Pizza and gaming are eventually likely to evolve into a single pursuit, like football and touchdown dances or movies and popcorn. Now, Pizza Hut is working with Microsoft Xbox to move the process along a little bit.

Today, Pizza Hut is debuting an app for Xbox Live that lets users order a pizza through their Xbox 360 with just the game controller, voice input or Kinect gestures—once they've chosen the nearest pizza parlor. Custom orders are also available.

"If you look at our audience, they love pizza," said Xbox's Larry Hryb, according to Mashable. "I mean, who doesn't? It has international appeal, and Pizza Hut is a recognized brand that matches up well with the Xbox brand."Continue reading...

Step into the world of Disney City Girl, where style and apartment décor are the measurement of success and New York City is the only city suitable enough for dream chasing.   

Disney’s new venture in social gaming is surprisingly targeted at adults, and more specifically, those with big city dreams. In the game, which is available for play on Facebook and playdom.com, players move from small town America to New York City to pursue their dream life. You get to chose to work towards two obviously fabulous careers: fashion designer or chef. Watch your player climb NYC's social ladder a la "Sex and the City" by challenging friends in a "Daily Look" fashion competition and throwing "awesome parties for friends" in your apartment. 

Sounds fabulous, right? Continue reading...

The long-anticipated announcement from Sony came at 6pm sharp from New York City. The company debuted the PlayStation 4, calling it the "most powerful handheld gaming system" ever.

With 2.6 million online viewers and growing, Andy House, CEO of Sony's PlayStation division, described the improved capabilities—including better mobile technology—of the "consumer-inspired" platform, where gaming convenience takes the focus. Continue reading...

The annual E3 video-game conference this week is bringing gamers a flurry of announcements to keep them excited about where the ever-evolving industry will take them next.

Ahead of the annual confab, Nintendo released a video (watch it below) to showcase how its new Wii U console (called the Wii U GamePad) will use social networking in new ways. “The machine will promote the Miiverse in which users can see what others are playing, share self-created game content and swap gaming tips,” the BBC reports.

The plan is for users to be able to connect into the network not just from the new console, but from PCs, smartphones, and 3DS handhelds.Continue reading...

American Express continues to innovate in the social media space, working with Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook, and now adds a major gaming play to its virtual and real portfolio. Today, AmEx and Zynga launched a co-branded, prepaid Serve Card, called Zynga Serve Rewards, linking everyday spending to virtual rewards for millions of online gamers.

Tied to AmEx's Serve next generation open payments platform and digital wallet, this latest move is a first in the prepaid card market by offering in-game incentives for daily expenditures. The reloadable Serve pre-paid debit card will reward users in Farmville cash.

“We're excited to partner with American Express to invent new ways for people to experience Zynga play in more parts of their day,” stated Mark Pincus CEO and Founder of Zynga. “Together we can add surprise and delight to every day shopping.”Continue reading...

Kids and Young Adult (YA) e-book sales in the U.S. grew by triple digits in February, reports the Association of American Publishers, as compared to relatively flat adult e-book sales figures. The total for e-book sales in the category is close to 25 million sold in January 2012.

The key contributing factor: adults are devouring YA e-books like The Hunger Games trilogy, and — still — Harry Potter. The Hunger Games franchise held the top three spots for the month of January on both the physical bestseller list and the Kindle paid bestseller list, appearing on USA Today’s bestseller list and taking first place for Amazon and Kindle sales. With the March release of the movie, stats on e-book sales to be released next month could be record-breaking.

On the Pottermore e-hub, which was announced last June, Harry Potter e-book sales reached close to 525,000 in the first month, totaling about $4.8 million. The Pottermore e-bookstore launched on March 27 as the exclusive place to buy Harry Potter e-books and digital audiobooks followed by the full Potter digi-verse on April 14.Continue reading...

“Alohomora!” J.K. Rowling's Pottermore website to keep the world of Harry Potter alive on digital has finally opened its e-bookstore.

While Rowling's books have sold an estimated 450 million physical copies and been translated into more than 70 languages, the author had retained the digital rights as part of her book publishing contracts, so the e-book editions weren't immediately available — until the Pottermore (think "Potter" plus "ever more") digital brand extension plan was announced last June. Already, Slate is calling it a game-changer for publishing.Continue reading...

America's online video portals — AOL, Google and YouTube, Hulu, Microsoft Advertising including MSN, and Yahoo! — are once again locking arms to muscle in on the U.S. TV upfront marketplace by touting their web video programming in a collaborative series of presentations orchestrated by Digitas.

The brands are taking turns in a roundrobin pitch to ad agencies, media buyers and brand marketers during the fourth annual Digital Content NewFronts, taking place in New York over two weeks, from April 19th to May 2nd.

The objective: woo a bigger slice of marketing dollars from TV to their respective online video and digital content hubs.Continue reading...