With entertainment software holding its place as one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. economy and becoming a new field of study at colleges and universities, the ESA Foundation has established a scholarship program to help train and educate the next generation of video game developers and designers.

Empire of Sports is an MMORPG built entirely around sport, designed to allow players around the world to simultaneously exist in an online universe, where their alter egos socially interact, train, compete, attend events and acquire the goods and services they need to build a parallel sporting existence.

SEGA's Viking: Battle For Asgard, developed by The Creative Assembly, is a hack'n slasher where you, as Skarin, a new iconic gaming hero, get to experience the violent yet spectacular world of the Vikings and their gods.

Daring stunts, spectacular crashes, thrilling criminal cases: All fans of the racing genre will easily fall in love with the newest game originating from the original RTL TV-Show "Alarm for Cobra 11." Unlike the PC version, the X360 edition of Alarm for Cobra 11: Crash Time will support shader 3.0, support 4 player splitscreen, more car details, shadow mapping and soft particles for amazing effects & explosions.

SEGA's Viking: Battle For Asgard, developed by The Creative Assembly, is a hack'n slasher where you, as Skarin, a new iconic gaming hero, get to experience the violent yet spectacular world of the Vikings and their gods.

The Whispered World is a fantasy point & click adventure game where you, playing as Sadwick and his companion, a little worm named Spot, are sent on perilous journey. Many challenges await Sadwick, for the world he knows so well is doomed...

Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars is a 3rd person action game with RPG elements. The game places players in a fantasy medieval world, where a dimensional portal to the Outer Worlds has opened, and an enemy from the darkness has encroached the world.

The Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) and the Agencia Federal de Investigacion (AFI) recently raided four facilities involved in burning pirate copies of video games in the notorious Tepito area in Mexico City, seizing roughly 290 DVD/CD burners, 28,800 illegal copies of video games and more than 900,000 video game cover inserts.

March 19 marks the release of a new downloadable content pack for Forza Motorsport 2. With 13 stunning new and customizable rides being added to the game’s robust 340+ car roster, you’re sure to discover countless hours of racing and customization in the award-winning Forza Motorsport 2 experience and online community.

EA announced that one of its wholly owned subsidiaries has commenced a tender offer for all of the currently outstanding shares of common stock of Take-Two for $26 per share in cash, making a total offer valued at approximately $2 billion, representing a 64% premium over Take-Two's closing stock price.

Fluid Entertainment announced it has secured $3.2 million in Series A funding to develop its MMO that encourages kids to explore their creativity, initiative and imagination, within an ecologically themed narrative.

Daring stunts, spectacular crashes, thrilling criminal cases: All fans of the racing genre will easily fall in love with the newest game originating from the original RTL TV-Show "Alarm for Cobra 11." The Xbox 360 version of Alarm for Cobra 11: Crash Time will get four exclusive new trucks that are not in the PC edition.

Acclaim Games announced that industry veteran Mark Skaggs, known for EALA's C&C and Lord of the Rings titles, has become the latest Advisory Board member to join David Perry's Project Top-Secret game team, and he will be contributing his time to the largest community-developed videogame project ever created.

During a Q&A session at the Mix 2008 web developers event, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer revealed that the software giant plans to support Sony's Blu-ray HD disk format now that Toshiba's HD-DVD has thrown in the towel. Steve Ballmer said, "... as the industry moves forward, obviously we're going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important. I want to make sure there's the right support. We've already been working on, for example, in Windows device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like."

While there is a total lack of any details, Mercury Steam, known for Codemasters' Jericho and 2005's Scrapland, revealed that is it working on a new title for Konami. Scheduled for release late 2009, early 2010, it will appear on PS3 and X360.

In order to implement restructuring and permanently improve its capital structure, Ziff Davis — which own outlets such as 1up, Games for Windows, Filefront and EGM — elected to file Chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

WhiteMoon Dreams is a new indie game developer co-founded by former Looking Glass/EA employee Jay Koottarappallil, and Fallout Lead Concept/Game Designer Scott Campbell. WhiteMoon Dreams is a Wii/PS3/X360 developer and currently working on a yet unannounced title for a major Japanese publisher.

Having left his position as President of Sony's Worldwide Studios last week it was already rumored Phil Harrison would resurface in a new position this week. Infogrames announces the appointment of Phil Harrison as President and Directeur Général Délégué of Infogrames Entertainment, reporting to David Gardner.

MGS4: Guns of the Patriots is set in a war-torn future where huge conglomerates, including those in the Middle East and South America, fight for supremacy using armies of hand-picked mercenaries. In the latest Kojima Productions podcast, producer Ryan Payton revealed that the English voiceovers did not fit on the Japanese Blu-ray disc and that some material had to be compressed in order to fit on the 50GB disc. This was later confirmed in a Famitsu interview with Hideo Kojima.

Ford Racing Off Road takes the franchise away from the tracks and urban streets of its predecessors to rugged and tough terrain for the very first time, introducing the prestigious Land Rover brand, which, like Ford, has a long heritage of producing pioneering off road vehicles.

Set between the largely unexplored era between Ep III and Ep IV, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy.

The search for the best virtual soccer player in North America will take place this week as the only live qualifying event of the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2008, showcasing 128 of the best interactive soccer players competing for one of 32 berths in the FIWC Grand Final in Berlin.

38 Studios has entered into an agreement with BigWorld to license its BigWorld Technology Suite, providing 38 Studios with the tools and technologies to support an unparalleled Online Entertainment Experience for its upcoming MMO game.

After industry rumors of Viacom planning to buy Take-Two for $1.5 billion, Electronic Arts has opened up its coffers and made a $2 billion cash offer for the company, which is best known for its Grand Theft Auto series. The Take-Two board turned down the deal as "unsolicited proposal as inadequate," so EA made the announcement in an attempt to sway Take-Two's shareholders.

UPDATE: We have included the conversational letters between Take Two's Strauss Zelnick and EA's CEO John Riccitiello.

Set between the largely unexplored era between Ep III and Ep IV, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy.