The name Michael Pachter is no stranger in the gaming industry. Every so often, the Wedbush Morgan industry analyst makes a prediction, states an opinion, sometimes even throws a controversial comment. With that said, Pachter will be lending his voice and his knowledge of the industry to keynote the Game Investment Conference this November.

With 13 confirmed cases of the H1N1 Swine Flu in California, Governor Arnie's raised a State of Emergency. If the situation doesn't improve within a month, the E3 Expo might not push through. Despite these risks, the ESA event organizers are optimistic that the E3 will indeed happen, come hell, high water, or pandemic (and by pandemic, I'm obviously not referring to the studio).

Kids are gonna have to find something else to do while waiting for their folks because California stateswoman Julia Brownley is proposing limited gaming time in day care facilities in the state. The state may not have succeeded in keeping the games from kids, and now they're trying to keep kids away from the games.

Last year, Gibson Guitar Inc. filed a suit against Activision's Guitar Hero for allegedly violating patent rights. About a year later today, a U.S. District Court in the Central District of California has finally given out its decision, holding that the music game franchise does not infringe on a 1999 Gibson patent, which simulates musical performance using a 3D headset display and stereo speakers. Read more in the full article.

Remember the California game law? You know, the one that wants to restrict the sale and rental of violent video games? Well, they went to the Court of Appeals to challenge the ruling, and guess what they got. Their appeal was denied, and the US Court of Appeals has ruled against the 2005 California gaming law. More in the full article.

Studies on violent video games can be very fickle. One minute violent video games are a healthy way of releasing pent up energy, and the next minute they're murder simulators. Sometimes you just have to wonder if the studies are actually credible.

According to the ECA, the latest one - the one that says violent video games make you more aggressive - is one such example of a study whose credibility is questionable. Right on.

Remember the California video game law? The one that wants to restrict violent video games? Well it's back, and it may even go as far as the US Supreme Court. More in the full article.

This Wednesday, California will be pitching the old anti-violent video game law to the Court of Appeals. This is the same law that received an injunction last year when it was ruled to be a threat to free-speech rights. This would probably get out of hand if Jack Thompson still had a say. It'll be more amusing though.

The European Nintendo Wii Virtual Console service will be getting two Commodore 64 and two Sega Master System this week. To find out more about these games, head on over to the full article for more information.

It was roughly a few weeks ago that Emotiv was able to introduce their EPOC neuroheadset to the whole world.

Now we got wind that the company is looking for candidates to be the beta evaluators for upcoming brain-controlled gadget. Find out the details after the jump!