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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
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Microsoft enters Mac App Store with Windows Phone 7 Connector
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Handhelds, Microsoft, Software,
Looks like Microsoft's first app to be included in the Mac App Store is Windows Phone 7 Connector. If you own a Windows Phone 7 device, or a Zune HD, then you'll wanna grab this free software. It allows you to sync your music, movies, TV shows, podcasts from iTunes to your Microsoft device, as well as photos and videos from iPhoto. You can also sync content taken with your phone to your Mac as well. One thing that's missing? As of now, Windows Phone 7 Connector doesn't sync calendars or contacts. Still, it's nice to see Microsoft looking to play along with the Mac App Store model. Get a look at Windows Phone 7 Connector in our walkthrough above.
Nokia and Microsoft partner up on new Windows Phone 7 smartphones
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News,
On Friday, Nokia and Microsoft held a press conference to announce a new partnership. It's well known that while Nokia is still the top handset maker worldwide, their main business is at the low and medium end. Their high-end smartphones have had a difficult road lately, especially in the US. Both Android and the iPhone are eating their lunch. After following a failing strategy with Symbian and MeeGo, now Nokia has decided to partner with Microsoft for their upcoming phones. In the announcement, they revealed that this is a broad strategic initiative to make Windows Phone 7 the main smartphone platform for Nokia. They also said a new leadership team would be leading this at the company. It's clear that both companies will benefit from this partnership, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to compete with the two current market leaders.
Click to continue reading Nokia and Microsoft partner up on new Windows Phone 7 smartphones
Microsoft Bing caught stealing search results from Google
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet, Microsoft,
In a very controversial yet fascinating study, Google has exposed what looks like blatant copying of search results by Microsoft's own search engine, Bing. As a test, Google invented 100 query terms, words that do not exist, and they made the search engine return a single link to a site that had nothing to do with the search term. Then, a group of engineers used Internet Explorer 8, equipped with the Bing toolbar, to search for those terms on Google. Low and behold, soon after, Bing started returning the exact same search results. Since the terms were deliberate and random, there can be no coincidence. From the apparent evidence, Microsoft clearly used either IE8, Windows itself, or the Bing toolbar to find out what people searched for on Google, what results they get, and then used that to improve their own Bing site. Check out the blog post for all the details on Google's claim. Something tells me this battle is far from over.
Read More 
| Google Blog
Why American students fail in science
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Google, Microsoft, Science,
There is going to be a lot of debate over the fact that American students are again falling behind in their education. According to National Assessment of Educational Progress, American children are nothing less than pathetic when it comes to understanding science.
This whole mess will be blamed on all sorts of things, probably all valid. But who, besides me, is going to blame the computer? Has anyone noticed that ever since the computer was brought into the classroom, student test scores have been falling? Does anyone find this coincidence weird? After all, the computer is, in itself, a teaching machine, of sorts.
Over the years, I've seen a lot of quasi-teaching software and educational software companies come and go, but can you name one large or middle-sized software company that specializes in educational software for children in grade school now? Just try to name one.
The biggest software company in the world, Microsoft, used to have some educational software sold under its discontinued Home brand, but I have no idea what became of it. The company, along with the Gates Foundation, promotes the idea of computers in the classroom, but it seems more of a ploy to make kids comfortable using Windows than anything else.
For science education, the greatest thing a computer can do is to show scientific principals in a way no blackboard or discussion could ever do, with graphical representation and full motion animation. You'd think that with all the computers that have been installed in school that American kids would be wizards by now. But no.
Click to continue reading Why American students fail in science
Comic Book Jobs: Microsoft - Halo
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Video Games,
Microsoft, a company you might’ve heard of, is looking for someone to wear their Halo proudly.
They want a Consumer Products Associate to join their “Halo Franchise Strategy & Business Development Team.”
The Halo franchise “has exceeded $2 billion dollars in revenue, spanning multimedia and merchandise such as collectibles, fiction, comic books, apparel and accessories.”
As a Consumer Products Associate, you’ll “help define Halo Franchise’s positioning both internally and externally by assisting in the development and execution of innovative marketing, long-term growth strategy, partner selection and business development.” Whew. Busy day!
You get to manage the art, marketing and game code assets while working with game studios to retrieve and deliver them to licensees.
That’s the all-important responsibility. The rest is just standard administrative and hand-holding.
Click to continue reading Comic Book Jobs: Microsoft - Halo
Kinect in stock at Amazon
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Microsoft, Video Games,
Real quick - if you've been scouring the Internets and your local stores for a Kinect and have been coming up short, Amazon just got a grip of them in stock. Hurry though, they are gonna go quickly.
Read More | Kinect on Amazon
Microsoft to announce new tablets at CES 2011?
Microsoft, along with various hardware partners, entered the tablet market a decade ago, but it was never a big success for them. Now that the iPad has taken off, and with Android tablets also looking strong this Christmas, the New York Times has an exclusive report saying that Microsoft is about to release a series of new tablets at CES early next year. According to inside sources, Steve Ballmer will introduce devices from Samsung, Dell and others, and try to get Microsoft back in the race. However, unlike the iPad and Android tablets, they will run Windows 7 or 8, a full desktop OS, and include a slide out keyboard.
Of course the fact that they will run a full OS brings questions like how much battery life they will have. Also, some of the marketing points will be for people to "work on Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint while doing work”. This seems very similar to what the UMPC and previous Windows tablets were about, and it seems like a repeat of previous attempts--including last year at CES where Ballmer announced their new tablet initiative.
Read More | New York Times
Bing Maps now provides mall directories
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Internet, Microsoft,
Panic sets in as soon as I walk into a mall. I realize I parked a mile from the one store I wanted to visit, and that I'll have to part the sweaty seas of tweens to get there. With its new mall directory maps, however, Bing Maps just made my mall shopping—and maybe yours—a little less excruciating.
Here's how it works: supported malls will show up in the "Mall Map" link in the Bing Local results, and show you where each store in located. Today's release is still limited, so unless you live in the Boston, New York, or the Seattle metro area, your mall probably hasn't been mapped yet. Over the coming weeks, though, Microsoft intends to continue rolling out maps, beginning with the largest malls and adding support for major cities.
Each mall map features clickable stores from which you may access phone numbers, Web sites, and addresses (not that they'll do you much good in a mall). You can send store information to your phone or e-mail address. One curiously absent feature is store hours; here's hoping they bundle that in with future releases.
For those of you who use Bing or enjoy fraternizing with festering adolescents and bling-your-cell phone stands, take a look below for a complete list of Binged malls.
Click to continue reading Bing Maps now provides mall directories
Microsoft won’t talk Windows Phone 7 sales numbers
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Smartphones, Microsoft, Rumors,
Microsoft's great dive into the modern smartphone market with Windows Phone 7 was launched over a month ago now with great hype and millions poured into marketing worldwide. And then, nothing. Yesterday, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore (the Director of Windows Phone Program Management) was asked at the Dive Into Mobile conference how their phone is doing. Yet once again, they dodged the question multiple times. Techcrunch extrapolates that since companies usually jump on the opportunity to promote their sales figures, the fact that Microsoft has gone silent, and in fact refuses to speak numbers, then sales of Windows Phone 7 must be disappointing. Indeed, Belfiore said it could be a couple of years before WP7 gets "good marketshare". Meanwhile, the General Manager for Windows Phone Developers Charlie Kindle said WP7 was a "long term project". While it's just conjecture at this point, if the numbers end up being disappointing, there's no question it would deal a large blow to the company as they try once more to break up against the iPhone and Android handsets.
Read More | Techcrunch
