Mass Effect 3 sells 890,000 copies on day one
Posted by John Ball Categories: Action, Adventure, Corporate News, Kinect, Microsoft, Release Dates, Role Playing Games, Third Person Shooters, Xbox 360,
As any in-the-know gamer should be aware of, Mass Effect 3 was released last Tuesday, and, man, is it flying off the store shelves. Opening day sales for the game hit 890,000 units, which is most definitely a lot of cheddar. 1.5 million units of the title have been shipped to retailers worldwide, however take note that the number of units shipped does not correlate with the number of units sold.
To learn more about the game check out our Mass Effect 3 Kinect feature.
Gallery: Mass Effect 3 sells 890,000 copies on day one
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Nintendo Wii sales plummet by 31.5 percent from January 2010
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
January has just not been a pleasant month for video game sales. At least, that's according to new numbers released by NPD. Total January 2011 sales for gaming accessories, portable systems, and games for PCs and consoles fell to $1.16 billion from last year's total of $1.22 billion. And the $1.22 billion figure for January 2010 is itself a decrease from January 2009 figures, or $1.33 billion in total sales.
Breaking that number out a bit, hardware sales took the biggest year-to-year hit, dropping 8 percent from $353.7 million in January 2010 to $324 million in January 2011. NPD no longer splits this number out into publicly available data for the various console manufacturers; however, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said that Microsoft was the only big player to experience year-to-year growth on hardware sales.
According to Pachter, Microsoft sold approximately 332,800 Xbox 360 units, representing a year-to-year growth of 14.4 percent for the company. More than half of the systems sold were also bundled with Microsoft's Kinect accessory.
Nintendo, on the other hand, found its sales down 31.5 percent compared to the same period of time last year. That's a drop from 465,800 Wii consoles sold in January 2010 to 319,000 sold in January 2011. The company still leads the current console market with 34.5 million Wii units sold in the U.S., in total, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 coming in second place at 25.8 million, followed by Sony's PlayStation 3 at 15.7 million.
Click to continue reading Nintendo Wii sales plummet by 31.5 percent from January 2010
Gallery: Nintendo Wii sales plummet by 31.5 percent from January 2010
Buy 2 games, get 1 free next week at Target
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Hot Deals, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Looking to pick up a gaggle of games for yourself, or for loved ones for the holidays? You'll wanna plan to hit up Target next week, as they are having an awesome "Buy 2, Get One Free" sale, and it applies to all games, including brand new titles. With all the new hotness that's being dropped on us so far in October and early November, this is the place to be if you wanna pick up at least two new games (Kinect, anyone?). So, what are you gonna get?
Read More 
| GTR
Gallery: Buy 2 games, get 1 free next week at Target
Amazon selling Xbox Live Gold subscriptions for $29.97
We are gonna go out on a limb and say this is likely the best gaming deal you’ll see today. Over at Amazon, they are selling the 1-year Xbox Live Gold subscription at just $29.97. That’s a little over $20 off the standard price of $50 that most of us pay on a yearly basis to stay connected to the Xbox Live golden world, or in other words, a full 40% off. If you are nearing the end of your subscription, you’ll wanna grab one, certainly. Heck, I’m gonna pick up a few just so I can stay stocked up. At $30, why not?
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first sale of its kind, as Buy.com was also pulling a similar stunt last week. Could we be seeing the beginnings of an Xbox Live Gold price drop? Maybe?
Your thoughts?
Read More | Amazon
Gallery: Amazon selling Xbox Live Gold subscriptions for $29.97
Games With Online Multiplayer Sell More
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, Downloadable Content, Internet, Microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Sony, Wii, Xbox 360,
A research paper from Electronic Entertainment Design and Research has been released that suggests that games with online support can be crucial to a game’s retail success. Not surprisingly, another way to boost sales is to create a quality game (defined as those with a 90+ score on Metacritic), with these well-reviewed titles outselling the average release well above 5-to-1.
While making good games typically means making good money, naturally, it is a bit surprising to see the report indicate that sales can be doubled by dropping in an online mode. With online games selling twice the number copies that offline titles do, it’s curious to note that over half of games released don’t offer even basic online support.
Click to continue reading Games With Online Multiplayer Sell More
Read More | Ars Technica
Gallery: Games With Online Multiplayer Sell More
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.
