At E3, video games shift their aim to casual players (USATODAY.com)

USATODAY.com - This year's downscaled E3 video game expo drew about 4,500 gamemakers, analysts, retailers and journalists to L.A. last week - less than a tenth of E3's size two years ago - even as the industry grew from $10.5 billion in 2005 to $18 billion in 2007.

Action games deliver thrills

The truly great action films of our time — "Die Hard," "The Road Warrior," "Aliens," say — can be summed up in one word: relentless. Once they get in gear, they put the pedal to the metal and don't slow down. If only "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Whatever" had such single-minded drive.

Keeping Up Nintendo's Momentum

After overseeing several years of rapid growth at Nintendo, President Satoru Iwata faces new challenges: how to keep players of the company's videogames interested, and how to cultivate a new wave of customers.

GAMES REVIEW: Action heroes (AP)

AP - I don't envy video game designers who have to work on movie tie-ins. Artists have to duplicate the look of a film with a much smaller budget. Writers have to stick pretty closely to someone else's script, even as they stretch a two-hour story into an eight-hour game. There's not much room for creativity.

Microsoft, Sony Copy Nintendo's Playbook (Investor's Business Daily)

Investor's Business Daily - Nintendo raised the bar for casual, easy-to-play video games again Tuesday, as rivals Microsoft and Sony scrambled to imitate the family-friendly appeal of Nintendo's Wii game console with their own product announcements this week.

Videogames getting more social (AFP)

AFP - Videogame makers are riding the social-networking wave with a flood of soon-to-be-released titles that let friends play online as teams and even create their own characters.