Blitz Games announced today that it has established a new label entitled Volatile Games for titles featuring mature content including its next-generation zombie-fest Possession.

Last week we reported how California passed a law ending the sale and rental of violent video games that depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, to persons who are under 18 years of age. Today IEMA President Hal Halpin reacts to the events claiming that there is no need for such a law since stores are already doing the work on a voluntary basis, and Hal hopes Governor Schwarzenegger will veto the bill. Read more for the full statement.

MadMinute Games and Activision Value have amicably parted ways. The Take Command Series will no longer be published under the Activision Value label. MadMinute Games, Inc. will announce their next title in October 2005.

Typhoon Games today revealed plans to distribute the chartbuster Sudeki for the PC in Hong Kong and Singapore beginning August 2005.

On Games, a producing and developing brand from Planeta DeAgostini Interactive, proudly announces the presentation of its upcoming products at the E3 trade show, at Booth 6009, in Kentia Hall. Titles on display are : Professional Manager 2006, Fallen Lords: Condemnation, Yume, and The Legend of Dragon. Read more for details ...

Typhoon Games today announced it is heading for the E3 and will have four titles on display : Dungeon Lords, Infinity Empire, Evernight, and Hello Kitty Online. Dungeon Lords is slated to be released in April 2005, Hello Kitty Online will begin its beta phase in August 2005, while Infinity Empire is currently being fine-tuned, and will be released very soon. Read more for details ...

A contract between video game developers and unionized actors lending their voices to video games is set to expire on Friday, and no new contract has been agreed upon, leaving open the possibility of actors on strike. The Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA are in negotiations with a group of major videogame publishers, all of which have come to rely on union talent for increasingly cinematic videogames. Since videogame revenue rivals that of the box office, SAG wants a piece of the pie, and a strike could affect actors such as Clint Eastwood, Vin Diesel, or even Marlon Brando in EA's The Godfather. Read the full article over at Variety...

Electronic Arts today announced the March launch of four new games on its Pogo.com (free) and Club Pogo (subscription) online game sites. This highly-anticipated launch will include the extremely addicting new version of Poppit!, the multi-player bingo-scratcher game of Lottso!, and two new adventurous card games, 6th Street Omaha Poker and Casino Island Blackjack.

TKO Software announced today that it entered into an agreement whereby Iron Will Games of Austin, Texas will assume full operational responsibility for its MMOG (massively multiplayer on-line game) title, Ashen Empires.

Monte Cristo Games has announced their E3 line-up. On display will be : "Fire Captain: Bay Area Inferno", "D-Day" and "Medieval Lords: Build, Defend, Expand". Read more if you want details & screens ...

AXcess News (www.axcessnews.com) released a story describing how a sagging online gaming industry got a boost recently by Microsoft when the Redmond-based software maker announced it had lowered the price of its Xbox console and added more software titles.

Tesseraction Games Inc. of Eugene, OR, producer of the hit naval action strategy game ENIGMA: THE RISING TIDE is sponsoring a PC computer war gaming conference and tournament. From 9am to 11pm March 20, 2004 at the Hilton hotel in Eugene, Oregon the local company will feature a multi-player game tournament with an array of prizes and panels on "modding" and PC game development.

Konami Digital Entertainment - America and Vivendi Universal Games, Inc. today announced an exclusive distribution agreement in which VU Games will distribute Konami's widespread roster of PC games in the United States and Canada. The publishing and marketing efforts for the games covered by the agreement will continue to be performed by KDEA's Redwood City, CA office.

PlayStation today announced a unique partnership with International Sports Multimedia (ISM), exclusive licensee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for Interactive Entertainment software, to develop a PlayStation 2 game based on the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Scheduled for release in July 2004 just prior to the start of the next Olympic Games in August, Athens 2004, The Official Videogame of the Olympic Games will be the only official licensed videogame product of the IOC on PlayStation 2.

