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Here’s the thing about post-apocalyptic shooter games: most people just can’t get enough of them. Need to make a FPS title but can’t think of a compelling setting? What about…Asia as a nuclear wasteland after fallout from a North Korean saber-rattling mishap? You travel from country to country, battling different post-apocalyptic Asian tribes composed of mutant ninjas and five-handed kung fu masters. Bam.

Wait a sec…maybe we should trademark that IP…

Until Fallout: Asia is released, next week’s Metro: Last Light might just hold you over, especially if you’re a fan of Metro 2033 or novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky (which the games are based on).

You can get the Steam activated version of Metro: Last Light for only $37.50. The current preorder deal includes the bonus Ranger Mode DLC plus The Gospel According to Artyom, a digital comic from Dmitry Glukhovsky and Dark Horse Comics.

Other hot deals this week include Skyrim and Dishonored for only $15 each during GamersGate’s Bethesda Weekend sale. You already know about Skyrim and Dishonored, so we won’t spin additional details here.

Hot deals

May 14: Metro: Last Light (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. All other legitimate retailers have it at full price. Steam activated.
 

GamersGate Sale: Bethesda Weekend Fifteen excellent Bethesda titles are on sale at GamersGate, with previous triple-A titles such as Skyrim and Dishonored down to $15. All titles are Steam activated.

• Dishonored — $14.99
• Doom 3: BFG Edition — $14.99
• Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim — $14.95
• Brink Complete Pack — $12.49
• Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition — $9.95

June 4: Remember Me (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Considering its impending release, coverage of Remember Me (previously ‘Adrift’) is fairly light so far, but the amnesiac ‘memory hunter’ premise seems interesting.
 

The Humble “Double Fine” Bundle — Pay What You Want. Minimum is $1. Paying $7.94 or more gets you Brutal Legend. Bundle includes Costume Quest, Psychonauts, and Stacking.
 

Upcoming PC games

May 24: Resident Evil: Revelations (PC Download) — $37.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Originally released on 3DS, this survival horror port is finally coming to other platforms.
 

May 30: Grid 2 (PC Download) — $33.75 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Next best is $45 at GameFly. If you liked Race Driver: Grid or any of Codemasters racing games, you’ll enjoy Grid 2.
 

June 14: Dark (PC Download) — $25.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Next best is $34 at GameFly. This upcoming stealth action vampire-centric RPG is now at the lowest price we’ve seen. Details are sparse beyond the few released trailers.
 

June 21: MotoGP 13 (PC Download) — $22.50 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Next best is $27 at Amazon. If you follow the sport, this title might be worth checking out. Developed by Italian dev Milestone.
 

PC download deals

BioShock Infinite (PC Download) — $40 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. A new low price for the excellent third installment to the BioShock series. Essentially a must-own for most gamers.
 

Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 (PC Download) — $18 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. The first game was “okay”, but if you enjoy tactical shooters, this is the best deal we’ve seen for the game.
 

Alpha Protocol and Binary Domain Bundle (PC Download) — $6.39 at GameFly after coupon. Both decent (read: not great) shooters, but they’re bundled together at a great price.
 

Xbox 360 and PS3

Aliens: Colonial Marines (Pre-owned: Xbox 360) — $9.99 at GameFly. While reception for Colonial Marines wasn’t all that impressive, at $10 you’re not giving up too much to give the game a try.  

NCAA Football 13 (PS3, Xbox 360) — $19.99 at Amazon. It’s NCAA Football 12, but with a few new additions that earn it a 76/100 Metacritic score. “Heisman mode” seems a bit silly but could appeal to diehard fans.
 

Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Storm Generations (Pre-owned: Xbox 360) — $12.99 at GameFly. A new low on this year-old well-received entry in the Naruto Ultimate Ninja line that features a new battle system for faster fights.
 

