Ever since Atari paid $21 million for the rights to make a videogame based on “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”–and then gave a programmer just six weeks to make it–there’s been a disconnect between Hollywood and the videogame world.

Sure, Hollywood makes movies out of games, and vice versa. But rarely do the two worlds meet in a collaborative way.

French game publisher Ubisoft–which has worked with John McTiernan on the “Tom Clancy Splinter Cell” games, Peter Jackson on the “King Kong” game and, most recently, James Cameron on the “Avatar” game–is moving to change all that.

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With the influx of fresh new gamers, thanks in large part to the popularity of mass-market game machines, the DS and the Wii, more game companies than ever are jumping on the girl gamer bandwagon. Practically every booth at this year’s E3 Media and Business Summit this year had something to offer for female gamers of various demographics.

The breadth of games ranged from Nintendo DS titles like Namco Bandai’s “National Geographic Panda” and Legacy Interactive’s “Zoo Vet Endangered Animals” to Wii titles like Electronic Arts’ “Littlest Pet Shop” … and “Boogie: Superstar.”

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