The National Basketball Association (NBA) announced today that it's extending its partnerships with both EA and Take-Two Interactive, signing multi-year agreements with each company. The deals give them each the rights to use NBA teams and players in their games, and to associate their game marketing efforts with the NBA license.

Take-Two will continue to publish the NBA 2K series, and has the potential to develop other NBA licensed games. The press release teases that online and mobile games are among the possibilities. NBA 2K11, which featured Michael Jordan taking to the court, sold five million units, more than any other in the franchise. Read more »

The NPD Group released its retail-only sales data for April 2011 last night, and it shows some positives signs for the industry. Physical software sales grew in both units and dollars for the first time since November.

Mortal Kombat took the top spot with 900,000 units, edging out Portal 2. It's worth noting, of course, that Portal 2 probably saw more than a few purchases through Steam, which isn't tracked by NPD and may never be. Read more »

Market research firm has issued its latest monthly retail-only sales report, covering February 27 through April 2--the first since the Nintendo 3DS handheld launched in March. As ever, console manufacturers have come out of the woodwork to support the report with figures and marketing spin.

Nintendo relays that the 3DS sold "just shy of 400,000 units" in the US within its first seven days of sale after launching on March 27. This falls slightly short of the regular Nintendo DS models, which combined sold 460,000 units. Read more »

The market research firm NPD Group released its retail-only video game industry data for February 2011 last night. Call of Duty: Black Ops took the top spot yet again, making it the top-selling game in history at 13.7 million units in the U.S. alone (via IndustryGamers). Marvel vs. Capcom 3 took second place, followed by the strangely ubiquitous Just Dance 2.

Also notably, Dead Space 2 hung onto a decent slot, while newcomers Bulletstorm and Killzone 3 made respectable debuts considering they were launched late in the reporting cycle. Read more »

Those picking up "specially marked" copies of Guerrilla's upcoming Helghast-blast, Killzone 3, will receive a code that grants access to the upcoming SOCOM 4 multiplayer beta, the PlayStation Blog revealed.

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Although some companies achieved sales milestones in 2010, including Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops and Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, sales throughout the industry were down "as much as 1 percent when compared to 2009," the NPD Group estimates.

Data is still preliminary for "total consumer spend on gaming content via all monetization methods, including new physical video and PC games, used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile game apps," however, the market research company puts complete spending between $15.4 and $15.6 billion. Read more »

Killzone 3's latest trailer for its campaign mode reveals that the game's two primary Helghastian masterminds are being voiced by veteran actors Malcom McDowell and Ray Winstone.

Characters from the previous game in the series (Sev, Rico and Narville) also make an appearance in the summer-blockbuster style trailer, along with a new female ISA member named Jammer. McDowell's and Winstone's characters apparently spend much of their time at odds, as they both vie to be Visari's successor and shape planet Helghan's future. Read more »

Sports: NBA 2K11

Yearly sports game franchises often get accused of being little more than roster updates coupled with some subtle are often so inconsequential, all but the most rabid fans would be hard-pressed to notice. In 2010, NBA 2K11 managed to handily buck this trend, giving gamers a great reason to keep this year's entry in their gaming libraries long after the 2011 season is over. That reason is Michael Jordon. His host of "Jordan Challenges" allow players to replay some of MJ's most legendary performances, or even rebuild his career from scratch. Read more »

Shacknews receives a slew of new screenshots and trailers for upcoming games everyday. The most anticipated titles receive their own post, because we know you're eager to see that content. For the rest, we have the Daily Filter, a place to feature all of the media we add to our enormous database on a daily basis.

Today's Filter features new media for MLB 11: The Show, Fallout: New Vegas, Killzone 3, Heavy Fire: Black Arms, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, Fez, Dirt 3, Hunted: The Demon's Forge, NASCAR The Game 2011, Resistance 3, Back to the Future: The Game, Mario Sports Mix, and Thor: God of Thunder. Read more »

You and a buddy will be able to play through the Killzone 3 campaign in splitscreen co-operative play since the developers had to support double rendering for the game's stereoscopic 3D support, reveals managing director Herman Hulst in an interview with 1Up.

As for 3D itself, Hulst is adamant that it is an option, not a requirement, for Killzone 3. "3D is a great feature, but it's an option to the game. I don't want people who don't have 3D to have a suboptimal experience," said Hulst. "But we don't want to alienate the core audience. The same with Move. These things are options. They're great options. I think they're here to stay." Read more »

The Killzone 3 "Helghast Edition," which was first only revealed for North America, is now making its way to Europe. Announced on the official Killzone 3 website, Europeans will now have access to the set that ships with a replica helmet of a vicious Helghast foot soldier. Originally, Guerrilla stated the European special edition would not be "exactly the same." Read more »

Shacknews receives a slew of new screenshots and trailers for upcoming games everyday. The most anticipated titles receive their own post, because we know you're eager to see that content. For the rest, we have the Daily Filter, a place to feature all of the media we add to our enormous database on a daily basis.

Today's Filter is a big one, with media for Zen Bound 2, Dirt 3, Music on: Electric Guitar, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, NBA 2K11, Majesty 2: Monster Kingdom, Dead Meets Lead, ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead DLC, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, Trials HD, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Rift: Planes of Telara, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, TumbleStone, and Raving Rabbids Travel in Time. Read more »

While we can't have fun with the numbers the same way we used to, the NPD Group has released the October NPD listing in its new, 'slimmer' form.

Jumping ahead in the hardware space was the Nintendo DS, taking over after a four-month consecutive hold the Xbox 360 had in the United States. That doesn't mean things are shaky in Microsoft's camp as NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier says that "the Xbox 360 was the only platform to realize unit sales improvement over last October." Read more »

Shacknews receives a slew of new screenshots and trailers for upcoming games everyday. The most anticipated titles receive their own post, because we know you're eager to see that content. For the rest, we have the Daily Filter, a place to feature all of the media we add to our enormous database on a daily basis.

The first Filter of the week features new media for Donkey Kong Country Returns, the HD version of NBA Jam, the Xbox 360 version of Unbound Saga, Rock of Ages, DC Universe Online, Mortal Kombat, Michael Jackson: The Experience, Bloodline Champions, Lionheart: Kings' Crusade, Super Hero Squad Online, and Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World.

Read more: Check out today's Filter »

If you feel left out of the the Killzone 3 fun, Guerrilla Games has some good news: more beta invites are being released as you read this post.

"We've decided to expand the beta trial," the official Killzone Twitter account excitedly revealed earlier today. A total of 5,000 additional PlayStation Plus subscribers from North America and Europe will be selected and automatically receive invites to the beta through the PlayStation Network. Read more »