Santa Monica, CA - January 11, 2013 - Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that, according to data from the NPD Group, the Skylanders franchise crossed $500 million in retail sales in the U.S., inclusive of accessory packs and figures, and reached this milestone faster than any other kids' gaming property. Additionally, together Skylanders Giants and Skylanders Spyro's Adventure figures have outsold the top action figure lines in the toy category in the U.S., outselling such popular toy lines as Beyblades, WWE and Star Wars.¹

SteelSeries, like many companies, released some teaser images just before CES and they did exactly as planned: got people talking. The Apex, the first non-mechanical keyboard released for a long time, was announced and quickly a lot of questions began to form. SteelSeries saw a busy 2012 with the launch of many new products, especially in the portable market, and we suspect that trend to continue.

We just got back into our temperary office from Cooler Master’s CES party and I just wanted to share a couple photos. They did a small “fashion” show with their models showing off the goods (the goods being Cooler Master’s newest products pervs). While we stay up working on putting together more coverage for you guys/girls, you can click the read more here to see the photos.

LAS VEGAS (CES 2013) – Razer™, the world leader in high-performance gaming hardware, software and systems, swept CNET’s 2013 “Best of CES” awards for the Razer Edge, the world’s most powerful gaming tablet. The Razer Edge won all three categories for which it was nominated: Best Gaming, People’s Voice—as voted by the CNET audience—and the coveted Best of Show award.

Fremont, CA, January 10, 2013—Plextor (www.goplextor.com), leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital storage devices, will introduce the M5M Solid State Drive at CES 2013. The streamlined M5M provides the same high-performance and reliability expected of a Plextor SSD in a space one-eighth the size of a standard 2.5 inch drive, making it especially well-suited for use in ultrabooks.

Fremont, CA, January 10, 2013— Plextor (www.goplextor.com), leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital storage devices, will announce four new innovative storage solutions at CES 2013, including new entries into the enterprise and mobile storage markets. All four products will feature custom design and development from Plextor’s dedicated in-house team of engineers and world-class facilities.

Islandia, NY -- Jan 10, 2013 -- MaxxVault announced today that Platinum Partner SymQuest has won the MaxxVault Dealer of the Year Award 2012. This award is given in recognition of the partner that generated the most revenue opportunity amongst their peers. A MaxxVault Platinum partner since May 2012, the success of SymQuest is their ability to provide business hardware and software solutions that enhance productivity, security, and reliability while reducing costs. MaxxVault solutions have enabled SymQuest to fulfill this mission with all of their clients, no matter the size or industry.

Back in 2010, when we got our hands on the Momentus XT from Seagate, solid-state technology was an emerging, but expensive, technology. A hybrid drive that allowed a cache of flash memory and the capacity of mechanical drives allowed consumers to experience the vast improvements of SSD’s at a much lower entry price. Three years have given Seagate time to improve on this technology, and today I get a tour of what’s next with SSHD as they are now known, Seagate in general, and the recently acquired premium LaCie brand.

We had the chance to visit the MSI suites where they were showing off both components and notebooks that will be upcoming in the next year. Although our time there was limited, I did have a little time to get to play with a few of their upcoming products.

CES is winding down, but the flow of news certainly is not. There are still very few actual hardware reviews, but where that is lacking there are plenty of stories out of CES from other sites around the web. These stories include a particular juicy one from Valve saying that they were unaware that Xi3 was making the Valve Box for them! The news will probably slow down tremendously over the next few days so enjoy it while you can, soon things will return to the way they are the other 51 weeks of the year, and that makes me a sad panda.

Asus seemed to have an entire floor of the Trump tower to themselves, and in reality probably needed it. There were plenty of products on exhibit, and still quite crowded given their floor space. JJ recognized us right away, and dove straight into the demonstration. We had passed monitors, motherboards, routers, and more as he guided us through the suite, arriving at the start line with a Cosmos II and the word ARES glowing from within.

While we were making our booth and suite tours I did sneak up into the EVGA suite for a few minutes to see what they had going on. They didn’t have any big product launches on hand on the video card size of things obviously but they did have a prototype of a new product they are working on.

January 9, 2013, CES, Las Vegas, NV – Elevate above the ordinary; iBUYPOWER is proud to be ushering in a new era of PC gaming lifestyle.

CES 2013 — Las Vegas, Nevada — January 8, 2013 — Corsair®, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced the release of the Dominator® Platinum Light Bar Upgrade Kits. The new kits allow PC enthusiasts to enhance and customize the lighting of their Dominator Platinum DDR3 PC memory kits.

CES 2013 — Las Vegas, Nevada — January 8, 2013 — Corsair®, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced the Corsair Voyager Air, the first all-in-one mobile wireless drive, home network attached storage, USB drive, and wireless hub.

CES 2013 — Las Vegas, Nevada — January 8, 2012 — Corsair®, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced the Flash Voyager® GT Turbo flash drives, the world’s fastest native USB 3.0 flash drives. Available in 128GB, 64GB, and 32GB capacities, the new flash drives deliver affordable, leading-edge file transfer speeds previously only available in far more expensive "USB 3.0 to SATA bridge" based drives.

CES 2013 — Las Vegas, Nevada — January 8, 2013 — Corsair®, a worldwide designer of high performance PC gaming peripherals, today announced next-generation additions to the premier Corsair Vengeance® line of gaming keyboards, mice, and mouse mats. Also announced is an upcoming free software driver update for the Vengeance 2000 wireless gaming headset which adds Dolby® Headphone 2.0 7.1-channel surround sound.

CES 2013 — Las Vegas, Nevada — January 8, 2012 — Corsair®, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced that the Corsair Raptor line of PC gaming keyboards, mice, and headsets is now available in the United States and Germany.

Austin, TX -- Jan 09, 2013 -- Mushkin, Inc., an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer products, today announced the worldwide launch of its new 960GB Chronos(TM) solid-state drive (SSD), slated to start shipping this month.

LAS VEGAS - (January 8, 2013) – Digital Storm, the predominant name in computer system integration and engineering, unveils Aventum II -- the next leap in the evolution of custom, high-performance PC design.  The original Aventum, a Popular Science 2012 Best of What’s New award winner, was recognized for its ground breaking liquid cooling solution.  Aventum II takes that proprietary cooling design to another level with the addition of nickel plated copper piping that dramatically increases system durability while providing a visual aesthetic enthusiasts will drool over.