Atari once ruled the home video-game console industry. First kids sprinted home after school to play Pong in the mid-’70s and then they threw their books down to grab their joysticks and take all the bricks of Breakout, blow up oncoming Asteroids, or take Activision’s Pitfall Harry through a jungle maze.

These days, of course, digital games are everywhere and Atari has been feeling the financial strain for more than a decade, as hinted on its Facebook page on January 17th (above).

Fast forward to January 21st, when its U.S. division announced it's filing for bankruptcy in order to separate itself from the French-owned Atari S.A. (formerly known as Infogrames), which is deep in debt, and focus on digital and mobile gaming.Continue reading...

Disney's Infinity game console is making a bold leap to secure a share of the booming video game market for itself — while giving gamers the opportunity to create stories with iconic characters from its most popular franchises.

The ‘Infinity Base’ device lets users engage real-world characters via power discs and activate original story-driven adventures within the game. Players collect characters, vehicles and gadgets from Disney titles such as "Monsters University," "The Incredibles" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" and save them to a virtual ‘Toy Box.’ 

Due in June, Infinity will be deployable across all major gaming platforms including PS3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Nintendo 3DS.Continue reading...

Disney acquires Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, plans to restart Star Wars franchise.

Apple sees executive refuse to apologize for mapping flaw, so he and retail chief are to depart as design head Jony Ive takes on bigger role and Apple shares slip post-shakeup.BP returns to profitability and raises dividend.

BP returns to profitability and raises dividend.

Activision goes big for CoD: Black Ops 2.

Aldi revamps as German consumers reject austerity.

Bayer acquires Schiff for $1.2 billion.

Burger King boosts marketing and makes demographic inroads.

Ford profits reflect North American gains and European woes.Continue reading...

When Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops video game went on sale back in November 2010, more than 5.6 million units had been sold. The United States was responsible for 4.2 million of those sales, which passed $1 billion after only six weeks.

And now, hold onto your joysticks and step to the side, here comes Black Ops II. Set to be released on Nov. 13, the next installment is on track to be another blockbuster. The trailer above has received more than three million views since it was released on Oct. 16.

To mark the occasion and generate even more interest in the gamer world (as if it needed any), Activision and JJ Abrams' BadRobot Interactive collaborated to develop a new update to the Action Movie FX app, which allows gamers to get some of their weapons for the game earlier than its release.Continue reading...

Activision goes bigger with Skylanders line extension and marketing effort.

AIG pays $1.7 billion for ING Malaysia.

ANA conference poised to set attendance record.

Android robot is a hit with 3-D printers.

Audi and BMW starting to leave behind Mercedes-Benz in global premium-auto race.

BAE in play for U.S. buyers as report says EADS merger failed because of discord among participating European governments.

BP moves closer to overall settlement of Gulf spill as Louisiana blames company for perma-sheen.Continue reading...

For 50 years, James Bond has been finding his way out of life-threatening situations and winning hearts on the world’s silver screens. Friday, Oct. 5th marks the 50th anniversary of Bond on the silver screen, which is being promoted as Global James Bond Day. And in about a month, the British spy will come striding onto the big screen once again, so that means the heavy media push is now on.

The upcoming Bond film, Skyfall, has already been raising some eyebrows with the news that 007 will enjoy a Heineken during the film and not his typical martini tipple, with fans encouraged to help the new Bond girl, Severine, "crack the case" in a Facebook mystery game. But plenty of other marketers are jumping on the film’s release as well to encourage consumers to be more like the women-objectifying, consistently drinking, hidden-weapon-wielding Bond.Continue reading...

Apple slims down next iPhone as analyst says that iPad Mini and iTV are real products.

AT&T is introducing shared data plans as iPhone users fear iPhone FaceTime charges.

Bank of America swings to profit.

Bob Evans may be considering sale of Mimi's Cafe.

Coke and PepsiCo step up campaign against New York soda ban.

DirecTV finds unlikely friends in dispute with Viacom.

Ericsson earnings plunge on economic slowdowns.Continue reading...

Chris Pratt has the Force behind him in the above video promoting the new Kinect Star Wars game for Xbox 360.

The timing also inspired Pepsi's Brisk Iced Tea branding team to expand its recent Star Wars co-marketing push with a new promotion that gives players an Anakin Skywalker pod-racer as the new Kinect Star Wars game hits 7-Eleven stores this week, priced at $50.

Specially marked 1-liter bottles of Brisk now sport a Microsoft Tag bar code (or M-tag) that can be scanned with the Xbox 360's Kinect motion sensor. The partnership marks the first use of M-tags for a video game promotion, and the first test of the Microsoft mobile technology by a PepsiCo brand.Continue reading...