Who'll be representing the glitz and glamor of NBA Ballers: Chosen One (Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft  Xbox 360) this season? Midway has made its choice and announced Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard as their poster boy for athletic fortune. In this game, Howard will dominate on and off the hardwood by showing us what the NBA life is all about. Read the full article to know more about Dwight's role in NBA Ballers: Chosen One.

2K Sports has just sent out word that they've kicked off their annual Bounce Tour. This month-long event's set to showcase some of 2K Sports' upcoming titles, such as College Hoops 2K8 (Xbox 360, PS3, PS2), and All-Pro Football 2K8 (PS3, Xbox 360). The event will be traveling from one major city to another and will end on December 8. Further event and venue details are up ahead in the full article.

In a recent corporate acquisition, Electronic Arts has roped in Super Computer International (SCi) and allowed the gaming client applications provider to help in the video gaming giant online needs.

SCi is most known for developing applications and software tools on the PC focusing on gaming clients for various online purposes such as IMs and other social networking tools. The company is based in Atlanta, Georgia and has promised to lend its technological expertise to EA.

SCi's CEO Jesper Jensen will continue to lead the team alongside EA Vice President and COO for Online Nanea Reeve.

"SCI's development expertise is uniquely suited to our online technology needs. The team's technical leadership and creative approach is a great fit, and we're thrilled to have them join EA," Reeves commented about their newly acquired affiliate.

For those of you familiar with PlayLinc, an online game browsing and messaging platform developed by SCi, we may be seeing more online features for EA's games in the future.

Brought to you by the curious consumer research minds at Scarborough Research, the investigation they conducted found that Salt Lake City, Utah is the number one local U.S. market for game console-equipped homes.

Lexington, Kentucky and Flint, Michigan also follow behind to form the top three U.S. game console markets. The numbers seem to coincide with Nielsen Media's own findings for the most part. The top ten list for the markets around the U.S. that "got game" are:

1. Salt Lake City: 32%
2. Lexington: 30%
3. Flint/Saginaw/Bay City: 30%
4. Toledo: 30%
5. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton: 29%
6. Norfolk/Portsmouth/Newport News: 29%
7. Indianapolis: 28%
8. Green Bay/Appleton: 28%
9. Atlanta: 28%
10. Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto: 28%

Also, Wal-Mart gets mentioned as the most popular retail for video game households. No surprise, it's been hogged for months with people looking for the Wii. It's also the number one retail in Salt Lake City, too. This comes with a close-call count with Best Buy who snags second best with Target way behind at third. The top five audio/video stores for game console-equipped households stand at:

1. Wal-Mart: 33%
2. Best Buy: 30%
3. Target: 16%
4. Circuit City: 15%
5. Radio Shack: 7%

Click on Full Article to view the entire local markets chart across the U.S. and see if you and your pals got game.

"You spend too much time playing videogames." Yep, we've heard pretty much every variation of that line over the years. More often than not, parents usually direct that line towards their teenage kids, but a recent study has dug up some surprising answers to the question of who does the most online gaming.

Here's a hint: I'm not part of the leading demographic, and most likely, you aren't either.

According to KXAN.com, a 125-page casual games white paper published by the International Games Developers Association that reveals the who, the what and the why of online-gaming participants reveals that women between 35 and 45 years of age make up the largest block of online players. That's right, OUR MOMS make up the bulk of online gamers.

KXAN also points towards a separate report by AOL which revealed that women over the age of 40 spend just over nine hours a week gaming online. Teenagers only came in second place, with 7.4 hours per week. Adult men bring up the rear, with only 6.1 hours a week in the online-gaming world. As for top gaming cities, the research cites Atlanta and Boston as the top gaming cities in the country.

Weird, huh? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Give a little, take a little. We've already seen what the brighter side of gaming has to offer, with groups like ScrewAttack and Penny Arcade taking up the challenge of giving back to the community with their recently concluded PS3 auction, the proceedings of which went to the Child's Play program.  And this time, we're looking at gaming charity on a larger scale, as GameTap, Pledgeplay and Buy.com announce their Thanks4Giving program to kick the holidays off on the right track.

Started this November 21 and ending December 24, the program is hosted at the pledgeplay.com web site, and anybody who's interested in helping out can just drop over to make a minimum $20 donation. Donors will receive four free weeks of GamTap's entertainment network services, with $50 to $100 donations receiving either a free video game or accessory over at Buy.com - you get to choose.

Charities that visiting gamers can offer donations to include the CaringBridge and HopeLab charity groups, and three children's hospitals: Children’s Healthcare, Atlanta; Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego; Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle. "This joint endeavor is so unique and meaningful that it has garnered the support of such worthy philanthropic organizations," said Neel Grover, President and CEO of Buy.com.

For the other gamers out there tired of all the bad rap we've been getting as some sort of social anomaly (You hear that, Mr. O'Reilly? We DO care!) or just think it's about time we give back to the community, pass the message, and make this season as happy for others as it's been for you.