When it comes to spending money on video games, nobody does it quite like the US of A, with research finding that Americans spent over $25 billion on the things in 2009.

The exact figures is $25,300,000,000, a tally made all the more frightening considering it doesn't include new hardware or new accessory sales. Factor those in and you're looking at another $10 billion on top of it.

Also disclosed as part of the report from Dutch firm Newzoo is the fact retail sales only make up 54% of the total spent, with the rest going on things like downloadable content, digital games and MMO subscriptions.

As for the breakdown of those figures, in the US $15 billion was spent on console games in 2009, $4 billion on PC games and over $2 billion on subscriptions to games like World of Warcraft.

Americans spend $25.3B each year on video games [VentureBeat]

At all. As seen on Hawty McBloggy.

This is Stree Overlord. It's a supplement for men aimed at helping with...yeah. And to help sell it, we have two of Street Fighter's most famous characters going at it hammer and tongs on the front of the box.

Sorry it's been censored, but what's going on under that fish should stay under that fish. I'm on the fence about covering that tongue of Ryu's, too, because it's creeping me out.

Don't know what Stree Overlord is? Allow the product's makers, Mayo Kaisha Pharmacy Export Ltd. to explain, with a little background:

In the beginning, before the Shogun were dominating Japan, the Overlords were dominating women with Fierce Intensity during sexual intercourse. This intensity was spoken under cover for years among women who craved multiple orgasms, men with endurance of machine and an Iron Beam between their legs.

That's an old tale. How, then, does a shady modern "pharmaceutical" company know the secret of the Iron Beam?

For centuries the scroll of Stree Overlord had been lost since the night of Stree's death until Ho Jun Kim found the scroll in the attic his house in present day, Southern Japan.

Sometimes destiny wins!!!

Ho Jun was a pharmacist and a very successful businessman. In a flurry of curiousity, Ho Jun replicated the Fierce Intensity once controlled by the Overlords of Northern Japan. Within 20 minutes time, Ho Jun Kim could feel the power of the Overlord Fierce Intensity. Immediately, he knew there was a way he could help all men please they're women. Ho Jun sold the formula to the Mayo Kaisha Pharmacy with one stipulation, they call their new product…Stree Overlord; in memoriam to the protector.

Ah, of course.

What this has to do with Street Fighter, aside from cheap and illegal product recognition, is anyone's guess. I love that Iron Beam is capitalised, though.

[thanks for the pic, t3chDzyn!]

This is Stree Overlord. It's a supplement for men aimed at helping with...yeah. And to help sell it, we have two of Street Fighter's most famous characters going at it hammer and tongs on the front of the box.

Sorry it's been censored, but what's going on under that fish should stay under that fish. I'm on the fence about covering that tongue of Ryu's, too, because it's creeping me out.

Don't know what Stree Overlord is? Allow the product's makers, Mayo Kaisha Pharmacy Export Ltd. to explain, with a little background:

In the beginning, before the Shogun were dominating Japan, the Overlords were dominating women with Fierce Intensity during sexual intercourse. This intensity was spoken under cover for years among women who craved multiple orgasms, men with endurance of machine and an Iron Beam between their legs.

That's an old tale. How, then, does a shady modern "pharmaceutical" company know the secret of the Iron Beam?

For centuries the scroll of Stree Overlord had been lost since the night of Stree's death until Ho Jun Kim found the scroll in the attic his house in present day, Southern Japan.

Sometimes destiny wins!!!

Ho Jun was a pharmacist and a very successful businessman. In a flurry of curiousity, Ho Jun replicated the Fierce Intensity once controlled by the Overlords of Northern Japan. Within 20 minutes time, Ho Jun Kim could feel the power of the Overlord Fierce Intensity. Immediately, he knew there was a way he could help all men please they're women. Ho Jun sold the formula to the Mayo Kaisha Pharmacy with one stipulation, they call their new product…Stree Overlord; in memoriam to the protector.

Ah, of course.

What this has to do with Street Fighter, aside from cheap and illegal product recognition, is anyone's guess. I love that Iron Beam is capitalised, though.

[thanks for the pic, t3chDzyn!]

Everyone has their reasons. What's yours, sister?

