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News

• Palm opens up developer program, adds plug-in support

  Palm opened up its WebOS developer program to the public on Thursday, saying it expects to see a flood of new applications developed for the mobile OS.

• Nielsen: Xbox 360 used most in US, PS2 edges Wii

  The Xbox 360 topped Nielsen's top US game consoles ranked by usage minutes (23.1%), polling slightly ahead of Sony's PS2 (20.4%) and the Nintendo Wii (19.0%). No, that's not a typo. I meant to write PlayStation 2. Sony's PS3? Not on the fact sheet, which either means Nielsen didn't want to embarrass Sony, or they've done the rest of us a disservice by failing to include Sony's flagship game and Blu-ray box in their breakout.

• Dragon Age first expansion named, dated, priced

  Gear up your Grey Wardens, Dragon Age buffs, because Bioware's dubbed and dated its first official expansion pack, Awakenings, shipping worldwide for Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows March 16, 2010. Armchair conquistadors rejoice, because the expansion adds a new area called Amaranthine--a word that means "undying" or "unfading"--and invites you to probe the origins of the original game's diabolic darkspawn.

• Independent Games Festival finalists announced

  Don't pay much attention to indie games? You ought to, if you're serious about groundbreaking gaming, and here's just the thing to pique your interest: The Independent Games Festival just laid out their main competition finalists for the twelfth annual award ceremony. Up for grabs? $50,000 in prizes, including the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, named after the eponymous 2000 IGF grand prize winner who died shortly after receiving the award in March 2000 from Hodgkin's lymphoma.

• 25% of men have pulled a sickie to play computer games

  Nearly a quarter of men have pulled a sickie from work in order to play computer games, says MyVoucherCodes.co.uk.

• Cisco computer game lets you play CEO

  If you want to be a CEO but not have any of the real responsibilities of one, you could try to play a new online game being offered by Cisco. The company this week posted myPlanNet, a computer game that lets anyone be a broadband executive making network deployment decisions.

• Report: Nintendo planning DSi with larger screen

  Nintendo is planning to launch a new version of its DSi handheld gaming device with a larger screen possibly before the end of this year, The Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday.

• Jack Thompson sues Facebook for $40M

  A long-time critic of the video game industry has sued Facebook for US$40 million, saying that the social networking site harmed him by not removing angry postings made by Facebook gamers.

• Aussie made iPhone app hits world record sales

  Melbourne-based mobile phone game development company, Firemint, has announced that its six-month-old, top-selling iPhone application, Flight Control, has reached over 1.5 million sales.

• Sony places bet on 3D movies, TV and games

  Sony will next year launch a television capable of showing 3D images, it said on Wednesday at the IFA electronics fair in Berlin. The TV will be the first step in what is expected to be a big push by the consumer electronics company to popularize 3D movies, TV and computer games.

• Forget teens, gamers are 35, overweight and sad, CDC says

  When you think of a hard-core gamer, do you picture a teenage boy battling his friends in World of Warcraft?

• Games are most popular apps for iPhone

  Apple iPhone owners are more likely to purchase games to play on their handset, compared to other mobile phone users, says Distimo.

• US video game sales sink in June, biggest drop in 9 years

  Sales of video game hardware and software were down by around one-third in June compared to the same month last year, according to data released late Thursday. After initially showing positive growth as the U.S. slid into recession, the latest figures mark the fourth month of declines and the largest year-on-year decline in almost 9 years.

• Resident Evil 4 coming to iPhone very soon

  Newly released video and screens have leaked today of a mobile version of Resident Evil 4, which will be coming to Japanese iPhone and iPod Touch users later this month.

• Dragon Quest hits Japan, sells 2.3M in two days

  Dragon Quest IX, one of the most anticipated video games ever to hit Japan, went on sale on Saturday morning and sold an impressive 2.3 million copies over the weekend, according to Enterbrain.