Take-Two Interactive continues to believe this year “may remain challenging,” Chairman Strauss Zelnick said in an earnings call. But it still expects to achieve profitability this year without the release of a new Grand Theft Auto game, he said. “This will mark the first time in nearly a decade that the company has been able to accomplish that goal,” he said.

In a court decision that hearkens back to when VCRs were state-of-the-art, a federal appeals court upheld Funai’s VCR-related infringement patent claims against Daewoo, backing a lower court’s awarding $8.6 million in damages and legal costs. The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit returned the case to U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Spero, in San Jose, Calif, after deciding Daewoo infringed three of Funai’s six VCR-related patents that were at the heart of the case.

BERLIN -- Sony’s top strategist for Blu-ray and 3D said at an IFA media briefing Friday that it’s doubtful his company would market a 3D consumer camcorder before work is finished on a 3D spec for the AVCHD format that Sony developed jointly with Panasonic. The executive, Akira Shimazu, senior general manager in charge of Sony’s Blu-ray and 3D strategy office, steered well clear of criticizing Panasonic’s new 3D camcorder introduction, which has won high praise at IFA for its ability to help consumers create their own 3D images, thus filling the content void left by the fact that so few Blu-ray 3D movies broadcast 3D programs are available.

The final chapter in Circuit City’s history may be written this week as a final liquidation plan comes before a bankruptcy court judge. The defunct chain is asking U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Huennekens, Richmond, Va., to approve a plan that would pay unsecured creditors 10-32 percent of what they were owed when Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in November 2008. The original plan, filed Sept. 29, called for unsecured creditors to get a maximum of 13.5 percent.

Orb Networks began shipping a low-cost multi-room music system that leverages consumers’ existing investments in smartphones and wireless home networks. Orb’s $79 solution, available direct to consumers from the company website, combines a $69 receiver resembling a thin, lightweight hockey puck, a $10 iPhone/iPad app for remote control capability, a set of audio cables and a power cord. Each additional room requires a $69 receiver that can plug into stereo systems, TVs, tabletop radios and other music systems using standard RCA plugs, the company said. A version for the Android smartphone platform is due later this month, CEO Joe Costello told Consumer Electronics Daily. The system operates over 802.11b/g/n networks.

XpanD’s line of universal 3D glasses launched at IFA last week are said to work with all 3D TVs and in certain U.S. theaters that use active 3D systems. The $129 glasses will be in stores worldwide by the end of October, said a company spokesman. XpanD positions the glasses as a universal solution -- working with both TVs and at the cinema -- compared with the active-shutter universal glasses Monster Cable introduced last summer that come with their own transmitter ($249 for one pair of glasses and transmitter) and work just with 3D TVs.

BERLIN -- Samsung executives spared few superlatives at an IFA news conference Thursday in declaring their company’s supremacy over rivals in marketing 3D TV products. Samsung “is the leader in this category,” said Boo-Keun Yoon, president of Samsung’s Video Display Business.

Costco and Target on Thursday reported weak August CE sales, with Costco again singling out “soft” TV sales. But weakness in CE wasn’t enough to offset strength in other categories as both companies -- as well as rival BJ’s Wholesale Club -- reported increases in sales and comparable store sales versus August 2009. BJ’s didn’t specify how CE fared overall, but a spokeswoman told Consumer Electronics Daily that TV sales were “flat” compared to August 2009.

Panasonic’s ties to the 3D production equipment used in filming Avatar have yielded it an exclusive 3D Blu-ray bundle starting in December with its Viera 42-, 50-, 54-, 58- and 65-inch plasma TVs, company officials said. The promotion, which will include TV advertising, “will go on for some time, certainly more than two weeks,” said Victor Carlson, vice president in Panasonic Consumer Electronics marketing group. Carlson said details haven’t been finalized. Sony is said to have landed a similar deal with the Walt Disney Co. for Alice in Wonderland 3D that’s expected this fall. A Sony spokesman declined comment. Samsung has had a similar exclusive bundle for DreamWorks’ Monsters vs. Aliens 3D for much of this year. And Samsung will have similar 3D bundles this fall with DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon and all four Shrek movies.

CBS is testing a new camera setup devised by Avatar director of photography Vince Pace this weekend during 3D production of the U.S. Open, CBS Sports executive vice president Ken Aagaard told journalists at a Panasonic press conference Wednesday. Due to the limited camera positions available in the tennis stadium, compared with those of baseball, basketball and football venues, the company had to find a way to combine cameras into a single rig manned by one person, he said. Pace’s solution was a “shadow” camera system, that straps two 3D cameras to a special housing at the top of the lens of the 2D camera, Aagaard told Consumer Electronics Daily.