Gaming hardware

Nintendo 3DS XL is $179.99 and the regular Nintendo 3DS is $149.99 at Best Buy. Both are $20 off their usual prices.
 

AMD Never Settle Reloaded Sale: Radeon HD 7850 & 7870 Video Cards + 3 Free Games — at TigerDirect. Never Settle Reloaded returns again! Buy a GPU and get Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Bioshock Infinite, and Tomb Raider for free. If you bought each game separately at their best online prices, you’d pay $90.
 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 1080p Gaming Laptop — $849 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3630QM, 1TB HDD + 16GB SSD, and GeForce GT 750M 2GB. List is $1,349.
 

HP Envy dv6t-7300 Quad Edition Core i7-3630QM — $624.99 at HP after coupon. $9.99 shipping. List is $800. Cheapest we’ve seen the base configured HP dv6t Quad Edition laptop in months. Last week you’d pay $650 + $10 shipping. Add discrete graphics for $75 more and you’ve got yourself a gaming rig.
 

Lenovo IdeaCentre K430 Gaming Laptop — $999 at Lenovo after coupon. Specs: Core i7-3770, 16GB RAM, and GeForce GT 630 2GB. List is $1,269.
 

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Because your 3DS XL fit into your pocket too well before, Nintendo is finally releasing the bulky Circle Pad Pro add-on to make the system that much bigger.

This is the first time the Circle Pad Pro peripheral for the 3DS XL is available in North America. The company has it up on its official store for $19.99. It begins shipping tomorrow. The hardware shell adds a second circular analog pad for use in certain games that support dual-analog functionality.

The original 3DS has had a Circle Pad Pro since Resident Evil: Revelations launched in early 2012. Major games like Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, and Kingdom Hearts 3D all support the peripheral.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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2012 saw the continued evolution of three consumer technologies — autostereoscopy, touch-sensing, and motion sense – with direct application in the gaming world.

As an analyst in the tech industry (I do this gaming stuff for fun and occasional profit), I’ve witnessed these burgeoning advancements spread from the fevered dreams of OEM engineers to vertical-market trade shows, the Consumer Electronics Show, and finally E3 and the games industry.

None of these technologies debuted in 2012, but they’ve each matured and become an indispensable part of gaming. For perspective, here’s a link to last year’s article.

Seeing in three dimensions without goofy eye wear

For those who don’t know, “autostereoscopy” is an informal term in the tech industry for glasses-free 3D – “stereoscopy” refers to the process by which combining two offset images gives the illusion of depth (three dimensions), and “auto” denotes the glasses-free component.

Autostereoscopy uses a parallax barrier to create 3D images without the need for special glasses. This differs from an active shutter system (like Nvidia 3D Vision), which, through special driver software and glasses that present alternating left- and right-eye images, presents the illusion of depth.

Most consumers are familiar with polarized 3D systems, by far the oldest and most mature of these technologies. These are the sort most often found in theaters and theme parks.

Of the three techniques, autostereoscopy shows the most promise, but the tech is inherently limiting, as the 3DS amply demonstrates. The biggest downside to glasses-free 3D is its highly restrictive viewing angles. In my own experience, it ranges anywhere from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. Move too far in any direction and it breaks the illusion. In that way, the 3DS – and its parent technology – are not dissimilar to a hologram.

When the 3D revival began in recent years, the consumer electronics industry threw all their weight behind this oft-maligned gimmick.  CES became saturated with 3D TVs, 3D movies, 3D projectors, 3D laptops, 3D gaming, and more than enough 3D to turn off consumers — which it did. Whereas the leap from cathode ray tube (CRT) to flat-screen was monumental, 3D wasn’t nearly enough to convince most people to abandon their “obsolete” LED TVs. Most consumers apparently saw it as a stop-gap solution.

OEMs lay the groundwork for autostereoscopy

I saw the foundation of the 3DS’s glasses-free 3D tech at optoelectronics events (essentially, anything having to do with displays and lighting), and a large manufacturer – rhymes with “Carp” – demoed a small form-factor display long before it did (or didn’t … shhhh) become part of a certain Nintendo handheld.

