DICE Summit 08 had much to offer with the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, and games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, BioShock, and The Orange Box came home as big winners, garnering four awards each.

Individual achievements by Mike Morhaime and Ken Kutaragi were also recognized by The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Details in the full article.

More speakers have been added to the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit's speaker roster. Joining the roster for next year's event are PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura, who is currently working on a new music title for the Nintendo Wii, and newly-appointed Entertainment Software Association president Michael D. Gallagher. More new speakers at the full article.

Two gaming giants, Activision and Vivendi Games, recently announced the big decision to merge and become a stronger third-party developer and publisher for all video game platforms. Naysayers among fans surfaced as expected, but Blizzard Entertainment's co-founder and president Mike Morhaime wants to assure everyone that quality of games won't suffer.

Details await at the full article!

Hiromichi Tanaka, lead developer for Final Fantasy XI, is set to be the international keynote speaker in this year's Austin Game Developer's Conference (GDC), joining speakers such as Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, and Habbo Hotel's lead designer Sulka Haro. In his keynote address, Tanaka will talk about the challenges and triumphs of designing a massively multiplayer online game across platforms.

Scheduled for September 5-7 at the Austin Convention Center in Texas, the Austin GDC will focus on advancing game development with lectures, panels, and round table discussions on the latest issues facing the industry, such as online programming, future trends, the most up-to-date production techniques, and how-to's in creating new games. Jane Pinckard, content manager for the event, states that "Tanaka's presence at our conference is indicative of the event's global appeal."

The Austin GDC will host discussion tracks on online gaming, game audio, creative writing for games, and will introduce a new People's Choice Track, where community members can vote on what topics will be discussed in the conference. Stay with us as we keep you updated on further developments.

Nintendo's pride and glory, Shigeru Miyamoto, was nominated more than a week ago by the people behind TIME Magazine to be one of the Most Influential People of the Year in The TIME 100. After an introductory write up by Quake's own Johnathan Wendel, a.k.a. Fatal1ty, the man behind the phenomenal Mario and Donkey Kong is now pegged at the 92nd spot of the Top 100 list.

Now we do know that the spot isn't as impressive as PC World's placing of Blizzard's Mike Morhaime in the recent Top 50 Most Influential People on the Web, but seeing as he went up against the likes of Paris Hilton and titans from other industries other than the video game, we say 92 is definitely a big slice of the pie. In fact, bagging the 100th spot at the Top 100 list of TIME is already way too good to pass up.

In other news (or just FYI), top spot was filled by philanthropist and Hollywood hottie Angelina Jolie, honored for her major influence on the needy. But top on the readers' lists is Korean pop sensation Rain, with (surprise!) American Idol's Sanjaya Malakar on third place. According to all you gaming readers out there, Shigeru Miyamoto is number nine in your book.

Photo courtesy of Makoto Ishida for TIME Magazine.