Round-Up: Gamasutra's Holiday News Highlights

Again, while many of our readers have been off for the holiday season, Gamasutra has continued to update with previously unseen features and news stories. Thus, for the benefit of those who may have missed them, here's a summary of the major video game news stories posted since Christmas: - The latest Japanese sales charts revealed Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts II for PlayStation 2 debuting with a massive 725,000 copies sold through. But the real story was the Nintendo DS, selling 598,000 hardware units, and propelling DS games including Animal Crossing and Mario Kart to big sales numbers. - A new holiday survey indicated that U.S. online holiday shopping totaled $30.1 billion, excluding travel, during the 2005 holiday season. However, toy and video game hardware/software spending combined accounted for just $2.296 billion of that total, down 9% from 2004, reflecting a disappointing transitional holiday season for the game business. - Phantom 'broadband game console' owner Infinium Labs revealed plans for its Lapboard keyboard/mouse combo, due to launch in Summer 2006, in lieu of the console itself. But the company's recently re-issued 10-QSB/A financial report revealed a parlous state of affairs for Infinium, with restated results, debts to major licensors, contractors, and the IRS, and pending lawsuits from promissory note lenders and other companies. - California Assembly Speaker pro tem Leland Yee and a representative of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger commented on the AB1179 injunction, following the recent news that Judge Ronald Whyte handed down a preliminary injunction halting the implementation of California's game restriction law. Yee called the setback "simply a temporary pause", and Schwarzenegger's spokesperson indicated: "This is just the first step in what is certain to be a lengthy legal proceeding." - We also posted the latest Gamasutra job listings over the holiday season, featuring companies such as Blue Fang Games, Factor 5, NovaLogic, Blizzard Entertainment, Disney Buena Vista Games, Point Of View, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Totally Games, Big Fish Games, Retro Studios, LucasArts, Macrovision, Liquid Entertainment, TimeGate Studios, and Cryptic Studios.