The US video game industry hit a purple patch in August 2007 as revenue shot up to a staggering $1 billion, according to a NPD Group report. This is a 46% rise from the industry’s revenue of $679 million in August, 2006. It seems that Christmas has come early for the video game industry, and it only can get better from here.

The industry earned its billion dollars in August 2007 on back of strong Wii hardware and Madden NFL 08 sales, both of which are bankable and consistent performers…

Prepare yourself Macaddicts, Electronic Arts Inc. is finally showing you a bit of proper videogame respect.

The ginormous game maker is releasing its first ever batch of EA-published games available for the Mac: Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. Games cost $29.95-$39.95.

Mac users can either order the OS X (ver. 10.4) compatible games now from Apple.com or wait until they hit store shelves either August 21 (for Need for Speed and Harry Potter) or August 28, 2007 (Battlefield and C&C). I know, you can actually hold an EA mac game in your hands, hug it and squeeze it and call it George if you really want to.

Future EA-produced games for the Mac will include…

The PS3 version of Madden NFL 08 has instigated a fierce defense of the machine from both EA and Sony.

The PS3 is taking fire because, as some claim, Madden looks much better on rival Xbox 360 and has superior AI and overall smoothness. The PS3 version has been reported to run at a yawning 30 fames per second, while the 360 version breezes at 60 fps.

Meanwhile, EA has attributed the inferiority of games on PS3 compared to the 360 versions to the lack of knowledge about the PS3 among game developers since most developers have spent 3 1/2 years developing games for the Xbox360 which has provided them more…