The fat lady has sung in Activision’s 
“Guitar Hero” franchise.
The publisher today announced that it was discontinuing development on future games in the series – as well as related titles such as “DJ Hero” and “Band Hero”. Also cancelled was “True Crime: Hong Kong”.
It’s hardly a secret that iTunes is under competitive fire 
in the digital music marketplace. There are plenty of challengers, including such heavyweights as Amazon, Microsoft and Walmart, but none has made a sizable dent to date.
Now Sony is stepping up to the table with its recently announced music streaming service, dubbed Sony Qriocity Music Unlimited, which will roll out by the end of the first quarter. And rather than taking a page from the other players (launching a store to support a new product or in the hopes that music fans will find it), the company is relying on its existing (and widespread) product line to drive sales and adoption.
YouTube might be the king of the hill when it comes to video content on the Internet, but when it comes to premium programming, no one can beat Hulu.
A new report from ComScore finds online audiences watched 19.4 billion minutes on the site last year. That’s nearly twice as much time as was spent watching online video on the sites of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW, with a combined 9.7 billion minutes in 2010.
Battlestar Galactica was one of the more popular 
television programs to ever hit the airwaves with the video game culture. The show’s intelligent balance of sci-fi action with a deep storyline struck a chord with players, who discussed it endlessly in message boards and chat rooms.
So it might make sense that a massively multiplayer game based on the show would be a natural hit. But as Bigpoint’s new game goes live today, there’s a distinct lack of chatter amongst the inhabitants of the gaming boards.
The competition is getting fiercer, but 
when it comes to online video sales, Apple is still king of the hill.
New data from IHS Screen Digest shows that iTunes was the leader in movie electronic sell through and internet video on demand last year, besting pushes from Amazon, Wal-Mart and others with a commanding 2/3 market share.
There’s a fun clip that has been running around 
the Internet this week – a time capsule of sorts, back to a more innocent time when the online world was a mystery to people.
Included among those who didn’t quite understand it were Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric, who discussed it during an airing of the Today show. It was a funny clip that had a lot of people laughing with – not at – the anchors. Today, word came that the person who had leaked the clip had lost their job at NBC.
That didn’t take long.
Verizon has halted pre-orders of the iPhone after less than a day, saying that they have sold out of their pre-sale units. Your only chance to get one now – short of waiting for the restocking, of course – is to wait until Feb. 9 at 3:01am and try to grab one online or show up at your local Verizon store at 7am on Feb. 10.
When Conan O’Brien and NBC parted ways in early 2010,
the talk show host had a lot of suitors. Most were the usual suspects – Fox, Comedy Central, HBO… but when word leaked out that Microsoft was interested, it caught a few people off guard.
Reports at the time said the company was considering launching its own programming channel for the Xbox 360 – and was interested in lassoing O’Brien as the tentpole. Neither party ever talked about the discussions publicly – or even confirmed them – but last month at CES, Jeff Ross, executive producer of “Conan” finally gave some details during the “Hollywood Creative Masters” Super Session.
While the media has had a field day trying to 
convince people that the table market is being fought on a hardware front, it’s not. Ultimately, it’s the end user experience that makes the difference on whether someone enjoys the product.
Apple, to date, has had a vastly superior interface that – along with its headstart in the market – has allowed it to own a commanding share of the space. Android tablets, meanwhile, have all been built upon an interface that was never meant for devices other than phones. Today, Google changed that.
Nintendo may have pioneered the world of motion controlled 
gaming, but its days as the only player in the field are long over.
Microsoft and Sony, tired of seeing the Kyoto, Japan-based company steal the thunder of their souped-up videogame systems, have started to compete with the Wii on its own turf — and they’re seeing some notable success.
Chris Morris: Journalist 