Blog Posts by Chris Morris

Everyone was expecting bad news from video game retailers in August.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Square Enix)And everyone was right.

The NPD Group reports that year over year sales were down 23 percent, with software sales tumbling 37 percent. August, historically, has been a rebound month for the industry, but EA's decision to move the release of the annual Madden entry to the end of the month torpedoed any chance of that happening this year.

2011 really hasn't been Nintendo's year.

Wii Sensor (Nintendo)The company's stock has plunged 40 percent. The 3DS fell on its face after its launch. And despite a price cut to $150 in May, the Wii is still dead in the water.

Now the company is adding new legal battles to that list of woes.

ThinkOptical, the maker of the Wavit remote, is suing Nintendo for patent infringement, saying it holds a patent (called 'Electronic equipment for handheld vision based absolute pointing system') that covers the technology powering the Wii's remote.

Sometimes even the strangest rumors turn out to be true.

Nintendo 3DS (Nintendo)Whispers that Nintendo might be adding a second analog stick controller to its 3DS handheld system started circulating a few days ago, but few gave them much credence.

But a leaked photo from the Japanese video game magazine Famitsu indeed shows a new peripheral for the 3DS called the "Expansion Slide Pad." The idea's simple: Clip it onto your 3DS (like a cradle) and you've instantly got another circle pad, not to mention the capacity for dual-stick control. The second stick will sit to the right of the system's face buttons.

Super Bowl XLVI may look an awful lot like Super Bowl XLV, if the prognostication skills of EA's Madden series are on target this year.

Madden 12 (EA Sports)The football gaming franchise predicts both the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers will once again capture their divisions. And while he might be one of the league's most controversial players, Eagles QB Michael Vick will take home the MVP trophy.

Pre-season predictions are an annual ritual for the Madden series. With the first game of the 2011-2012 season kicking off Thursday, the game makers ran a full simulation to determine their 'official' guesses.

After years spent dodging countless cars, hopping across millions of floating logs and gobbling an untold number of flies, Frogger has made the jump into his 30s.

Frogger!Yup, it was this day in 1981 when the coin-op classic first leapt into gamers' lives, inspiring plenty of clones and a legacy of sequels that's still going strong today.

The game was originally called "Highway Crossing Frog," until some smart executive at Sega (which distributed the Konami-made game throughout the world) figured out how ridiculous that name was and promptly shortened it.

L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi might have created one of the most critically-acclaimed titles of the year, but now it's a company fighting for its life.

L.A. Noire (Rockstar)Just three months after releasing its hit game, the Australian-based studio has been placed into administration, a financial condition that's analogous to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. The protection gives the company time to attempt to regain solvency and reorganize by selling off assets and likely laying off staff.

Reality TV has explored deserted islands, crowded cohabitation, romance, travel and primal fear. So why not video games?

Uncharted 3 (Sony)Spike TV and Sony are teaming up to create a reality show centered on the upcoming Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.

Dubbed "Uncharted 3: Race to the Ring," the show will be filmed this October and air before the end of the year on Spike. And while many of the details are being kept under wraps, the producers say they're looking for people who are "fans of adventure, video game enthusiasts, puzzle solvers and risk takers." The paperwork that accompanies the application to be on the show offers a few hints as well.

Plenty of kids love playing video games, but Noah Solis is in an entirely different league.

Noah Solis (Kara Leung | karaface.com)Earlier this month, the pint-sized powerhouse (who goes by the alias "The Prodigy") attended the Evolution Championship Series (EVO) gaming tournament in Las Vegas, decimating opponents in fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 3 en route to placing in the top 48.

He didn't win -- but he did manage to land a job as a professional gamer at the ripe old age of eight.