Monthly Archives: November 2009

America’s games trade has seen yet another woeful monthly year-on-year comparison, with overall sales down 19 percent in October next to the same period in 2008.

Total sales fell from $1.32 billion last year to $1.07 billion this year.

Hardware sales were down 23 percent, from $496.96 million in 2008 to $380.74 last month. Not so good.

Software fared better, but will still cause winces: game sales were down 18 percent from $698.35 million to $572.73 million.

Peripherals held up. Hooah. Plastic sales dropped only 2 percent, from $120.95 last year to $118.88 in 2009.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier kept a lid on it, however, pointing out that full-year revenues are likely to be flat.

“The video games industry suffered another decline this month as compared to last October. This is the third best October on record, behind October 2007 and October 2008,” she said.

“Based on typical industry seasonality, the industry is on track to generate full-year revenues in the range of $20-$21 billion in the US, which would put it just a bit below last year’s sales of $21.3 billion.”

While sales on the software front for October look less than fabulous, according to NPD numbers, this is due to a sales decrease of 18 percent, but that’s only 11 percent on a units basis.

Still, Uncharted 2 reigned supreme, topping the chart with 537K units sold and WiiFit Plus came in a respectable second with half the sales generated by the bundled SKU.

Across all platforms, NBA 2K10 took the lot with 575K units sold, outselling last year’s NBA 2K9 by 60 percent.

Music games saw the largest decline with $53 million in sales compared to $137 million last year.

Here’s the full thing:

1. Uncharted 2 – PS3 – 537,000
2. WiiFit Plus – Wii – 441,000
3. Borderlands – 360 -418,000
4. Wii Sports Resort – Wii – 314,000
5. NBA 2K10 – 360 – 311,000
6. Halo 3: ODST – 360 – 271,000
7. NBA 2K10 – PS3 – 213,000
8. Forza MotorSport – 360 – 175,000
9. Kingdom Hearts  358/2 Days – DS – 169,000
10. FIFA 10- 360 – 156,000

Microsoft focused on the fact 360′s the only console showing year-to-date growth in its NPD response today, as well as dwelling over a majority holding in America’s October top ten.

Xbox 360 sold 250,000 units in the US last month. Six 360 titles were in the chart this month, including two exclusives in ODST and Forza 3.

US consumers spent $289 million on Xbox 360 hardware, software and accessories in October.

PR after the break.

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NPD just released its October hardware figures, showing Wii in the lead in the US last month with just over 500,000 units moved.

PS3 dropped back to 320,000 consoles sold after its Slim boost to 490,000 in September.

Xbox 360 managed 250,000 machines through the tills. Last month’s data here. Here’s the lot for October:

• PS2 – 117.8K
• PS3 – 320.6K
• PSP – 174.6K
• Xbox 360 – 249.7K
• Wii – 506.9K
• DS – 457.6K

BlizzCon 2010 may be held in Las Vegas, if the Las Vegas Convention Center is correct.

According to the website, and a spokesperson for the center, the event takes place July 30-31.

If so, it looks like there will be loads of folks going home with empty pockets.

Blizzard has yet to confirm this, but we’ll send a mail off just in case.

Thanks, WoW.com.

Turbine sent over new screenshots for The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood.

The images depict the new Chambers Instance in Mirkwood, which looks harrowing.

December 1 is the day kiddos, get ready.

Pics are passed the break.

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Microsoft has announced that it has achieved a new Live record, with more than two million XBL users being connected at once.

This bit of news was announced during today’s BMO Capital Markets Digital conference, per a tweet by Major Nelson.

While this large figure cannot be completely attributed to Modern Warfare 2, according to Shack, when the news broke – 995,462 people were on XBL playing the game.

More through the link.

Excited over Star Trek Online? Sure you are, and why wouldn’t you be? It’s space, the final frontier after all.

To get you even more pumped, Kotaku has posted 12 new screens.

You can look ‘em over through the link there.

It’s expected to launch in February.

Microsoft has announced that 10 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in four years time.

The company stated that this huge number is evidence that “Xbox 360 is the only console to achieve year-on-year growth across the region this year”.

“Xbox 360 continues to pull ahead of the competition when it comes to delivering on a complete home entertainment experience and we think that Xbox Live currently is about 12 to 18 months ahead of its main rival PlayStation Network when it comes to offering service and content beyond traditional games,” said Martin Olausson, Director of Digital Media Research at Strategy Analytics.

“By introducing innovative new services and content such as Natal, instant streaming of full 1080P HD video, and integrating social media features such as Twitter and Facebook, Xbox will likely attract a wider audience than its rivals and is in a great position to maximize sales in the next few years”.

It was also revealed that 35 percent of Xbox customers are women and 64 percent are over the age of 25.

Full PR through the break.

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Epic has announced that over 50,000 users worldwide have downloaded the Unreal Development Kit since its launch last week.

“We are very excited to see the uptake of UDK cross over the 50,000 mark in only one week, and we’re looking forward to seeing amazing games and applications come out of it,” said Epic VP Mark Rein.

“We’re also thrilled to finally be able to offer UDK free for schools and students so they can work with the same awesome Unreal Engine 3 tools used by many of the top game developers and publishers around the world.”

More through the press release below.

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SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 producer, Mark Rogers, has detailed the competitive multiplayer features for the PSP title through the US PS Blog .

Looks like it has 16-player competitive multiplayer with eight custom maps and seven new game modes, a new Leader Mode, and also a Tug-of-War mode.

While you can play through Ad Hoc, getting online through the infrastructure allows use of online community features including tournaments, clan challenges, ladders, voice chat and character customization.