Read More | Next Generation
Gallery: July NPD: Wii Reigns Supreme, Xbox 360 Edges Out PS3
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.
Read More | PlayStation Blog
Gallery: Sony Believes PS3 Price Drop Helped Boost Sales
65 Nanometer Microprocessors Coming to an Xbox 360 Near You
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Hardware, Microsoft, Xbox 360,
Dean Takahashi has a write-up regarding the upcoming 65nm microprocessors reportedly shipping on new Xbox 360 units. The more efficient processors are included on the new Falcon boards that are included standard in all units going forward. Of course, Microsoft still needs to sell its existing stock of 90nm chip systems and as a result is being, shall we say, coy about the new processors and their availability.
Also of note is that these new Falcon boards curiously do not include replacement 65nm ATI graphics processors, which some have speculated are at least partially responsible for the frequently discussed Red Rings of Death issue that Microsoft recently took steps to correct. Takahashi remarks that he expected the 65nm chips—both processor and graphics—to have appeared long before now but speculates that the problems with the 90nm boxes may have pulled Microsoft’s engineers away from the efficiency shift to concentrate on damage control.
The crux of the report is that buying a new Xbox 360 right now is probably not the wisest consumer decision, at least until someone determines how to effectively differentiate between the chip sizes from the outer boxes. Once the last of the 90nm systems have been liquidated from stock all 360s sold will include HDMI and the more efficient chips, which many believe (or perhaps hope) will be more reliable than 360s have historically been. The moral of the story then is for those considering an Xbox purchase to wait for a few months for the holiday buyers to clear out the older stock, something Microsoft hopes you won’t do which is why they remain so elusive with details on the new chips.
Read More | San Jose Mercury
Gallery: 65 Nanometer Microprocessors Coming to an Xbox 360 Near You
Amazon Sells Out of Elite 360’s in Hours
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Release Dates, Rumors, Xbox 360,
Personally, it seemed like a strange move to me when Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 “elite” edition. For a console that had really carved out a position for itself in the current-gen competition, it seemed like the Elite was just M$ trying to make their console look more like a PS3. Well, color me wrong, because it seems like the Elite may be selling like hotcakes.
According to videogame news site Punch-Jump, the Xbox 360 Elite edition was posted on Amazon.com yesterday for pre-orders (good luck getting it on Sunday!), and sold out “within hours” of being listed. Of course, it’s not clear whether or not this actually represents M$ increasing their market share… are these truly *new* gamers, or just folks upgrading from their Platinum edition 360’s? We’ll be keeping a close eye on the NPD numbers next month… could this be the edge that Microsoft needs to beat out Sony in this round?
P.S. For those of you that weren’t madly refreshing the Amazon.com homepage on Thursday, you could always try your luck getting a Wii or Elite 360 at Target this week!
Read More | Punch-Jump.com
Gallery: Amazon Sells Out of Elite 360’s in Hours
Microsoft’s Xbox Quarter: Losses Shrink, So Does Revenue
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Xbox 360,
Yesterday, Microsoft reported their quarterly results for the period ending March 31, 2007. Overall, the results were good for the company, moving to record profits based largely on getting Vista and the latest version of Office out the door. Still, for gamers, one thing has stood out – while losses in the Entertainment and Devices Division shrunk, so did revenues.
Dean Takahashi at Mercury News describes this reduction in sales as a “disturbing trend.” Since Microsoft doesn’t break out revenues by subgroup in the Entertainment division, it’s really hard to understand where this leaves the Xbox 360. Comparing March totals, Xbox 360 sales were down around 30% year-over-year, but this reflects a time period where Microsoft was still pretty much in the initial honeymoon phase of the console launch. Microsoft notoriously had supply problems during the first few months, but by March had seemed to catch up with demand, so the company was probably still dealing with early adopters.
More interesting is Takahashi’s dissection of the company’s ongoing losses with the Xbox 360. Even with cost reductions in hardware and having a really strong tie rate, the company is still losing money per console. With the estimated figures in the article, this projects to $53 lost per console. We can’t really know what the financials behind the Xbox 360 are, but project this to Sony, where their tie rate is much lower and the console hardware cost is much higher, or Nintendo, who claims to make a profit on each console sold, regardless of software sold later.
Read More 
| Microsoft’s Q3 Results
Read More | Mercury News
Gallery: Microsoft’s Xbox Quarter: Losses Shrink, So Does Revenue
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