Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says that new consoles coming to market near the end of this month could signal greater consumer interest in games overall, which in turn will help Nintendo.

Reuters is reporting that the UK government is threatening to move to stop papers in the country from publishing further leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. According to Reuters, British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that his government was "likely" to move towards putting a stop to newspapers from publishing "damaging leaks" from Edward Snowden unless they started to "behave more responsibly."

Joshua Howard, the lead producer of Crytek's free-to-play first-person shooter Warface says that the development teams decision to add female soldier skins to the game with "unrealistic proportions and revealing uniforms," was the result of player feedback and represented a certain "cultural relativism."

Democracy Now, "a daily independent global news hour" hosted by Amy Goodman & Juan González talks extensively with Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade treaty.

A Wisconsin teen has managed to get himself officially banned from playing video games. According to multiple reports, Racine County Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch ordered 17-year-old Jeffery A. Ehlers of Mount Pleasant to pay a $250 signature bond and ordered him to not play video games or have "violent contact" with his family. Ehlers made his first court appearance on Monday answering charges of disorderly conduct. He is being charged as an adult.

If you want to fan the flames of a pending console war where fans and developers alike malign each other in the name of brand loyalty, then this Edge article on which console has more power will do the trick.

During the same press conference where it revealed a lighter and thinner PS Vita and the new PS Vita TV micro console, Sony delivered some bad news to Japanese consumers: the PlayStation 4 will launch much later in Japan than anywhere else in the world.

Update: Politico is reporting that the White House knew that David Miranda would be stopped at London's Heathrow Airport before it happened, but it also denied any involvement in the incident.

"This is a decision that they made on their own and not at the request of the United States," White House principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said.

The Australian Classification Board has refused classification on several games in recent weeks because they featured interactive drug use, but as web site Stevivor points out (thanks to Cheater87 for the link), different rules seem to apply to making and selling drugs.

Google and Russia's biggest search engine Yandex are voicing their opposition to a new bill that would block sites accused of hosting (in some way) copyrighted material. The new bill, which has already passed Russia's State Duma, is being called Russia's version of the Stop Online Piracy Act. The bill gives intellectual property holders the ability to sue a web site that they claim is hosting copyrighted materials. The accused site then has 72 hours to remove the offending material (without the option of reviewing the claim).

The very first porn-related app for Google Glass has been banned by Google, along with any other applications that someone might think of in the future. The application created by software developer MiKandi called "Tits & Glass" allowed Google Glass users to record videos and take pictures of sexual partners and share them with other users of the app who could then rate them.

A New York Times article from earlier this week about the FBI's attempt to expand the scope of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and the subsequent response to it from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) should raise alarm bells for anyone that does anything on the Internet.

Liberal-flavored site Burnt Orange Report sheds some light on a Texas bill sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans in the House that gives law enforcement in the state broad powers to look at private Internet data without much justification.

The bill was sponsored by Texas Republican Reps. John Frullo, Allen Fletcher, and John Carona; and Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson. House Bill 2268 is described as follows:

An online marketing campaign for the free-to-play MMO game Wartune has caught the attention of the ESRB, who claims that it has asked the game's "publisher" to stop claiming that it has an ESRB "Adults Only" (AO) rating. The game has yet to be rated by the board, according to the organization.

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...

Polygon is reporting that Silicon Knights still exists, though it is down to just a handful of employees. The company reportedly unloaded its office equipment and game assets, and has closed its offices in St. Catharines, Ontario. Last summer the company reportedly laid off most of its staff and then a core group of Silicon Knights employees including SK founder Denis Dyack created a brand new studio called Precursor Games.

Democrats and Republicans in the Senate seem to agree that requiring online retailers to collect sales tax is a great idea. A bipartisan coalition from both parties easily passed the Marketplace Fairness Act by a vote of 69-to-27. The bill was sponsored by Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) who fast-tracked the bill and avoided any committee that might have had oversight over the bill.

Update: A representative for Activision points out that Bloomberg has updated its original story, and that because Activision is a public company it has to account for compensation in the year it is granted, even though the amount of performance-based compensation Kotick would receive under the new agreement he signed in 2012 would be vested over a five year period. Here's the update from the Bloomberg story we sourced:

New Jersey State Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union) plans to introduce legislation to ban violent video games in public places. The Assemblywoman has proposed a law that would ban all "M" rated and "Adults Only" games from public places such as amusement parks, movie theaters, bowling allies, retail stories and other public places. It is a move similar to what the Massachusetts Department of Transportation did on its thruways earlier this year.

On March 20 a coalition of advocacy groups, concerned citizens, academics, and web sites sent a letter to the White House urging the President of the United States to veto CISPA in its current state if it is passed by the House and Senate.

Next week when the House Intelligence Committee takes up the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA - HR 624) it will hold its markup hearing behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the general public and critics of the bill. Not only will this hide the discussion lawmakers have about this bill, but it will also allow them to stealthily make any amendments to the bill they like without having to worry about immediate scrutiny from anyone.

Oblivious to a Federal Trade Commission report released this week that said that only 13 percent of under-age secret shoppers it deployed (as part of a Secret Shopper Survey program in 2012) were able to buy video games from national retailers (see the story here) New Jersey Assemblyman Sean T.

Sony Online Entertainment will merge the two remaining servers for its MMO Vanguard into one big server on April 4 at 10 p.m. PDT, the company announced this week. On April 9, the European Halgar server will permanently be taken offline, following its merge with the Telon server. SOE warned players that when this happens the game will be down for a 24 hour period - but that's not the worst of it; when the two servers are merged into one server some characters may be affected.

This Destructoid article citing a thread on NeoGAF calls into question a Kickstarter campaign to send a little girl to "RPG camp." The Kickstarter campaign, "9 Year Old Building an RPG to Prove Her Brothers Wrong!" by Susan Wilson asked for $869 to send a little girl to RPG ca

A sensational New York Daily News report (dug up by Kotaku) details what a "law enforcement source" (who spoke at length with the paper) calls Adam Lanza's "score sheet," a spreadsheet filled with information from past mass killings.

Update: PlayStation Lifestyle has an extensive trophy list (may contain spoilers) that lists the "Bros before Hos" trophy being earned by escaping the "Fury ambush," and not by simply curb stomping a Fury.

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.

The House cybersecurity bill that received strong criticism from the White House, privacy groups and the Internet is going to be re-introduced on Wednesday according to The Hill. House Intelligence Committee leaders Reps.

Yesterday Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA) released "A Comprehensive Plan That Reduces Gun Violence and Respects the 2nd Amendment Rights of Law-Abiding Americans," which details the recommendations of the " Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force." While there are plenty of recommendations on guns and curbing gun violence, mental health issues and school safety, there is a portion of the report dedicated to violent media.

The UK tabloid The Sun is running a feature length story about a saucy calendar featuring gaming and scantily clad women that is apparently all the rage in Germany - right alongside David Hasselhoff... The article is titled "Nerd is the word," and highlights the fact that the "calendar featuring classic gaming consoles and sexy girls" is a "big hit.." We think it's a big miss personally because it objectifies women in the name of geek culture.