According to the latest NPD Group figures, software sales for the video game industry collapsed in March, but strong hardware and accessories sales helped buoy the numbers.

The Nintendo 3DS sold 380,000 units in its first three days, falling slightly behind the Xbox 360 at 430,000 for the month.

Altogether, however, the DS line took the month easily, with 460,000 sales for the DS, DSi and DSi XL combined during the month.

Sony and Nintendo did not reveal the numbers for the PS3 or Wii, respectively.

According to multiple sources, Nintendo is planning to unveil the Wii 2 at the upcoming E3 event in June, while at the same time slashing the price of the Wii to $150 beginning May 15th.

The sources say the new Wii will boast more powerful specs than the PlayStation 3 and a newly redesigned controller will have a built-in HD screen.

Game publishers have already been alerted to the new console, and launch titles are already in the works for the 2012 anticipated launch.

Outside of having more powerful graphics than the PS3 and Xbox 360, the console will be backwards compatible with all current Wii games.

The timing works well with the rumor that Nintendo also plans to slash the price of the Wii to $150 next month, and then to $99 in 2012 ahead of the Wii 2 launch.

In an effort to integrate all the consumer electronics, Apple is looking to launch their own Internet-connected HDTV this year, joining a crowded $100 billion market, says AppleInsider.

The rumor comes via Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White who says "data points point towards a 'Smart TV'" launch by Apple.

This "Smart TV" would not be just an updated AppleTV set-top box, but instead be "a full-blown TV product for consumers," says White in a client note.

While there have been rumors for years of Apple considering entering the market, White says the company is now "moving down this path at a faster pace than the market expected."

Concludes the analyst:

The combination of Apple's powerful ecosystem, industrial design savvy, powerful brand and ability to reinvent product categories could make Apple a powerful force in the TV world over the next few years.

HTC has tweeted today that the upcoming Sense 3.0 UI overlay will not be headed to older HTC devices, and will just work on the EVO 3D, the Sensation and the Flyer tablet.

Said the company (Twitter):

Due to Sense's hardware requirements, only our newest devices (Flyer, EVO 3D, Sensation) will be able to support it.

From the response, it appears that devices with single-core processors under 1.5GHz will not be able to support the updated UI, as the new phones have dual-core processors and the tablet has a single-core 1.5GHz.

However, not all is lost, HTC says they are working "to incorporate other aspects" of Sense 3.0 to their upcoming updates for older devices.

Video of the Sensation:

Starting mass production in the coming months, Toshiba has introduced its new MKxx61GSYG 2.5-inch HDD, a drive that offers multiple levels of security for professionals.

MKxx61GSYG drives will wipe or encrypt all data if connected to an unknown host.

The drives will be marketed to corporate customers within the medical, government and banking fields, says Toshiba.

Whenever the drive is powered on, it will initiate authentication with the host and if it that process fails, the data is "invalidated."

Buyers have a few options for the drive. Access can either be denied, the drive can be wiped, certain blocks of info can be wiped, or certain data ranges are deleted every time the drive fails the authentication process.

The drive uses military-grade AES 256-bit encryption and will be available in up to 640GB.

There is no word on price, yet.

Spotify has confirmed today that they will begin limiting free music starting in May.

Beginning on May 1st, all new free users will get unlimited streaming for 6 months and then be throttled to just 10 hours of music per month afterwards.

The move is seen as a way for the service to get on the good side of the record labels which still have not all signed on for Spotify in the U.S. The most common argument is that there are not enough paying customers since the free version offers so much.

Very popular in Europe, the streaming music company announced it had signed a deal with EMI, following a licensing deal it signed with Sony Music in 2010. It is waiting on a deal with Warner or UMG before opening in the United States.

Investors recently valued Spotify at $1 billion despite the fact that company has yet to turn a profit.

Late last month, Amazon launched their much anticipated Cloud Drive, offering anyone with an Amazon account 5GB of free cloud storage.

As the company explains it, Amazon Cloud Drive is your hard drive in the cloud. Store your music, videos, photos, and documents on Amazon's secure servers. All you need is a web browser to upload, download, and access your files from any computer.

If you need more than 5GB, you can pay $1 per GB per year for up to 1TB of storage.

While Cloud Drive is great (highly recommended), it does not have the same great features of Dropbox, which places a folder on your desktop (or anywhere else) so that you can drag-and-drop files of your choice into the folder and it automatically updates your cloud storage. No need to head to a browser and upload a file.

In this guide we will teach you how to create a Dropbox-esque folder for Cloud Drive, making the free service into a very useful cloud storage tool.

Check the guide here: Guide: How to use Amazon’s Cloud Drive on your desktop as a folder

Microsoft has confirmed today that the upcoming Internet Explorer 10 will not run on any operating system except for Windows 7.

Even as a developer preview, the browser will not run on XP or Vista.

The move is one step past Microsoft's drop of XP support for Internet Explorer 9, which was just released last month.

When the final build of the browser hits, you must have Windows 7 SP1 installed, says the company.

