Activision acquired worldwide publishing and distribution rights -- with exception of Japan -- for Hudson Soft’s Bloody Roar: Primal Fury for GameCube. Deal expands Activision’s slate of 17 titles for Nintendo’s new console. Santa Monica company said those 17 titles were “currently in various stage of planning and development.” T- (Teen) rated game will ship in spring, Activision said.

Kmart’s e-commerce subsidiary, BlueLight.com, said Wed. it had expanded Music and Movie Stores at www.bluelight.com. Increased inventory now has more than 65,000 CDs, DVDs and VHS titles, company said. In addition, it said it had added features, including ability for consumers to listen to CDs before they bought. In conjunction with opening of Music Store, company offered autographed copies of Jewel CD This Way to those who bought recording for limited time, along with exclusive releases and other promotions.

Disney said it sold 7 million copies of Pearl Harbor in week since Dec. 4 home video release, earning $130 million. Studio said DVD accounted for 3.7 million sales -- topping 3 million first-week record for Universal’s Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Disney movie got lukewarm reviews and box office this summer, earning $199 million in U.S. against $135 million production cost. Independent audit of home video figures should be available this week.

Microsoft still has no plans to launch Xbox videogame console in Taiwan. Reuters report from Taipei quoted COO Richard Belluzzo as telling news conference: “We do not have specific plans at this point for Taiwan. We have launched in the U.S. but we have to make sure in every country we enter that we have a complete solution around the product and that we have the ability to deliver the product.” Microsoft spokesman said Wed. company still “has not announced specific launch plans for any regions beyond North America, Europe and Japan.” After Nov. 15 debut in N. America, Xbox is scheduled for rollout in Japan Feb. 22 after being delayed from late this year. Console then id to make bow March 14 in Europe.

SonicBlue escalated battle with rival TiVo Wed., saying it would file suit for patent infringement in U.S. Dist. Court, San Francisco. CEO Kenneth Potashner said it was “no longer acceptable” for TiVo “not to enter some kind of relationship with us.” He said companies had been discussing possible licensing agreement for 3 months and SonicBlue, which purchased ReplayTV earlier this year, gave rival “one last chance in good faith to negotiate with us.”

Dell Computer is being sued for unlicensed use of MPEG-2 video compression technology in its PCs. Plaintiffs are members of MPEG Licensing Authority and include France Telecom, JVC, Mitsubishi, Philips, Scientific-Atlanta and Sony. Suit, filed Dec. 7 in U.S. Dist. Court, Wilmington, Del., said plaintiffs controlled 44 of 380 patents related to MPEG-2 digital compression. It cited Dell’s inclusion of DVD drives in its PCs, as well as options for digital video editing that entail MPEG-2. Suit seeks injunction against further infringement and unspecified damages. Dell, which had no comment, is supporter of DVD+RW recording format co-developed by Mitsubishi, Philips, Sony and others.

Fathammer, San Jose, Cal.,said it optimized X-Forge mobile videogame engine for Intel’s StrongARM SA-1110 processor and XScale microarchitecture. Fathammer said engine provided game developers with ability to deliver high frame rate, console- quality 3D games with low memory footprint on wide variety of handheld game devices, PDAs, smartphones.

Ritek obtained $274.6 million loan from consortium of 12 Taiwanese banks to fund purchase of equipment for manufacturing organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and polymer (OLEDs). Consortium was led by Land Bank of Taiwan, and Ritek received loan through Taiwan’s Council for Economic Planning & Development. Money will used to buy equipment to outfit to 2 passive matrix (PM) color OLED production lines and single polymer OLED line. Production of PM OLED is scheduled to start in 2nd quarter, polymer in 3rd quarter. Among Ritek’s customers is Three-Five Systems-Dupont Displays joint venture that’s expected to begin production of OLEDs for handheld PC and cellular phone applications in 2nd quarter 2002.

Total broadband users at home in U.S. are growing far more rapidly than overall Internet audience, Nielsen/NetRatings said. Internet audience measurement service reported record 21.3 million broadband users in U.S. in Nov., up 90% from 11.2 million year ago, compared with 11% growth of total Internet audience to 105.5 million from 95.4 million. Increase in broadband connections benefits streaming media providers, report said. Streaming audience grew 94% to 12.7 million in Nov. from 6.6 million year ago, it said. Overall streaming population -- broadband and narrowband -- increased 18% to 40.7 million from 34.4 million. “Broadband is a main driver behind streaming media, with 3 out of every 5 broadband users now accessing some form of online audio or video,” NetRatings spokesman said. Usage historically has spiked around major news events as Web surfers logged on to Internet for breaking news on Election 2000 and events of Sept. 11, he said.

Borders will open 23,000-sq.-ft. store in Flowood, Miss., in spring. Chain said location would offer more than 200,000 books, CDs and DVDs.