Blog Posts by Chris Morris

The Original Wii Prototype The Wii has never been the workhorse console of this generation.

To keep it affordable and attractive to a mass market audience, Nintendo eschewed high definition graphics and, for the most part,
online play when it was introduced. Five years later, though, it's showing its age. And if online reports are to be believed, the company is ready to pull the curtain back on its next console system.

While several outlets have speculated about a new console from Nintendo, Game Informer (which is owned by retail king GameStop) reported Thursday that multiple sources have confirmed Nintendo plans to announce its Wii successor at the E3 game convention in June, if not before.

The system, which may

A Solid Start The launch of the 3DS was a certifiable hit -- but not a grand slam.

According to data released by sales tracking group NPD, the first-week sales of Nintendo's new handheld system beat out the first-week sales of its predecessor, the DS, thanks to a price tag that was $100 higher. Unfortunately, that price tag also might have kept some from buying it: just under 400,000 3DS units were sold in its first week, about 100,000 units short of the original DS when it launched in November of 2004.

The 3DS did motivate shoppers to buy more software than they did at the DS launch, with Capcom's Super Street Fighter IV 3D leading the pack. But that sales achievement was dwarfed by a pair of DS

Link to the 3D Rescue Nintendo is pulling out a couple of big guns in the second quarter to boost its bottom line.

After months of hedging, the company has at last firmed up a launch date for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. The eagerly anticipated 3DS remake of the classic title -- still considered among the best of all time -- will hit store shelves on June 19.

Not to be left out, Wii owners will finally see a new big first-party game for the system on June 13 with Wii Play: Motion, a sequel to the sixth best selling game in the
industry's history.

Wii Play, like Wii Sports and several other successful titles for the system, is a collection of mini-games (12 this time) geared for casual players.

Tiger Masters the Game The latest version of Electronic Arts' annual Tiger Woods franchise downplays the golf superstar in a big way. As it turns out, those
changes might have earned the publisher a hole in one.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters has proven to be the
fastest moving in the series' history. EA says the game -- the 14th installment
in the long-running golf sim -- sold 225,000 copies in its first week.

That new bar comes despite the fact that Tiger's face is nowhere to be seen on this year's box -- and branding for The Masters far overshadows any mention of his name.

This is the first year Tiger has not explicitly fronted his own game, but EA has said
previously that players should not insinuate

World of Warcraft - Blizzard What's better: Reality or fantasy? A growing movement argues that the correct answer is "both."

The concept is called "gamification," a fairly
dorky term that basically means using gameplay techniques to make everyday
activities more fun -- which, in turn, boosts people's motivation for getting things done.

And, whether you realize it or not, you may already be a convert.

Like to check in on FourSquare? Unlocked any achievements on
Facebook? Have you ever found yourself obsessively refreshing Groupon, hoping
enough people sign up for a deal to make it live? Congratulations: You've been
gamified.

The idea of gamification has been around forever. Parents
have been incentivizing children to

And the Grammy goes to... The Grammys are getting into the game.

The Recording Academy, which oversees the annual music awards, has made changes to four of the ceremony's categories, putting video games on the same playing field as television and movies in an effort to solicit more submissions from the industry.

"Many people from the game community have been asking us to create a special category for games over the years, but the main reason we haven't is because we have received very few entries from game publishers," Bill Freimuth, vice president of The Academy, told IndustryGamers.

With last year's win by composer Christopher Tin, though, that's likely to change.

Tin's 2010 Grammy for the track "Baba Yetu" was

Madden NFL 11 - EA If you've bought a copy of Madden or NCAA Football in the
past six years, you might have found an interesting email in your in-box over
the last few days.

A pair of disgruntled gamers have filed a class action suit
against Electronic Arts over the games, accusing the publisher of overcharging
customers and stifling competition, via its exclusivity agreement with the NFL,
NFL Players Association and other leagues. .

While class action suits are filed all the time - and often
disappear in a poof of dust - a federal judge recently certified this case,
allowing it to keep its class action status. That means pretty much anyone who
bought either of the games from 2005 through today (or the Arena

The Great Sell Back - Getty Images As winter begrudgingly surrenders to spring and you begin that annual task of
cleaning out all the detritus that has accumulated in your closets over the
past year, you might want to start with your game collection.

Everyone has a few favorites they'll hang on to forever, whether for sentimental value or because they enjoy replaying them from time to time. But most video games simply gather dust -- and while some of those games on your shelf might have limited value, others are in high demand.

As you might expect, no one's interested in that 2001 copy of Madden you've been
holding onto. Newer games, quite simply, sell better.

"The newest games have the highest values," says David Abrams,