“With this realignment, we are narrowing our focus to high-quality owned IP with broad appeal that can be leveraged across multiple platforms, and to work with the best talent in the industry,” said Brian Farrell, THQ’s President and CEO. “By right-sizing our internal development capacities for our console portfolio, our five internal studios are focused on delivering high-quality games with talented teams driving the execution of those titles to market. As we have outlined in our business strategies, we are making shifts to reduce movie-based and licensed kids’ video games in our portfolio, which underscores our strategy to move away from games that will not generate strong profits in the future.”

Okay, so they’re trying not to make shovelware anymore. Admirable goal. They are, however, choosing to concentrate on “social games, mobile and tablet-based digital entertainment.”

Well, I guess that’s why it’s a realignment and not a complete 180º.

The company has also announced a game titled Margaritaville Online. Because that’s not movie-based entertainment. That’s song-based Totally different.

Both companies really value fun, according to a press release sent out today. (I haven’t flown JetBlue, so I can’t really comment.) Execs do seem pleased by the rather strange coupling:

“Experienced air travelers know the value of portable entertainment,” said Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America’s senior director of Corporate Communications. “By teaming with JetBlue to bring Nintendo 3DS demo stations into JFK airport, we will give consumers an especially fun way to pass the time while they wait to board their flights.”

Terminal 5 at JFK already features over 40 food and retail outlets. The Nintendo station will add the ability to experience several of the handheld’s games, including Pilotwings Resort, Steel Diver, Super Street Fighter IV 3D, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars and more. You’ll also be able to try out taking 3D pictures, making Miis and playing with AR cards.

JetBlue Gate 10 will also feature a sampling station, just in case you can’t make it to the larger area.

Some of the key features of the bag are:

• 2-dozen pockets and other storage spaces
• A cavernous main compartment, large enough to hold two days of casual clothing and travel necessities.
• Two huge side cargo pockets hold shoes, toiletries or other bulky items.
• Inside the main compartment is a padded laptop sleeve that fastens to the side wall and has security strap to hold the laptop in place.
• The duffel is available with either small (15-16” laptop) or large (17”) sleeve included,
• The sleeve—with its own stowaway flap cover—can be removed and used on its own or in another bag or backpack.
• Front organizer compartment with storage for every portable gadget and accessory imaginable.
• Stretchy pockets protect and secures phones, chargers, adapters, cables and more.
• There’s even a special, labeled slot for a USB thumb drive.
• The Weekend Warrior weights at only 49 ounces.

The duffle bag is priced at 119.95 for the small bag and 124.99 for the large. It can be purchased at Skooba.com

Even as the recession roared on, game development didn’t really take as much of a hit as the rest of the world, it looks like. Though 2008 was a banner year for devs, with the highest salaries on record, 2009 still didn’t dip below 2007′s levels. Normally, we expect to see a steady increase, but with many studios looking to cut corners wherever possible, many developers were the ones taking the hit.

Programmers are the highest-paid talent in the game industry ($80,320), and experience pays: If you’ve got more than six years of experience in that role, your pay was likely to increase by 36% over average.

Artists and animators had a slight salary increase, bumping them up to $71,071, and designers also saw an increase to $69,266.

Producers, with their salary of just over $75,000, are the most female-friendly, with 18% of that particular workforce being female. Producers are also the most experienced, with half of them being in the industry six years or more. Sure, causation doesn’t equal correlation, but wouldn’t it be interesting if women were more likely to stay in the industry longer? Food for thought, anyway.

People in quality assurance (or, as they’re better known, game testers) had the least experience and the lowest pay, averaging $37,905. But if a tester sticks with it for more than six years, that salary doubles. (The problem in this case becomes sticking with it. Testing is a cruel mistress.)

Audio professionals, including sound designers and composers, were some of the most experienced individuals, and their average $82,085 salary reflects that. But new blood is entering the arena – 38% of audio devs had fewer than three years of experience, and only a third of them had more than six years.

Marketing’s always been pretty lucrative (you know, in general). But in gaming, marketers remain the highest-compensated group of all, with an average salary of $96,408. After all, no matter whether or not the game you’re making is awesome, if it’s not marketed correctly, you’ll never sell a thing. But marketing also had the greatest variance – your average PR employee makes $83,804, while executives almost broke $130,000. That’s a pretty big chunk of change.

A much larger, much longer, much more expensive version of this information exists at http://www.gamedevresearch.com. (At about $1,500 per copy purchased, I’m starting to think it would be way better to be a researcher.)

The singer, who is best known for her group and solo careers, will add some of her own House of Deréon fashions to the title as downloadable add-on outfits. The fashion line was created by Knowles and her mother, Tina, in 2004.

