After the company's stock hit a six-year low yesterday, Nintendo executives are feeling the heat.

Satoru Iwata, global president and CEO of the game giant, effectively fell on his sword for the 3DS's lagging performance, today announcing he felt a "very great responsibility" for the situation and would be taking a 50 percent salary cut.

Other executives will share the blame and attempt to help the company make up for substantial quarterly losses. In addition to Iwata's salary reduction, members of the board of directors are taking a 30 percent pay cut, while other executives will see their paychecks cut by 20 percent. (It's unclear how long the cuts will be in effect.)

It's a startling move for American consumers, who are used to the duck-and-cover gameplay of Wall Street CEOs. Japanese executives, though, work under a different philosophy, taking direct responsibility for shortfalls.

Iwata, in fact, is one of the lower paid CEOs in the industry among major publishers. Last year, he earned just $1.8 million in compensation – compared to, say, Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who received $5.6 million in salary, stock options and bonuses last year (and currently holds $82 million in unexercised options, according to Forbes).

Amazon Prime's streaming catalog isn't as big as the one at Netflix, but it's working hard to catch up.

The retail giant has struck a deal with NBCUniversal Domestic TV Distribution that will add select Universal Pictures films to the Prime Instant Video collection. The deal will bring the total number of streamable videos to 9,000.

Among the new titles are Oscar winners "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Elizabeth," and "Gosford Park" as well as "Babe," "Notting Hill," "Being John Malkovich", "Fletch," and "Billy Elliott."

"We are very excited to offer Prime members popular Universal films at no additional cost," said Cameron Janes, director of Amazon Instant Video. "Our customers love movies and now we offer them more than 2,000 movies to choose from with Prime Instant Video."

Prime Instant Video is a streaming service the company offers to members of its Amazon Prime service. Members pay $79 per year for free two-day shipping as well as the free video. Even if they never take advantage of that once, the monthly cost for this streaming service works out to $6.50 per month, $1.50 less than Netflix’s least expensive service.

When it comes to audience reach, Netflix owes a debt of gratitude to the video game industry.

A new Nielsen Co. study finds that Netflix users are primarily streaming content to television sets – with half of those customers streaming the service through their Wii, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

Meanwhile, Hulu watchers are bypassing watching shows on their TV, with a whopping 89 percent streaming video to their computers – more than double the number of Netflix customers who watch via their PC.

The study found that 25 percent of Netflix subscribers currently use the Wii to stream video content. Among PS3 owners that number falls to 13 percent – and among Xbox 360 users (who have to pay a $60 annual fee on top of Netflix charges) it's just 12 percent.

Only 5 percent of Hulu users watch via the PS3 and Xbox.

The news follows a Nintendo announcement from earlier this month that 1.5 million per day use Netflix on the Wii.

Given the pending sale of Hulu and the customer anger surrounding Netflix's new pricing plan, it will be interesting to see how these numbers shift in the course of the next year.

Smart TVs are starting to gain traction with users – but having a boob tube that can connect to the internet is still not a big selling point.

In-Stat research says over 60 percent of households with a connected TV use a TV app at least once per week. Not surprisingly, Netflix and YouTube are the most popular apps – but interest seems to be growing in the competition.

“As Netflix competitors become more numerous and as applications are optimized for the big screen, TV apps will become part of the mainstream TV viewing experience,” says Keith Nissen, research director at InStat.

However, it noted, apps are still not the primary reason to buying these sets. Content is. And even though people are using the sets to stream films and other programming, it doesn't seem to make them more inclined to buy online video content.

That's likely part of the reason services like Amazon and Wal-Mart have shifted to an all-you-can-eat model.

Among the other findings and predictions by the company:

* Shipments of connected TVs with integrated TV applications will grow by an average 36% over the next five years.

* 22% of US households with broadband already own an HDTV with integrated TV apps.

* The viewing of DVR recorded TV programming does not lead to the adoption of free VOD services from a pay TV operator.

* Consumers favoring subscriptions to both pay-TV and online video services rose from 18% to 30% during 2010, contributing to the continued growth of Netflix.

Netflix rolled the dice two weeks ago, announcing a significant change – and price increase – to its members. Now, it looks like a lot of those members may be planning to cut their ties with the service and embrace the competition.

A new survey from Wedbush Securities of 1,098 people finds that 22 percent of Netflix subscribers say they plan to discontinue their subscription with the company, and substitute its content with a combination of services, including Redbox, Hulu, Amazon's streaming video initiative and traditional cable pay-per-view.

Among the other expected results of the price hike, according to the survey:

* A 78% increase in $7.99/month streaming-only plan subscriptions 

• A 73% decrease in combination plan subscriptions

• 20% of subscribers will switch to unlimited DVDs by mail plans

Among those who say they plan to drop Netflix, the majority – 57 percent – say they plan to give their business to Redbox. Hulu is the next biggest potential beneficiary at 37 percent, followed by cable providers at 33 percent.

In other words, one of the leaders of the cord cutting movement could be driving users back to cable.

Of course, this is just a survey – and people often threaten to stop doing business with a company and fail to follow through. Should the results reflect actual behavior, however, Netflix would see a 21 percent decrease in its annual revenue run rate, says Wedbush.

But even Wedbush believes a fair number of people answered the questions purely from an emotional point of view.

"We expect defections at perhaps half the rate indicated by the survey, and expect no more than half of the 5.5 million current subscribers who said they would discontinue Netflix service to actually do so," said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter. "With that said, we can only surmise the reason for the price increase, given that it is unlikely to generate higher overall revenues for Netflix, accompanied by a loss of goodwill for a company that has enjoyed one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings over the last decade."

