A survey carried out by VoucherCodesPro of 1,442 men in the United Kingdom found that men who have been in relationships for six months or more would rather play a new video game than have sex with their partner. Forty-nine percent of men surveyed said that they would choose video games over sex, while 32 percent would rather have sex with their partner, and 19 percent indicated that their choice would depend on the game in question.

A note to investors from financial analyst firm Cowen and Company predicts that NPD numbers will show a double digit decline in retails sales until the next Madden game hits store shelves, and that April will see a shortfall of 13 percent compared to last year.

In one of the most bizarre stories we've heard this week, Capcom's UK Marketing department will fill a swimming pool full of blood, gore and other body parts to promote the release of its next Resident Evil game in London.

The "first ever blood filled swimming pool" can hold about 55,000 gallons of water and will feature (fake, of course) human torsos as floatation devices, intestines as lane markers, and all kinds of gruesome objects floating in the water including bloody bandages, eyeballs, tendrils and blood clots. Zombie lifeguards will also be on hand...

A source speaking to The Wall Street Journal today tells the publication that Microsoft's long-rumored "Xbox TV" set-top streaming device is struggling, with Microsoft not sure how or if it will move forward with the device.

The unnamed sources claims that the device has gone through several redesigns - including a recent design that integrated the Kinect - but Microsoft is not satisfied with it.

This really shouldn't come as any shock to anyone that has spent even a little bit of time at a real casino in America, but it looks like some folks in Las Vegas, Nevada don't like Google Glass.

A mildly amusing story on My San Antonio details how the new head coach for the Texas Tech Football program is preparing players coming back from Spring break to get ready for training camps this summer. A tweet from Texas Tech offensive lineman Alfredo Morales offers a picture of a note from the new coach Kliff Kingsbury which details his advice to returning players:

According to this Daily Mail story (by way of The Escapist), the leader of the Scottish Police are blaming Gears of War for a vicious knife attack.

According to this GameSpot report Respawn Entertainment's next game will be an Xbox 720 exclusive and will be "always online." According to the report, the game will be a multiplayer-focused, always-online Xbox 720 exclusive, with a release for Xbox 360 to happen at some point but to be developed by some other studio. If the report is to be believed the new game from the former Infinity Ward developers will not be available on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles.

Nintendo will not be hosting a big press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this summer as it has in the past, according to an announcement made by the company earlier in the week. Instead the company plans to host something that is in line with its Nintendo Direct online broadcasts. Instead of its usual press conference and show presence, Nintendo says that it will host smaller private events for media and distributors, and that its E3 presence will be limited to showing off software this year.

Fans want a new Earthbound game so badly in North America that some have even offered to translate Mother 3 into English for Nintendo for free. The team of fans, which includes a professional translator, has offered to localize the game in English for Nintendo free of charge in a post on its development blog.

Mother 3 has never released outside of Japan, much to the chagrin of just about every gamer in North America and Europe.

Microsoft has announced a new incentive for Japan that will kick into high gear on April 20th. Xbox 360 owners in the region will get free Microsoft Points based on the collective amount of time that participants in the campaign use the console in Japan. To get those free points Japanese Xbox 360 players will hit the milestone of playing for 300,000 hours using the Xbox 360 to get 100 ($1.25) Microsoft Points for Xbox Live Gold subscribers and 10 Points for free members.

It's that silly season (the time between major events like the Game Developers Conference and the Electronic Entertainment Expo) where rumors fly fast and furious about what the biggest companies in the industry have planned. So with that in mind, there's a new rumor that says that the "always online" requirement we have been hearing about for the new Xbox console is actually for the Xbox Mini device. Rumors about the device first surfaced in March of last year.

Even as Congress tackles the issue of crafting decent legislation to deal with cyberattacks (and no, CISPA is not decent legislation in its current form) in a secret "closed to the public" markup meeting, Techdirt has uncovered the fact that 27 companies have told the SEC that cyberattacks have had no impact. According to this Bloomberg report, 27 companies reported cyberattacks in SEC filings.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus will take a salary of just $1 in 2013, according to Inside Social Games. We're not sure if this move by the social game giant's CEO is a publicity stunt to garner good will or not, but it's certainly a bold move by Pincus.

The Chinese military publicly released a shooter a few months ago called Glorious Mission and it has proven to be a hit - according to this BBC report. The game, which is obviously pro-Chinese military because it was designed initially as a sort of training tool for soldiers in the Communist country, has been downloaded more than a million times.

Gu Kai, vice-president of the software developers behind the game, Giant Network Technology, says this game will likely help bring in new army recruits.

