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There might be other factors involved. Rockstar Games has produced several titles which have caused controversy in the past and given the game industry bad press (Bully and Hot Coffee lawsuit.

Having a controlling interest over Rockstar might prevent such events happening in the future.

Japanese XBox Division Not Happy with the way Layoffs were handled

Apparently it was quite the culture shock for XBox Japan employees to deal with an Amercian style perp walk layoff.

Citation needed. I distinctly remember shield regeneration from Faceball 2000 a decade earlier.

If it did, I don't see any reference to it on the wikipedia page or this 1up page. The 1up page does list several landmarks for the game, but not regenerating shields.

Didn't PCs have SDTV output at the time?

Sure. Some TVs even had VGA inputs at the time, or through the use of a converter box you could translate VGA to YPrPb component. It was still a hassle to setup, the composite/s-video SDTV output was 480i rather than 480p (progressive scan really does make a difference), and you're still tied to a keyboard and mouse. A PC with incidental TV support is not the same as a console designed around the "10 foot experience". That's why I don't understand the infatuation with UT3 on PS3 having kb/mouse support. Unless you're sitting in front of a desk, a kb/mouse setup just doesn't work.

More of a genius than Trent Reznor (Quake; Halo 2)?

IMHO? Absolutely, emphatically, yes! But then I've never been much of a fan of NIN or Trent's music. I do appreciate his views on digital music sharing, though. Marty O'Donnell is more in the league of John Williams than Trent Reznor, as far as I'm concerned. Though Bungie did bring in Steve Vai and other contemporary artists for the Halo 2 soundtrack. If you haven't heard Steve Vai's Mjolnir Mix you really should check it out.

The last numbers reported on Japanese hardware sales: July 2nd - 8th

That would mean in the past 10 days, at least 24,129 PS3s were sold. That is approximately 16,890 PS3s last week, and 7,239 so far this week.

For comparison, the Wii was at 2,949,774 units sold the week before last. Given that they've been consistantly selled 70k+ per week, the Wii probably surpassed 3 million consoles last week. The Xbox 360 has yet to break 400k units.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/consoles/wii/zapper1.jp g

From what I've read, it's more than just a shell. At first I thought it was just a shell to hold the Wiimote + nunchuk, but then I read that it doesn't house the nun-chuk at all.

This side shot shows it better: http://www.gamesarefun.com/consoles/wii/zapper2.jp g

Supposedly, the handle is touch sensitive, i.e for squeezing, maybe to perform a reload action or something. It's too early to tell and this is mostly just speculation at this point... I can't wait though, it looks extremely cool.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/consoles/wii/zapper1.jp g

From what I've read, it's more than just a shell. At first I thought it was just a shell to hold the Wiimote + nunchuk, but then I read that it doesn't house the nun-chuk at all.

This side shot shows it better: http://www.gamesarefun.com/consoles/wii/zapper2.jp g

Supposedly, the handle is touch sensitive, i.e for squeezing, maybe to perform a reload action or something. It's too early to tell and this is mostly just speculation at this point... I can't wait though, it looks extremely cool.

Leaving the conspiracy theories be for a moment, a quick google search for 'square enix cease desist' yields this. Includes some hopeful theories for why the game (Chrono Trigger: Resurrection) was shut down. If someone knows whether these theories are unlikely (what with three years having passed in the meantime), feel free to comment ...

I can't read TFA from work, but does it mention what the single player options are? The coverage on GamesAreFun.com indicated that the proposed solution to not having enough people locally to form a band on a regular basis is to do so online. That's good and all for those people who like online play, but all the friends i have who might be interested in playing a game like this are local, and when they're not available i'm not really interested in trying to find random strangers on the net to play with. So is there a single player option or are you just out of luck in that case?

NDS: 581,483
PSP: 233,046
GBA: 7,305
 
Wii: 278,646
PS3: 107,422
360: 17,583
PS2: 62,553

NDS: 581,483
PSP: 233,046
GBA: 7,305
 
Wii: 278,646
PS3: 107,422
360: 17,583
PS2: 62,553

NDS: 581,483
PSP: 233,046
GBA: 7,305
 
Wii: 278,646
PS3: 107,422
360: 17,583
PS2: 62,553

NDS: 581,483
PSP: 233,046
GBA: 7,305
 
Wii: 278,646
PS3: 107,422
360: 17,583
PS2: 62,553

Well, you could always look at the following link as well. Searching the News section for Japan can give you a good look at both software and hardware sales numbers from the far east.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7480

In March we should be getting official numbers for three new systems from both sides of the Pacific. It shouldn't be too difficult at that point to look up the old GameCube numbers and make a fair comparison.