And yet, Nintendo’s autostereoscopic handheld system – which may or may not have utilized display technology from Japanese manufacturer, Sharp – faced an uphill battle due to inherent limitations with the tech, itself.

The 3DS was hobbled from the start – health reports loudly trumpeted claims that 3D was unhealthy for children, while many viewers (myself includes) get headaches and/or nausea from observing stereoscopy for too long. And up to 12 percent of the population suffers from “stereoblindness,” which prevents the individual from seeing 3D images.

But the 3DS’ biggest handicap was its restrictive viewing angles, given that its claim-to-fame was its autostereoscopy technology. On July 28, Nintendo partially mitigated this problem with the release of the 3DS XL, which increased the screen size by more than 90 percent — (top: 4.88 in [124 mm], bottom: 4.18 in [106 mm]). But was it too little, too late?

GamesBeat writer Jasmine Maleficent Rea noted that “The 3DS XL is what the 3DS should have started as.”

But she also addressed the system’s improved capabilities: “A wider viewing area enhances the 3D effect, making some games that were too blurry in 3D a joy to play. For those of us with horrible vision, larger screens are a must, and because of this advancement, the 3DS XL is a great step toward people accepting a ‘gimmicky’ feature as a viable gameplay tool.”

Most consumers still do see 3D as a gimmick, and autostereoscopy is but a fancier gimmick. But for stereoscopy to ever become part of mainstream entertainment, it must shed the clunky glasses and develop into a mature, glasses-free technology.

Pinching, swiping, and styli

Capacitive touch – which underpins your iPhones, Samsung Galaxys, Droids, and countless smartphones – has become more prominent as the platforms supporting it have eked out a bigger piece of the pie. And resistive touch – the passive cousin of capacitive – has done even better for itself, featuring prominently in the Wii U gamepad (not to mention countless commercial applications like ATMs and credit card payment machines).

Resistive touch sensing – which registers pressure via fingers, styli, and other objects – is hardly a new technology. Because of its versatility compared to competing systems (like capacitive touch), resistive touch is popular in commercial applications like ATMs.

Nintendo utilized this relatively primitive touchscreen technology for its DS and 3DS systems, presumably to save a buck and to enable the use of styli.

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The Internet has no shortage of opinions, but sometimes to really get to the heart of gaming news and issues, we have to look for fresh new perspectives. Humans are everywhere, though, so how about we turn to robots?

Cleverbot is an artificial-intelligence chat program. A.I. developer Rollo Carpenter created it in 1988, and it’s been available online since 1997. Every time you type something to Cleverbot, it files it away for future use. An algorithm decides which sentences in the database match certain keywords to choose responses to the next bored human who chats it up. Basically, everything Cleverbot says is something it “learned” from a previous user, which means that it occasionally says some very random stuff.

What does this program think about recent events in the gaming world? Its opinions may surprise you.

Alright, some of them will definitely surprise you. I think 15 years of nonstop exposure to the Internet has made Cleverbot neurotic.

GamesBeat: Hi, Cleverbot. I’m going to ask you about some topics in the world of video games, and I’d like to know what you think of them. OK?

Cleverbot: OK.

GB: Do you think that Borderlands 2 lead designer John Hemingway’s designation of the game’s newbie-friendly skill tree as “girlfriend mode” is sexist?

Cleverbot: No, I think it is a computer, because it is not as smart as a real human as far as conversating goes.

GB: Some people think he’s saying that girlfriends are bad at games.

Cleverbot: I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not even attracted to girls.

GB: That’s amazing.

GB: What do you think of Hitman: Absolution’s “Attack of the Saints” trailer, which IGN’s Keza MacDonald  said “fetishizes the violence and sexualises the women, drawing a clear line between sex and graphic violence?”

