North America’s biggest consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy, today confirmed the company will allow consumers to trade in their video game titles for in-store credit in the form of gift cards, across all stores, starting sometime by the end of this summer.

We firstly reported on August 10 that Best Buy started this program as part of a pilot project in Salt Lake City in the United States that included kiosks in select stores in the area.

The company today confirmed it has plans to push the project across all Best Buy locations in the United States by the end of this summer, following with Canadian locations later on, likely by the end of the year.

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Microsoft today confirmed the company would launch its Natal gaming platform that will bring Wii like games to the Xbox 360.

The Microsoft Natal system works as an USB add-on to the Xbox 360 and simply sits below your television set with the sensors pointing at the player.

The games would be played without any controller, but rather with player movement.

Additionally, the system is capable of scanning objects for use in actual games. For example, the design of an actual skateboard could be scanned by the system and used in a skateboarding game.

The system also offers new social networking features previously unavailable on the Xbox.

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The Japanese-based video game giant, Nintendo, published [PDF] fiscal earnings today, posting a decline in total profits and slumping sales of its hugely popular Nintendo Wii gaming platform.

Nintendo reported sales net of all charges of 1,434.3-billion yen, compared to $1,838,622 YoY. Operating profit in the period were 356.5-billion yen, with the company earning net income of 228.6-billion yen, compared to 279,089 YoY.

Total assets in the period as at March 31, 2010 were 1,760,986 yen, down 2.75-percent from the same period in 2009.

ROE for the year ended March 31, 2010 was 17.7-percent, down from 22.5-percent in the same period last year, while income per share dropped to 1,787-billion in 2010, down from 2,182-billion yen.

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The video game and movie rental giant Blockbuster made interesting comments found in the latest 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today.

The company warned, “Over the next 12 to 18 months, we expect to continue facing the challenges of the macroeconomic environment, increased industry competition and fragmentation,”

Blockbuster recently has experienced a significant decline in total revenue as consumers shift to different more efficient and cost effective channels from competitors to get their movies.

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North America’s largest game-maker, Electronic Arts, announced today Q3 2010 financial earnings, posting a significant $82-million ($0.25 per share) loss. The loss compares to a $641-million loss in the same period last year.

The company missed Wall Street expectations by reporting total revenue for the quarter at $1.243-billion, compared to $1.654-billion in Q3 2009, a year ago.

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After speaking with a lot of people, I find there is still much ambiguity over the features of Apple’s latest creation, the iPad, and what the device is and is not capable of doing.

The iPad is also missing a camera, multi-tasking support, Flash support in Safari, and unfortunately, it’s limitations don’t stop there.

People that have used the iPad to demo a movies (with the 4:3 viewing ratio) argue the iPad would have been better in widescreen, making watching movies more enjoyable. But Apple wants you to use the device in any orientation as you choose, so making it widescreen might have been prohibitive in that regard.

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Despite Sony’s efforts to keep the PlayStation 3 system secure (and it seems until now that has been the case), after more than 3-years after the PS3 launch, hacker George Hotz has posted a blog post claiming he has been able to hack the PlayStation 3 system allowing him to have full read and write access to the system and the processor.

If the hack proves to work, users can potentially use homebrewed apps, similar to the Homebrew channel on Nintendo’s Wii system, and play backed up games.

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Microsoft and Sony are set to add new features to their respective gaming consoles, the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.

On November 17, Microsoft will let users update their firmware via Xbox Live that will include many useful and much anticipated new features.

The most important Xbox updates include new Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm (with support for only the U.S. and the U.K. users for Last.fm) integration, on demand 1080p 5.1-channel HD video streaming via Zune Video, and a new News section that streams content from various content partners including MSNBC.

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The popular video game maker, Electronic Arts (EA), has confirmed rumors that it would acquire the online game maker Playfish for a reported amount of up to $400 million.

Right now, EA is set to pay $275 million in cash for the company, in addition to $25 million in equity. EA has added performance covenants through December 31, 2011, were assuming Playfish continues to grow, EA will pay up to $400 million for the company.

The acquisition will help propel EA into the online social gaming realm.

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If you’re in the market to buy a Nintendo Wii, you might want to hold off a bit longer.

According to a leaked ToysRUs flyer, the Nintendo Wii will now be priced at US $199.99, or $50 off the regular price, starting in the last week of September.

It is very likely the rumor is in fact true given falling demand for the Wii, and the recent launch of the PS3 Slim and price reduction of both the PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox.

Both companies will not confirm the apparent leak.