If you have any sources to validate your points, it might be good to put them on the table that we might have a reasonable discussion.

Both the Ps3 and the Wii have anemic launch software IN JAPAN. There are no clear system sellers, and both are selling on potential.

According to this article at GamesAreFun (which cites GameSpot as its source) Activision recently filed for trademarks for "Guitar Villain" and "Drum Villain."

You want to see a force unto itself? Take a look at the Japanese software sales for the first week off 2007! Nintendo has 10 our of the top 10 titles, 18 out of the top 20, and 24 out of the top 30. If you look at titles actually published by Nintendo itself it's 9/10, 15/20, and 20/30. The only bad news for Nintendo there is that some developers might be reluctant to develop for systems that are so clearly dominated by a single publisher.

According to these NPD numbers Microsoft has sold a cumulative total of 4.5 million 360s in the US. So if they've hit 10 million they must have sold 5.5 million in the rest of the world. They've sold 200k in Japan so that would mean 5.3 million split between Europe, Australia and other smaller markets. I had the impression that the US was by far and away Microsoft's strongest market, is there some factor i'm not considering?

According to these NPD numbers Microsoft has sold a cumulative total of 4.5 million 360s in the US. So if they've hit 10 million they must have sold 5.5 million in the rest of the world. They've sold 200k in Japan so that would mean 5.3 million split between Europe, Australia and other smaller markets. I had the impression that the US was by far and away Microsoft's strongest market, is there some factor i'm not considering?

According to the firm's preliminary estimates, as reported by CNBC, around 2 million Xbox 360 units were sold in North America from November up until December 25.

The figure for Nintendo Wii stood at 1.8 million units - despite the fact the console only launched in North America on November 19, and the first batch of stock sold out within hours.

link

In addition, Wedbush is estimating that Sony sold 600,000 units (800,000 cumulative) of PS3 and that Nintendo sold 1.3 million (1.8 million cumulative) units of Wii in December.

link

So NPD (the most accurate tracking company in North America) is predicting that Nintendo sold 1.8 Million Wii in North America as of December 25th, the analyst firm Wedbush Morgan is saying 1.8 in 2006, and your number says 1.2 (likely 1.2 Million in December).

On top of that in Japan the current numbers are 1,000,250 Wii vs. 456,750 PS3 where the Wii has been out for 5 weeks compared to 8 for the PS3; Nintedo has also launched in Europe and sold 325,000 consoles in 2 Days in Europe. So we have a number of 3,125,000 Wii sold before we know how many Wii systems were sold in europe over the past 4 weeks; if you assume sales of approximately 200,000 per week (a reasonable estimate) the Wii as sold ~4 Million units to 1.5 Million PS3 systems shipped.

I'd say 4 to 1 was pretty accurate. Take a look at the last few weeks of Japans sales numbers. The new ones should be in tomorrow.

For the year (up to Dec 24th) the DS Light sold 7,247,105 in Japan and the PSP sold 1,780,498

That's just the DS Light. There are nearly 1,000,000 DS sales in that time too which pushes the total to well over 8,000,000 for the year.

These numbers are insane. Click the link for the full set of numbers for that week.

December 18 - December 24: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7379
DSL - 485,584 (Year: 7,247,105)
PSP - 138,588 (Year: 1,780,498)

December 11 - December 17: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7371
DSL - 319,708 (Year: 6,761,521)
SP - 48,962 (Year: 1,641,910)

December 04 - December 10: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7347
DSL - 309,630 (Year: 6,441,813)
PSP - 28,930 (Year: 1,592,948)

November 27 - December 03: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7314
DSL - 176,901 (Year: 6,132,183)
PSP - 23,917 (Year: 1,564,018)

I'd say 4 to 1 was pretty accurate. Take a look at the last few weeks of Japans sales numbers. The new ones should be in tomorrow.

For the year (up to Dec 24th) the DS Light sold 7,247,105 in Japan and the PSP sold 1,780,498

That's just the DS Light. There are nearly 1,000,000 DS sales in that time too which pushes the total to well over 8,000,000 for the year.

These numbers are insane. Click the link for the full set of numbers for that week.

December 18 - December 24: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7379
DSL - 485,584 (Year: 7,247,105)
PSP - 138,588 (Year: 1,780,498)

December 11 - December 17: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7371
DSL - 319,708 (Year: 6,761,521)
SP - 48,962 (Year: 1,641,910)

December 04 - December 10: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7347
DSL - 309,630 (Year: 6,441,813)
PSP - 28,930 (Year: 1,592,948)

November 27 - December 03: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7314
DSL - 176,901 (Year: 6,132,183)
PSP - 23,917 (Year: 1,564,018)

I'd say 4 to 1 was pretty accurate. Take a look at the last few weeks of Japans sales numbers. The new ones should be in tomorrow.