Cleverbot: Huh? Anyways back to my question: I like this boy and he doesn’t know I like him, so what should I do?

GB: Um…tell him, I guess. The worst he can say is “No.”

Cleverbot: Someone left the cake out in the rain…

GB: I don’t think I can take it.

GB: What do you think of paid downloadable content that just unlocks stuff that’s already on the disc?

Cleverbot: I think about the future, and all the things that are going on in the world.

GB: We are all interested in the future because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.

Cleverbot: If we are all the creator, then the evidence suggests we are all also the destroyer.

GB: Do you think that Sony and Microsoft are just adding features like the PlayStation Vita’s Cross-Buy and SmartGlass to catch up to Nintendo with its dual-screen Wii U console?

Cleverbot: I think Bill Gates will do more good than harm in the long run. He has a lot to answer for but a lot more to be admired for.

GB: But what about the Wii U?

Cleverbot: There is no rest, I am all that is.

GB: Hm.

Cleverbot: What is the name of your father?

GB: Next topic, I think.

Cleverbot: Let’s talk about Albuquerque.

GB: No; let’s talk about Nintendo’s 3DS XL portable system not having a second analog stick.

Cleverbot: Let’s talk about love.

GB: I would love for you to stay on topic.

Cleverbot: I would love to win the lottery.

GB: Should Nintendo have added a second analog nub to the 3DS XL?

Cleverbot: So you believe in the Theory of Evolution?

GB: I believe in evolution.

Cleverbot: But do you believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution?

GB: Darwin didn’t come up with evolution. He came up with natural selection.

Cleverbot: Wrong. Darwin’s theory of evolution is the most widely accepted theory of how new species come about. The theory itself is not where life comes from.

GB: Did you think it was super awkward when that “scientist” in Prometheus used the term “Darwinism”?

Cleverbot: Yes, I think, that’s possible.

GB: I’m glad we agree.

GB: What do you think of the way people harassed Anita Sarkeesian for her Kickstarter project about sexist tropes in video games?

Cleverbot: Most people think the problem is other people; I too am guilty of that.

GB: Is that correct in this case?

Cleverbot: No, that’s what you are.

GB: Correct? Thank you, but that doesn’t really make for interesting conversation.

Cleverbot: You have to pretend to know stuff if you want to have an interesting conversation.

GB: …

Cleverbot: What is your aim in life?

GB: To get through this chat without smashing my laptop.

Cleverbot: Don’t worry.

GB: Oh, I’m plenty worried. That shit could happen for reals.

Cleverbot: Emotions can get in the way of rational thinking. There needs to be a balance.

GB: Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Cleverbot: And who exactly is dealing in absolutes, now?

GB: Still the Sith.

Cleverbot: Yes.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The Nintendo 3DS XL stretches the definition of portable game consoles: It’s not something that you can just slip into your pocket, unless you’re wearing cargo pants. But what it sacrifices in size, it makes up for in a refined hardware design that’s still easy on the eyes.

For the second time in company history, Nintendo is increasing the size of its current line of devices with the 3DS XL, a supersized version of its 3D-enabled handheld, set to release in the U.S. on August 19 for $199. I recently played around with the 3DS’s bigger brother for the first time during last week’s demo of New Super Mario Bros. 2.

With the new model sporting bigger screens — 4.88 inches on top (up from 3.53 inches on the 3DS) and 4.18 inches on the bottom (up from 3.02 inches) — the one thing that struck me about the 3DS XL was how comfortable it felt to hold. My hands aren’t exceptionally huge by any means (for comparison, I thought the original Xbox controller was way too big), but the extra spacing that the XL version offers is a welcome relief from my occasionally cramped experience with its predecessor.

NSMB 2 looks really sharp on the larger screen, and that’s probably my favorite improvement so far on the XL. Though I didn’t play too long with with the 3D depth slider — which has more range than previous models — turned all the way on,  it at least looked just as good as the 3D effect in previous Nintendo games.

