Blog Posts by Chris Morris

IGN logoIt’s game over for a trio of popular video game websites.

Ziff Davis Media has announced plans to shut down 1UP.com, GameSpy.com and UGO.com to focus on its IGN and AskMen properties. The decision comes less than a month after the company purchased IGN from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

For over a decade, the three sites were among the most influential in the gaming space. With high traffic and up to the minute information, all three contributed to the downfall of several video game magazines, thanks to their aggressive reporting on the day-to-day minutia of the gaming world. 1UP brought video game podcasts to the mass market, while GameSpy's editorial division was just one facet of a company founded on multiplayer middleware, which was used in over 300 titles.

Photo: PR NewswireWhile Sony formally unveiled the PlayStation 4 at its media event Wednesday night, it left plenty of questions unanswered.

Much of that was deliberate. After all, the system won't hit store shelves until the holidays -- a good 9 months off -- and the company's marketing machine needs to keep some of its powder dry. But Sony ignored several concerns during its two-hour press conference, many of which remain top of mind for those interested in the next-generation console.

Luckily, Sony addressed a few of these following the reveal. Here's the lowdown on a handful of big issues.

Sony's Andrew House introduces PlayStation 4 (Credit: PRNewsFoto/Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)After almost a year of rumors and whispers, Sony has finally revealed the worst kept secret in gaming: The PlayStation 4 is on the way.

At a lavish press event in New York, the company showed off its next-generation console, a system it hopes will lure people away not only from competing machines from Microsoft and Nintendo, but from smart phones, tablets and other new gaming platforms. It will be released this holiday season, though the company didn’t announce a price.

Q*bert is having something of a renaissance these days. After playing a pivotal role in last year's game-friendly film Wreck-It Ralph, the big nosed video game icon is at the center of a pair of new video game records.

George Leutz has broken the reigning Q*bert high score, a record that stood for 30 years, by playing the classic coin-op for nearly 85 consecutive hours. He pressed play right before noon on February 14 and didn't finish playing until 12:38am on February 18^th.

Nintendo has a problem on its hands.

The Wii U, in its second full month of availability, sold a paltry 57,000 units in the U.S. according to data from The NPD Group. That's substantially fewer than its predecessor and well under half the number analysts were expecting for the month. And it props opens the door -- and perhaps issues a warning -- for Sony and Microsoft, which are both expected to roll out new consoles this year.

Ni No Kuni: The Wrath of the White Witch (Credit: Namco/Bandai)If you look at the raw numbers, it would appear that the video game industry halted its two-year sales decline in January -- but numbers can be deceiving.

Video game software sales were up 1 percent in January as compared to a year ago and hardware sales climbed 4 percent, according to the NPD Group. Before you break out the bubbly, however, this is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

In truth, software sales were actually down 19 percent, and hardware sales slipped 17 percent. The reason is that the January 2013 data covered a five-week span, from Dec. 30 to Feb 2. Last January’s numbers covered only a four-week period.

Mario's brother (Credit: Nintendo)According to the Chinese calendar, 2013 is the year of the snake. But in Kyoto, Japan -- the headquarters of Nintendo -- it's officially the year of Luigi.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made the announcement in a direct broadcast to fans, even going so far as to wear Luigi's trademark hat throughout his segment of the broadcast. (Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, it should be noted, declined to wear the headgear, denying Luigi some Valentine's love.)

Apple TV (Credit: Apple)The iPhone has already had a sizable impact on the traditional portable video game industry, but two video game VIPs are cautioning that the company could have a much larger -- and potentially devastating -- impact on the home console market.

Valve Software co-founder Gabe Newell and Nat Brown, who was one of the first engineers on Microsoft's Xbox project, have issued warnings about Apple's potential threat. The alerts come amid analyst speculation that Apple may hold an Apple TV-related special event next month.