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July NPD: Wii Reigns Supreme, Xbox 360 Edges Out PS3
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Corporate News, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Portable/Mobile, PSP, Sony, Wii
According to the latest NPD report, the video game industry generated almost a billion dollars of sales in the month of July. Nintendo’s Wii led the charge with an absolutely astounding 425,000 units sold. The Wii was followed by the PS2, which sold 220,000 units. The Xbox 360 sold 170,000 units, once again beating the PS3, which sold 159,000 units. On the portable side of things, the Nintendo DS sold a whopping 405,000 units, while the PSP moved 214,000 units. Overall console sales are up almost 43% from this period last year.
All of this begs the question: Where are people finding the Wii in such great numbers? I haven’t seen one in a store since the beginning of the year, but somehow Nintendo keeps selling hundreds of thousands of them every month.
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| Next Generation
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Sony Develops Sugar-Run Batteries
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Design, Misc. Tech, Storage

Sony Japan has come up with batteries that can run on glucose. Pour in some grape juice or Gatorade and the 4-cell array can power speakers hooked up to a Walkman with only the addition of a small fan to produce an output of up to 50mW. Even if you can’t make out the translation, check out the demo of the prototype on their site, which pretty much speaks for itself. We were wondering what flavor the device would prefer and decided Fruit Punch sounds like it might be our best option.
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| Digital World Tokyo
Sony Believes PS3 Price Drop Helped Boost Sales
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: PlayStation 3, Sony
Sony has examined the most recent NPD numbers and, happy with what they saw, are attributing their 61% jump from the previous month’s numbers to the PlayStation 3 price drop they announced just prior to E3. They are quick to point out that anticipation for some actual exclusive titles like Heavenly Sword and Warhawk may have helped drive interest in their slow-out-of-the-gate console.
Despite the predictably upbeat tone of Sony’s blog post, some have had a less than enthusiastic response to July’s NPD numbers since many analysts predicted that Sony was going to beat the Xbox 360‘s sales in July largely because of the price drop. That the PS3 was still unable to overtake the 360 in sales in spite of a comparatively more affordable price has some worrying that Sony just doesn’t have enough market draw to convince consumers to take the plunge. What is plainly obvious now is that Sony drastically overestimated the price the market would bear: It’s wallet-busting PS3 has lagged in sales from the beginning while Nintendo’s $250 Wii has flown off store shelves consistently for almost a year and as soon as the price went down on the PlayStation, it saw an improvement in units moved.
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| PlayStation Blog
PS3 to Get PlayTV Tuner DVR Accessory
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Accessories, PlayStation 3, PSP, Sony
Sony announced in a Leipzig press conference a new digital tuner to be released in early 2008 for the PlayStation 3 that will allow it to display and record TV, effectively turning the console into a PVR. In addition to the PS3 recording and playback functionality, the tuner will also be able to transmit the signal locally or via WiFi to a PSP adding Slingbox-like capabilities to the accessory.
So far there has been no announcement of pricing of the unit, dubbed the PlayTV.
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| Computer and Video Games
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