More Articles By Danny King

• GTA IV likely to break games record
  APRIL 17 | Grand Theft Auto IV , the action-adventure videogame from Take-Two Interactive Software’s Rockstar Games that takes place in that fictional locale, is expected to set records for both opening week and all-time sales when it’s released to the public April 29. More
  
• DVDPlay starts kiosk movie-rental promotion
  APRIL 16 | DVDPlay unveiled a program that gives repeat customers of its movie kiosks free film rentals as part of an effort to compete against larger U.S. kiosk operators Redbox and Moviecube. More
  
• March electronics sales drop
  APRIL 16 | Sales of electronics and appliances fell 1% from a year earlier, or 0.1% more than total retail sales declined from March 2007, the National Retail Federation said in a report this week. More
  
• NFL DVD to include Madden preview
  APRIL 16 | Warner Home Video will include a demo of Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL 09 on a DVD of National Football League highlights to be released July 22, marking the first time the Time Warner unit will cross-promote a videogame on its DVD. More
  
• Blockbuster bids on Circuit City
  APRIL 14 | Blockbuster last week went public with a two-month-old offer to buy Circuit City for at least $6 a share, laying out a vision of an $18 billion retailer of entertainment content and the devices it plays on. More
  
• Gaming retailer pitches new vision for stores
  APRIL 10 | In a gaming industry where virtual worlds are attracting more people, one videogame retailer will try to also make the shopping experience a little more, well, virtual. More
  
• Blockbuster will triple stores with Blu-ray
  APRIL 10 | Blockbuster will almost triple the number of stores that carry Blu-ray discs and will add Blu-ray display kiosks to almost all of its U.S. company-owned stores in an effort to boost revenue from high-definition disc rentals. More
  
• Circuit City has Q4 operating loss on lower sales
  APRIL 9 | Circuit City reported a fiscal fourth-quarter operating loss today, as weaker video-equipment sales offset revenue gains for flat-panel TVs and videogaming products. The company, which had a net profit on a tax benefit, said fiscal 2009 same-store sales will fall about 5%. More
  
• Gaming world will expand, virtually
  APRIL 9 | More than a third of the Internet users who will sample virtual gaming within the next year will become weekly participants, feeding the growth of such titles as Linden Lab’s Second Life and Neopets . More
  
• Borders improves interest rate on cash loan
  APRIL 7 | Borders Group said today it secured a lower interest rate on a loan from its largest shareholder in an agreement that might make it easer for the retailer to be sold. More
  
• Housing slump pulls down electronics sales
  APRIL 3 | The U.S. housing slump pulled down fourth-quarter sales of consumer-electronics products in all but one metropolitan area, cutting earnings at retailers such as Best Buy, NPD Group said in a report this week. U.S. flat-panel TV sales bucked the trend, however, by jumping 24%. More
  
• Jamie Kennedy to host EMA Awards
  APRIL 2 | Actor and writer Jamie Kennedy will host the Entertainment Merchants Assn.’s Home Entertainment Awards Show in Las Vegas June 24. More
  
• Online gaming market hits record
  APRIL 2 | About 60% of computer-game players compete with others online, fueling a multi-billion-dollar industry led by Vivendi unit Blizzard Entertainment and prompting social-networking Web sites to include games to attract visitors, according to a report released this week by NPD Group. More
  
• Wal-Mart pushes green DVDs in April
  APRIL 2 | As part of Wal-Mart’s “Earth Month” campaign for April, the company is promoting more than 120 CDs and DVDs, ranging from the Al Gore environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth to The Very Best of KISS . More
  
• Lionsgate to distribute LeapFrog
  MARCH 31 | Lionsgate has signed a distribution agreement with kid’s educational brand LeapFrog Enterprises, marking the studio’s second deal with a children’s content publisher in a week. More
  
• Lionsgate adds Xenon, Hit in one week
  MARCH 27 | Lionsgate this week announced exclusive distribution agreements with both U.K. publisher Hit Entertainment and urban film producer Xenon Pictures in an effort to boost demand in the children’s and Latino genres. More
  
• Cable subscriptions will rise little on digital switch
  MARCH 27 | Blockbuster, Netflix and other DVD-rental services may have found an unlikely ally in the U.S. switch to digital broadcasting next year: the federal government. More
  
• Online media revenue to jump fourfold in five years
  MARCH 28 | UPDATE: Revenue generated from online TV and video services will surge in the next five years as advertisers recognize that more people are watching shows over the Internet, according to a U.K.-based research firm. More
  
• Report: PC use in home theaters to surge
  MARCH 26 | Despite an increasing number of products designed to download or stream content directly to a TV without the help of a PC, computer use as a home-entertainment component will surge during the next five years as customers seek fast downloads of high-quality content, according to a report by consumer-research firm ABI Research. More
  
• Netflix shares hit four-year high
  MARCH 25 | Netflix shares were pushed by an analyst upgrade last week to a four-year high yesterday before an outage on the company’s Web site pulled the stock price down today. More