Let's start with the big news: Ubisoft (UBSFY.PK) reported first-quarter results that were well below guidance, citing the following:

• Significantly lower back-catalog sales of titles for PLAYSTATION® 3 (SNE) and Xbox360® (MSFT) than in the first quarter of 2008-09.
• Poorer-than-anticipated market conditions.

The above items point to the fact that the video-game industry is feeling the pain of a slowing economy. Given this news, I"d be VERY wary of holding Nintendo (NTDOY.PK), Electronic Arts (ERTS), or GameStop (GME) into earnings.

As always, the video-game industry's active with news coming across the wires 24/7. Here are this past weekend's 5 most interesting stories:

1) Is a Grand Theft Auto movie on the way? Take-Two Interactive's (TTWO) RockStar Games studio says no.

Some interesting things happened in the video-game industry today that you may have missed, so I thought I'd put together a brief recap of what's hot and what's not.

This morning, Electronic Arts (ERTS) announced that its recent download-only title Battlefield 1943 has sold over 600,000 units in its first two weeks after release. While that made Battlefield 1943 a record-setter for downloadable games, the actual revenue generated from the game doesn't amount to much.

As I've written, THQ's (THQI) got a major hit on its hands with UFC Undisputed: 2009, its first game based upon the Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed-martial arts brand.

We're now getting an even bigger taste of just what this franchise can do.

THQ (THQI) was surging 11% Tuesday to $5.87 on heavy volume in reaction to a slate of positive reviews of its new title UFC 2009: Undisputed, which is based upon the Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts organization.

UFC 2009 has been widely anticipated as the first high-quality MMA video game, with analysts expecting the game to sell 2 million units or more this fiscal year.

If you're reading this, you probably know that Activision (ATVI) is one of the few companies out there still smashing analysts' earnings estimates. On Thursday, the world's leading video-game software publisher delivered a stellar Q1 report, beating handily on both the top and bottom lines, driving a nice pop in the stock today.

But more importantly, the conference call gave us multiple reasons the stock is going significantly higher this year.

There is an awful lot of hate out there for leveraged ETFs. Microcap Speculator identified the Direxion 3X ETFs as "Wealth Destroyers." Jim Cramer called the Ultrashort Financials ProShares (SKF) the "ETF of mass banking destruction."

But the fact is that leveraged ETFs are nothing but a financial tool, which like any other, can be used either responsibly or recklessly.

On Thursday, we learned that Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is doing fairly well in a tough economy. But Friday night, market-research firm NPD reported March 2009 video-game industry sales, and there wasn’t much to get excited about.

Overall sales fell 17% to $1.43 billion, with hardware down 18%, software down 17%, and accessories down 15%. The problem wasn’t the economy - it was more a case of incredibly tough year-over-year comparisons.

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) is an old favorite of momentum hounds. From Q1 of 2003 to Q3 2008, the company was the Joe DiMaggio of Wall Street, beating estimates for 23 straight quarters by pretty whopping margins.

In fact, the streak was probably longer than that, but I don't have access to the data.

Rochdale Securities analyst Dick Bove published a research note last weekend arguing that Goldman Sachs (GS) should pay back Warren Buffett's investment in the bank before it repays TARP funds. While it's a bit of a moot point since TARP program rules require that banks repay the the government before other stakeholders, every investment bank should pay the TARP money back as soon as humanly possible.

Here's why:

In his Sunday interview with Katie Couric, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner more or less admitted that bank CEOs are on the chopping block.

Just read this exchange:

What's making news in the video-game world right now? OnLive.

Think of it as a video-game system with a cloud-computing twist. Instead of buying games in stores, OnLive users will use PC's or the company's own micro-console to log into centralized servers which would handle all computing chores, no $300 console or $600 graphics card required.