Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launch pushes Microsoft's online service to new high-water mark for simultaneous online gamers.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 largely lived up to sales expectations upon its launch for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC earlier this week. Yesterday, Activision formally crowned Modern Warfare 2 the title of biggest launch of any entertainment product ever, selling 4.7 million units to the tune of $310 million in day one sales for the North American and UK regions.

New service will let North American gamers play Ad Hoc modes remotely with the help of a PS3.

When the PSP launched in 2005, it introduced online play to the handheld gaming industry. However, games supporting true online play (the system's infrastructure mode) were quickly outnumbered by those supporting only Ad Hoc mode, or local wireless play with PSPs in the immediate vicinity.

Brutal Legend, Demon's Souls, Tekken 6, WWE Smackdown land in bottom half of top 20; PC charts see Aion, Sims 3 switch places ahead of...Nancy Drew?!

The month of Halloween put a collective scare in the US game industry. Overall, the non-PC domestic game industry shrank by 19 percent in October, with hardware declining 23 percent despite the fact that all three consoles recently got price cuts. The Wii was the month's top console, followed by the DS, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, and nine-year-old PlayStation 2.

NBA 2K10 and Borderlands led Take-Two's rally on the October NPD charts.

Latest installment in Konami's Winning Eleven series dominates a sales chart crammed with older releases.

While recent years have seen the Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer series fall behind EA's competing FIFA franchise in terms of critical acclaim, Konami's footie sim remains a commercial powerhouse. The latest evidence of that comes from Media Create's Japanese sales charts for the week of November 2-8, which were dominated by the PlayStation 3 version of World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 (Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 internationally).

Publisher grabs license from Midway bankruptcy, confirms DS, PSP installments of Impact; Two Worlds 2 set for spring; publisher's sales double, turns a profit.

Last year, THQ's annual installment of WWE Smackdown vs. Raw faced legitimate competition for the first time in years, as Midway debuted its TNA Impact line of games based on a rival wrestling organization. Impact was well received by critics, enough so that Midway moved ahead with plans for a sequel; plans that were scuttled when the publisher entered bankruptcy.

PlayStation Store Update: Time-manipulating platformer joins Star Trek movie tie-in for home system; gamers on the go get SCEA-themed pinball tables, Kenka Bancho.

Between a pair of belated Xbox 360 ports and the debut of a handful of pinball games, this week's PlayStation Store update is a blast from the past.

Square Enix's latest J-RPG headed to North America and Europe in early 2010, Leona Lewis' "My Hands" named as theme song; new trailer inside.

Japanese gamers have known since early September that they'd be able to wade into Square Enix's highly anticipated Final Fantasy XIII on December 17. However, Square Enix has continued to string along North American and European gamers, saying only that the game would debut on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the West, hopefully, within three months of the game's Japanese debut, sometime in spring 2010.

BBC promises an "improved viewing experience" from iPlayer integration into the Wii home menu.

Recently, console manufacturers have been racing to add non-gaming features to their machines. Microsoft's upcoming dashboard update will add Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm integration to the Xbox 360 on November 17, while Sony is rumoured to be adding Facebook support to the PlayStation 3. Sony also recently integrated BBC iPlayer into the video channel of the PlayStation 3 XMB, an addition that proved so popular, the console is now the second most popular method for watching iPlayer, accounting for 10 percent of all usage.

This success was clearly noted by Nintendo, who today announced that the Wii will be given its own dedicated iPlayer channel on the main home menu. Though iPlayer was previously accessible via the Wii's Web browser, the BBC promises that the integrated player will offer a "faster, high-quality, and improved viewing experience."

The BBC iPlayer launched in 2007, and the service has grown to receive 75 million requests per month for radio and television programmes. The service originally rolled out to the PS3 and Wii toward the end of 2008, paving the way for its availability on over 20 devices.

The iPlayer channel will be available for free in the UK via the Wii Shop channel on November 18.

Double Fine's heavy metal odyssey doesn't sell out--but does outsell former publisher's massively hyped turntable rhythm game.

Besides seeing another double-digit contraction of the US game industry, October also saw the launch of two high-profile music-related games: DJ Hero (October 27) and Brutal Legend (October 13).

Not even Daft Punk could make DJ Hero a hit.

Halloween month saw a scary drop to $1.07 billion in non-PC domestic sales; 2K Sports' basketballer barely beats Borderlands, Uncharted 2 in combined sales; Wii beats PS3.

After a flat September, US game industry sales posted a double-digit decline last month, according to figures from the NPD Group. From October 4 to October 31, domestic sales of non-PC game hardware, software, and accessories totaled $1.07 billion, down 19 percent from $1.32 billion during the same period the year prior. Despite the decline, the month was the third-best October recorded by NPD, after October 2007 and October 2008.

"Based on typical industry seasonality, the industry is on track to generate full-year revenues in the range of $20-$21 billion in the US, which would put it just a bit below last year's sales of $21.3 billion," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said, before issuing the following note of caution. "The continued economic turmoil, and in particular the troubling unemployment rate, is undoubtedly impacting industry sales. ... If consumers' personal outlook continues to erode, they could very well be much more conservative with their holiday shopping this year."

NBA 2K10 got the drop on October.