Nvidia's Senior vice president of content and technology, Tony Tamasi says that the next wave of mobile devices (we assume using Nvidia technology) will outperform current generation consoles. He goes so far as to say that current generation systems like the Xbox 360 and PS3 can barely hold an edge over today's Tegra 4 powered devices.

"The PS3 and Xbox 360 are barely more powerful than mobile devices," he told Bit-tech. "The next click of mobile phones will outperform [them]."

A new study by Iowa State researchers claims that (wait for it) there is a "strong connection" between playing violent video games and youth violence and delinquency. Backed by the usual suspects at the university that continues to publish studies saying that video games are basically responsible for everything wrong with children today, this particular study was conducted by Matt DeLisi, a professor of sociology at the university.

Starbreeze Studios and publisher Sony Online Entertainment do not want to be associated with a video promoting a contest seeking "women" to star in a proposed movie based on the popular Payday game. The CEO of Starbreeze went out of his way to explain to Games Industry International this morning that the video featuring an office visit to the Overkill Software is not representative of the company's views. Some have called out the video featuring Top Model Sweden contestants Angner Sophie and Nina Strauss sexist in tone for its use of sexual language and jokes.

If you are one of those YouTube users who put up a Shining Force video and had it unceremoniously yanked by YouTube at the request of Sega, then you'll be happy to read this story. Sega says via this Sega forum post that it will no longer engage in such anti-community activities any longer (thanks to Andrew Eisen for sending this one in).

An interesting story on The Verge quoting Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman reported that the $99 Android-based home console set to launch in June (for those who didn't back its Kickstarter crowd funding campaign) would not have multiplayer capabilities at launch. Obviously this message was not well received by the gaming community and the company quickly clarified it's CEO's statement saying that it was a mistake. First, Uhrman comments:

A new study from Brad Bushman of Ohio State University comes to the conclusion that some players of violent video games are led there out of a sense of frustration because they cannot engage in taboo behaviors in the real world such as stealing or cheating. Don't worry, the latest Bushman study will connect this to aggression, violent video games, and a negative effect of some kind... The temptation to steal or cheat is sometimes great — especially when the risk of being caught is low.

It looks like the Boys Scouts of America are finally recognizing that video games and technology are important in society. The Boy Scouts of America is now offering a merit badge in game design, according to GamesBeat. The organization has apparently spent the last two years building a program that will enable scouts to do the work necessary to earn the badge.

Bottomline Guild announced its plans to host a 24-hour online gaming marathon to raise money for Wounded Warrior Project called GamePocalypse 2013. This massive gaming event will take place within the virtual worlds of Rift, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and PlanetSide 2. Gamers will be participating in events running for 24 hours, starting at 12:00AM Central Standard Time, March 16th, 2013. All proceeds from the GamePocalypse 2013 event will go directly to charity.

If you need a laugh to end your Friday on then this story over at The Verge will probably do the trick. In it a Time Warner Cable executive responded to a question about Google's impressive broadband speeds on its new Kansas City broadband fiber network by saying that its customers don't want the blazingly fast speeds that a gigabit internet could provide. Wait, what?

This amusing video takes something Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News about a year ago related to the government's use of drones for domestic surveillance within the borders of the United States by showing him how it could be done in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The video is the product of the fine folks at Coffee with Games (which incidentally are two of my favorite things).

Apparently consumers just love microtransactions so much that EA has decided to put them in every game it makes going forward. Those ideas sprang forth from the mouth of CFO Blake Jorgensen today during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference - as reported by GameSpot.

Ars Technica points out a new scam trolling internet users with legal threats demanding cash settlements for alleged incidents of infringement. An organization calling itself the Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency (ICLEA) recently sent out copyright infringement notices to victims warning them that "if this matter is not settled by Friday, March 1, 2013 then you may face serious potential criminal and/or civil charges filed against you.

As Republicans and Democrats publically spar over sequestration, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has decided to throw "wasteful spending" into the mix by mentioning research on smoking machines, a free cell phone program, and even the use of video games for research on the elderly into the national conversation (here is a great explanation of what 'sequester' means, if you are interested).

Video Game Developer and IGDA Member Daniel Greenberg has challenged Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to a debate on whether video games are a bigger problems than guns in America. His comments were made awhile back during a segment on MSNBC.

While it is unlikely that the Senator from Tennessee will take up Mr. Greenberg's offer for a vigorous and substantive debate on guns, media violence, and real-world violence, he has thrown down the gauntlet anyway:

House GOP majority leader Eric Cantor called out a study by North Carolina State University related to World of Warcraft's ability to "boosts cognitive functioning in some older adults" a waste of tax payer dollars. The study was paid for by a $1.2 million federal grant. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a statement released this week that this kind of spending is the cause of the country’s debt.