The United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) watchdog agency has given mobile phone app developers two months to adapt to new in-app purchasing rules that better protect children (and subsequently their credit-card holding parents) from in-game micro-transactions and messaging that generally encourages them to buy things to advance gameplay. The OFT has given developers a deadline of April 1 to make their apps for iOS, Windows Phone, and Android devices comply with new rules.

Nvidia today announced pricing and a release window for its hand-held console system, Project SHIELD (now called simply SHIELD), this morning. The system will cost almost as much as the Wii U, which is surprising given that its other Android-based competitors like the GameStick and the Ouya are priced at right around $100.

No one can deny that PlayJam's Kickstarter campaign for its GameStick Android console has proven successful, though not as successful as that other Android-based console Ouya. The Kickstarter campaign closed with $647,658 - $547,658 more than it was seeking with its original goal of $100,000 (the Ouya closed with nearly $8.6 million raised).

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai had a few short but notable things to say about Nvidia's freshly announced handheld console, Project Shield, and his thoughts on how the PlayStation Vita is doing at this moment in time. First, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Hirai admitted that the system is at the low-end of the company's expectations:

Hugo Smits, founder of indie developer Goodbye Galaxy Games has responded to the concerns of developer Jools Watsham who lamented about the potential uptick in 3DS piracy after a hacker claimed that he was able to load pirated software onto Nintendo's hand-held. Goodbye Galaxy Games has developed a number of games for DSi-Ware including Flipper, Flipper 2, Ace Mathician and the upcoming game Color Commando.

Perhaps realizing that to compete with the Samsungs and Apples of the world in the tablet market it needed to expand its reach beyond its own website, Amazon is now offerings its Kindle Fire devices at GameStop. GameStop is now selling the Kindle Fire tablet at their retail stores and is offering a nifty promotional $25 Amazon.com gift card as an incentive. The device is available now for $199.99 in all 4,400 U.S. GameStop stores. The Kindle Fire HD and 7" versions of the tablet are also available in select stores.

If you're tired of the captain on your flight telling you to shut off all your electronic devices during take-offs and landings, you may be happy to hear that the FAA is continuing to examine whether such steps are necessary because there's little proof to support the notion that such devices actually interfere with an aircraft's vital electronic equipment. You might be even more delighted to hear that the FCC thinks those restrictions should be lifted as well.

Sony has released full details on the PS Vita firmware update 2.00 which is hitting Europe today and was pushed out to North American PS Vita owners yesterday. The update adds some new features to the hand-held and offers a ton of tweaks.

According to this Reuters report, Apple is now complying with local warranty laws in Italy after the company was threatened by the Italian government with shut downs of its local businesses and hefty fines if it did not comply. Last week Apple stopped selling its AppleCare warranty plans in its retail stores in Italy. The paid warranty program from Apple offers coverage after the limited warranty on an Apple product expires.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is considering getting rid of a ban on using electronic devices when an aircraft is below 10,000 feet. According to this PDF file from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the agency has announced a "request for comments" about the issue from the public and experts.

While many would like to see Sony slash the price of its PS Vita hand-held - mostly because it's the same price as a brand new PS3 - the company says that this is unlikely to happen in 2012. Speaking with Eurogamer, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida says that the company has taken that option off the table for 2012, but it is trying to find new ways to bring value to customers.

Sony is doing all it can this week at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany to breathe new life into its latest hand-held, the PlayStation Vita. Earlier in the week it announced that it would give consumers a free copy of a Vita game when they purchased a select PS3 game, and announced that an upcoming firmware update would make PlayStation Classic games compatible on the hand-held.

According to new research from NPD Group, hand-held consoles are still more popular than the iPad, despite Apple's popular tablet device making in-roads with children because of its ease-of-use and large library of games and apps. According to the data released by the retail research firm, children ages 4 - 14 still spend most of their gaming time with dedicated gaming machines. Tablet devices did have gains from 2012 usage though: according to NPD tablet usage was up 10 percent of 2011 numbers.

While Political Machine 2012 is probably the de facto election year strategy game of choice for PC and Mac players right now, those looking to run a campaign on iOS and Android devices can always check out Election Game 2012: Race for the White House. While we can't attest to the quality of this game (we haven't played it personally) developer Lunagames promises a down and dirty political campaign to win the highest office in the land: the presidency.

Samsung is having mixed results in its ongoing patent fight with Apple. In the United States it was handed a setback by a Federal Judge, but a United Kingdom court judge handed it a victory over Apple. According to Courthouse News, a Federal Judge who previously issued a temporary injunction that effectively banned the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphones in the U.S. (for violating Apple's patents) refused a request by the company to allow it to continue selling the device while it appeals the ruling. U.S.

Nintendo will be at Comic-Con 2012 showing off the freshly announced Nintendo 3DS XL, the company announced today. It will not be showing off the Wii U for some reason...

Engage Digital has issued a call for speakers for the second annual App Conference on October 18-19, 2012 in Santa Clara, CA. Those interested in sharing their expertise with the app development and business community can submit their pitches here.

The deadline is June 11. The event caters to app developers on various platforms including game developers.

