Sony

Numbers are fun: Year end edition

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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. →  Now bear my arctic post.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 1.12.07

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Analyst who predicted PS3 shortages till June worries about units on shelf
I generally support any news that doesn’t support Sony but my disdain for analysts trumps even my resentment towards Sony. The analyst in this case has already predicted Sony’s triumph this generation but is now “troubled” by recent news of PS3s sitting on shelves. At least Captain Obvious makes four times as much as the average American.

This one is called “Don’t be a 2nd player hater.”

i am 8 bit exhibit = awesome
If you are a game buff and have some money to blow on crap to hang on walls, check out i am 8 bit. “I’ll have one art, please!”

Kaz Hirai talks shit
Kas says a few things that are worth contemplating. →  Shadow of Read

What we hope to see in 2007

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With a new year comes new hope and a new opportunity to have our dreams crushed.

Stefan —
Saturn Games on the Virtual Console: I know, there are significant disk space problems – seeing as a single game could use up the entire internal memory of the Wii. But if a way can be found, I’m holding out hope for Shining Force III and a NiGHTS re-release with a _real_ 3D Controller.

Panzer Dragoon Saga with motion sensing controls Second coming of Christ

Sony opening the PS3 Graphics hardware to Linux users: This is another one that’s not likely to happen. And by not likely, I mean no way in hell. Allowing direct access to the graphics chipset would essentially let anyone circumvent the price of their dev kit – and would deprive them of licensing fees for game sales. →  I regret learning to read.

Review – Onimusha Warlords

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Back where my folks live in Pennsylvania, local cable picks up Channel 63 of New Jersey. Despite being a local, American owned station, Channel 63 fills all of its time slots with shows and commercials from Japan and Korea. This, of course, means that at any given hour you can find all kinds of ridiculous Samurai drama.

These shows are always the same; the men are loud and gruff, the women soft and gentle. The costumes are cheap, flamboyant, or in the case in which a demon is present, both (this is most of the time). The plots are ridiculous, with characters running around in the most awkward and confused ways regardless of what is going on. And every episode of Samurai drama ends with coming attractions that are preceded by bold blocks of kanji with flames in the background. →  These are the games I know, I know. These are the games I know.

N’Gai Croal to Phil Harrison: What’s Up With Rare?

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Following yesterday’s big news story about Rare’s departing co-founding brothers, Chris and Tim Stamper, N’Gai Croal of Newsweek interviewed Sony’s Phil Harrison and asked him what he thought of Rare’s recent decline in fame.

Can someone explain to me why he asked Sony this question? Did he willingly pick the most irrelevant person to ask, or was it, “Damn, I have this huge hole in my Q&A sheet. Hmmmm. Oh, I know what to fill it in with!”

Phil tries admirably to dodge the issue a bit, and tries to assume logically what happened.

“… I think that they became quite insular and quite inward-facing, and they missed some of the trends that were going on in the business generally. Now also, if you sell your company to Microsoft and get hundreds of millions of whatevers, currency in the bank, it does tend to defocus management a little bit.” →  Tony Hawk’s Posting Ground

2007 Predictions With Some Sugar on Top

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2006 has come and gone, and it was one hell of a year. Nintendo raked in the dough like never before with the Wii and DS, Sony released the PS3 to somewhat lukewarm reviews, and the 360 started to come into its own with some stellar software. So what about 2007? What major stories are we going to be reporting this time?

For Nintendo, 2007 is going to be a hugely defining year. If the Wii can keep the momentum going, then it can truly be a comeback story. Wii Sports has done a great job at making the Wii an amazing experience, and it will probably keep the Wii’s popularity up for awhile.

Come this summer, however, and gamers are going to be asking for more. →  Read me now, believe me later.

Rumor Rounds: PSP2 w/ HDD?

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This one comes from a recent Samsung convention, revealing some sort of memory unit for the device, either designed for the existing unit or a future revision. Even though it would be awesome to have an HDD, I’m inclined to think that it really won’t save the PSP.

Technically, the PSP isn’t a bad system. It has all the pieces to make it a great machine, but Sony has done a horrible job making it useful.

First, regarding its multimedia capabilities, you can’t really watch anything unless it’s been properly converted. They gave us the Media Manager (which isn’t free, by the way), and the online community has given us PSP Video 9, the ultimate converter for the PSP. But if you want to watch video on the PSP, you have to learn about it first. →  Monster Reader 4

Wii Sells Like Wii-Cakes

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In little over a month, the Nintendo Wii has sold over 3.19 million units worldwide, according to VG Charts.org. For any console, that is a fantastic number, and Nintendo is deservedly riding on clouds lined with freshly printed Benjamins right now.

But how could this have happened? I mean, Nintendo is supposed to be dead last in the home console market, right? How can a company become so popular after being the most underrated console maker in the last generation? Am I taking crazy pills or something?

I guess the Wii really is all that and a bag of potato chips. We have reports that moms and sisters have been getting into the action, and people are getting so excited that they’re shattering their TV’s to show how excited they are. →  These are the games I know, I know. These are the games I know.

Review – Taito Memories

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Why hello there Taito Memories. Fancy seeing you here for ten dollars. I think I just might take you home with me. I’ve always been really curious about what you’re all about. After all, you’re not quite like your other cousins. Last generation saw tons of you classic compilations being released, on PS2 and just about everywhere else.

Namco, Capcom, Sega, Atari, even Activision and Midway tried their hand at it. Seems they sold pretty well too, though gamers also learned that they could never guess what to expect from you compilations. They might get all the classics, and they might not. They may get 20 games, or fewer than ten. There could be tons of bonus content and great emulation, or sparse features and horrible recreations of each game. →  I got served!

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 12.15.06

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Wii breaks records in PAL territories
American developers tend to focus on American gamers. Japanese developers are more split, but many still focus primarily on local customers. Do Australian and European developers give a shit about gamers in their own countries or do they instead focus on North America because that’s where the cash money is?

The answer to this question may have a large impact on this generation of consoles. If the PAL developers focus mostly on Americans, these record breaking sales are good news for Nintendo. If, though, these territories developers do care about the local gamer, this means that the Wii should be getting a good number of Australian and British developed games. This could be bad news for Sony and Microsoft. →  The Last Readment