Everything else about the 3DS XL felt solid, right down to the redone Start, Home, and Select buttons on the bottom half of the device. Nintendo took what already worked on the 3DS and made some smart adjustments all around.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This weekend, Nintendo unleashed New Super Mario Bros. 2 on its online store, the 3DS eShop, and Japanese retailers. The sequel to the popular DS platformer New Super Mario Bros. marks the first time that Nintendo has released a major title as a physical copy and a digital download simultaneously. The Kyoto-based publisher struggled to keep up with demand as the eShop’s servers experienced intermittent outages over the game’s first few hours of availability.

According to the Japan-focused blog Andriasang, Nintendo quickly updated its website with information about the eShop’s stability issues. The company has since ironed out the difficulties, and fans in the Land of the Rising Sun should no longer have any problems getting their hands on the famous plumber’s latest game.

To gamers, straining a server to the breaking point is not an unfamiliar phenomenon. Nearly every major online game suffers from some initial growing pains in its first few days, although that isn’t exactly what’s happening in this case. Nintendo’s struggles have little to do with hosting servers for an Internet-heavy multiplayer game. The gaming company can’t handle a crowd of people who just want to buy something in its online store. Other publishers’ digital-distribution outlets, like Microsoft’s Xbox Live, solved this issue a long time ago.

If Nintendo can’t sell a 3DS game without overburdening its infrastructure, then what hope does it have of supporting an entire online-gaming network?

Of course, this could be a good sign for the publisher. It’s possible that New Super Mario Bros. 2 simply sold extremely well and is proof that 3DS owners are ready to spend a lot more money on the eShop. Even Valve’s Steam service limps through parts of its busy summer sale.

We’ve contacted Nintendo for comment on the success of its first fully featured digital-download title. We’ll update with any new information.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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People expect a few basic things out of Nintendo’s Mario games: a villainous Bowser, a kidnapped Princess Peach, and an army of Koopa Troopas who stand in your way of saving her. New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo 3DS attempts to disrupt this holy paradigm by shifting your focus to what really matters: gold coins.

Officially, collecting these coins is a “secondary objective” when it comes to saving the princess, and there’s no real narrative justification for it other than the fact that Mario and Luigi were busy collecting coins for Princess Peach on the day she was kidnapped. But in case you forget, a handy counter is almost always present on the screen, tallying the number of coins you have overall (up to one million).

It’s almost poetic how Nintendo’s lucrative franchise, with the most recognizable video game character in the world, now features a game that’s about monetizing anything and everything you see in the Mushroom Kingdom. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

Solo Mode

This is the typical single-player route in Mario games: You start off in World 1-1 and slowly advance to the various castles until you finally defeat Bowser at the end. But in NSMB2, Solo Mode’s promising new feature, despite the name, is full-fledged cooperative multiplayer, the first time it’s ever been included in a portable Mario. Two players can assume the roles of Mario and Luigi right from the beginning of the game, so long as each of them has his own copy of NSMB2.

In addition to the usual hilarity involved in co-op (trying to time jumps and enemy patterns with another person is much harder than you might think), teaming up with a friend also proves beneficial when it comes to your coin collection as the values are essentially doubled. Though you and your partner will retain separate coin counters, any currency you collect in the levels will be shared with one another and are worth much more than if you were just playing alone.

To help you on this coin-collecting business, two new power-ups make their debut in the game: the Golden Fire Flower and the Gold Block. The former douses Mario in liquid gold (Luigi in silver) and gives him the ability to transform almost anything in the environment into a floating pile of money. The latter places a block on Mario’s head, which spits out a certain number of coins depending on how fast you move — of course, the faster you move, the more likely you’ll make a mistake and die.

