Splinter Cell gets the drop on retail sales- rest of industry falls out the window

Splinter Cell Conviction lead the sales of all games last month (April) with a stealthtastic 471,706 units moved. Not bad for an old man.

Less fantastic is that the industry as a whole fell a staggering 26% over this time last year- mostly to blame is hardware sales, though software fell quite a bit as well.

Read the whole report @ vgChartz

Gizmodo has the iPhone 4. Yow.

Yep, it's real (99% real anyway) and they have had it.

Here's the story. I highly recommend reading it now if you haven't seen any of Giz's coverage already. It's  thoroughly in depth, covering all the bases, and is excellent stuff overall. GREAT scoop guys.

Federal Circuit Court Vindicates Nintendo in Patent Lawsuit

Did you know that Nintendo was embroiled in a patent case against them since 2008?

Neither... did I !!!11!!!1!

Well... they won. Surprise.

A jury figured that none of Nintendo's controllers offended against Anascape Ltd. This actually reversed a decision that a lower court made back in '08 that some of the Big N's older human interface devices (and the Wii classic controller) did infringe on patents granted to the plaintiff.

So good for them.

Gears 3 - April 2011

Joystiq caught a little slip-up on Xbox LIVE this morning as someone decided it might be a good idea to spill the beans (for a couple of minutes) the Gears of War 3 will emerge in one year's time.

GoW is one of the flagship exclusive series' for the 360 and is mega popular among shooter fans- including me.

Can. Not. Wait.

PSN is having... trouble

For some folks, that would be those who own PS3 'Phats', the PSN is having a lot of trouble and gaming online is an impossibility. And that's not all. Phat owners are reporting that trophies are disappearing and that some games are even not playable offline as an error message appears. The long and the short of it is that the whole thing might be linked to extensive work being done on the PSN website over the weekend.

Which is disturbing on a whole 'nother level. Offline games being affected by online work?

Sony is well aware of the issue and is "looking into it". Ugh.