For the year (up to Dec 24th) the DS Light sold 7,247,105 in Japan and the PSP sold 1,780,498

That's just the DS Light. There are nearly 1,000,000 DS sales in that time too which pushes the total to well over 8,000,000 for the year.

These numbers are insane. Click the link for the full set of numbers for that week.

December 18 - December 24: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7379
DSL - 485,584 (Year: 7,247,105)
PSP - 138,588 (Year: 1,780,498)

December 11 - December 17: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7371
DSL - 319,708 (Year: 6,761,521)
SP - 48,962 (Year: 1,641,910)

December 04 - December 10: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7347
DSL - 309,630 (Year: 6,441,813)
PSP - 28,930 (Year: 1,592,948)

November 27 - December 03: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7314
DSL - 176,901 (Year: 6,132,183)
PSP - 23,917 (Year: 1,564,018)

I'd say 4 to 1 was pretty accurate. Take a look at the last few weeks of Japans sales numbers. The new ones should be in tomorrow.

For the year (up to Dec 24th) the DS Light sold 7,247,105 in Japan and the PSP sold 1,780,498

That's just the DS Light. There are nearly 1,000,000 DS sales in that time too which pushes the total to well over 8,000,000 for the year.

These numbers are insane. Click the link for the full set of numbers for that week.

December 18 - December 24: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7379
DSL - 485,584 (Year: 7,247,105)
PSP - 138,588 (Year: 1,780,498)

December 11 - December 17: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7371
DSL - 319,708 (Year: 6,761,521)
SP - 48,962 (Year: 1,641,910)

December 04 - December 10: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7347
DSL - 309,630 (Year: 6,441,813)
PSP - 28,930 (Year: 1,592,948)

November 27 - December 03: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7314
DSL - 176,901 (Year: 6,132,183)
PSP - 23,917 (Year: 1,564,018)

According to this Microsoft has sold just over 142k units of the 360 so far this year. And according to this they sold 70k units last year, so about 210k units total. Blue Dragon sold 80k units, i believe 30k as the bundle with the console and 50k as just the game. So of the 180k people who had the console before this week 28% of them bought Blue Dragon. So assuming a steady percentage of people buying the console just to get the game they could theoretically keep up that sale rate for three more weeks before reaching a 100% attach rate.

According to this Microsoft has sold just over 142k units of the 360 so far this year. And according to this they sold 70k units last year, so about 210k units total. Blue Dragon sold 80k units, i believe 30k as the bundle with the console and 50k as just the game. So of the 180k people who had the console before this week 28% of them bought Blue Dragon. So assuming a steady percentage of people buying the console just to get the game they could theoretically keep up that sale rate for three more weeks before reaching a 100% attach rate.

Indeed, Blue Dragon did outsell Zelda during Blue Dragon's launch week. According to the numbers at GAF, Blue Dragon placed 4th overall in Japan with 80,348 units sold during the week of 12/04 - 12/10. Zelda did not even make the top 10. However, Zelda launched the week before (11/27 - 12/03). In that week, Zelda placed 4th overall with 139,011 units sold. Furthermore, Zelda launched on 12/02 so that means it sold 139K+ units in just two days, whereas Blue Dragon launched on 12/07, giving it four days to amass its 80K+ sales.

Hardware availability had little to do with Blue Dragon outselling Zelda last week. XBox360 has been out for a year in Japan but had barely sold over 100K units before Blue Dragon came out. The Wii sold 350K units in its first two days. (Last week's hardware numbers have not been reported yet.)

There's another article at GamesAreFun which includes links to some gameplay footage and other tidbits.

It seems to probably be true. It was a big deal when it happened, and every news site reported it as the first ever loss for Nintendo "since going public in 1962."

That's not true at all. Although the chart doesn't say anything about whether the classic controller can be used for gamecube games. Given that you can use both the gamecube and classic controller for most of the same VC games i'd be surprised if the classic controller didn't work for gamecube games. In fact, hold on....

Ok, i stand corrected, i can't get the classic controller to work with Star Wars Lego 2. In fact the remote doesn't work at _all_, meaning there's no way to get back to the Wii menu once you've started a gamecube game without manually reseting the system as far as i can tell. Hopefully both of those issues will be fixed by a patch at some point.

In the first 2 days, it was reported that Sony sold 81,639 units in Japan, and a total of 66,684 games sold. Their Tie ratio was 0.82 . So not everyone who bought a PS3 bought a game (even though it didn't come with one, not even a demo disk). I would be interested to know what the tie ratio is for the Wii, especially considering their's a game bundled.

