Software sales

Who is responsible for making sure I have heard of a game?

by

Next week Capcom will release Zack and Wiki for the Wii.

This is significant not because I want to play the game (although I do, and you should also) but because I had never heard of it up until a few days ago. There have been plenty of articles and columns recently that lament the fact that third party titles have failed to sell on Nintendo’s newest console. This fact, the fact that Nintendo has suffered a similar fate with past consoles, and the perception that they are either competing too fiercely with these third parties or have too difficult and onerous a quality assurance process have led some in the industry to believe that the big N is doomed. The Wii will be unable to dominate this generation without significant third part support, they argue. →  Read the rest

Xbox to make its first dollar in 2008

by

Yeah, seven years after the original Xbox was released. If this was the plan all along, there would’ve been no way in Hell that the Xbox project would have been green-lit had it been anyone but Microsoft. It has cost the company billions already, which isn’t a very favorable position when dealing with shareholders.

From eWeek via Next-Gen.biz, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, states that through peripherals, software sales (1st and 3rd party titles), and Xbox Live, the Xbox platform will finally see a profit next year. Welcome, Microsoft, to the club that Nintendo has been a part of since, well, forever.

This fact just goes to show you how much money Microsoft can afford to waste on something like a gaming console. They’ve lost billions of dollars in the last seven years, but are still going into the console market with all guns blazing. →  Read the rest

Numbers are fun: Year end edition – The handhelds

by

A few months ago I reported that the DS was an unstoppable juggernaut that had put quite some distance between itself and the PSP. Elsewhere on this site we have mentioned that PSP software sales have fallen off. After looking at some year end numbers on handheld sales, I hold to the argument that the DS will be (already is?) the victor in this generation of portable video games I think it may be a bit early to buy Sony’s product a headstone. Lets go to the proverbial video tape.

Both handheld companies entered 2006 with approximately 3.7 million units of hardware sold (DS had slightly more, PSP slightly less, but DS also had a three month head start). In the US the DS then outpaced the PSP by selling 5.3 million units (combined DS and DS Lite) while PSP managed a very respectable 3 million. →  Read the rest

Dev Community Sips on Haterade, Trashes Sony

by

Hopping on the “I hate Sony” bandwagon this week, Valve’s head-honcho Gabe Newell went on a tirade against the PS3 in a GameInformer interview. And I quote:

“The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think It’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted… I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a ‘do over’. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it.'”

Whew, those are some harsh words, Newell. There is just no more Playstation love these days. And this hasn’t been the first time this has happened, either. Last week, id’s John Carmack told GameInformer that he has disliked Sony’s subpar dev tools since the PS2. →  Read the rest

Numbers are fun: Year end edition

by

Heading into the holidays the question on the collective mind of the industry was which seventh generation system would emerge with the lead. For Xbox 360 this meant continuing to sell some units despite the fact that Nintendo and Sony were releasing their competitors in the market. For Nintendo and Sony, success meant shipping as many consoles to store shelves as possible and then selling all of them. So, now that the dust has settled, who has accomplished their goals, and who may be in trouble? It’s obviously too early to call the generation for one system or another, but the numbers do tell an interesting story. For our purposes, all the numbers below (unless otherwise noted) are US sales.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had a year head start on both of the other consoles. →  Read the rest

Numbers are fun!

by

In the course of doing my job, I managed to stumble across some information about the stocks of video game companies. Turns out a Bloomberg terminal is a worthwhile investment (when I am not paying for it) after all. Basically, I am now able to put numbers (which will not be precise, since there may be some intellectual property rights at issue) next to musings such as “It seems the DS is selling a lot of unit,” or “What happened to the PSP, are there any games?” Please beware the frequent use of parenthetical statements (such as this one: DS = original DS + DS Lite).

Something that needs to be understood about the way traditional financial statistics apply to the video game industry (and entertainment media generally) is that there is a “round peg, square hole” problem. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.17.06

by
OMG itz a remote control!11111

Miyamoto confirms the new Zelda will use the Revolution controller.
Though in what regard, we are still not sure. If it’s simply for mini games or something silly like that, many fans may pissed off. I think Nintendo painted themselves into a corner with this new Zelda game. They wanted to release it as a GC game but then there are no other big games coming out on that system… possibly ever. So instead of supporting their own dead system they decided to launch it with the Revolution. Making it a Rev launch title makes sense, but then Nintendo would just alienate more fans because the game was originally promised for the GC. So now they’re trying to dress it up like a Revolution title to sell the system. →  Read the rest