Sony Computer Entertainment is bullish on PS Vita's future in the current fiscal year, despite its lack of Vita software shown during its E3 press conference this week. The company said this week that it expects to sell ten million units of its newest hand-held system by March 2013 - the end of its current fiscal year. It will do this, it claims, by releasing "blockbuster games" during the holiday season and by strengthening the system's online offerings as well.

If you have been thinking about buying a PS Vita but were hoping that Sony might slash the price of its newest hand-held like Nintendo did with the 3DS you can forget about it. When asked by Eurogamer about the prospect of a price cut for the PS Vita in the near term, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said that it was too soon to do that.

Yesterday Sony released firmware update 1.65 for the PS Vita... and then quickly yanked it offline. Apparently the 1.65 has some serious issues - namely problems with adhoc multiplayer. To deal with the issues caused by 1.65 and to add some new tweaks to the handheld, Sony has released firmware update 1.66. The 97MB update fixes the issue with adhoc wireless multiplayer on PSP games and adds an assortment of usability tweaks.

According to several Tweets last night by indie developer Edmund McMillen, Nintendo has decided not to allow The Binding of Isaac on the 3DS.  Nintendo itself has released no statement but McMillen, one of the game’s designers, speculates that it’s the religious context of the game that’s giving the publisher pause.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is reporting that, beginning in March of 2012, the Louvre in Paris, France will use 5,000 3DS hand-helds to guide its 8.5 million annual visitors through the 35,000 art objects on display. The hand-helds are being supplied by Nintendo as part of a new partnership between the company and the iconic museum.

The 3DS systems the museum will use let visitors locate themselves on the museum's grounds, select from themed tours tailored to both adults and children, and listen to commentary about exhibits in seven different languages.

According to Nintendo, its 3DS hand-held has managed to beat the first year sales of its predecessor, the Nintendo DS - and it managed to do this in the first eight-months of release. Of course, the top executives at Nintendo forget to mention that the Nintendo DS did not have a price cut in that first year of sales, nor did it cause investors in Nintendo to demand that the company do a course correction and consider releasing software on other competing platforms like iOS.

Microsoft has officially abandoned Zune, admitting publicly for the first time that production of the hardware has ceased. RIP, iPod wannabe. Microsoft said that Windows Phone will be where it puts all its attention on in that space and that Zune will live on as a brand. The Zune brand will live on as the face of Microsoft’s content sales services. It remains a mainstay in the Entertainment section of the Xbox dashboard, for example.

As we reported last week, GameStop has launched an iOS device trade-in program that allows consumers to trade in their old iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mini, Shuffle, or Nano devices for in-store credit. GameStop is not saying how much they'll pay for each system, but they are saying what condition it has to be in order for consumers to sell it to them. The company said that it will not accept iOS devices in with the following issues:

- iPod, iPhone or iPad devices with dents, severe scratches or personal engravings on the casing.

A new report by Newzoo, claims that consumer spending on games in the US by the end of this year will total $21.6 billion, slightly lower than spending in 2010. In 2012, Newzoo predicts slightly modest growth of the total US games market of 3 percent as online and mobile games continue to increase their share of the total market and console games spending stabilizes.

The results depicted in the infograph, are based on analysis of high-level data from the US National Gamers Surveys over the last three years. For the first time in 2011, mobile, online and download games will capture more than half of total consumer spending by Americans.

VentureBeat has released the fifth set of speakers for its third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, which includes Neil Young, founder and CEO of Ngmoco; Andrej Naborgoj, CEO of Outfit 7, the maker of Talking Friends; and Jason Citron, chief executive of OpenFeint, which was recently acquired by Gree. GamesBeat 2011 conference takes place July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

If you ask the average consumer they will tell you that getting something for free is never a bad thing. But if you ask Nintendo president Satoru Iwata he'll tell you that free games are destroying the industry. Speaking to Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD, Iwata said that the free-to-play business model devalues software.

"Nintendo is a company which is trying to maintain the overall value of video games," Satoru Iwata told the Wall Street Journal. "We have no intention to provide a property to any other platforms, or making them available in a mode that does not require consumers to pay at all. If we were simply going to say OK, the only the way we could sell more products is by decreasing the price, then there wouldn't be a bright future and the entire industry will fold."

Sony announced at its E3 press conference the name, price and mobile carrier associated with its latest hand-held. The name of the device formerly known as NGP is now PS Vita, and will retail for $249 for the Wi-Fi only version and $299 for its Wi-Fi 3G version. The one wrinkle for users is that Sony has decided to use AT&T in North America. It's only a wrinkle if you are concerned about data caps, of course.

AT&T has monthly limits to its mobile broadband, with tiered service plans offering only a few hundred megabytes to several gigabytes per month. While Sony says that using Vita via your plan is "free," one would assume that it counts against your data cap dictated by your subscription plan.

Fight, fight, fight. Apple has filed a lawsuit against Samsung claiming the technology used in its Galaxy tablet and smartphones is copied from Apple's iPhone and iPad technology. The company is also alleging that Samsung has infringed on the "style" and user interface of the iPhone and iPad. The Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S and Nexus S were specifically named.

"Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products," the lawsuit said.

Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told the BBC: "This kind of blatant copying is wrong."

Samsung said that its products are the result of research and development carried out by the company.