Like many other young gamers around the world, the son of news anchor John Carlin of NBC affiliate WSLS 10 in Roanoke, Virginia, plays Halo 3 on Xbox Live. Concerned about what Tyler is exposed to on Live, Carlin placed a microphone in his son's headset during Halo 3, capturing the following conversation. "Holy S*** Suck A**. He's Terrible. If you're that bad, you should quit." "Yeah! I'm F****** dead b/c their sniper sniped me -teammate says "no its b/c you F***** Suck." ""F*** You Joe, he was a Captain grade 3." In another conversation, Carlin said he heard a voice of "clearly a young child" among the players participating in sending out foul language, including racial slurs and homophobic comments. When asked what the reaction was when there's a kid in the game, Tyler said, "A lot of people cuss them out..." "Just a lot of times they'll say-Oh you're gay. You're being gay stop doing that." Following the report, Carlin said that he has already discussed much stricter rules concerning Xbox Live with his son. Read the full article

A money.co.uk story claiming that a 13-year-old boy was arrested after stealing his father's credit card and going on a $30,000 spending spree, culminating in playing Halo with two hookers in a Texas motel, has been confirmed as bogus. "Police said they were alerted to the motel by a concerned delivery clerk, whom after delivering supplies of Dr. Pepper, Fritos and Oreos had been asked by the kids where they could score some chicks and were willing to pay. They explained they had just made a big score at a World of Warcraft tournament and wanted to get some relaxation," the article read. "It is a hoax. No arrest has been made. There is no boy by that name (Ralph Hardy) enrolled in the school system," Chris Cromer of Newark told GameRush Entertainment. The story continued, "The $1,000 a night girls sensing something up played Halo on the Xbox with the kids, instead of selling their sexual services." "Ralph's ambition is to one day become a politician," the article concluded. The dubious content of the story coming from a source that doesn't cover news wasn't enough to prevent some sites from picking up on the report, including NEWS.com.au, TV3, G4 TV, and GameSpot. "Newark doesn't have hookers, or a motel. We don't know how the story got started," Cromer said. Money.co.uk has yet to respond for comment. Read the full article

Take-Two last week proclaimed Grand Theft Auto IV as the "largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment," as the title sold 6 million units globally in its first week, raking in approximately $500 million. Now, a new report from The Economic Times suggests that the scale of GTA IV's sales may push more brands into tapping in on in-game advertising. GTA IV's Mature rating and violent themes may not make it an advertiser's dream. While the game does not offer in-game advertising opportunities, displaying only fictitious brands, its success shows that there is great potential. "The success of GTA IV is the clearest sign yet that video games are going mainstream," Paul Jackson, principal analyst at Forrester told the paper. "They are now capable of challenging the box-office takings of Hollywood blockbusters." Previous studies have shown that in-game ads can be effective, including in increasing brand familiarity, purchase consideration, and ad recall. "When you play the game and you see how the ads are rendered you get a huge sense of the engagement," said Cory Van Arsdale, CEO of Massive. "This will start to validate the direction we're headed. It's validating for advertisers and marketers the value of the engagement in the game." The scope of GTA IV's influence on in-game advertising has yet to be seen, but Massive, an in-game ad firm, maintains that gamer reaction remains a key role in the industry even with the addition of more brands. "What matters most to us is hearing back from our clients," said Alison Lange, marketing director at Massive. "The second core piece is the gamer reaction to the ads to make sure we're fulfilling our promise that the ads need to add to the experience and make the game more interactive." Read the full article

With the North American release of Wii Fit expected to spark a boom in demand for the Wii next week, Nintendo has maintained that the shortage of its console is not a result of the company artificially manipulating the flow of product into the market. "The fact is that we have put far more product on store shelves worldwide than our competitors. The difference is that in a very short time we have far outpaced their total sales," said Dervin Camden of Nintendo of America. According to Camden, it's easy for some consumers to arrive at the conclusion that the Wii shortage is intentional when "competitors' systems fill the shelves" and Nintendo's console remains scarce. "The Wii console has effectively expanded the video game market by re-defining what it means to be a gamer. Millions of people who never before picked up a controller or who had sworn off gaming years ago are trying the Wii and becoming fans," Camden said. "There is no benefit to Nintendo in not having enough product on the shelves to allow everyone who wants one to be able to buy one, which begs the question, 'Why don't you just make more?' Please understand that the Wii console is a complex electronic device featuring one-of-a-kind components from different suppliers around the world. Many things factor into our being able to effectively increase assembly and shipment of a product without compromising quality control." "We are doing all we can to get as much product as possible into stores," he said. Read the full article

In Baltimore, Maryland, police have arrested one person and are looking for three others suspected of kidnapping two teens, holding them captive for three hours, and assaulting them in an attempt to extract information about a stolen PlayStation. Christopher Johnson, 21, is being held without bail and faces 31 charges, including multiple counts of first-degree assault, kidnapping, sodomy, false imprisonment, and using a dangerous weapon. Detectives believe the 16-year-olds were abducted at around 1:00pm last Friday from a bus stop. Four men, with their faces covered and at least two with handguns, reportedly forced the teens into a black four-door car. They were then driven around for a while and then taken to a house. "They were beaten, cut and burned, and the suspects kept asking about a PlayStation game, which the victims said they knew nothing about," police spokesman Troy Harris told The Baltimore Sun. The men later released the victims on a street, where they gave them clothes and cab money. A bystander got them to a hospital and notified police. Read the full article

