Marcus Rivers is, or perhaps was, Sony’s spokesperson for the PSP. As the handheld continued to lose steam, Sony needed a new audience to sell the PSP to. It was tough to convince the typical hardcore gamer (who wasn’t into hacking), to buy a PSP so far into its life cycle. Sony then decided to market the PSP to a younger audience. To do that, Sony enlisted Marcus Rivers.

Everyone in Japan gets involved in video games. It almost seems like it is an honor to have a song included in an upcoming title. When these games are localized for North American releases, it’s a toss-up as to what happens to the original music. Many companies are including the original tracks with games, while some will substitute them with songs in English.

Hikaru Utada is one of the biggest pop singers in Japan. This means that her music has appeared in games, animes and Japanese dramas. She’s also has worked as a voice actress – one of her roles was Pinoko in the anime Black Jack.

Before we get into her relationship to video games and a few of her songs I’d recommend, here’s a brief backstory. Utada was born in New York, New York. She’s fluent in English and Japanese. Her mother’s the Enka singer Fuji Keiko. Her first album was released as Cubic U in both the US and Japan. After that, she focused on a Japanese-only career. She’s sold over 40 million records, and has released eight CDs. She released her English R&B CD, Exodus, in the US in 2004, and is currently working on a second US CD that might be released this year.

The latest advertising onslaught from Nintendo is a series of commercials featuring female celebrities playing DS games with the tag-line, “I Play for Me.”

This seems like a fairly innocent notion and a means to get women and girls interested in the system by showing famous women engaged in games. However, quite a few gamers have taken issue with the games depicted and the actresses’ behavior.

There are three TV commercials currently airing: One features singer Carrie Underwood playing Nintendogs, another features actress Liv Tyler playing Brain Age 2 and the final commercial shows America Ferrera playing New Super Mario Brothers…

In an unexpected turn of events, television advertisements for the Wii may take a sudden leave of absence for the remainder of the holiday season, according to a Nintendo spokesperson. Times Online reports that due to the severe international shortages of the Wii, Nintendo may opt to push its television advertising campaign into early 2008, more »

With the World of Warcraft expanding celebrity appearances aren’t really necessary but they do make the commercials more memorable. The latest commercials feature William Shatner and Mr. T, and coming soon Verne Troyer (aka, Mini-Me) asking viewers “What’s Your Game?” First commercial features Mr. T and his Night Elf Mohawk which are simply hilarious. I more »

East coast ad house EyeballNYC raised the hackles of Jack Thompson this month (August 2007) with its eerily accurate commercial for Bioshock, Irrational Games’ autumn darling and the subject of much pre-release tittering. The game comes out today (August 21, 2007) and is expected to sell more copies than you can shake a genetically enhanced stick at.

Thompson detailed his grievances in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission…