John Smedley, Sony Online Entertainment President, delivered a spark of good hope for those awaiting the arrival of their free-to-play MMO, Free Realms, on the PS3. Speaking at the Q&A session earlier today at the GDC in Austin, Smedley pointed to "next year."

Earlier today, Sony Online Entertainment announced that the free-to-play, family-friendly MMO Free Realms now has more than two million registered users since its April 28 launch. As expected, Free Realms struck gold with young users, with 75% of registrants being under 17, and 46% under 13. More in the full article.

Enter the world of Free Realms - the colorful and magical free-to-play MMORPG for the the PS3 and PC. Taking us for a tour today are the masterminds at Sony Online Entertainment, and they talk about putting all the elements together to create the Realm, the gameplay features, what Free Realms has to offer in the face of all the other free-to-play MMORPGs out there.

I've always been pretty hesitant with Free Realms - I can' t get past the whole "it looks too kiddie" factor - but seeing this dev interview is giving me second thoughts. It's free-to-play, it's on the PC and one of the PS3's very first MMORPGs, and overall, the concept sounds pretty fun. For sure, it's not a game for everyone, but hey - if you've got 30 or 40-something year-olds playing Neopets, then that shouldn't be all that bad.

It looks like NCsoft will be literally taking the kid gloves off in terms of its focus in the MMO genre. In an interview conducted by Kotaku with NC West president of publishing David Reid, he mentioned that they will be redoubling their efforts on large, triple-A MMO titles from now on. Check out the details of this interview in our full article after the jump.

During a recent conference call, Electronic Arts revealed that Battlefield Heroes and Tiberium (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) have both been delayed. Find out their new release windows after the jump.

"To err is human..." or so the saying goes. Electronic Arts' CEO John Riccitiello had a little something to say about learning from one's professional mistakes during a recent Q & A session. Read all about Riccitiello's responses in the full article, located after the jump.

According to a report by market intelligence firm Niko Partners, China's video game industry has surged an impressive two-thirds last year. The fifth annual report stated that the local industry has jumped a stunning 68% in 2006, in cohesion with an even larger 74% rise (since 2005) in the MMO segment of the industry.

Online gaming profits has risen to approximately US$ 995 million, which Niko Partners has attributed to the growing popularity of the free-to-play MMO business model.

According to the analysts, players have been spending more on free-to-play Asian MMO games than on Western subscription-based online games.

Also impressive is the fact that in a country fraught with piracy, legitimate offline PC title sales also rose by 28%. Analysts say that this is due to the fact that the most popular of gaming platforms there is the PC, allowing the public full use of over 20 million of them over 225,000 computer cafes nationwide.

Players who cannot afford to buy their own computer drop by at a local cafe nearest them and play networked LAN games or popular MMO titles - in a daily basis. Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners, also added, "The intertwined nature of China's Internet cafes, social gaming culture, and few entertainment alternatives at a low price point, will continue to be the basis for strong growth through 2011."

Even with the government restriction on consoles, some hardcore gamers have been able to grab their own console unit for gaming at home. According to Niko Partners, the console industry there (though mostly through piracy) has also seen an improvement last year.

The report, entitled "The 2007 Chinese Video Game Market Annual Review & Forecast Report," collected and reviewed 75,000 points of data from 10 major cities in China, and forecasts market trends for several segments of the gaming market: PC online, PC offline, console, handheld games and the hardware market.