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.

The time of year is approaching when all the movers and shakers of the European gaming world head to London to see the latest that the world of gaming has to offer. This year for the first time ECTS forms part of the newly created London Games Week, a packed schedule of gaming events taking place in the last week of August. As part of London Games Week the ECTS show is coming to Earls Court, London on 27th to 29th August and Nintendo will be there.

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has sent a goodwill message to London Games Week and has praised the creativity of the games industry in general. His message comes in a week when nearly every major company has confirmed their participation in the event, set to take place in Earls Court in four weeks time.

The Mayor says in his message: "Trade shows and conferences like London Games Week have a major role to play in developing industry, creating an environment where deals can be done and new ideas are generated.

Yahoo! Games, the leading online games destination, today announced the first unlimited subscription packages for their popular Games on Demand program. Now games fans will be able to enjoy as many subscription games as they want, for as long as they want, at any time. Along with the original Three Games Package for $9.95 per month, players can now choose the Unlimited Package, which gives gamers access to all subscription games with no time limit.

Last April, Senior U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ruled that computer and video games had "no conveyance of ideas, expression or anything else that could possibly amount to free speech" in a St. Louis County case that sought to limit children's access to mature video games. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying a "particularized message" is not required when it comes to the First Amendment. Read more for details ...

Atari Inc. Friday said it had sold more than 1 million copies of "Enter the Matrix" one week after the computer and video game hit shelves in the United States and Europe. The game was released May 15, the same day as the movie it is tied to, "The Matrix Reloaded." The game includes additional footage and is one of the most expensive ever made.

The latest addition to Take Two's clutch of labels, Gotham Games, has announced that it's going to be on the look-out for new developers and games to sign up to its brand at E3 next week. The label will be showcasing three titles in Los Angeles, namely Celebrity Deathmatch, Conflict Desert Storm 2 and The Great Escape, and business development manager Juan Gutierrez will be on hand to meet with developers interested in working with the publisher.

Responding to criticism that it was trying to take advantage of the Iraq war for commercial gain, Sony Corp said on Wednesday it will not use the phrase "shock and awe" for PlayStation videogames made by a subsidiary. A U.S. unit of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc has withdrawn an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register the phrase for commercial use, a Sony spokeswoman said.

The PS2 was the leading console choice for games developers according to a new survey by independent tools developer SN Systems*. More than a fifth (23%) of industry experts put the PS2 top of the list of consoles they have most enjoyed playing, ahead of other leading platforms Nintendo Gamecube and Microsoft Xbox.