Nexon's newly appointed CEO Owen Mahoney tells Reuters that his company is keen on acquiring North American IP to gain a better footing in Western markets. Nexon runs the still-popular MOO Maple Story and plenty of other online free-to-play titles.

According to a research note from Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter to investors, game sales dipped 20 percent on the weakness of current generation sales in the month of January. Pachter is making his predictions ahead of the NPD Groups' retail report for the month of January. When those numbers are released on Thursday, Pachter says that they will show that retail software sales fell 20 percent in January to around $300 million - down 20 percent from the $373 million generated in the same period a year ago.

Sony's games division (which covers PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, and PlayStation Network) recorded sales and operating revenue of 441.8 billion yen (or $4.35 billion USD) for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2013. That's a 64.6 percent year-on-year increase thanks to the launch of the PlayStation 4 in major markets around the world last November.

Here's an odd but true story. Online retailer and Kindle Fire maker Amazon has acquired Killer Instinct creator Double Helix for an undisclosed amount of cash. The Irvine, California-based company that created Killer Instinct for the Xbox One console, was founded in 2007 through the merger of The Collective and Shiny Entertainment. The company currently employs around 75 people, who will continue to operate out of their Orange County offices, according to TechCrunch.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) is reporting that Disney Interactive is getting ready to lay off several hundred employees from its global workforce. The layoffs are expected to begin shortly after the company releases its latest quarterly results - which will happen tomorrow. Currently the company employs about 3,000 people across various studios.

Publisher Take-Two Interactive released financial results for its fiscal third quarter ending December 31, 2013, revealing that it raked in a whopping $578 million in profits. The company attributed the lion's share of this profit to its latest game in the popular Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto V.

Following Nintendo's less-than-stellar fiscal report last month and the company's investor briefing (which laid out plans that not everyone thought were all that clear cut), the company has revealed a 114.2 billion-yen ($1.1 billion) share buyback plan set to launch tomorrow.

The PC version of Minecraft has passed the 14 million copies sold mark, according to Mojang co-founder and game creator Markus 'Notch' Persson. Over the weekend Persson tweeted the latest milestone for his hit building game. That's up from the number of 13 million in sales by the end of December 2013.

Mojang also recently announced sales of 10 million copies of the Xbox 360 version and one million copies of the PlayStation 3 version. The PS3 version hit that impressive milestone after only five weeks of availability on the platform.

Norwegian MMO developer and publisher Funcom is under investigation for insider trading, according to this Eurogamer report. According to the report, staff were sent home today as Norwegian authorities collected documents related to an investigation into insider trading, though specific details about the investigation remain unknown as of this writing. Funcom's stock has also been temporarily frozen on the Oslo stock market.

EA COO Peter Moore says that weaker sales of Battlefield 4 on last generation consoles are due to the turbulence of the console transition and not 'quality issues' that plagued the game's launch. EA announced last night that next-gen software sales were robust, but not strong enough to offset a massive decline in last-generation software during the holiday season.

Electronic Arts announced financial results for the fiscal third quarter of 2013 that ended on Dec. 31. The company said that sales of next-generation software (PS4, Xbox One) were robust, but not enough to offset a massive decline in last generation software sales (PS3, Xbox 360). EA said that it was the number one third-party publisher of next-generation software, taking a 35 percent market share during the holiday season.

Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online expects to rake in around $1.2 billion in revenue this year, and because it keeps its overhead low, it expects to keep about $700 million of that figure after expenses. These numbers are from CEO Kazuki Morishita, who recently spoke with CNN Fortune about the company's runaway hit game and business in general.

He attributes at least some of his company's success to his experience as a Manzai artist and stand-up comedian - believe it or not.

Crowdfunding platform Indiegogo has raised $40 million in a brand new round of funding, the company announced this week. The money, which it earned the old fashioned way (not through crowdfunding, but soliciting investments from high profile lenders), will be spent to expand its business globally, and allow it to better support mobile platforms. Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin also wants to use the money to raise the funding engine's profile worldwide. Indiegogo raised the $40 million from Institutional Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

It should come as no shock to anyone that Minecraft on the PS3 has sold one million copies. Mojang's Daniel Kaplan described the new sales milestone as "crazy" but no one should be surprised that PS3 owners love Minecraft as much as everyone else does.

