U.S. consumers are expected to spend a combined $26 billion on music and video subscription services this year, according to new estimates from the Consumer Technology Association. That’s up from $20.4 billion in 2018, and nearly twice the amount spent on such services in 2017. Propelled by the continued success of Apple Music and Spotify, [...]

“Gears 5,” the forthcoming installment in the “Gears of Wars” third-person shooter game franchise, will be a smoke-free establishment. The game, set for Sept. 10 release, comes from Xbox Game Studios and game developer The Coalition. The decision to remove all smoking references from “Gears 5” came after not-for-profit anti-smoking organization Truth Initiative approached Turner, [...]

Twitch’s senior leadership team is getting reshuffled. After two years, Kate Jhaveri is leaving as chief marketing officer of the Amazon-owned video game live-streaming service. Jhaveri, who previously held marketing positions at Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft prior to joining Twitch in 2017, is leaving in August to become the CMO of the NBA. At the [...]

Nintendo Switch is getting a cheaper, more colorful little sibling: Switch Lite, a device designed specifically to play Nintendo Switch games in handheld mode. The Switch Lite system is set to ship Sept. 20 at a suggested retail price of $199.99 — $100 less than the flagship Switch, which works in both handheld and TV-connected [...]

“Star Trek,” “The Walking Dead” and “Wheel of Fortune” are more than just iconic TV brands; they’re the intellectual property powering mobile games on course to reach $100 million each. And they’re all produced by Scopely, a Los Angeles-based video game business led by co-CEO Walter Driver, who has made a specialty of adapting from [...]

Peter Ramsey, who won an Oscar this year for co-directing the hit animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” has joined the long list of high-level speakers for the 2019 View Conference, which runs from Oct. 21-25 in Turin, Italy. “I’m delighted to announce that Peter Ramsey, who is the first African American director to win [...]