More details through the link.

Sony’s confirmed to VG247 that Uncharted 2 has sold 1 million copies to date.

Awesome stuff, there.

A tweet from Geoff Keighley broke the news earlier.

An SCEA spokesperson told us that as of last week, the title has “sold 1 million units worldwide”.

NPDs are out tonight, so check back with us later this evening, when we’ll be posting all the numbers hot off the presses.

A promo teasing episode 228 of GTTV has popped up, and looks like the latest episode is gonna be full of Mass Effect 2 goodness.

Apparently, not only will BioWare show off new areas of the game, but according to a tweet by host Geoff Keighley, we’ll get to “meet and see the Illusive Man for the first time”. Cool.

Not into ME2? Well, there will also be new details on Alan Wake, new trailers for Command & Conquer 4 and Dante’s Inferno, and a review for Modern Warfare 2.

It usually airs around 12:30am EST on Spike TV, which is technically Friday morning, and snoozy time.

Therefore, expect more on this tomorrow should you not be able to stay awake for it.

During the BMO Capital Markets conference in New York today, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated that the firm has “very high hopes” for the Prince of Persia movie, and that it could “maybe be stronger than Pirates of the Caribbean.

“[The film] will show what a video game property can do in the industry”, said Guillemot. “What we hear, is that it could maybe be stronger than Pirates of the Caribbean which did 2.7 billion dollars worldwide.”

Jerry Bruckheimer has hinted that the film could be turned into a franchise providing the first one does well – but saying it could outperform Pirates is a tall order.

The second installment in the series, Dead Man’s Chest, is number seven on the All-Time USA Box office charts, as it raked in $423,032,628 in sales. The third, At World’s End, is the 27th top grossing film of all time with $309,404,152, and the original is at number 30 with $305,388,685.

Add all that together and it comes to the grand total of $God, with DVD sales and overseas figures not being taken into account.

Granted, Guillemot’s likely referring to the first film in the series, but $2.7 billion dollars worldwide may be hard to beat.

More through Kotaku.

GameStop customers will soon be able to purchase DLC via the retail chain, and the service will be start being tested early next year.

It will work in conjunction with Xbox Live and PSN, so when the customer learns of the new DLC while shopping, they can purchase it then and there, and go straight home and play it.

“A large market for full game downloads is not imminent, (but) the add-on downloadable market will grow,” said GameStop CEO Paul Raines during the BMO Capital Management conference.

No date just yet, but next year is just around the corner.

More through Reuters.

Microsoft has added six new games to the Zune Marketplace, and if you are the proud owner of a Zune HD upgraded to v4.3, these games can be yours.

There’s Audiosurf Tilt, Checkers, Lucky Lanes Bowling, Piano, Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition, and Vans SK8: Pool Service.

Neato, huh? Go log in and get ‘em kiddos.

Via Shack.

Update: Konami has issued a press release stating that the Wii version of the game will be released on December 8, with the PS2 and PSP versions “following shortly” Hopefully, that means February. Press release is through the break.

Original: Konami has released some artwork and screens for Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Shots for the Climax “re-imagining” of the original show mainly the females in the game. One looks a bit like J-LO, and one looks like a gal you might see on the side of the road hitchhiking or at a truck stop.

No matter, there’s a policewoman there to balance things out.

See for yourself through the NeoGAF forums. Game’s out in February for Wii, PSP and PS2.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

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Microsoft has responded to the wave of bans on Xbox Live over modded 360 consoles, and while it has decided to remain mum on specific figures, it was quick to remind consumers that piracy is illegal and subject to consequences.

“While we don’t comment on specific numbers, Microsoft’s commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of the Xbox LIVE community remains a top priority,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VG247.

“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live.

“We can assure you that if an Xbox Live member follows the terms of use, purchased a retail copy of Modern Warfare 2 and played the game on an unmodified Xbox 360, no action will be taken.”

We assume that this also applies to pirated versions of games like Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, but since there is apparently not a demand for it, MS decided to only mention Infinity Ward’s latest.

Direct2Drive has released its PC sales chart for last week, and the top three titles consist of various versions of Dragon Age: Origins.

Borderlands and Torchlight round-out the top five, respectively.

The list below is courtesy of Shack, which has also posted the weekly Steam sales. We posted those on Tuesday, as seen through here.

D2D Top Ten: Nov. 1-7

1. Dragon Age: Origins
2. Dragon Age: Origins Digital Deluxe Edition
3. Dragon Age: Origins Digital Deluxe Edition with Prima Guide
4. Borderlands
5. Torchlight
6. Tropico 3
7. Civilization 4: The Complete Edition
8. Aion
9. Fallen Earth
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Did you see that date? Our eyes weren’t playing tricks on us back in October after all now, were they?

Xbox Live general manager, Marc Whitten, has confirmed to FastCompany that the dashboard update which includes Facebook, Twitter, and Last.FM will go live on Tuesday, November 17, which means come next week – you’ll be able to convert Facebook friends to Xbox Live contacts.

“We look at things like Facebook and Twitter as amazing social experiences, but also entertainment,” said Whitten. “We didn’t want to copy and paste from the PC.

“It’s going to be great for current users, but it’s also great for new users who can see who is on Facebook and get their first 30 friends on Live.”

The date is pretty fitting since it’s a MASSIVE day in game releases: Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, God War War Collection, AssCreed DS & PSP Bundle, LBP PSP, The Sims 3 expansion World Adventures, RE: Darkside Chronicles, Toy Hawk: RIDE, Lego Indy 2, etc.

Maybe November 17 should be declared an international gaming holiday, because you know nobody will go into work that day.