Nintendo is at an all time high as investors expect the Wii to make large profits(well, large for Nintendo anyway)

Nintendo claims 4 million by year's end.

One thing I think we should keep in mind is that, even though the "average gamer age" continues to rise, a significant amount of consoles are bought as Christmas presents (at least in the US). This may be an advantage for Nintendo, as there will certainly be a shortage of PS3s. The Wii is also has a much friendlier price point than the 360 or PS3 (cf. PSP vs. DS).

Somebody buy him Cooking mama for the DS or the Wii.
Btw. check some Wii screens from the game here: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6950/

So here's a recap of the press conference from Games Are Fun

SNES US release date: Aug 21, 1991 Exchange rate: 1991-08-01 136.82 yen/USD
N64 US relase date: Sept 29, 1996 Exchange rate: 1996-10-01 112.41 yen/USD
Gamecube US release date: Nov 18, 2001 Exchange rate: 2001-12-01 127.59 yen/USD
Wii US release date: Nov 19, 2006 Exchange rate: 2006-09-13 117.47 yen/USD

So, yes a good guess for the launch price would be 200 USD.

However, various sources disagree.

X-Boxen are outselling Sony Playstatia

This is absolutely, demonstrably false. In the "current generation", the Xbox's market share is roughly equal to the Gamecube (22 million vs. 20.6 million, respectively). Sony has sold 100 million PS2s.

However, looking beyond these numbers reveals two things. The first is that they completely ignore the handheld market, in which Nintendo dominates and Sony is struggling. The second is that the "Xbox divison" has cost MS $4 billion (as of 2005).

But of course, there is now the 360. Unfortunately, things aren't looking that good for MS. The Xbox and 360 combined are selling slightly less than the PS2 in the US. Japan is much worse, with the 360 barely outselling the Gamecube in 2006.

X-Boxen are outselling Sony Playstatia

This is absolutely, demonstrably false. In the "current generation", the Xbox's market share is roughly equal to the Gamecube (22 million vs. 20.6 million, respectively). Sony has sold 100 million PS2s.

However, looking beyond these numbers reveals two things. The first is that they completely ignore the handheld market, in which Nintendo dominates and Sony is struggling. The second is that the "Xbox divison" has cost MS $4 billion (as of 2005).

But of course, there is now the 360. Unfortunately, things aren't looking that good for MS. The Xbox and 360 combined are selling slightly less than the PS2 in the US. Japan is much worse, with the 360 barely outselling the Gamecube in 2006.

Check this out. That's FF3 DS, also hitting Q4 of this year. Nice quasi-2D 3D style imo, kind of like the new Zelda for the DS. And the airship's back in classic style(one of the things that really, really irritated me about X was the way they did the airship). Also getting Magical Vacation(Magical Starsign here, DS) from Brownie Brown(old Square/Enix 2D artists) and possibly Mother 3(GBA). There's also a dragon quest due out in a blend of the FF3-DS and the DQVIII style coming out at some point.

There's just too much stuff coming out this year... sigh. I'm going to have such an incredible backlog next summer.

The best place to get accurate #'s on Japanese hardware sales is Games Are Fun. They get their data through Fumitsu (if I recall) and then show it off on the site. Wow, a /. first showing proof.

Yeah, the 360 technically "outsold" the GC for this sales period. But the GC has sold about 33% more than the 360 this year (total).

For info on the number of DSes sold in Japan, check this out.

Uh, _very_ bad example. Have you seen the sales for Brain Training For Adults in Japan? It's been in the top ten sales chart for almost a year now.

It seems now-adays that the only ratings that are being given out are ether M or E...

Besides typical English localization, the English version of Kingdom Hearts II differs from the original Japanese version.

* The Hydra has its green blood from the Japanese version changed into black and purple smoke in the English version.

* Xigbar's telescopic sight view has been edited from the Japanese version to replace its crosshair with three circles and remove the black shading around the sides that implied a telescopic sight.

* The guns of pirates found in the Pirates of the Carribean world in the Japanese version have been altered into crossbows. (Because, I guess, we want our kids shooting each other with crossbows rather than guns.)

* Scenes in the Pirates of the Carribean world have been edited to remove some of the violence.

* Undead pirates do not react adversely to Fire magic as they would in the Japanese version.

--Wikipedia, Kindgom Hearts II

According to GameSpot, who spoke to Sega regarding this topic, the Streets of Rage games will definitely not be in the US version of Sonic Gems Collection. Ready for the reason? Chances are it's going to piss you off.