Resolution Interactive has acquired full rights from Daydream Software to computer games Clusterball and X-Team Racing, and the game concepts Scarcefreak and Billion Dollar Disc. The agreement includes code, design and community servers, as well as customer databases. One exception is South America, where Daydream keeps the Clusterball and X-Team Racing rights for 3 years in order to complete unfinished business. Daydream is also allowed to use existing Autobahn code in its future production.

Signaling an increased commitment to the fast-growing interactive gaming world, Warner Bros. Entertainment has created Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc. (WBIE) and has named Jason Hall to head its operations as Senior Vice President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The announcement was made today by Kevin Tsujihara, Executive Vice President, Corporate Business Development & Strategy, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and Dan Romanelli, President, Warner Bros. Worldwide Consumer Products. WBIE will have a dual reporting relationship to Tsujihara and to Romanelli.

Konami Corporation announced today that it is moving forward with its plans to deliver mobile phone games to the U.S. market. Konami started providing Frogger, an action game that enjoys enormous popularity in the U.S., to a major U.S. wireless carrier, AT&T Wireless, (headquarters: U.S.A. CEO: John D. Zeglis) for its newly enhanced mobile phone content service, "mMode" in time with its relaunch on November 20, 2003 (U.S. time). mMode is AT&T Wireless' consumer internet service which has more than one million subscribers throughout the U.S. mMode offers its users e-mail, games and other entertainment services on mobile phones.

Konami Digital Entertainment - America announced today that Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom for Nintendo GameCube and Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards for Nintendo GameBoy Advance has shipped to retail outlets nationwide. Both titles include three limited edition Official Trading Cards that help to further enhance the Yu-Gi-Oh! gaming experience.

Team registrations for 50 Buy-In-Slots (BIS) to the ATI/AMD Cyber X Games Championships are now available on a first come, first served basis for $150 USD. Teams that purchase a BIS are ensured a slot in the ATI/AMD Cyber X Games Championships double elimination tournaments for a chance to win hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and prizes. The event is being held in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Thursday - Sunday, Jan. 8 - 11 in Las Vegas.

Midway Games announced today that Super Duper Sumos, the highly rated cartoon series from the DIC Kid's Network and the number one kids import from the UK, shipped today for the Game Boy Advance... Rockstar Games announced today that the Grand Theft Auto Double Pack for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system has shipped to retail stores throughout North America. The PlayStation 2 Double Pack will be in stores in Europe on October 24, 2003. The Grand Theft Auto Double Pack consists of the best-selling titles Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City...

Activision announced today that the company will be an exclusive sponsor of the 2003 Gravity Games and that NBC will use Activision's proprietary Tony Hawk's Underground game engine technology to illustrate the street and vert athlete performances during the October 12, October 19 and October 26 Gravity Games broadcasts.

The president of the Japanese software game maker, Satoru Iwata, said Friday that game consoles equipped with super-large chips and ever more functions may not be the answer for the future of the struggling games industry. Instead, easy-to-play games requiring no prior knowledge may be a better way to attract potential users, Iwata said, referring to Nintendo's surprise hit series of Pokemon software including "Pokemon Ruby" and "Pokemon Sapphire."

Some of the nation's favourite video games are to be sold in a special pack to raise money for young people's charities. The video games industry's official charity, the ESC (Entertainment Software Charity), has lined up a special limited edition games pack for the PlayStation 2 which will be in all video games stockists from 26th September.

ESCAPE 2003 Special Edition pack will comprise three titles: Commandos 2: Men of Courage from Eidos, WRC II Extreme from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and SSX Tricky from Electronic Arts.

Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE) announced today that it is finalizing plans to create SOEGames.net , an online game matching service that will allow gamers to find each other and battle it out across the Internet. The first games to take advantage of SOEGames.net will be Lords of EverQuest and Champions of Norrath, two upcoming Sony Online Entertainment titles. SOEGames.net will also be the first game matching system designed to host both console and PC games.

Sony Online Entertainment Inc. today announced development agreements with Lodestone Games LLC and SolWorks to create original gaming content to be published by SOE. Lodestone and SolWorks will be creating two independent, as-yet unannounced games; further product information will be revealed at a later date.