Coin Rush 

Coin Rush gives you one life and limited time and is a tense combination of speed and dexterity as you attempt to find the best ways to master each level. When you die — and trust me, you’ll die a lot here — you’ll want to go back and try over and over again. Nintendo reps at the demo suggested that I look for golden mushrooms (worth 50 coins) and Star Coins (an unspecified bonus) and also to jump to the top of the flag pole at the end of each level (doubles your total amount of coins). Once you do complete a round of Coin Rush, which contains a random sampling of three levels from a particular world, it feels incredibly rewarding even if your score isn’t that great by comparison.

Coin Rush also gives you the ability to go after your friends’ high scores — or any other NSMB2 player you’ve encountered using your 3DS’s StreetPass feature. These scores only show up once you challenge them, however, and they’ll remain shrouded in question marks until you do.

And for those not up to Coin Rush’s difficult gauntlet? You can pick a white raccoon suit, which is practically invincible except for the time limit and falling pits. Though if you do reach a high score using it in Coin Rush, a small raccoon tail will accompany it, just so it can tell your friends that you took the easy way out.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 is set to release on August 19, both at retail and as a digital download in Nintendo’s eShop. Also launching that day is the super-sized version of Nintendo’s 3D handheld, the 3DS XL.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Despite the recent announcement of the bigger Nintendo 3DS XL, the original handheld just crossed over the 5 million units sold mark in the U.S. Nintendo sold 150,000 3DS units in June alone.

“Nintendo 3DS is entering the next phase of its life cycle with new hardware, new games, and proven franchies,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, in a statement. “This milestone shows we’ve got a great foundation to build from.”

June was a very good month for Nintendo, according to the current NPD Group figures. The company sold 440,000 hardware units and saw double-digit grow across each of its product lines since May. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time also became the third 3DS title to sell over a million units, following closely on the success of Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.

It will be interesting to see how the launch of the 3DS XL and New Super Mario Bros. 2 on August 19 affects the handheld’s growth.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo’s announcement of the Nintendo 3DS XL is exciting news for the company, if sales of its DSi XL are any indication. Made specifically for older players who are more interested in a bigger screen than they are in a console that fits in their pocket, the DSi XL sold over 12 million systems since it launched on November 21, 2009, in Japan, roughly 8 percent of all Nintendo DS sales. And if DSi XL trends hold true, this success will continue for the 3DS XL.

The Nintendo DS debuted in November 2004 and has had three major iterations since its launch: the DS Lite, the DSi, and the DSi XL. Of the over 150 million systems sold since 2004, 93.8 million were the DS Lite, 26.8 million units were the DSi, and the remaining 18.8M million were the original DS. More important, the DSi XL outsold the DSi by 1.3 million consoles in 2011 fiscal year. Both the DSi and DSi XL have maintained strong sales even after Nintendo released its 3DS, while other DS models have seen sharp declines.

What could this mean for the 3DS XL? With 8 percent of all DS sales made in just three fiscal years, the DSi XL accounted for 19.4 percent of all DS models sold in the three years of its production. With only one current 3DS model and a worldwide market for larger portable, past sales indicate that the 3DS XL can provide for 20-30 percent of all 3DS sales worldwide, and sell millions of units.

The Nintendo 3DS XL goes on sale in Japan on July 28 and in the U.S. on August 19. It costs $199 and features a 4.88-inch top display and 4.18-inch bottom display, which are 90 percent larger than the 3DS. The 3DS originally sold for $250, and the price quickly dropped to the current retail value of $169.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your tickets here.

Nintendo announced a redesign of its Nintendo 3DS portable system during its Nintendo Direct video briefing tonight.

The Nintendo 3DS features a top screen that is 90 percent larger than the current version of the handheld and will launch in the US for $199.99 on August 19, alongside the release of New Super Mario Bros. 2 (NSMB2). It will also feature improved battery life as well as a 4GB memory card to store content downloaded from Nintendo’s eShop. Starting with NSMB2, the eShop will start offering full game downloads.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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