Less video games, more playing outside. This is what US President Barack Obama asks the parents of the United States, to raise their kids with less gaming and more time to play outside and be active. In his speech addressed to the American Medical Association, Obama stressed the importance of every person taking charge of their health - stay healthy - to help avoid illness and disease. More after the jump.

Some video game publishers and developers have been quite vocal about their distaste for the used games business. They're missing out on the profits, and when you find out just how much profit it is, you'll want to get in on it too.

EA to be bought out? By Disney?! Well, the world's turned upside down anyway, so why not this? The Wall Street Journal speculates that with EA's stock down by 18 percent last Friday, the time could be right for bigger fish who are looking to expand their presence in the gaming market to swallow EA whole.

So we all know that Wii 2 is already in the works, and we asked before if it could ever live up to the standards set by the Wii console we already know and love. Nintendo prez Satoru Iwata, at least, is making sure that it's up to par. That and more in the full article.

With EA's deadline for Take-Two Interactive coming up fast, a lot of people are eagerly waiting for Take-Two's reply to the game publishing giant's takeover bid. Whatever happens, though, it seems like Rockstar Games president and co-founder Sam Houser actually sees a few good things about an alliance with EA.

Nintendo's decided to go official with the dates of two big North American releases; namely, Wii Fit, the fitness enhancing software, and WiiWare, Nintendo's game download service.

The two are expected to come out in May, and happen to be a week apart. Interested in knowing the specific dates so you can prepare? Check out the full article for more!

With the current demand for the Nintendo Wii exceeding the supply, Wall Street Journal writer and Wii shortage theorist">Yukari Iwatane Kane and Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal have theorized that the supply problem and the alleged hype strategy behind it may somehow be related to Nintendo's tendency toward conservatism and caution.

More about Kane's and Wingfield's theory after the jump!

 

Getting the Wiimote to do things other than interact with video games on the Wii is pretty common news to us gamers by now. Why, just the other day we reported on this Wiimote door opener, and before that, we informed you folks about this project that allowed for a robotic arm to controlled by the Wiimote.

While wiimote hacking is common to us, it's quite interesting how the culture outside of gaming looks at this movement to find other uses for Nintendo's cute white controller. Wall Street Journal is interested as well. The author of the Wall Street Journal report, Jamin Brophy Warren, looks at how many different folks, from Italian DJs to TiVO aficionados use the Wiimote to sequence music tracks, all the way to directing Roomba robot vacuum cleaners.

The report not only looks at the actual project and hacks, but also the people responsible for it. It even has an interesting bit from Nintendo that apparently shows that it discourages this popular movement of finding alternative uses for the controller - despite the obvious popularity that Wiimote hacks bring to Nintendo. Anka Dolecki, Nintendo spokeswoman says, "The Wii Remote was created to play on the Wii system only."

For a nice refreshing outsider look at something commonplace to us already, feel free to check out the report via our Read link below.

Everyone in the gaming community and industry knows just what the heck a Wii is. It's that little console that could. Its success is at fever pitch and the brilliance behind it is undeniable. The machine's performance has in fact been so impressive, the Wall Street Journal itself felt the tremors.

The esteemed business magazine ran a story describing the Wii's success titled "Wii and DS Turn Also-Ran Nintendo into Winner in Videogames Business." It details how Nintendo as a company turned from the has-been of gaming a year ago into the hottest hardware manufacturer on the planet to date.

Everyone remembers how the Wii was codenamed "Revolution" during its development and hardly anyone gave a spit about it because it was revealed early om that the new Nintendo console would not compete with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 in terms of hardware power. Instead, the makers said they would focus on gameplay. Everyone scoffed for a moment at the claim, only to be silenced later.

What happened afterwards was history. Attracting the casual and non-gamer demographic, the Wii was sold to young kids, ladies and the senior populace. Expanding the market, showing up with top-notch games and its stalwart motion-sensing Wiimotes, it set the business on fire and is to date the fastest-selling next-gen console on the planet.

The Wall Street Journal now refers to the Wii as the console to beat. That goes double to its handheld game machine, the Nintendo DS which went head to head with Sony's PlayStation Portable and outsold the PSP on a two to one basis.

The Wall Street Journal also notes that big third party developers and publishers are coming to the fold. Square Enix and EA have already pledged support, and more are on the way. The console wars are far from done, but the Wii is looking very good at this point. To read the full WSJ story, follow the read URL.

Well, it looks like Google is once again finding new ways to integrate itself into our everyday lives. And its new target? In-game advertising.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is planning to acquire Adscape, a company which specializes in in-game advertisements. Though there has still been no official word about the matter, many are guessing that negotiations may already be happening. Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson did say this:

We are always considering new ways to extend Google's advertising program to benefit our users, advertisers and publishers. In-game advertising offers one such possible extension among many others.

It has also been noted by members of the industry that Google may have taken a fancy to Adscape because of its AdverPlay technology which allows "two-way communication between in-game ads and the outside world".

Considering that other Google applications are already starting to make their appearances in the world of gaming, could this mean that those Google text advertisements that we usually see on webpages will soon become part of the wall graffiti in your next round of CounterStrike?