Shares of Rackspace Hosting (RAX), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Digital Realty Trust (DLR) fell on news Google (GOOG) has expanded its push into cloud computing services. Google announced commercial availability of its cloud computing service and price cuts in a blog post late Monday. Rackspace stock was down 2% in midday trading in the stock market today, while data center operator Digital Realty’s stock was down 4%. Amazon stock also was down nearly 2%
Expedia’s (EXPE) unit Hotels.com said Tuesday that its mobile travel apps have been downloaded over 25 million times globally, setting a milestone for the hotel booking unit. Hotels.com also says it’s launched a new app specifically for Amazon.com (AMZN) Kindle Fire users. Expedia is continuing to make mobile app availability development a priority as rivals such as Priceline (PCLN) and China’s Ctrip.com International (CTRP) and metasearch travel
Despite the arrival of next-generation video game consoles from Microsoft and Sony, games for older consoles dominated the sales charts during the opening weekend of holiday shopping. All of the top 20 best-selling game titles on Amazon.com (AMZN) over the weekend were for prior-generation consoles. Microsoft ‘s (MSFT) Xbox 360 scored 10 of the top 20, while Sony ‘s (SNE) PlayStation 3 claimed eight and Nintendo ‘s (NTDOY) Wii nabbed two, Cowen analyst Doug Creutz said in a research note Monday. The latest game consoles — Microsoft’s Xbox One, Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Nintendo’s Wii U — didn’t have a single game in the top 20. That’s not too surprising for the Xbox One and PS4, given reports of shortages of the new machines, which debuted last month. But the Wii U has been out for a year and a high-profile game, “Super Mario 3D World,” came out on Nov. 22. “We expect Nintendo’s latest console to continue to struggle this holiday,” Creutz wrote. Among third-party publishers, Electronic Arts (EA) had six of the top 20 games, followed by Ubisoft with four. Activision (ATVI) and Time Warner ‘s (TWX) Warner Bros. each had three in the top 20. Activision’s “Call of Duty: Ghosts” for the Xbox 360 was the best-selling game overall, followed by…