COLOGNE, Germany – The Gamescom Awards are the most coveted prizes in the European games industry and an accolade for outstanding software and hardware. Last week, more than 275,000 visitors to Cologne experienced the spectacular innovations presented at Gamescom 2012. Among them were the 20 international jurors and experts from the world’s leading games media who made up the jury for the Gamescom awards 2012. It was this jury that picked out the winners of the awards for this year’s best games and hardware from more than 100 entries.

The 2012 Game Developers Conference Europe (GDC Europe) concluded on Wednesday, August 15 with a successful showing and a final attendee count of more than 2100 game professionals.  Professionals from all areas of the game industry gathered throughout the three day conference to learn and network. The keynote roster included industry leaders from Ubisoft Montreal’s Creative Director Alex Hutchinson, to CEO of Wargaming.net Victor Kislyi, to Epic Games senior engine programmer Niklas Smedberg. 

GRAPEVINE -- The largest video games retailer in the world, GameStop, has seen its sales of used games and hardware increase in recent years. The pre-owned market accounts for a considerable portion of the company’s business. As a result, the company invested $7 million in a refurbishment center down the street from its U.S. headquarters in Grapevine, Texas. Bruce Kulp, svp of supply chain and refurbishment, offers an exclusive look inside the factory in the video below.

Activision watched as Skylanders catapulted to the top of the video game and toy charts for 2011. The game publisher will showcase Skylanders Giants at San Diego Comic-Con 2012. The new game builds upon the breakthrough fundamentals of the Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure—merging the physical and virtual realms with an innovative line of cross-platform toys with “brains,” which players everywhere can magically bring to life in the world of Skylands.  Using the mystical Portal of Power, players once again lead a team of heroic Skylanders in a new adventure to save their world. Developer Toys for Bob talks about the new game for Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows PC and mobile devices in this exclusive video interview below.

The idea behind E3 was to showcase the latest and brightest games of 2012, but there are always a few games that disappoint us. Some games on our list made serious changes to their formula, and not for the better. Other games took center stage at E3 when they shouldn’t have. There were many games at E3, but here is our top five list of disappointments.

After a fiscal report that questioned the future of the Major League Baseball 2K franchise, we were wondering if 2K Sports had gotten a little soft, concerned about how they could compete with their main rival, EA Sports.  Well, we got our answer today with a nice tomahawk jam to the face, in the form of an announcement for NBA 2K13.

Well, it seems 2K Sports is very pro-active to what NBA 2K12 gamers want and they wanted a better Jeremy Lin to create Linsanity magic in their NBA 2K12 games with their virtual Lins.  Just two days after 2K Sports upgraded Lin to 69 from 56 in the NBA 2K12 "Living Rosters" update, they upgraded him again to 75 today in another update, which is closer to where Lin should probably be even after he cools down from his Linsane pace, which he inevitably will.

Every Tuesday, Sony brings its PlayStation faithful new content, add-ons for your favorite games, Themes and avatars for your PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. Again another standard week of PSN goods you can get, but for the most part the main draw are going to be demos. Twisted Metal is finally going to hit store shelves and the fans of  the series will be eager to get their hands on the multiplayer demo now available.  

Every Tuesday, Sony brings its Playstation faithful new content, add-ons for your favorite games, Themes and avatars for your PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. This week on PSN, Final Fantasy fans are in for a real treat with new and old content hitting the marketplace.

2K Sports is ready to play ball with Justin Verlander, ace pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He’s the cover athlete for the upcoming Major League Baseball 2K12. Verlander was selected yesterd by his peers as the Players Choice Award winner for Player of the Year and American League Outstanding Pitcher. With baseball just around the corner, gamers can get a first look at Verlander in the new game in the video below.

LAS VEGAS – When it comes to driving games, Sony’s Gran Turismo franchise has been pushing the envelope for over a decade. Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5 and its new DLC was featured at SEMA in Las Vegas this month. Reality TV stars Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez from "The Bachelorette" were on hand to give GT5 a test drive and listen to Stone Temple Pilots at the GT Awards at the Marquee nightclub at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. They talk about the new racing game in this video interview below.

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.