Technology - Video Games

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Coming to a living room near you -- 3D videogames.

What sort of digital content's coming for PSP owners in 2009?

SUN VALLEY, Idaho, July 7 - Sony Corp Chief Executive Howard Stringer brushed off concerns that the PlayStation 3 video game console is too expensive, and said the company is unlikely to sell parts of its business amid the recession.

Is Sony's austere PlayStation 3's dashboard due for an extreme makeover, per recent rumormongering? What about universal voice chat? Searchable memory cards? Discrete feature updates? The battery display fluke de-glitched? And what's up with Hulu video service blocking? I tracked down Sony Director of Network Operations Eric Lempel to get answers to those question and others in the following two part interview. Part two is here. This is part one.

TORONTO (Reuters) - French videogame maker Ubisoft Entertainment SA is set to open a Toronto studio that will create 800 jobs over 10 years, the Ontario government said on Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - French videogame titan Ubisoft said Monday it plans to open a studio in Toronto, ramping up Canadian operations that have delivered blockbuster titles including "Assassin's Creed."

The Bioware guys, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, dropped a few crumbs about Star Wars:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Universal Pictures has won a four-studio bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game "Asteroids."

When Sohu.com, a leading Web portal in China, announced plans last year to spin off its fast-growing online games business, investors balked.

What's worse than paying $50 a year more than Games For Windows Live gamers, just to play Xbox 360 games online?

LOS ANGELES - Chima Simone couldn't think of a better place to spend the recession than the "Big Brother" house.

Eidos life president Ian Livingstone has declared it's "all or nothing for new releases in 2009," painting either a blithely Machiavellian or cynically gloomy picture of the video games industry this year, depending on your vantage.

Upcoming real-time strategy Windows game StarCraft II will ship without Local Area Network multiplayer support in an effort to combat piracy, says Blizzard, in an official statement sure to annoy if not outright confound series fans the world round.

When it comes to the PlayStation 3, it's apparently easy to confuse the game blogs. They've picked up on an incidental story by a tech site that communicates in fragments concerning Sony's recent filing to patent emulation of its legacy PS2 Emotion Engine vis-a-vis its "cell" processor. The cell processor, you'll recall, is the cerebral cortex of the PS3's multi-processing brainpan.

Electronic Arts (EA) on Tuesday announced the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a video game based on the upcoming movie. It debuts simultaneously on multiple platforms including the Mac. It costs $30.

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea's normally publicity-shy intelligence agency is creating a stir among liberal groups with a "spot the spy" flash video game offering a variety of prizes.

In a move to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPod, Sony may develop a hybrid cell phone-video game handheld with the PlayStation Portable device at its core.

The Sony rumor that just won't die has reared its potentially beautiful head again: a PSP phone may be in the works. The latest back room rumblings come courtesy of Japan's Nikkei Business Daily, which says Sony is about to open up a new department that will explore a "cell phone-game gear hybrid," according to Reuters. Sony's secret department could begin work as early as July, and so far the PlayStation maker is declining to comment on the rumors.