Yikes.

News Blips:

A disagreement over possible cheating in Counter-Strike turned violent when an unidentified assailant allegedly stabbed a 17-year-old boy in the head in China. Doctors removed the knife, and the youth survived as the blade missed major arteries and didn't damage the parts of the brain that control motor functions. I can imagine what the fear-mongering mainstream media might say: "The suspect learned how to stab people in the head from playing that evil game, Counter-Strike." [SankakuComplex - Warning: disturbing picture]

Nintendo creates Big Name Games for WarioWare D.I.Y. developers. Nintendo plans to release new games for the latest installment in the WarioWare series from Masahiro Sakurai (Super Smash Bros.) and Yoshio Sakamoto (Metroid) on March 29. Afterward, on every Monday through July 26, Nintendo's set to put out other games from developers such as Pixel (aka Daisuke Amaya of Cave Story), 5th Cell (Scribblenauts), Gaijin Games (Bit.Trip series), and more. Who cares if this is cross-promotional madness -- I think it's pretty damn cool.

EA plans to release premium demos, or "Premium Downloadable Content," for $10 to $15. Speaking to Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, Visceral Games' Nick Earl discussed the details of EA's plan, which involves making long demos (3 hours to 4 hours) as a way to generate more interest in the game and provide developers with feedback on parts of the games that might need some work. In a sense it's like a music single and albums -- but going by the current state of the music industry and popular music in general, I'm not so sure that's a good idea. [GameIndustry.biz]

McDonald's plans to use the Nintendo DS to train employees in Japan Using a special training program called eSmart, the fast-food giant expects to cut training time in half. I wonder how popular this software will be with bootleggers. [Nikkei via Andirasang]

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