With a new handheld gaming system 
on the way, Nintendo is giving its current device one last hurrah at retail.
The company announced plans Monday to shave $20 off the price of the two most recent versions of its Nintendo DS — the industry’s best-selling hardware.
Nintendo has announced plans to shave $20 off the price 
of two versions of its best selling video game system – the Nintendo DS. Effective Sept. 12, the DSi will drop from $170 to $150 and the DSi XL will move from $190 to $170.
The move follows price cuts in several other regions, but the timing could raise a few questions. We’ve got three theories as to why Nintendo decided to make the move now.
Hulu Plus is still in its limited preview mode, but if you 
can’t get an invite – and you just can’t wait watch Hulu on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, there’s now a way to do so.
Hulu is inviting people to download the free Hulu Plus app to help them test the experience – meaning a limited number of show episodes and clips are viewable by anyone with an iDevice.
Another big title by Rockstar Games could be arriving 
at retail later than expected.
Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, in a note to investors today, said it appears Take-Two Interactive Software has pushed “L.A. Noire” back from the fourth quarter of this year to early next year. (Retail site GameStop, which has a so-so history of accuracy on predicting release dates, currently says the game will be available on Feb. 1, 2011.)
Rumors started last month that Apple was making a hard push to begin offering 
streaming rentals of recent television programming for 99 cents. Now those whispers are beginning to solidify a bit.
Bloomberg reports that the Cupertino-based company is in advanced talks with News Corp. for 99-cent rentals – and CBS and Disney are engaged in similar discussions with Apple.
Disney’s $563 million purchase earlier this month of Playdom 
had its skeptics, but a new survey showing the reach of the social game market could silence the deal’s critics.
The NPD Group, which tracks the sales of video games, reports that 20 percent of the U.S. population has played a game on Facebook or some other social network in the past three months. That works out to 56.8 million people tending virtual farms or collecting virtual bugs.
Hollywood’s relationship with the gamer – especially the 
PC gamer – is a tenuous one. Demographically, they’re right in the sweet spot for most big releases, but the tech savvy of those players always brings about piracy fears.
Now Steam, a popular game digital distribution retailer owned by Valve Software, is taking a look at what’s on gamer’s hard drives – well, at least in terms of installed programs.
“Neverwinter Nights,” one of the most storied
role-playing game franchises, is getting an update. Atari today announced “Neverwinter,” a new title utilizing the Dungeon and Dragons license, will hit shelves late next year.
Last June, Variety was first to break the news that Atari was relaunching the series. Sources, at the time, told us Atari’s Cryptic Studios would revived the game as a massively multiplayer online title, with an eyed 2011 release. Today’s announcement stops short of calling it an MMO, but does refer to the game as a “new online role-playing game”.
Will Wright conquered the video game world with titles such 
as “Sim City” and “The Sims”. Now he’s looking to take on television.
Wright, who left Electronic Arts last year to dedicate his attentions to his Stupid Fun Club, has begun shooting a pilot episode for a new program for Current TV. The details haven’t been released, but there’s ample speculation this could be “The Creation Project,” which relies on user-created stories from episode to episode.
Chris Morris: Journalist 