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.
For the past few weeks, the online multiplayer 
game “Wizard 101” has been toying with its users. The expansion pack – called “Wintertusk” – came with a soundtrack that the developer teased was from a well-known musician, but it wouldn’t say who.
The guessing game can now end, though: Nick Jonas is the artist behind the music.
As if Facebook weren’t a big enough time 
suck, one of the most addictive titles in the video game industry is set to invade the social network.
“Civilization World,” which has been development for years and in closed beta testing for months, may finally go live to the general public this summer, says developer Sid Meier.
After months of rumors, Google has 
made its entry into the cloud music space official, testing an online storage system called Google Music.
The search giant unveiled the service Tuesday at its input/output developer conference, putting Apple and Amazon squarely in its sights.
Google’s planning to get more aggressive in 
the mobile and tablet markets – and it’s looking to pick a fight in the digital music space as well.
At its I/O developer conference, the search giant announced the next iteration of its Android operating system, codenamed “Ice Cream Sandwich,” which should hit the market by the end of the year. Google also announced its long-awaited cloud-based music storage system, which will compete with Amazon.
The parent company of Ticketmaster and one of the hottest 
startups around have partnered together for a new site that will offer limited-time deals for concerts, theater and other live events.
Live Nation and Groupon today rolled out GrouponLive. The site will act much like the main Groupon service, offering bargain pricing on a variety of events, targeted near where customers live. The service will begin offering deals at some point before the summer concert season.
Hounded by critics for remaining silent despite the 
theft of personal information from 100 million accounts, Sony’s CEO is finally speaking out.
Sir Howard Stringer, in an open letter to customers, addressed the data breach yesterday for the first time since the crisis began on April 20.
Electronic Arts’ is betting big on Star 
Wars – to the tune of nearly $100 million.
“Star Wars: The Old Republic” is one of the video game publisher’s biggest titles of the year – arguably of the last 5 years. While the game’s not scheduled to come out until this holiday season (and could potentially slip to 2012), this seems like a good time to run down the latest on one of the few titles that could give “World of Warcraft” a run for its money.
Sony is stopping short of making direct 
accusations, but pointed an accusatory finger at the collective group of hackers who go by ‘Anonymous’.
The company, in a letter written to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, said it does not yet know who was behind the attack, but it had found a file planted on the server of Sony Online Entertainment named “Anonymous”. (SOE just yesterday announced it had discovered hackers had accessed and stolen information from 25 million accounts.)
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is expanding its digital rollout, today announcing an agreement to buy the popular Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes websites.
The deal, which encompasses both sites, is part of Warner’s ongoing studio-agnostic initiative to grow digital content ownership. Both sites will continue to operate independently.
Chris Morris: Journalist 