Microsoft has purchased the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games, much like it did with Halo. The company now owns the franchise and all previous versions of the game. The Globe and Mail has all the details on the deal, including the fact that Microsoft's Vancouver-based studio, Black Tusk Studios, will be in charge of the franchise moving forward.

Disney's game and toy tie-up Disney Infinity has managed to sell through three million "starter packs" according to the New York Times. The game launched in August of 2013 and managed to move three million units. Starter packs come with the game, an Infinity Base peripheral, three character figures, three Play Sets, one Disc and unique Web codes for online and mobile content. The Xbox 360 version of the starter pack starts at right around $80.

On Friday Nintendo projected that it would take a $240 million net loss for the fiscal year ending in March on weak holiday sales of its Wii U console and related software, and scaled back its sales projections for its home console and its 3DS hand-held. This morning the company is seeing the effects of that news in its stock price, according to this BBC report.

Publisher Majesco released results for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2013 as well as for the full year, and it is not good news. For the quarter, the Zumba publisher said that net revenues were down a whopping 62 percent to $10.1 million, with a net loss of $4.6 million. For the full fiscal year, Majesco's net revenues declined 64 percent to $47.3 million, leading to an operating loss of $12.6 million.

GameStop said today that it generated $3.15 billion in total worldwide sales over the nine-week holiday shopping season of 2013. The numbers represent a 9.3 increase over the same period a year ago, which can be directly attributed to new consoles and new console software sales. In fact, GameStop said that hardware sales were up 99.8 percent over the same period a year ago. Go figure.

Dave Roberts, chief executive of Electronic Arts’ PopCap Games division, will retire next week, according to a GamesBeat report. Roberts, who joined the company almost nine years ago will officially exit the company on January 8, with PopCap co-founder John Vechey taking over the job of CEO at the Seattle-based studio responsible for the Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled franchises.

According to an article published by Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper on Sunday, the National Security Agency (NSA) has a catalog of "backdoors" that allows spies to infiltrate equipment from major computing and security vendors including firewalls from Juniper Networks, hard drives from Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, networking gear from Cisco and Huawei, and unspecified equipment from Dell.

David DeMartini, a former senior vice president at EA has joined Oculus VR as its new head of worldwide publishing. DeMartini is the first executive to join this brand new division. He says that this new position is not unlike what he did for Electronic Arts.

This week Japanese publisher Cyber Front announced its dissolution in a simple statement (PDF, Japanese) published on its website (according to a translation by Gamasutra).

Electronic Arts has found itself on the business end of a class action lawsuit related to the numerous bugs, glitches, and technical problems related to Battlefield 4. The game, which launched in November on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One has suffered numerous problems since launch, and while EA and developer DICE have tried to get a handle on things, apparently some investors (not players, surprisingly enough) are so upset that they have decided to take the fight to a court room.

In a meeting with investors today (as detailed by Bloomberg) Sony CEO Kaz Hirai acknowledged that the company is looking to make $250 million worth of cuts in its entertainment business, but gently rejected a plan by its biggest shareholder to sell off its media business.

The Walt Disney Company is reorganizing its video games and media groups under the auspices of Disney Interactive, according to a GII report. The company will merge the two group together and current co-president Jimmy Pitaro will take charge of the division. Co-President John Pleasants will be leaving his current post, but he will reportedly work closely with Pitaro "to ensure a smooth transition and serve as a strategic consultant to the business."

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has partnership with South Korean publisher Daum Communications to bring the massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS) PlanetSide 2 to the region. SOE and Daum will showcase PlanetSide 2 at the G-STAR Global Game Exhibition in Busan, South Korea on November 14-16, 2013.

Daum has secured the exclusive publishing rights to the game, including dedicated servers, local customer support and payment gateways for South Korea. PlanetSide 2 will launch in the region as a free-to-play game.

Video and video game rental giant Blockbuster is not going to exist by the end of January 2014. Parent company Dish Network announced today that it will shut down its retail and by-mail rental distribution operations by early January 2014. The 300 remaining retail stores in the United States and distribution centers will also be closed.

"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," Dish CEO Joseph P. Clayton said in a statement.

Because the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (EDC) did a pretty lousy job of keeping records during the whole 38 Studios $75 million loan guarantee deal, the agency charged with spurring economic growth in the state will be installing tracking software to keep tabs on its employees.

While Red Bull is the number one brand on YouTube (mostly because it sponsors so many interesting sporting and gaming events worldwide), "PlayStation" is also pretty popular, according to data collected by Statista and Mashable.