According to data from research firm NPD Group, the video game industry saw retail sales slide by 24 percent to $848.3 million, compared to the same month a year ago. Hardware sales suffered a huge drop in September, down 39 percent from a year ago to $210.9 million. Meanwhile, video game software sales dropped 18 percent. Software sales were down only 14 percent when PC game sales were factored into the number. Accessories were also down 11 percent.

Speaking to the New York Times, social game developer Supercell claims that it is raking in copious amounts of cash with its mobile endeavors. How much cash is it making on a daily basis of its games? According to the company, it is averaging over $500,000 a day from two of its most popular releases.

Anyone that has ever bought or considered buying a Square Enix game on a mobile platform has come to call its pricing the "Square Enix Tax." In other words, if you want to play a game like Final Fantasy Tactics on the iPad or iPhone, you're going to have to pay a premium price to have that privilege. Hardcore Square Enix fans begrudgingly accept this, but they are also vocal about it too.

Another key executive has left Zynga this week, joining what seems like a large scale exodus of talent from the social game developer and publisher. The latest to leave the company is Laurence Toney, the former general manager of Zynga Poker. Publication AllThingsD confirmed the departure, which happened yesterday. The publication was tipped off by a change in Toney's LinkedIn profile.

Microsoft has apparently decided that it will not use Microsoft Points - the popular currency of the current Windows Marketplace and Xbox Live - in its upcoming Windows 8 Marketplace for software purchases. Instead it will simply use U.S. dollars or whatever the currency of choice is in different regions. In previous Windows 8 beta releases Microsoft used its Points system for all video purchases and rentals.

Speaking to GamesIndustry International, EEDAR VP of Insights Jesse Divnich says that he thinks the social game publisher has fallen far enough in value that it could become an acquisition target for the right company.

"At a $1.7 billion market cap, a Zynga acquisition seems favorable for anyone looking to pick up 300 million pair of eyeballs every month," Divnich said. "I'd argue that Facebook could become a potential suitor for Zynga--of course I am not trying to spread any rumors; rather I am thinking out loud."

Baird Equity Research has downgraded social game developer and publisher Zynga after the company said that it expected a massive loss in the third quarter that ended on September 30. The company said that it now expects to report a $90 - $150 million loss for quarter. Zynga blamed the new numbers on "weakness of certain games" and an impairment charge of $85 million to $95 million related to its purchase of Draw Something developer OMGPOP.

While many have been keen to point out the continued decline of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft subscriber numbers, there's some good news for the company today: the latest expansion has given the game a boost past the 10 million subscriber mark. Back in August Blizzard revealed that its paid subscriber numbers had fallen to 9.1 million.

"It’s been gratifying to see the results of all of the work we put into this expansion and to hear all of the positive feedback from players so far," Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said.

Welcome to the platinum club, Resident Evil 6 and FIFA 13. According to word from Capcom, worldwide initial shipments of Resident Evil 6 have surpassed 4.5 million. This is the highest number of shipments for a single title, according to Capcom. The game was released on multiple platforms on October 2.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Sony Computer Entertainment UK boss Fergal Gara told the publication that gamers effectively killed off 3D gaming, because they voted with their pocketbooks.

An analyst at Lazard Capital is telling VentureBeat that early sales indicators on the newest World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, are below expectations. The firm estimates 600-700k copies of the expansion sold at retail since its launch on Tuesday, down a whopping 60 percent from the previous expansion. VentureBeat notes that this estimate probably doesn't take into account digital downloads of the expansion.

In a recent interview with Forbes Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime tried to calm fears that supply for the Wii U would not be enough to meet demand when the new console is released in mid-November.

Sony Computer Entertainment President and group CEO Andrew House told Reuters that his company is relying on its PS3 business to help it return to profitability this year.

"I think we will be profitable this year," House told the news agency at Tokyo Game Show this week. "We have a growing installed base, growing connectivity of the PS3."

Sony announced today that a new PlayStation 3 will launch next week, offering 500GB of storage and a super-slim case design that promises a 25 percent reduction in size and lower weight than the current model. The hardware comes with a sliding disk cover and will be available in black (and white in Japan), due for release September 28 in the UK.

It looks like Zynga has lost another high profile executive to another company as the mass exodus of executive talent continues. Today it's Omgpop's Wilson Kriegel, who joined the company when Omgpop was acquired earlier this year. In case you've forgotten, Omgpop made the popular iOS title Draw Something. Kriegel served as the company's chief revenue officer and handled the business development and marketing for the game.

