Video Games

I'VE ALWAYS been scared of 17-year-old boys. Particularly when I was 17, but even now. I have learned to avoid their hormone-amped, hostile glances, figuring every one of them is in some kind of dangerous gang. Especially if he's wearing red or blue, or making any kind of complicated shadow puppets when there is no nearby wall or light source. But it turns out I have nothing to worry about.

Video game players with less-than-dexterous thumbs will soon stand a fighting chance, with Microsoft Corp. on Monday promising a new method for controlling the action with full body movements. The Redmond, Wash., software giant unveiled a technology for its Xbox 360 video game console that, as early as next year, could let people toss aside the baffling 12-button controller. Instead, the system's camera and sound sensors detect movement of faces and body joints as well as voice commands.

In the complex tango between movies and video games, Hollywood may be losing its lead. Motion picture studios have had a penchant for adapting games into movies all the way back to 1993's "Super Mario Bros.," which starred Bob Hoskins as the mustachioed hero Mario and Dennis Hopper as the villainous King Koopa, with varying degrees of success. But today at the giant Comic-Con International fan convention in San Diego, Microsoft Corp.

When "Chicago" and "Hairspray" producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan were looking for their next big movie musical last November, the two ended up in what would seem like an unlikely place: the El Segundo headquarters of Mattel Inc. The duo found their inspiration in the prototypes for an as-yet unreleased line of monster dolls from the toy manufacturer. Welcome to Hollywood's latest gold rush. Movie studio development slates are rapidly filling up with projects based on well-known toys and games.

Mention the name Shawn Fanning, and most people still picture a kid in his dorm room at Northeastern University in Boston, cooking up Napster, a file-sharing website that let users trade songs for free and triggered a financial tsunami in the music industry. Fanning, now 28 and living in San Francisco, is not only long out of college, but he's also moved on to his third company, Rupture. (His second one, music licensing company Snocap, was sold in April 2008 to Imeem Inc.

Viacom Inc. and the video game industry are hoping they'll get more than a little help from the Beatles. When the Beatles: Rock Band hits stores Sept. 9, Viacom is betting that the new title from its MTV unit will end a slump in the market and vindicate the company's expensive and unprofitable entry into the music video game business over the last two years. The new game applies the simulated rock star experience that many are familiar with from other Rock Band games and Activision Blizzard Inc.'s Guitar Hero and brings in the Beatles, who have never before appeared in a video game.

Trodding heavily toward you like a 300-foot blue elephant in a band uniform, The Beatles: Rock Band video game will consume much of the industry's advertising bandwidth this summer ahead of its Sept. 9 release. A collaboration between MTV Games' Harmonix and the Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd.

In the frenetic world of trading cards, an interloper called Chaotic is threatening the dominance of Pokemon and its ilk, thereby granting new strength to the money-losing television production and merchandising company that unleashed the game little more than a year ago. Chaotic, which features tribes of warring monsters, has stood apart in the trading-card game industry since its launch by New York's 4Kids Entertainment Inc.

Since landing his first job in the video game industry in 1992 as a salesman at Capcom Co., Justin Berenbaum never wanted for work -- until this month. The 39-year-old from Woodland Hills was laid off from his job as vice president of business development at EmSense Corp., a San Francisco game design consulting firm. A few days later, he was roaming the halls of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, browsing the career pavilion and hitting up former colleagues for leads.

Today: DVDs and games DVD sales Top-selling movies of the week: 1 Marley & Me (Fox) 2 Bolt (Disney) 3 Twilight (Summit) 4 Slumdog Millionaire (Fox) 5 Seven Pounds (Sony) -- DVD rentals Most-rented movies of the week: 1 Marley & Me (Fox) 2 Seven Pounds (Sony) 3 Slumdog Millionaire (Fox) 4 Quantum of Solace (MGM) 5 Twilight (Summit) -- Video games Most-rented games of the week (with console, publisher): 1 Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360, Capcom) 2 Halo Wars (Xbox 360, Microsoft) 3 Wanted: Weapons of