Pachinko kept Sega Sammy in profit during the final nine months of 2011, despite declines in the company's videogame and arcade businesses.

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Tail Drift has been selected as the winner of Unity's Flash In A Flash Creation Contest, which tasked entrants with porting Unity-authored games to Adobe Flash.

Developer Cameron Owen has won $20,000 for his flight-based arcade racer, which was selected ahead of more than 500 fellow entrants.

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For Q1 2012 the company showed net earnings of $212 million for the quarter ending December 31 2011. This figure showed a $398 million drop from the previous year's $610 million.

It was a drop that James W Barge, chief financial officer, blamed on the recent legal battle with Harmonix.

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Overall, the business made a profit of ¥34.4 billion (£284.7m) for the period, with sales of ¥311.7 billion (£2.58bn), a year on year increase of 0.5 per cent.

Of that total, ¥64.1 billion in net sales came from the Consumer Business arm, which includes SEGA's videogame business alongside its toy and animation sectors. That represents a shrinkage of 4.9 per cent from the same period in the year previous.

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I read about Josh Sutphin's strange tactical war game in the back pages of this month's PC Gamer, where it was described as deadly Tetris. That was enough to get me on board. Now I've played it, I can think of several other equally appropriate descriptions, as well: Machiavellian tennis, say, or Advance Wars for nasty people.

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Brain in a Jar focuses on simulations with its proprietary motorsports game engine, and has assisted developers such as Codemasters and Reflections in the past.

"We're very excited to be working with Eutechnyx on one of its biggest projects this year, as we're keen to demonstrate the two pillars on which our company is founded on - great technology and intelligent staff scaling."

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Net income estimates are up to ¥203 million from ¥59 million, and operating income is now ¥303 million, previously ¥107 million. Strong sales on both PlayStation Vita and PS3 for the Disgaea have helped boost the numbers for the Japanese publisher.

Sales are down from ¥2,288 million to ¥2,246 million, which the company attributes to release delays for The Witch And The Hundred Soldiers and the US edition of Disgaea 3 Return.

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"Min will make a welcome addition to the Board," said Shuhei Yoshida, current AIAS board member.

"Through games such as their flagship title, MapleStory, and now recently, Dragon Nest and Vindictus, Nexon has paved the way for Free-to-Play titles over the last decade to push this genre forward to ever expanding audiences in MMO gaming. We will greatly benefit from that same passion - there is no doubt he will work to make great strides in pushing the mission of the AIAS forward."

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“Rip-off. Why should I have to pay for Cranky levels? You have lost a customer,” reads Coolcoco’s one-star App Store review for Where’s My Water on January 30. “I love Swampy. But having to pay for an update is a bit greedy,” agreed Spence582 the same day, also awarding it just one star.

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Innovative Leisure also employs what Blackley calls the "dream team" or "Jedi Council" of veteran programmers from Atari's golden years, when the company dominated the arcade cabinet business with titles like Asteroids and Centipede.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Blackley said he sees iOS as the "new arcade" for gamers, with the common 99c price point representing the "new quarter" for a new generation.

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According to his LinkedIn profile he started the position last month, where he's now responsible for App Store marketing for iTunes Europe.

Burrowes joined Xbox UK in February 2005 following time with MSN and HMV. At Microsoft he was marketing manager for the console, and was responsible for promotions including Xtival Free LIVE Weekend and the Summer Of Football campaign.

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Spry Fox filed a lawsuit against 6L after the company's representatives denied accusations of plagiarism in an interview, calling the claims "part of the natural process."

Spry Fox is now trying to prove that 6L took core ideas and mechanics from Triple Town whilst it was in negotiations to publish the game, leading to its recently acquired mobile studio Escalation releasing the similar title Yeti Town for iOS.

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GFACE.com offers a mix of core and casual titles that can be played across multiple devices, iPhone, iPad, PC browser, along with a mix of social networking features. Crytek's free-to-play title Warface can be seen in some of the promotional screenshots.

"GFACE enables its users to discover and experience entertainment together in real time" said Cevat Yerli, GFACE director and CEO of Crytek.

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Kim comes with extensive mobile and social games experience, having worked with 5th Planet Games, Bionic Panda, Gaia and GamersFirst, amongst others.