Japanese website Otalabo polled over 600 individuals about what led them to become an "otaku". Otalab focuses on polling teenage females, and it should be noted that the website uses the word "otaku" and not the gender specific fujoshi, which means literally means "rotten girl". The term "otaku" can encompass a wide variety of interests, from video games to anime and from model trains to military goods.

Have a look:

What led you to become an otaku?

1. Manga (26 percent)
2. Anime (17 percent)
3. Friends (16 percent)
4. Games (8 percent)
5. Siblings (8 percent)
6. Boys Love (3 percent)
7. Novels (3 percent)
8. Voice actors (2 percent)
9. Movies (2 percent)
10. Mobile Internet (2 percent)

オタクになったきっかけアンケート　オタラボ [OTALAB via Sankaku Complex NSFW] [Pic]

On Sunday, Japanese kids' show Pokémon Sunday showed silhouettes of new characters in the all-new forthcoming game Pocket Monsters: Black and White. Time to imagine what these characters will look like!

Pokémon Black and White is a completely new Pocket Monster series. And this fall, the fifth-generation Pokémon series will be released on the Nintendo DS in Japan. Have a look at game screens.

ポケモン最新作、ブラック・ホワイトの御三家のシルエットが公開！早速作られるコラ画像 [はちま起稿]

There's a Marvel vs Capcom 3 feature in the latest issue of Game Informer Magazine, and along with some new screens of the game, a number of previously unconfirmed - though strongly hinted-at - characters have been revealed.

The "new" characters are ones we already guessed at from the game's first promo art, but hard confirmation is a damn sight more final then "guesswork".

Revealed in the piece are Devil May Cry's Dante, Captain America, Deadpool and Darkstalker's Felicia, giving fans of Marvel, gay fashion icons and furry women the world over cause for celebration.

There are of course plenty more character reveals to come, so we'd like to take this time to issue a plea that they're all - or most of them - shown off at E3. The world can't stand another Super Smash Bros. Brawl marketing campaign.

[Game Informer]

To: Luke
From: Owen
Re: Half a Move

As some know I was down in the Bay Area this weekend for a couple things we'll learn more about later. But it was nice putting actual faces to some names I've gotten to know over the past year, whether it was the guys at EA Sports or Kreyg at Hot Blooded Gaming.

What was weird, however, is staying in a hotel not even a mile from your old home. Not sure I've ever done that before. It was nice to know the neighborhood and not have to do a Google map search for a decent joint to eat, but it was weird passing my old apartment on the way there.

Speaking of putting faces back to names, E3 is around the corner in June. I'll see Crecente, McWhertor, Fahey and Bash in person for the first time in two years. But first, next week, I'll see my brother in person for the first time in four.

Now that's weird.

Some highlights from the weekend:

Wii at Last, Wii at Last, Thank God Almighty ...
Kotaku 'Shop Contest: Merit Badge Edition Winners
First Footage Of Enslaved, From The Makers Of Heavenly Sword
Is The PSP Go Dead Yet?
These Awesome Arcade Machines Are Art
If Kafka Were a Game Designer...

So President Obama, once again, dinged video games in a speech. I'd rather send a more uplifting message, where a console is judged not by the content of its games, but the color of its skin.

As we know, today is an historic day* in America - the first black Wii is available for purchase. Here's Black Nerd Comedy's take on what this means for our post-racial society. There's a Big Free Ad for some t-shirts he's hawking at the end; we don't endorse that aspect of the message, but the address is too clever to be disqualified because of it.

* - Dad insists it's "a historic." He is wrong and I am right.

Addressing graduating students at Hampton University, Virginia on the weekend, US President Barack Obama has spoken out on the challenges facing government in an information age, one dominated by "Xboxes and PlayStations".

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," he said.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.

"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

Interesting choice of devices there. I've always thought content was the important issue with news, not the delivery platform. It's not paper's fault if magazines suck.

Also interesting he goes out of his way to say he doesn't know how to "work" them; would it matter if he did know how to work them? I mean, it's not like a 360 or PlayStation is any harder to switch on than a Wii...

Obama bemoans 'diversions' of IPod, Xbox era [AFP]