Reveals Microsoft:

Windows Vista customers have a great browsing experience with IE9, but in building IE10 we are focused on continuing to drive the kind of innovation that only happens when you take advantage of the ongoing improvements in modern operating systems and modern hardware.

Regarding Windows Vista, our decision with IE9 was not to build to the lowest common denominator. With IE9 we made the decision to help unlock the best Web experience possible, which means taking advantage of everything around the browser -- including Windows 7 and modern PC hardware.

Lenovo's senior specialist in marketing William Cai has said today that the company is currently working on a 23-inch tablet, one that should be available by the end of the year.

Cai says the tablet can be docked as an "all-in-one" solution or just used as a portable tablet to be moved around the house.

Most notably, the exec says the tablet is coming in 2011.

Concludes Cai (via TechRadar):

We think that there is potential for a 23-inch tablet. We'd have to take care of battery life and we are working to get the weight down.It's obviously not for full mobility use, but it could be moved from room to room in the house and used with a full keyboard, or as a television. Or you could lay it on a table top and use it for family games.

We're hoping that we can launch it later this year.

Rovio and Microsoft have confirmed this week that the blockbuster game 'Angry Birds' is headed to Windows Phone 7 devices on May 25th.

Delayed for legal reasons, the game was originally set for a February launch on the platform.

The game will feature 195 levels and will be available in the Xbox Live portion of the app marketplace.

It is unclear if the game will be free or not.

Additionally, Microsoft has expanded the Windows Mobile App Marketplace to 35 countries and has announced major apps like Skype, Layar, Spotify and Amazon will be coming with the "mango" firmware update in September.

Two days into the MIX11 event Microsoft has launched its first public beta of Silverlight 5.

The platform promises "dramatic video quality and performance improvements, and features that improve developer productivity.'

In total, there are about 40 added features/improvements.

TCM has all the updates:

- a XNA-based interface enabling 'stunning' 3D visualizations in apps

- support for running Silverlight applications with desktop features in the browser

- support for 64bit operating systems

- Hardware Decode and presentation of H.264 improve performance for lower-power devices to render high-definition video using GPU support.

- the TrickPlay function allows video to be played at different speeds and supports fast-forward and rewind.

- Improved power awareness that prevents the screen saver from being shown while watching video and allows the computer to sleep when video is not active.

Good Old Games, the retro games site has made some interesting comments regarding DRM (digital rights management) this week, claiming that instead of preventing piracy, it instead encourages it.

PR and marketing manager, Lukasz Kukawski went as far as to say DRM's effectiveness was "close to none."

Kukawski, via Bitgamer:

What I will say isn’t popular in the gaming industry, but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?

The manager also says the DRM is so abusive that some gamers will buy the game to support the developers and then just use a cracked version to avoid all the restrictions:

The Flip video camera brand, started in 2007 and purchased by Cisco in 2009 for $590 million has been dropped, with the company shutting down the whole division.

In its first year of availability, the Flip was a huge success, selling two million units.

Along with shutting down the full video camera division, Cisco says 550 jobs will be removed as part of a "reorganization plan to save money and expand offerings for customers." The company is looking to move those 550 employees to other divisions.

Although Cisco did not specifically cite it, the Flip has been made obsolete by smartphones, which almost all feature 720p video recording.

Most consumers do not want to have to carry around multiple devices when one can do all and analysts always questioned the purchase as it is far removed from Cisco's core businesses.

Regardless, with over $40 billion in cash still on-hand, Cisco can quickly forget the mistake.

Clarifying a statement from last week in which he claimed "Angry Birds" was now the best-selling game on PSN, ever, Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian has apologized and reneged on the client note.

Correcting the statement, Sebastian says "Angry Birds was the most downloaded paid game through the PSN for January and February 2011."

The correction is huge as Angry Birds has only been available via PSN for over 3 months. The PS3 launched in 2006.

Angry Birds sells for $1.99 on the PS3, $.99 on iOS, and for free on Android (with ads). The game has been downloaded over 100 million times across the platforms.

The latest version of the game, Angry Birds Rio, a tie-in to the new movie, has over 10 million downloads since its launch on April 3rd.

Valve has revealed many details about its upcoming Steam "experience" for the PS3, coming next week with the launch of "Portal 2."

Portal 2 is the first game to support Steam on a console, and the game will offer "cross-platform matchmaking, gameplay, friends, chat, and achievements," says the company.

Additionally, Steam for PS3 allows for game progress to be saved to the Steam cloud where they can continue playing their game on any PS3.

From within the Steam overlay, gamers have access to both their PSN and Steam friends, "displaying their in-game or online status and providing a quick pathway to text chats, player profiles, friend requests, and game invites. Steam Achievements are earned in lockstep with PSN Trophies and are also accessible within the Steam overlay."

To use Steam you must link your PSN account with your Steam account, which takes a few clicks after you insert Portal 2.

Finally, if you purchase the PS3 version, you will also be given an access code to play on your PC or Mac, as well.