Style Savvy allows players to manage a virtual clothing boutique and put together outfits for virtual customers according to their style and budget. The addition of Knowles’ line will hopefully add more longevity to the title, which enjoyed increased holiday sales.

Knowles has also taped two television spots for the game, both of which will air the week before Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards as well as during the show itself.

Nintendo is very popular with UK Games and even with brand new titles on the top 20, none of them were powerful enough to take down the reign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The Infinity Ward title continues to hold onto the number one spot making us only guess at how much money it’s brought in to date.

Assassin’s Creed II entered in the number 2 spot followed by New Super Mario Bros. Wii (3), Wii Sports Resort (4), and Wii Fit Plus (5). Zombie killing, Left 4 Dead 2 entered the countdown at number 7.

The top publisher this week is Nintendo with 5 games, but EA is right behind them with 4.

Being an Indie Game Developer can be extremely satisfying and extremely frustrating. There is a lot to know and many times the developer just wants to see his or her game made.

Now comes some help. Gary Bracey, founder of Digimask, is encouraging visitors to his “Ask I.V” site to ask any business-related question. No matter how simple or naive you may think it is.

“In addition to Gary, we will have other industry specialists involved, such as Martin Brown of Team 17, Mark Morris of Introversion, and we have access to many more so we are in the position of sourcing the best information for the question asked.” says Richard Hill-Whittall, founder of indievision. “We shall also include guest slots with industry lawyers and accountants who will be able to give useful pointers and tips about diverse issues such as IP Protection and Tax Credits.
Networking is one of the most valuable resources in any industry and via the above people we have access to practically all of the key ‘movers and shakers’ in the business.”

The team hopes to help indie studios with questions that crop up on a daily basis and are common. Go to the Indievision website here for more details and information.

PopCap

PopCap games just received $22.5 million in it’s very first round of funding. In the ten years that PopCap has been around they have never obtained funding prior to now. PopCap has sustained profitability while growing to 240 employees.

“PopCap is arguably the most unique video game company on the planet,” stated Rob Ward, managing director at Meritech. “While other video game companies put out more flops than hits, PopCap has never produced a game that wasn’t a critical and commercial success. Taking the company’s boutique development style and universally appealing product lineup to the top of the video game food chain will be an exciting, potentially industry-changing, experience and we’re happy to be a part of it.”

David Roberts, the CEO of PopCap explains why they decided to get funding now.

“We’re excited to have additional working capital that lets us be more aggressive with our expansion into social media and reaching new geographies,” said David Roberts, CEO of PopCap. “Meritech is a premier late-stage investment firm with a portfolio that includes some of our most important business partners such as Facebook, and adding John McCaw to our investor roster is of huge strategic importance with his deep connections in the mobile and financial communities. We’ve been pursued by investment firms for many years and have resisted taking outside capital, but we liked Meritech’s style and believe there’s a tremendous opportunity to grow and evolve our business at a time when many other video game firms are retrenching.”

NAMCO BANDAI have announced three new key executive appointments for their North American Headquarters. Catherine Fowler joins the team as Senior Vice President of Marketing. Robert Stevenson joins as Vice President of Online Development and Graeme Bayless is the studio’s general manager.

“We are very excited to have these three talented game industry veterans have joined our executive staff,” said Genichi Ito, president and chief executive officer of NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. “Each of these individuals brings with them a proven track record of success and leadership in publishing, business development, and studio management, respectively, and will augment NAMCO BANDAI Games’ effort to grow our North American operations.”

Fowler has 15 years of experience, previously working for Codemasters Inc and Mattel Inc. Stevenson will be responsible for growing their online MMOGs and has worked at Atari/Infogrames before. Bayless has two decades of video game development experience and comes from 2K Games.

Disney Interactive

Disney is not done making big moves, today CNBC reported that Disney has hired Alex Seropian, the founder of Bungie Software and co-creator of the “Halo” franchise to oversee creative development across Disney’s in-house video game development teams.

“We’re really trying to be a magnet in this industry for talent, as we are in so many other parts of the entertainment world,” says Graham Hopper, executive vice president and general manager of Disney Interactive Studios. “Having someone of Alex’s caliber join us is a tribute to the great people we have here already.”

Disney looks to expand it’s base past the family friendly games which is it’s core audience.

“We want to be bigger than what we are today – a lot bigger than what we are today,” says Hopper. “We don’t have the ambition of trying to unseat the top players in the industry, because we don’t have the market share goal. What we want to do is build up and introduce new [properties] to the game industry – and to Disney – and expose the company in a new way to consumers.”

Part of the agreement including acquiring Wideload Games, the dev house Seropian founded after leaving Bungie.

“It really is about building a team that can win,” says Hopper. “We want to be sure we have a creative environment where the best game makers in the industry are comfortable working – and where they want to work.”

No information has been released about if this will affect games from Marvel.