The 3DS is slowly fulfilling its destiny as a 3D multimedia device.

Nintendo has rolled out its 3D video service, giving owners of the handheld gaming system another option beyond games. The service will feature clips and videos selected by the game publisher – generally music, comedy, animation and trailers for Hollywood films.

It's pretty generic content now – and there's nothing that showcases the device's potential as a promotional vehicle for studios, but that will change. A music video from OK Go will be delivered July 27 – and a clip from Blue Man Group is on the way as well. And 3D trailers are in the queue as well, though the company didn't specifically name which films would be featured.

3DS owners will need to download a free application from the eShop to access the video. Once they've done this, the app will automatically update whenever there's new material, providing users are in a WiFi zone – even if the system is in sleep mode.

This is the droid you're looking for if you're a "Star Wars"-loving gamer.

Microsoft has unveiled a new "Star Wars"-branded Xbox 360 – with a console body that looks like R2-D2 and a C-3PO gold colored controller – that will go on sale this holiday season.

Priced at $450, the bundle will also include a white Kinect camera and a copy of the forthcoming "Kinect Star Wars" game. The presentation is one of several tie-ins to the just starting San Diego Comic Con. The company also plans to show off a new podracing mode for the game at the show as well.

Things are going well at Microsoft's Xbox division these days. The company, in its just released Q4 earnings, noted that the Entertainment & Devices Division saw a 30 percent jump in revenue during the quarter, a 45 percent increase over the previous year. Strong sales of the Xbox 360 and Kinect get the credit.

On the whole, Microsoft boasted quarterly revenue of $17.37 billion -- up eight percent over the same period last year and setting a new record in the process. Net income came in at $5.87 billion, a 30 percent improvement over the previous year. For fiscal 2011, revenues of $69.94 billion broke another record, coming in 12 percent higher than fiscal 2010.

'Anonymous' may not be quite as anonymous as they believed.

The FBI has arrested 16 people as part of a crackdown on the Internet's best-known hacker group. These come on top of five arrests by British and Dutch police yesterday, which were part of a coordinated effort. 

Agents also reportedly raided 35 other addresses in connection with a series of attacks on companies such as PayPal, which took place last year. (Anonymous targeted the site for its decision to not allow users to make donations to the whistleblower site WikiLeaks

“In retribution for PayPal’s termination of WikiLeaks’ donation account, a group calling itself Anonymous coordinated and executed distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal’s computer servers using an open source computer program the group makes available for free download on the Internet,” the US Justice Department said in a statement.

The defendants, who (for the most part) are in their 20s, are charged with various counts of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer. 

Anonymous' exploits go far beyond PayPal, though. The group has a checkered history with Hollywood as well. Sony has pointed a finger of blame at the group for being at least partially to blame for the theft of personal information in over 100 million user accounts in May.

Prior to that, the group attacked the MPAA and RIAA for actions the trade groups took to squash filesharing Websites, such as “The Pirate Bay”. The Web sites for both organizations suffered some offline time, but the impact was muted.

Anonymous got its start on 4chan, the Internet’s most infamous imageboard, specifically its sometimes gritty "/b/" subforum. The founder of that site, though, says while the site (and the group) have become notorious for their exploits, there's a value in hiding behind that wall of anonymity.

"One of the things that 4Chan does that’s really special is the way people come together to collaborate en masse," said Christopher Poole at South by Southwest this year. "It’s the process at which you arrive at the product that is fascinating. … Anonymity is authenticity. It allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, raw way. … The cost of failure is really high when you’re contributing as yourself."

Curious what George Lucas and co. have in store for the "Star Wars: The Complete Saga" Blu-ray collection? The discs won't be available until Sept. 16, but an upcoming iPhone and iPad app will spill some of the beans.

The Star Wars Blu-ray: Early Access App, available for free tomorrow (July 20) in the App store, promises to offer an early look at footage and bonus materials from the collection. All totaled, the blu-rays will have over 40 hours of bonus footage.

Apps that tie-in with big home releases aren't exactly new. Disney has found an especially creative way to integrate the two, as it did with "Tron: Legacy" and its second screen feature. What's especially distinctive about this one is the fact it's releasing so far in advance of the blu-ray.

The app's release is timed to tie-in with Thursday's launch of the San Diego Comic-Con, a mecca for Star Wars fans.

When it comes to digital game sales, GameStop is still an also ran – but the company is making a series of moves that are starting to raise eyebrows among industry observers, who say it seems on track to become a powerful force.

Valve's Steam service is still far and away the category leader, but GameStop (in a meeting with analysts) said it expects to see digital sales jump from $500 million this year to $1.5 billion by 2014.

The company bought Impulse, a private digital distribution service, in late March to position itself for future growth as consumers' buying habits change.

"Our customers are beginning to consume games in a hybrid manner, both physical and digital, so we are becoming a hybrid company to meet their needs," said Tony Bartel, president of GameStop, at the time. "[This purchase is] designed to sell more of the games we sell today."

Since then, it has brought Shane Kim, the former VP of Microsoft Game Studios, onto its board of directors, something that could be a key addition. (Kim was responsible for bringing key franchises - like "Halo" and "Gears of War" - to market.)

"The upcoming EA title 'Battlefield 3' will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam," notes Colin Sebastian of Baird Equity Research, who attended a recent GameStop analyst summit. "Given Steam's dominance--and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application--publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative."