in the past year, retail 
game sales saw a year-over-year increase in April. And what a rise it was.
The NPD Group reports that software sales were up 26 percent last month to $503 million. Overall (including hardware and peripheral totals), the industry had brick and mortar sales of $930.7 million – a 20 percent increase.
In the video game world, there’s bundling – 
and there’s true customer appreciation.
Valve Software is showing other publishers how to beef up a software release without looking like an obvious play to boost sales. The company announced Tuesday that gamers who buy the PlayStation 3 version of “Portal 2” will receive the PC/Mac version for free.
Chris Morris: Journalist 