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(Crystal Sunderman | Sheriff Randall Forsyth)Microsoft's Xbox Live is more than just a matchmaking service for gamers — it's also a popular social networking tool. Authorities in Iowa, however, believe it was the genesis for a runaway plot conceived by four Iowa teens.

Two teenage girls from the town of Shellsburg and two teenage boys from Atlantic (which is about 200 miles away) were reported missing Saturday. According to police and parents, the runaways met though the online game service.

Electronic Arts games were downloaded for free over the weekend after a discount code went viral.

By Charlie Osborne, CNET

Vouchers, coupons, and discounts are often a good tool to entice new customers or promote a product. However, if discount codes are not secured properly, forums and social networking can become a real headache for the company involved.

That is exactly what happened to Electronic Arts over the weekend.

A single post on a gaming forum that included a discount code for $20 worth of software from EA's online store sparked a downloading spree, much to the delight of Reddit users after the code made its way to the popular link aggregation site. Not only could the code be used multiple times by multiple users, but due to its $20 tag, 44 games priced $19.99 or lower could be downloaded for free.

Meet your new Wii bundle (Credit: Nintendo)With the launch of the Wii U just over a month away, Nintendo has cut the price of the Wii console.

Effective immediately, the Wii price is cut from $150 to $130, with new bundles including copies of both Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. The company says the bundles are shipping now and it expects them to be widely available by Oct. 28.

The move wasn't exactly a surprise, given the mid-November launch of the next-generation Wii U. In fact, the biggest shocker was the decision to cut it just $20 instead of $50.

By Malathi Nayak, Reuters

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp on Monday announced that Xbox Music, a digital music service to vie with Apple Inc's iTunes and Amazon.com Inc's Cloud Player, will be available for its Xbox game consoles on Tuesday.

(Credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser)The service will be expanded to Windows software-based computers and tablets, including the upcoming Surface tablet, from October 26, when Microsoft launches Windows 8. It will be expanded to phones shortly after that.

The world's largest software maker has been trying for years to make the household living room an entertainment hub with its Xbox. More than 67 million units have been sold since 2005.

While Atari first burst onto the video game scene in 1972 with Pong, for many gamers, the company's lasting legacy will always be the Atari 2600.

October 14 marks the 35^th birthday of the legendary game console, which landed with a bang in 1977. It wasn't the first home video game system -- that honor belongs to the Magnavox Odyssey -- but it quickly became the most widely adopted and set the standard for many, many years.

To celebrate the console that revolutionized home entertainment, we dug up 35 factoids you might not have heard about while you were busy playing Asteroids and Pitfall.

It's tough being a hockey fan these days. With the lockout now in its 27^th day and no substantial negotiations to resolve the situation, fans of the ice are starting to get worried that there may be no season at all this year.

EA, though, is offering a small measure of relief to fans looking to scratch the itch.

In the absence of real games, the publisher is simulating the season via NHL 13 on a week-by-week basis. And while the first week was a short one, it wasn't without a few notable virtual moments.

For the tenth month in a row, video game sales took a shellacking at retail. This time, though, the finger of blame can be pointed squarely at iconic action star, Marcus Fenix.

Last year's Gears of War 3 was such a hot seller that there was really no chance this year's crop of September games could top it. When all was said and done, brick and mortar retail sales of video game software were down 18 percent to $497.4 million, according to The NPD Group.

That was pretty much in line with fairly dire analyst expectation. Also as expected, hardware sales continued to tank, falling 39 percent compared to a year ago.

World of Tanks (Credit: Wargaming)Add PlaySpan to the ever-growing list of video game companies that have been targeted by hackers.

Online thieves and mischief-makers have reportedly released details for two million accounts online, with players of World of Tanks seemingly most at risk.

"When PlaySpan detected the breach, we immediately shut down the hacker's access to our systems and took steps to protect our customers' PlaySpan accounts," the company told Develop. "We then commenced a comprehensive forensic analysis and are working with law enforcement to investigate the crime. As a precaution, we have already locked all user accounts and closed the PlaySpan Marketplace site."