Microsoft’s entertainment division led by the XBox and Kinect business, grew sales by 30%, compared with the year-ago quarter. The company reported Thursday quarterly net income rose to $5.9 billion, or 69 cents per share, on $17.4 billion in sales. Compare that with net income of $4.5 billion, or 51 cents per share, on $16.0 billion in sales for the year-ago quarter. The Online Services Division that includes Bing grew 17% for the quarter.

If one is good, three must be better. For the latest iteration of its basketball game franchise, NBA2K12, 2K Sports will feature three retired greats on separate covers: Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. In last year's version, NBA2K11, Jordan was a playable character in the game and featured on the cover. "Bringing Michael Jordan to the virtual hardwood last year was a huge success for NBA 2K11; however, we didn't want to stop there," said Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports, in a release. "We're bringing 'His Airness' back to the NBA 2K …

NBC Universal and Comcast Corp. have given their $1.4 billion in media buying business to GroupM’s Maxus and Publicis Groupe’s SMG. GroupM's Maxus will gain NBCUniversal’s domestic properties -- television and film. GroupM's MediaCom will continue to represent the company's media interests outside the U.S. SMG will add NBCUniversal theme parks to its portfolio to its Comcast's MSO-- work that was done by Starcom MediaVest Group's MediaVest unit. In a statement, NBC says "the decision to consolidate our media agencies was made in order to streamline the way our companies conduct business. Omnicom's OMD was the …

Mobile advertising company 4INFO Thursday released new research aimed at providing a broader picture of the mobile consumer. Among the main findings, 40% of mobile users have made an online purchase, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) is a leading online shopping segment. Mobile users are more likely to buy consumable goods, such as pet supplies, than they are to buy women's or men's apparel (and of those, nearly 60% purchase name brand pet supplies, like Purina). Other top CPG brands within their product categories included Coca-Cola, Dannon Yogurt, Hershey's, Nabisco and Tropicana. When it comes to demographics, …

eBay will process "easily" $4 billion in mobile transactions this year, up from $2 billion in 2010, according to Bob Page, VP of analytics platform for the company. "That's a lot of commerce," he said. Page told the audience at OMMA Metrics that 2010 was the year for mobile at eBay, while introducing a panel of experts to talk about mobile metrics at MediaPost's San Francisco conference. "Mobile has arrived in a big way at eBay," he said

NBC Universal is getting into the private digital ad exchange business. NBC Universal says the move is to reduce the reliance on third party ad exchanges --which have been criticized in driving down cost per thousand user pricing. Private ad exchanges can work better for premium digital sites, where they can set specific price limits. All this would help NBC's family of sites and that of premium video digital sites like Hulu, of which NBC Universal's parent Comcast is a partner.

Reebok is rolling out its new Reebok Lite line, which it describes as a cross between its '80s-era classics and cutting-edge technology, with a TV spot and videos by hip-hop producer Swizz Beatz. But don't look for any leg warmers, headbands, or Madonna references: While the shoes themselves may evoke '80s flashbacks, the new campaign is pure urban club culture. It includes 25 dancers, 150 extras and choreography from Hi-Hat, as lasers, smoke and an acrylic box create a multi-dimensional Classic R, enclosed within a box. A spokesman for the company, now owned by Adidas, says it marks …

Mobile payments worldwide are expected to jump 76% this year to nearly $86 billion, according to a new Gartner forecast. The number of people making mobile payments, meanwhile, will grow 38% to 141 million. Despite the eye-catching numbers , the research firm notes the mobile payment market is growing slower than expected, especially in developing regions. At the same time, the promise of mobile payments driven by Near Field Communication in more advanced markets is at least four years away from mass adoption. "The biggest hurdle is the need to change user behavior by convincing consumers to pay with …

The iPhone again helped propel sales at AT&T as revenue increased 2.2% to $31.5 billion in the second quarter compared to a year ago. The telecom giant added 1.1 million customers during the quarter including 331,000 new contract customers. It activated 3.6 million iPhones in the quarter, driven in part by sales of the iPhone 4. Apple on Tuesday reported selling 20 million iPhones in its most recent quarter, up 142% from a year ago. AT&T also said it had its best quarter ever for smartphone sales overall, selling 5.6 million. Besides the iPhone, sales of Android and other …

Google said Wednesday it would shut down Google Labs, also known as the company's playground for engineers. Bill Coughran, SVP for research and systems infrastructure at Google, explains Android Market will continue to carry many of the Labs products that are Android apps today. Aside from Google Goggles, a more recent experiment that started in Google Labs is Swiffy, a Web-based app that converts Flash animation into HTML 5.