"We are pleased to welcome Tae to our exceptional team," offered Jeff Hilbert, founder of DDM

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Id Software's Rage is now available for Mac, from the Mac App Store and publisher Aspyr's GameAgent store.

The belated release - which comes almost four months after its debut on consoles and PC - is dubbed Rage: Campaign Edition, and includes bonus content only previously available in the Anarchy Edition.

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THQ has said it has no further plans for uDraw after it revealed that the failed expansion of its tablet peripheral to PS3 and Xbox 360 has cost it $80 million in lost revenue.

Speaking during an investor call after the publication of its dismal third-quarter results, the publisher said it had shipped a million uDraw tablets to retailers, leaving 1.4 million units of manufactured stock left unsold.

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Wada was most recently employed at Grasshopper, but left after finding that company's culture difficult to adapt to. He is most famous for creating the long-running Harvest Moon series.

Very little is known about Toybox yet, but Wada seems keen to do more than just entertain.

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Irfan Virk, the current CEO of DeNA subsidiary Gameview Studios, will oversee the new Vancouver operation.

"We are excited to begin operations with the great talent in Vancouver," he said.

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6waves Lolapps has denied Spry Fox's allegation that it breached the terms of an NDA in development of Yeti Town.

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Announced in the early hours of this morning, the new deal will enable the chain to remain trading, with the executives confident that GAME will pass its covenant tests for the year ending January 31.

A projection of an $18 million loss for that year has been made, prior to the cost of tax and non-recurring items.

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In a conference call to investors following the release of the company's third quarter results, CEO Brian Farrell confirmed that the high costs of development are putting a burden on the project.

"While the game in development promises to be a high-quality consumer offering, because of the large financial commitment and associated risks, we are being realistic about our resources and we are actively seeking a partner for this compelling MMO," he said.

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In doing so, Hirai could be seen as completing the plan which PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi was never able to accomplish. Kutaragi was widely tipped as a future Sony boss after the extraordinary success of the PlayStation and PS2, and various executive moves between 1997 and 2003 seemed to be aimed at installing him in the role. The botched launch of PS3 sank Kutaragi's ambitions, though - so it's Hirai, instead, who fulfills the dream of a PlayStation boss taking over the entire company.

We've become so used to the idea of Hirai as the natural successor to Stringer that it's easy to be blasé and underestimate just how important this move is. Sony, for all its recent difficulty in turning a profit and the challenges it faces in many markets, is an absolute giant of a company - one for whom the videogames market started out as little more than a hobby. Hirai's appointment isn't just a testament to his own abilities as an executive - it's a recognition that the confluence of hardware, software and network services in modern consumer electronics has made videogames into the front line of a war between competing visions of the future of entertainment and communications.

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Troubled publisher THQ has announced a drop in revenue and an increased loss for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011, as better than expected performances from core games were offset by poor results for uDraw hardware and software.

Net sales dropped 2.9 per cent year-over-year to 305.4 million (£193.3m), while the company's net loss widened from $14.9 million (£9.4m) a year ago to $55.9 million (£35.4m).

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Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has reported a significant decline in profit and revenue for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011.

Net profit fell 65 per cent to $14.2 million (£9m), while revenue dropped 29 per cent to $236.3 million (£149m).

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Battlefield 3 is once again the best-selling title on the Nordic all-formats chart, which collates sales data from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the EA shooter having held the number one position since the last week of 2011.

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Sales of Saints Row: The Third were high during the three months - 3.6 million copies, but these were countered by poor performance of novelty Wii tablet uDraw and its software. Today it confirmed it was no longer manufacturing uDraw hardware.

Net sales for the three months were $305 million, down from $315 million the previous year.

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A busier release period in the same quarter in 2010, combined with stronger catalogue sales, netted a profit of $40.86 million.

Sales for the third quarter totalled $236.33 million, down from $334.29 for the same quarter in the year previous.

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Doug Creutz from Cowen estimated estimated the figure of paying players to be between 1.3 million and 1.5 million, with 200,000 to 400,000 still enjoying their first month's free trial.

Baird Equity Research concurred with the 1.3 million estimate, despite originally predicting the number to be 1 million.

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Finnish studio RedLynx has released a new trailer for its upcoming racer Trials Evolution which shows the game's new LittleBigPlanet 2-style level editor.

While the construction of fiendish, undulating assault courses will still likely be the main focus of most players, RedLynx has broadened its genre palette with scrolling shooters, pinball and even an FPS making an appearence in the video below.

There's also a more fully featured social network in which to share your creations and brag about platinum runs.

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Konami is to officially unveil Dance Dance Revolution Classroom Edition, which allows 48 dance mats to be connected to a single PC, later this month.

The game will be shown for the first time at the California Association For Health, Physical Education, Recreation And Dance (CAHPERD) State Conference in Pasadena.

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EA's PC distribution service, Origin, has brought in $100 million (£63 million) since its launch last year, the publisher has announced.

In addition, 9.3 million users have downloaded and installed the Origin client, with the service reaching a peak of over a million concurrent players.

The publisher revealed the figures alongside the announcement of seven new companies who have signed up for the service, taking the total number of publishers whose games are available on the platform to 21.

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Since switching to its current Amnesia Fortnight-fuelled model, Double Fine has embraced an ethos of bold ideas, rapid prototyping and smaller games. With Happy Action Theatre, its newly released Kinect mini-game collection, the studio is taking this outlook to perhaps its natural extreme, collating 18 “activities” that strip away the rules and encourage a return to carefree, experimental play.

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Organisers of IndieCade are calling for submissions ahead of this year's festival, set for October in Los Angeles.

Submissions are invited from indie artists and designers worldwide, with works in progress encouraged. In addition to featuring, and being considered for awards at the October festival, those selected will be featured on the IndieCade website and promoted through social media.

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Ben Cousins, general manager of Ngmoco Sweden and former head of EA's Easy Studio, will give the opening keynote at the inaugural F2P Summit in London next month.

Cousins, who was a noted advocate of free-to-play while at EA and joined Ngmoco's new Swedish operation in June, will compare the current state of free-to-play with that of 2005 and predict where it will be by 2020 in his talk, Free To Play: Past, Present And Future.

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Capcom's profits fell by more than half in the nine months ending December 31, with declines in its console business offset by its social gaming division almost tripling its profits.

Net sales revenue came to  ¥50.3 billion (£416.6 million), down 29 per cent year on year. Net income, or profit, fell 52.6 per cent to ¥3.2 billion (£26.9 million).

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Bill HB 2696 wants a 1 per cent rise in tax on games rated by the ESRB as Teen, Mature or Adults Only. According the bill, that money would then go towards programmes combatting bullying and obesity in children.

The bill describes the situation as an emergency.

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Sony Corporation has reported a loss of ¥105.9 billion (£877.7 million) for the three months ending December 31.

Sales revenue for the period fell by 17.7 per cent year on year, to ¥1,822.9 billion (£15.1 billion). This time last year the company posted a profit of ¥131.5 billion (£1.1 billion).

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"Kinect has had an amazing first year, selling over 18m sensors," said Steve Clayton on Microsoft's official Technet blog.

"Now it's game on for businesses to show us what they can do with this technology - once they have Kinect for Windows hardware and have installed the SDK, they're free to innovate away. Just how we like it."

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Troubled retailer Game Group says it is in discussions with banks concerning its financial woes, and may sell its overseas business in order to stay afloat.

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For the period, profits were ¥3,242 million (£26.9m), down from ¥6,836 million (£56.67m) for the same period in the previous year. Sales were down to ¥50,270 million (£416.7m) from ¥70,773 million (£587.7m).

Domestically, Monster Hunter Tri (G) was identified as a strong core seller, topping a million units, whilst Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record were doing well abroad.

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"My goal is to build upon the momentum the entire Konami Digital Entertainment staff has built for our company," said Tsuboi, who actually took the role in November.

"We plan to intensify this momentum by continuing to innovate across our core franchises and creating those memorable gaming experiences that has been synonymous with Konami over the past four decades."

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The company recently underwent a refocusing to concentrate on free-to-play mobile titles, rather than the augmented reality games which it had worked on previously. Venturebeat reports that the company hopes to launch five titles by the end of Q2, 2012.