Consumption of entertainment via digital has grown 74 percent in 2012, according to the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA). The data comes from a new report by the trade group called "D2 Report: Discs & Digital – The Business of Home Entertainment Retailing." The report found that various digital formats including electronic sell-through, video-on-demand, and subscription streaming grew 51 percent in 2011 and 74 percent in the first quarter of 2012. Much of this popularity can be explained by the increase in tablet and mobile devices being used in U.S.

"The force is strong with this one," we imagine Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime saying about Wii U pre-orders today. Of course, in reality Reggie is on Terra Firma and not on some death star targeting Ewoks. Instead he says that Wii U pre-orders after yesterday's announcement are "very strong."

According to a report on C&VG, Vivendi has not ruled out a sale of its majority stake in Activision Blizzard.

Yesterday NPD released a report that said that, in the last year, the number of gamers had declined by about five percent. The research firm's report ("Gamer Segmentation 2012: The New Faces of Gamers") found that 211.5 million people in the U.S. played games, about 12 million fewer than were counted in 2011.

While many accepted the numbers, not everyone agrees with them.

Based on EA's own internal estimates, sell-through for Madden NFL 13 was up 8 percent year-over-year on console platforms with more than 1.65 million units sold in week one (Aug. 28-Sept. 3) to mark what the company calls its best start ever on this console generation. Last week, EA announced that Madden NFL 13 had set a new release-day record on current generation consoles as well.

Cryptic Studios transitioned Star Trek Online to a free-to-play game recently and Perfect World Entertainment's wholly owned development studio revealed a little more on why they shifted the game from a subscription-based model to free-to-play in an exclusive interview with [A]ListDaily. Star Trek Online executive producer Dan Stahl and Perfect World vice president of business development and corporate communications John Young said the following:

A new report from government associations Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprises has Scottish developers very upset. The report contends that the Scottish games industry has no students studying game related subjects, a value of £0, and employs just 200 people. The report also claims that the industry only contributes 0.1 percent to the Scottish economy. Because that percentage was recorded as less than £10 million, it was rounded down to zero. The report used information from 2010.

While it's not much of a shock, it is still a good sign that Madden as a franchise is strong at retail and as popular as ever with consumers. Electronic Arts claims that Madden NFL 13 has managed to sell-through 900,000 units in its first 24 hours of release. The company said that the number represented a 7 percent year-over-year increase on HD platforms. Madden NFL 13 also set a day one online usage record with a 28 percent increase in peak simultaneous users over last year’s first day.

Departing OnLive CEO and founder Steve Perlman offers some advice to the general public about his former company: give them a chance. That's what he said to a fan site about the could-based subscription gaming service recently acquired by venture capitalist Gary Lauder.

If you have ever wanted to stop and look at the grisly aftermath of a train wreck, then this fairly detailed story on Polygon has just what you need. In it former employees detail an erratic Steve Perlman, former CEO on the cloud-based game streaming service OnLive. Besides describing at great length Steve Perlman's erratic behavior, ill treatment of employees, and his penchant for over micro-managing, the article details a number of opportunities that could have saved the company.

Funcom has indicated that it plans to make smaller games that don't have as much upfront costs or long development cycles. The company came to this conclusion after the disappointing performance of its latest game The Secret World, according to this Gamasutra report. The first game to focus on this new development model will be a free-to-play title based on LEGO's Minifigures toys.

New research from the University of Alberta (Canada) comes to the conclusion that preschoolers from low-income neighborhoods and children who spend more than two hours of screen-time a day either watching TV or playing video games have a "thirst for sugary soda and juice."

If you're a small independent game development studio Facebook might seem like a good place to develop games for, but this Los Angeles Times article describes some of the financial pitfalls that might await you if you launch a game in that space.

While THQ's layoffs announced this week pale in comparison to OnLive's last week or reductions in staff at PopCap and the outright closure of Studio Liverpool, a layoff is a layoff and it doesn't matter if you are one of one-hundred or one of ten affected.

Sony claims that it has sold right around 2.2 million PS Vita hand-held systems since its launch as of June 30. In May of this year the company announced that it had managed to move 1.8 million units of the system. Around 400,000 units sold during the months of April, May, and June. Earlier in the month Sony said that it sold about 1.4 million PS Vitas and PlayStation Portables combined during the last quarter, with the PSP accounting for nearly 1 million of the total.