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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.
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| Ars Technica
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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.
Read More | Next Generation
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
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
Garage Sale Comes to Facebook
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Smart Home, Internet, Misc. Tech,
No sooner have we updated you about the latest additions to Facebook than we find that Buy.com has opened up a Garage Sale on the social networking site. The application allows users to buy and sell items on their profile page. The site will process the sales and reimburse sellers via PayPal or check minus a flat 5% commission for items sold, as opposed to eBay’s listing and final transaction fee.
Chief Executive Neel Grover feels that Garage Sale encourages users to spend more time looking at and connecting to other profiles, which makes any deal between them more personal. While there is no real haggling ability as yet on the FB beta site, people can email bids to each other. Anyone want to buy some swampland in Florida?
Read More | Post-Bulletin
AT&T Claims 146,000 iPhone Activations in First Two Days
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Corporate News, Handhelds, Portable Audio / Video,
Numbers are finally starting to come out in regards to how the iPhone performed at launch. While no sales figures were given, AT&T is reporting in it’s second quarter financial results that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first two days that the product was on the market. While this number seems pretty low to us, we have to keep a few things in perspective. First, this accounts for June 29th and 30th. The iPhone went on sale at 6:00 PM on June 29th, so this is really a measurement of a 30-hour period rather than a full 48 hour one. Secondly, as we all know, iPhones are not activated at the point of purchase. We are sure plenty were bought as gifts or to be resold, and thusly weren’t activated right away. Last, it was widely reported that there were plenty of activation issues surrounding the iPhone launch. We got emails from people who purchased at launch and weren’t able to activate for over 24 hours - some even longer than that.
Another interesting tidbit about AT&T’s report is that 40% of the 146,000 activations were for subscribers new to the AT&T network. That’s a high percentage, all thanks to Apple‘s first foray into the mobile phone space. Very impressive.
Microsoft Sells Over 1 Million Zunes
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Microsoft, Portable Audio / Video,
Microsoft is happily touting the fact that they have finally pushed over one million Zune units through to retail. The announcement was part of their latest earnings call, highlighted by the fact that Microsoft earned over $50 billion in annual revenue. A great sales figure on paper, but remember, this just means that retailers purchased a total of 1.2 million Zunes - it does not mean that all those Zune units have been purchased by consumers. This explains why joining “The Social” is about as difficult as finding a Wii.
Read More | Zune Insider
Digital Music Sales Continue to Outpace Albums
Posted by Lolita Beckwith Categories: Music,
It’s a frightening thought, but we’re wondering if there’s going to be a day when CDs will just fade away, like it’s predecessors the cassette, album, 45, 78 and 8-track. Judging by the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures this seems to be the case, as sales of digital music are up—almost 50% higher—than this time last year. Not surprisingly, CDs are decreasing in sales, down 15% over the same period (Jan 1- July 1). The main reason seems to be that the people are buying only the hit songs they like online, as opposed to the whole album, which makes complete sense to us. Unfortunately, this also means fans will miss out on some truly terrific music, because if you only buy Amy Winehouse’s hit “Rehab”, you may never experience just how amazing the rest of her “Back to Black” truly is.
Read More | New York Times
Wii Virtual Console Sales Slowing Says Iwata
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Video Games,
Apparently, we aren’t the only ones confused by
Nintendo’s Virtual Console release choices. We haven’t really seen much to be excited about on a weekly basis as Nintendo announces titles that seem to be more miss than hit. The numbers don’t lie: Back in January, Nintendo announced that they had sold over 1.5 million Virtual Console downloadable titles. As of today, sales are at 3.3 million. While that means that sales have doubled in the past three months, the problem is that Wii has a much larger userbane now than it did back in the November-January period. 1.5 million in the first two months of the consoles life, when it was hard to find versus 1.8 million in the three months after isn’t the best of news.
Nintendo - come on, hook us up. There are plenty of games in your catalogue that users would love to buy. Heck, where are all the Nintendo 64 titles? Surely you know that Nintendo fans from the N64 age are into more than just Mario and Zelda, no? Where are WWE No Mercy, Pilotwings, GoldenEye, Super Smash Brothers,
, and others? Seriously, if you want us to buy, give us a reason to do so.
Read More | Wired
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
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