"Our first focus is on getting fun, high-quality games to market, and reaching the mass-market as well as mid-core gamers with our line-up this year," said Kersting in a statement on the funding success.

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A while ago someone sent me an amazing YouTube link. It described a challenge called Tower to Tower, in which Halo fans would use grenades and warthogs to leap to the top of a tower, then use more of the same to leap across an immense gap between it and another tower. The challenge was to complete this second leap and stay alive.

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"Bringing together our strategic planning and worldwide human resources responsibilities under Humam's leadership underscores our commitment to talent recruiting, development and retention as a principal focus of the company,"said CEO Robert Kotick.

"This move will enable us to more closely link our strategic planning and business development initiatives with talent development to ensure we remain the preeminent destination for the most talented people working in interactive entertainment."

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In a short press release today, the group indicated that it was committed to an ongoing dialogue and the eventual resolution of the issues of credit insurance which have been speculated on so heavily by press in recent days.

Its overseas operations, which amount to more than 600 stores in France, Iberia, Scandanavia, Australia and the Czech Republic are under review.

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The latest patch for the PC version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is now live on Steam, Bethesda has announced.

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The company expects full year sales for the current fiscal year to hit €164.4 million, with results to be published on March 21. The company has issued projections of €47 million for the fourth quarter sales.

Gameloft posted an increase of 15 per cent in its half-yearly revenues in August 2011, indicating a rising percentage of smartphone and tablet sales as a key factor in the growth.

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"Increasing our brand presence and reach in key international markets is a cornerstone of our growth strategy," Disney International chairman Andy Bird told the BBC.

"This acquisition expands our footprint significantly and allows us to more effectively build, monetise and brand multi-platform franchises, and deliver a rich library of content to the world's second largest population."

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Disney has announced plans to acquire a controlling stake in UTV, an Indian media company whose UTV Ignition division developed El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron and published Denki's Quarrel.

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"Social games for me were always on the cutting-edge until they became copycat, and after they became copycat I said, 'Well, this is not going anywhere,'" he told GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive interview.

"This will be like the Atari Eighties crash. Everybody and their grandmother had a version of Space Invaders, and these guys are going to do the same thing."

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Zynga brought in $445 million (£280.7 million), or 12 per cent, of Facebook's total revenue last year, the social network's IPO filing reveals.

The filing, from which Facebook seeks to raise $5 billion and could see the company valued at up to $100 billion, shows that total 2011 revenue was $3.7 billion - of which a billion was profit.

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Electronic Arts has warned investors that the failure of troubled UK retailer Game Group could affect the publisher's finances.

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Speaking in the conference call which followed the company's positive financial results yesterday, Riccitiello refrained from naming the chain, but highlighted its issues as one of three major factors which have influenced a more conservative Q4 projection.

"In terms of guidance, the midpoint of our fiscal year range remains unchanged from the raised guidance on our last call," the CEO told investors.

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But it's a start, and for the dozens of technology and internet focused start-ups clustered in this dubious location, a new start is exactly what the UK needs. The total number of companies is now thought to be more than 200, an astonishing rate of growth from the 15 or so back in 2008.

That number includes outposts from a number of larger, more established businesses, of course. Last year, Wired reported that more than 50 US tech executives from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon and YouTube have flocked to the area, but it remains defined by new companies and new ideas.

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According to the company's IPO, sales during 2011 were $3.7 billion with profits of $1 billion.

The company also revealed that social gaming company Zynga accounted for 12 per cent of sales in 2011, around $445 million, primarily from virtual goods sales and advertising. The company is so important to Facebook that it lists it as a significant risk for the business should Zynga launch games with competitors.

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Sales were down 24 per cent from ¥1.3 trillion to ¥996.5 billion ($12.7 billion) due to a price reduction on the PlayStation 3 and marketing costs that exceeded expectations, the company said. The division was also hit by declining sales of LCD televisions, the impact of floods in Thailand and unfavourable exchange rates.

Sales for the Sony Corporation overall were ¥1.82 trillion ($23.37 billion), down 17.4 per cent due, again to the floods in Thailand, "deterioration in market conditions" and the impact of foreign exchange rates.

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THQ plans to cut as many as 240 “selling, general and administrative personnel” as part of its recently announced restructuring plan.

