The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which assigns the official age and content ratings for computer and video games, announced a new public service announcement (PSA) campaign starring San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and pitcher Ryan Vogelsong at AT&T Park. The PSAs, which feature the players explaining the ESRB rating system and encouraging parents to use it when buying games for their families, will soon begin running on television and radio stations throughout northern California as well as at Giants home games this season.  

With its first three House of the Dead games, Sega pretty much kept to form, putting two unlikely heroes together to save the world from a zombie apocalypse.  Sure, the third game – which arrived on PlayStation Network a while back – introduced some awesome shotguns, but the status quo of “shoot everything that moves” remained intact.  So would the same go for House of the Dead 4?  Well, sort of.

Sega’s House of the Dead games weren’t out to change the world by any means.  The company merely put them together to give arcade goers the chance to blow off dozens of zombie heads without feeling remorse or worrying about how the world would end up after we cleaned house.  You know, none of that Walking Dead crap.  Now, ten years after making its debut in arcades (and sometime later on Xbox and Nintendo Wii), The House of the Dead III has come to PlayStation Network, complete with Move support, some slightly updated graphics, and a few other features.  Is it still worth it?  Absolutely, if you don’t mind the carnage.

LAS VEGAS – The Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2012) opened its doors to press, analysts and buyers featuring a record number of exhibitors, more than 3,100 companies on a show floor that will exceed 1.85 million net square feet of exhibit space. Pre-show media events with innovative product launches kicked off the 2012 CES, with cutting-edge products including ultrabooks, voice and gesture-based technologies, smartphones and OLED TVs. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association, the 2012 International CES, the world's largest tradeshow for consumer technology, opens today and runs through Friday, January 13 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Hollywood stars, sports legends, musical icons and entertainers will attend the 2012 International CES to showcase and promote the innovative products and technologies shaping consumer technology. The 2012 International CES, the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow, is scheduled January 10-13, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

GamerLive.TV (www.gamerlive.tv), one of the top independent video game and technology online news sites, today announced that it has signed a content syndication and distribution deal with Tribune Media Services (TMS), a global content-licensing agency and business unit of Tribune Company, to provide video game reviews, previews and features. Officially starting this week, TMS (www.tmsfeatures.com) will syndicate GamerLive.TV editorial content to its publishing partners.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) Foundation’s 14th annual “Nite to Unite – for Kids” gala raised $900,000 to support the Foundation’s work on behalf of America’s youth. The proceeds from the annual dinner, auction and charity casino night will enable the ESA Foundation, the video game industry’s philanthropic arm, to improve the lives of children through grants to a wide variety of organizations, as well as a college scholarship program.

Sega's House of the Dead series has been haunting us for years, getting its start as a popular arcade shooter and eventually making its way to the home market with a number of sequels.  However, it fell just short of its true potential, mainly due to the fact that the storyline was average at best, even with the unpredictable bosses and the over-the-top fourth arcade game.  But all that has changed thanks to the approach of House of the Dead: Overkill, the Wii shooter that's getting a re-release on PlayStation 3 this week, in a new Extended Cut.

According to the Q2 2011 Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, in addition to the $1.44 billion spent in the U.S. by consumers on new physical video and PC game software in the second quarter of 2011, the total consumer spend on content via other monetization methods, including used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile games, is estimated at $1.74 billion. The total amount spent by consumers on hardware, content and accessories is estimated at $4.5 billion, an increase of 1 percent versus Q2 2010.

LOS ANGELES -- The second annual 3D Gaming Summit: Gaming and Beyond expanded its scope to include fast-growing segments of the games industry like cloud gaming, mobile gaming social gaming, and the impact augmented reality will have on games moving forward. Highlights of the jam-packed one day conference included an Opening Keynote Interview by David Maisel, Senior Advisor to Rovio creator Angry Birds, conducted by John Gaudiosi, Gaming Summit Senior Content Advisor & Co-Founder of Gamerlive.tv; and a Featured Interview with Vince Zampella, (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare) General Manger of Respawn Entertainment, conducted by USA Today's Video Game Editor Mike Snider.

Sony Computer Entertainment’s San Diego Studio has gone the fantasy route with its newest PlayStation Move game. After developing the launch title, Sports Champions, the game studio is working on Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest for PlayStation 3. The developer talks about the the new game in this exclusive video interview below.

Sega continues its year-long celebration of Sonic the Hedgehog’s 20th Anniversary. The game publisher had a full lineup of titles at PAX Prime 2011 in Seattle. Located at Booth 3625 on the show floor, the company had a pair of new Sonic games playable -- Sonic Generations, which is the first 3D Sonic game, and Sonic CD.