Crime-related incidents have plagued Grand Theft Auto IV ever since it launched at midnight last week, with BBC News reporting a mugging and stabbing, which GamesRadar disputes. Now, a new story circulating the Internet claims that a 10-year-old boy in Tallahassee, Florida, committed a slew of crimes "just minutes" after playing GTA IV. We can confirm that the entire story, which was cited as coming out of The Associated Press, is bogus. No word yet on where the article, written below, was originally published, but just watch out for this one roaming around the Web. "A local ten year old boy by the name of Elijah Carden was arrested yesterday after he committed several crimes over a four hour period. According to police reports, the child left his house around 10:30 a.m. and proceeded to break the window of a neighbors car. After a failed attempt at "hot wiring" the vehicle, the boy went back into his house and retrieved his fathers .22 cal automatic pistol. The child walked to the Albertsons at the corner of Monroe St. and Ocala Rd. and shot at two local TPD officers. Neither of the officers were injured. Reportedly, Elijah ran off in the mist of the confusion. At 12:47 p.m., TPD officers were dispatched to a neighborhood on Call St. with reports of an armed robbery. When police met with the victim, (who has asked to keep their identity confidential) they described their attacker as a small Caucasian male child/midget who approached them with a handgun and demanded that they turn over their wallet. Based off the victims description, a city-wide search began for said attacker. At 2:15 p.m., TPD responded to a call of a robbery in progress at the Jimmy Johns on Monroe St. Upon arriving at the scene officers witnessed a small child waving around a pistol inside the restaurant. The officers communicated with the child and convinced him to surrender without incident. Elijah was promptly arrested and taken to the local holding station. After interviewing the child, police learned that the young boy had been playing a new video game called Grand Theft Auto Four, just minutes before starting his crime spree. The young boy reportedly stated that he thought it was OK to do these things since he could do it in the game. The child was released to his parents early this morning and is expected to receive counseling on the incident. Political controversy has risen in response to this incident. Outspoken video game protester Jack Thompson, has already made plans to meet with Governor Charlie Crist on the issue of video game violence and crime. More news will be released on this as it develops." Read the full article

Grand Theft Auto IV made an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien Thursday, revealing a more friendly side of the game. "In the past, Grand Theft Auto's been severely criticized for being too violent," O'Brien said during the monologue. "The new version, it's been toned down a lot, I think in reaction to the criticism." "I'm not sure it's better. Take a look." Read the full article

Now just hours away from the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, news comes today that at least three UPS employees were fired after getting caught stealing the game from shipment boxes. "We have security in place at the facilities, and we make sure they understand to keep an eye out for things to exit the building," a UPS worker told Ars Technica. "We had tips from people inside, and some of them were discovered at intermediate hubs... it's easy to spot: flaps torn, some boxes are re-taped." With more interviews scheduled for today that will likely end in termination, all of the thefts seemed to be only for personal use and committed just days before the game officially goes on sale. "As long as the people loading the packages are doing their jobs, it's easy to track down," the source warned. Another UPS employee even openly admitted on the Xbox.com forums that after seeing hundreds of GTA IV boxes, he felt "tempted to open one box, take a copy, and put $65 inside the box." Read the full article

With the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV upon us, many Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners are more than ready to get started on the title, but will PC gamers have something to look forward to this November? According to German video games retailer citydisc.ch, a PC version of GTA IV will be released on November 30 of this year. Back in January, the same rumor began circulating that Rockstar would release a PC version, but in October. That rumor cited retail plans. Previous titles of the Grand Theft Auto series have taken between six to eight months to arrive on the PC after debuting on console, which makes a November release plausible. Grand Theft Auto IV heads onto both the Xbox 360 and PS3 Tuesday. Rockstar Games has yet to confirm if the game will ever see the light of day on PC. Read the full article

As gamers around the world gear up for the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which hits store shelves Tuesday, the highly anticipated title is not only expected to race into record books as the fastest-selling video game ever, but be awarded distinctions along the way. "This is going to be the game of the year," said Edward Woo, video game industry analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. According to Woo, GTA IV's appeal is fueled by its captivating storyline and open-world format. "Instead of just watching a movie and being fed the story you can go another way and the movie goes in that direction," Woo told AFP. "That is what people want; more interactive entertainment rather than watching a TV show." While controversy surrounds the title, as critics remain concerned that games like GTA IV breed criminals, U.S. statistics show that violent crimes by children have been on the decline for years. "If there is this big causal trend you would expect to see a large leap in violent crime among kids, but there is not," said Mia Consalvo, an assistant professor specializing in video game research at Ohio University. Grand Theft Auto IV's blend of controversy, innovative play, compelling story, and its momentum from previous games of the series has created a "perfect storm" around the franchise, Consalvo said. Read the full article