The majority of the cuts will be implemented by March 31, 2012, with the remainder made by the end of September, the publisher said today in a regulatory filing.

Company CEO Brian Farrell has also agreed to reduce his base salary by 50 per cent, from $718,500 to $359,250, for a one-year period beginning February 13, 2012.

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Electronic Arts has labelled Star Wars: The Old Republic “the fastest growing subscription MMOG ever” following an impressive first six weeks on the market.

The BioWare developed MMOG has sold more than two million copies since launching on December 20 and now has “a little over” 1.7 million active subscribers. “Nearly” 40 per cent of the game’s December sales came through EA’s digital download service Origin.

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Electronic Arts narrowed its third quarter loss as revenue edged up in the three months ended December 31, 2011.

The publisher posted a loss of $205 million, or 62 cents a share, compared with a loss of $322 million, or 97 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 0.8 per cent to $1.06 billion, with digital sales accounting for more than a quarter of the total at $274 million, versus $195 million a year ago.

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EA’s Battlefield 3 continues to hold the number one spot on the Nordic all-formats chart, which collates sales data from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

FIFA 12 is also a non-mover at number two, while The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim jumps ahead of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic rounds off the top five.

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Farrell's salary will drop from $718,500 to $359,250, with the job losses costing THQ $8 million in severance pay. The company will also have to abandon some fixed assets at the cost of $2.5 million and terminate contracts at a cost of $500,000.

The job cuts are across the sales and administrative teams and were initially announced last week although not in any significant detail.

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Releasing its third quarter financial results, the company also said that MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic has more than 1.7 million active subscribers since launching in December, with 2 million units sold.

The company managed to trim its losses for the quarter down from $322 million in 2010 to $205 million. Net sales were $1.061 billion, compared to $1.053 billion the previous year.

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Bethesda has detailed the features available in the Creation Kit, the suite of modding tools it will soon release for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The company promises that this will be its most powerful tool to date, with the Steam-hosted Skyrim Workshop streamlining sharing and discoverability.

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"With the growth of digital distribution there are so many opportunities for investors," said co-founder and veteran business advisor Todd Tribell.

"Our focus will always be on quality, with the sole aim of bringing success to all of our partners - both developers and investors."

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From Software's Armored Core V is the new Japanese all-formats number one after selling almost 188,000 copies in its first week on shelves.

Resident Evil Revelations is another new entry, Capcom's 3DS game selling 146,000 and making its debut in second spot. Just behind is Namco Bandai's DS remake Tales Of Innocence R, which with 54,800 units sold becomes the first Vita game to trouble the upper echelons of the chart in some time.

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Chinese Android phones using the Baidu Yi OS and marketplace will soon feature a dedicated category for DeNA's Mobage titles.

"Through this alliance, DeNA plans to expand the Mobage user base in China, thereby providing an increasing range of opportunities in China to game developers worldwide," said DeNA's official statement. 

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Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Q Entertainment has announced the 34 songs it has licensed for PlayStation Vita launch puzzler Lumines Electronic Symphony.

Revealed on the PlayStation Blog, the tracklist includes dance music luminaries including The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Josh Wink, Deep Dish, LCD Soundystem, LFO and Orbital. And Benny Bennassi.

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The past week has seen a spate of accusations of videogame plagiarism. First, Nimblebit accused Zynga of cloning Apple's iPhone game of the year, Tiny Tower, with its new game Dream Heights; it has since also noted that Glu Mobile has released two games based on similar concepts, Lil' Dungeon and Small Street.

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Trion Worlds has launched Rift Lite, giving players free access to the MMOG up to level 20, with no restrictions on playtime.

The launch coincides with the release of the latest Rift update, version 1.7, which adds weddings, new and tweaked dungeons, PvP improvements and more; for the full list, follow the source link below.

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"It's no surprise a game like The Sims 3 can be put to such creative use, but we are still incredibly excited by this truly novel use of our world-beating technology," said Claire Ridley, UK business lead for the EA franchise.

The series was commissioned by Jo Twist before her move to UKIE, and aims to teach life lessons to teenagers through the popular game.

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Capcom has announced a social game based on its massively popular action series Monster Hunter.

