Anime/Manga
The Japanese general trading company Sojitz Corporation announced on Wednesday that it will dissolve ARM, the subsidiary that promoted anime licensing and distribution in North America, by next February. The move is not expected to affect its licenses with Funimation.
Video Games
Atari, the old console maker, is making a name for itself as a distributor nowadays. The company has signed a deal with CDV Software Entertainment USA to exclusively distribute the publisher's console and handheld titles released under the CDV USA brand in North America.
Another "oops" for a major company: Guitars for Wii music games made by Rage have been found to cause chemical burns because of a circuit board defect that causes the controller's AA batteries to leak if not installed correctly. Given the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, we're guessing there's more than a few of those out there. However, there's also good news for Nintendo, as it looks like its Wii Fit may bypass Grand Theft Auto as the best-selling game of the year.
Think you're programming games for the stereotypical geek? Think again – a new study shows that gamers are more active, both social- and sports-wise, than non-gamers. Gamers are also shown to be the influencers of their friends and family when it comes to pop-culture trends.
Technology
Yet another sad sign of the times: Citing slower gadget sales due to the current state of the economy, Sony is reducing its anticipated income for 2008/09 by 38 percent.
Comcast, which upset a lot of people with its anti-P2P measure, is now offering faster Internet speeds. It remains to be seen whether that will win back some of their lost goodwill.
Samsung is offering streaming Netflix content with the purchase of select Blu-Ray players. This may be the biggest move yet toward bringing streaming video onto televisions and into the mainstream.