It's because Sega would have had to change the game's ESRB rating from an "E" to a "T" to accommodate the inclusion of the somewhat violent titles, and Sega opted to go for the "E" rating instead. -- News - Sonic Gems Collection US = no Streets of Rage

1. All the violence in Typing of the Dead is ridiculous and not serious. I mean the characters are walking around with keyboards, Dreamcasts, and giant Coppertop batteries on their backs. The voice acting is the kind of thing that in a movie would be MST3K fodder. I consider this to be an "over-protective soccer mom" 'M' and not a realistic 'M.'

2. It will be useful for this girl turn learn how to type when she is writing term papers, typing computer code, or writing her first novel. I'd like her to get started as early as possible. I learned to type playing Infocom games (I gave her those, too... but I worry they just can't hold the kids' attention these days, sadly.)

American sales numbers are notoriosuly hard to get ahold of, but in japan at least the NDS and DSL have been smearing _all_ the competition over the last few weeks. The SP and Micro are selling only a fraction of that and the original GBA is being outsold by the XBox, not that winning by 117 to 98 is really something for Microsoft to boast about :)

I agree with much of what you have said - you speak wisely.

But I think the DSLite sells like hotcakes because the normal DS was already completely sold out. It's such a *huge* success all over there. The brain training and other "touch generations" series have won them a whole lotta new gamers. Maybe not as much in the western world, where we are somehow fond of sDoRnMy. So when it will be released in a coupla months in the USA and, in three years in Europe (grr!), it will sell as much as the original one.

But here's an interesting thing; if you look up recent sales charts, you can see this kind of thing :
GBA: 105 (1,584)
source : http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6085

Somehow, I think Ninty will keep selling original DS'es, because there may still be some people who prefer the larger console? In a nutshell, what you said was right - But I think it's wanted, and there's a hint it might work.

So, my theory is that the sexy new look is rather to try to win some of us over. I know people who bought GBM's and PSP's before seeing what games were on both consoles, there's a lot of trust when the machine looks cool. I am not into marketing techniques, either, so if any people working in advertisement could give a shout? Something like : "Hey! Look at me! I'm sexy! I'm smaller than the copmetition, and I carry *two miniature suns* AND I play Nintendogs and $MARIO_GAME! Buy the fuck outta me!"

Disclaimer : I consider myself a customer, not a fanboi. But... I *want* a DSLite, it'll just be the occasion for me to lend the older console to friends of mine, or give it to a relative :)

Just because an IPaq can't do these things doesn't mean the PSP not a PDA. It's just the PSP is a powerful PDA that just happens to play games.

I take that back, the PSP is not a PDA, it's just an emulator for the SNES that happens to have PDA functionality. There are so few games for the PSP it's not even funny...and given the sales data from http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6110... it's not doing too well against two of the same machine. (In Japan)

Yeah Sony has never had problems with bending/twisting their products. >>Also, as for the UMD drive problems, some have reported the drive not closing completely, and the UMD, when the PSP is twisted, actually flies out! (http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4010)

There is really only one Nintendo system that "looks" "kiddie", and that would be the original GBA. But if you think "sexy" equals "size of a mid-tower PC", then you might just want to stick with your Xbox or whatever.

Also, over a period of 20 years, I've only seen three Nintendo products break of their own accord, two of those were well-worn controllers, and the other was the lens of a first-gen Gamecube (under warranty, btw). My original toaster NES even still works, with no parts ever needing replacement. Nintendo has always made quality products, so either you haven't used any of their stuff extensively, or you're just spreading FUD.

But who am I to argue? Nintendo si teh d00med!!1

Haven't you heard? N1NT3ND0 SI TEH D00MED!!111

It's worth noting that Soul Calibur III, in spite of its new options, only made the Top 10 sales chart in Japan for a single week (11/21/05), with a grand total of 106,920 units sold during its initial release window. Since then, Soul Calibur III promptly dropped off the Top 10 and has not appeared since.

Games like Rockman EXE 6 and Animal Crossing have blown it out of the water in terms of overall performance, in the same span of time.

For the record, the following week saw a game with about 26,000 units sold achieve 10th place in the sales rankings, meaning Soul Calibur went from 100,000 to less than 26,000 units sold in the span of a single week. It's pretty clear that the exclusive license (1) damaged the selling potential of the title and (2) insured it will not even sniff the sales totals of its older relatives.

Being someone who despises exclusive licenses (see EA's NFL license as an example), I cannot help but feel some satisfaction knowing that, no matter what may have been paid to Namco, they hopefully learned a lesson about selling out potential sales for cash. I suppose it's possible Sony dumped a lot of green at them, but ... here's hoping.