Andriasang reports that the game, Minna To Monhan Card Master (Monster Hunter With Everyone Card Master) is a card battle game, developed by Gloops, and will be released on February 21 on the Mobage network.

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Game Group, the UK's largest specialist videogame retailer, has insisted that this week's new releases will be on shelves on Friday as normal, despite reports to the contrary.

Earlier today a Eurogamer report cited multiple sources who claimed Game had lost credit insurance with a number of agencies, meaning it would not be able to source stock of new releases without paying for them up front.

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The company hopes to grow its mobile market share both locally and internationally, and take full advantage of the two affiliates' existing IPs.

It's planning 10 new titles in 2012.

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Yesterday, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus dismissed criticism levelled at the remarkable similarities between its upcoming Dream Heights and Nimblebit’s Tiny Tower.

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"All live Halo data will be managed by 343 Industries, and Bungie will no longer be able to update game stats and player service records, to host new user generated content, or to operate the Bungie Pro service," confirmed an official statement.

"All currently supported, Bungie-developed Halo titles will be impacted by this change. Bungie will preserve all existing historical Halo data on Bungie.net for as long as the Internet and Bungie's data storage systems remain functional."

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"We think there is a massive body of work in the video game industry that is going to be reimagined for decades to come in a way that is free, accessible and social," Pincus told GamesBeat.

"That's what we're doing. I don't think anyone should be surprised when they see us come out with games that they've seen before, a decade or more ago. I don't think there are a lot of totally new games that are invented. We always try. But to us, they are like the crew mechanic in our games. They give you a new way to interact with your friends."

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Stories had arisen which suggested that GAME's recent problems with credit insurance had lead to it not being able to pay for stock, which publishers were demanding cash in advance for, rather than offering it on the usual sale-or-return basis.

Some media outlets had also suggested that acquisition of stock would be a long term problem, as well as claiming that staff at the retailer's stores had not been paid.

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Hirano was most recently president of the US business, and now overseas all European operations from headquarters in Germany.

"I am proud and delighted to have been given this challenge," offered Shinji Hirano. "I am keen to support the diversity the European territories offer, and looking to ways our business can best support the different tastes and opportunities they possess.

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That's according to IGDA's Kevin Dent, who claims the company is about to detail the cuts in the same week it will reveal financial results for the third quarter.

Last week THQ said it was concentrating on the hardcore gaming audience in its latest bid to improve fortunes at the company. Over the past three years it has continued to shed staff, external development and franchises.

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Speaking in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz today, Harbin said that, whilst data can prove to be a valuable tool for fine tuning, true creativity relies on instinct and passion.

"Data does not inform our road map," Harbin revealed. "I mean, it's only us as gamers that informs our road-map. What we do with data is we try to enhance the gaming experience. So for example when you have a lot of people who, let's say, complain in user forums about a new feature that you've launched, well the data might be saying that these guys are spending hours on this feature and it's causing them to come back to the game at an increased rate.

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Kaz Hirai has been named the new president and CEO of Sony Corporation.

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Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has dismissed accusations that his company cloned Tiny Tower, saying Nimblebit's iOS game can hardly lay claim to the tower sim genre and that Zynga will continue to "evolve genres" for its players in future.

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Stringer, who has lead the company in the joint role for seven years, will take up the position of chairman of the board, whilst current chairman Yotaro Kobayashi will retire.

Stringer has presided over a difficult period at the company, during which it has lost ground across many markets. Apple's iPod has devastated Sony's once seemingly insurmountable dominance of portable music players, whilst Samsung's televisions have also stolen a large portion of the corporation's consumer electronics business.

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The publisher of Battlestar Galactica Online and Farmarama said that it attracts 250,000 new players each day across its network of more than 1000 portals.

"Since 2002, we've strived to bring high-quality games and experiences to the widest possible audience," offered Heiko Hubertz, CEO of Bigpoint. "With players hailing from every corner of the globe, today's milestone underscores our success - and we're not done. We'll continue to challenge the notion of what online games are and can be."

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A US shopper noticed prices on a Best Buy pre-order machine in the US were slightly lower than he had been expecting, posting a shot of the prices to NeoGaf.

