June 15 - 5:45pm EDT   iPhone game developer ngmoco has appointed former SEGA president and COO Simon Jeffery to serve as the chief publishing officer of the Plus+ Publishing group. The gaming industry veteran also brings experience from LucasArts, Virgin Interactive and Electronic Arts. At SEGA, Jeffery helped the company shift from a hardware manufacturer to a software developer. [full story]

October 6 - 4:15pm EDT   Late last week, rumors started appearing, touting a new portable gaming device is being brought out by Sega, following up its Genesis portable gaming system from the ’90s. The device, to be called the Vision, would compete with the likes of Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP, many believed. But another Friday report dispelled the misconceptions, by getting confirmation from Sega USA itself that, while the device is indeed real and coming to market in 2009, it will not aim to compete with the DS or PSP. Instead, the Vision is an MP4 video player capable of entertaining users with basic Java games like ones users can find on cellphones. [full story]

August 11 - 7:45am EDT   Over 60 million iPhone and iPod touch apps have been downloaded in the one month since the iPhone 2.0 firmware has been available, Apple chief Steve Jobs tells the Wall Street Journal. The electronics company co-founder in a rare interview reveals that while most App Store downloads are free, paid apps in the first month have averaged about $1 million in sales per day for a total of $30 million for the first month. Maintaining the current rate would generate approximately $360 million, though Jobs estimates that this is likely to increase over time and is unprecedented compared to his experience with Macs. [full story]

July 24 - 12:10am EDT   A group of hackers say they have cracked Apple's close Fairplay DRM on Sega's Super Monkey Balll for iPhone. A posting on Haklabs points to a download link for the pirated game. A number of users who commented on the site say they were succesfully able to run Super Monkey Ball on a jailbroken version 2.0 iPhone using SSH. Other users, however, said they couldn't get the game to work and questioned whether the hack was legitimate. [full story]

July 17 - 2:50pm EDT   The hardware in the iPhone is about as powerful as the now-defunct Dreamcast console, according to Sega of America president Simon Jeffrey. The comparison comes from an interview at this week's E3 gaming expo, and refers to Sega's last official hardware, released in 1998. While outdated in terms of living room consoles, most other phones are relegated to performance closer to Sony's original PlayStation, or even earlier machines like the Super Nintendo. [full story]

December 18 - 9:55am EST   Game giant Sega has released a new port of its classic game Sonic the Hedgehog, now formatted for iPods (iTunes link). The platformer is iconic to Sega, much as Super Mario Bros. represents Nintendo; the game was originally released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis, and has spawned numerous sequels which continue to this day. Players control Sonic as he races through loops, jumps and other obstacles at high speeds, collecting rings and smashing enemies on his way to fight Dr. Robotnik. [full story]

December 11 - 10:10pm EST   While Nintendo's Wii continues to soar off game store shelves with its intuitive motion-sensitive controls, Sega Toys and NeuroSky look to do one better and are teaming up to produce mind-controlled toys, using wearable bio-sensors to monitor brainwaves, courtesy of the latter company. NeuroSky says that this is Sega's latest venture in "taking play to the next level", and that with the ThinkGear bio-sensor, it will achieve just that. Unfortunately, neither company commented on what upcoming ideas to which they are applying the technology. [full story]