When questioned on the matter, Sony representatives issued a statement to Shacknews confirming that download titles will indeed be cheaper than boxed products, although official pricing remains unconfirmed.

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Breaking down figures for 2011, the business has seen average revenue per user rise by almost 30 per cent each month since July.

And CEO Peter Driessen claims that developers can make more than $5 million on the Spil Games platforms - which now boasts more than 170 million unique users.

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Swedish non-profit technology organisation MuchDifferent has set a new world record for simultaneous online players, hosting 999 combatants in its browser based FPS Man Vs Machine.

Planetside previously held the record, with 600 players. The Man Vs Machine session lasted two hours and saw players divided into the two titular teams. Watch the video below for a taste of what it's like to face a 500-strong opposition.

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Stealth has hardly become a forgotten shade in the gaming spectrum, but it's hard to think of many new games that are dedicated to it. Instead of being the leading light, as it was at the heights of the Thief and Metal Gear series, today stealth is more frequently just an element - from a choice in Deus Ex: Human Revolution to a pastime in Skyrim.

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German browser gaming company Bigpoint now has more than 250 million registered players.

In a press release, the company - which claims to have been the first to introduce the free-to-play model to the west, with 2002's IceFighter - says it is seeing more than 250,000 new signups every single day.

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Organisers of the Develop In Brighton Conference have issued a call for speakers ahead of this year's conference, which begins on July 10.

The three-day event, now in its seventh year, plays host to over 100 sessions from industry experts. Speakers last year included David Braben, LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule, and SCEE's Mick Hocking.

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At first, it just looks big. Xbox Live Arcade was always Quarrel's target platform, but developer Denki's struggle to find a publisher meant the iOS release came first, and so your first moments are spent marvelling at things you'd previously had to squint at. Given its board game roots - pitched simplistically, and correctly, as Risk meets Scrabble - Quarrel is much better suited to a large panel and a good sit down than the snatched spare moments for which mobile games are largely designed.

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The legal language for it is "expanding boundary". That’s the terminology PomPom settled on back in 2005, when it decided that its new control scheme was so good that the team should probably patent it. The technical definition makes it sound a lot more complicated than it actually is, of course: place a cursor on the playing field, and it simply creates a little circular puff of air, pushing outwards against any object it comes into contact with.

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EverQuest will celebrate its 13th birthday in March by adopting the free-to-play model, Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed.

The move was revealed in a post on the game's official website by producer Thom Terrazas. Like its SOE stablemate, the PC and PS3 MMOG DC Universe Online, EverQuest will offer a free option alongside monthly subscriptions.

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Capcom's open-world action-adventure Dragon's Dogma has been delayed to May, the publisher has confirmed.

In a brief statement, Capcom reveals that the game will now be released for PS3 and Xbox 360 on May 22 in North America, and May 25 in Europe. It was previously due in North America on March 27, and Europe on May 1.

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THQ has been warned that it will be delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange unless it can drag its share price out of the doldrums in the next six months.

The publisher has today filed documents with the US Securities And Exchange Commission in which it reveals that Nasdaq has given it until July 23 to raise its share price above $1 and keep it there for ten days, the minimum requirement for a Nasdaq listing.

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If the idea of helping to guide Azeroth's path through history appeals to you, Blizzard Entertainment's currently open position of World Of Warcraft senior quest designer is certainly worth a look. Based in Irvine, Cali, you'll be responsible for creating, writing and scripting new quests for the MMORPG.

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You can read this review in full in our print edition.

Our February issue, which is on sale now, includes an in-depth Post Script article on the inherent difficulties of bolting a story onto a fighting game.

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EA has confirmed that SSX, the upcoming reboot of its snowboarding series, will use the company's online pass.

Rather than lock second-hand buyers out of the game's multiplayer component entirely, however, it prevents them from accruing the in-game currency used to unlock vanity items and additional events.

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The company has until July 23 for bid price of its stock to rise above $1 per share for a minimum of 10 consecutive days. Stock is currently valued at 70 cent per share and has fallen over four years from a high of $36.

The struggling company said last week that it intends to focus on the core gaming audience and shelved future ambitions in the kids' market. Over the past two years it has canned numerous projects and cut staff significantly.

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