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Dec 27th - Jan 2nd (129,957/482,252)
Jan 2nd - Jan 9th (62,052/62,052)

Now, are you going to tell me that anything less than nearly all of this 800k are *not* in the hands of consumers ?

Wait 2 weeks. Check the numbers. I doubt more than 87% have been sold(around 700,000), since there shouldn't be a sudden production surge(from 62k in a week to 110k per week) over the past 11 days, nor did some new game worth mentioning descend from the heavens.

I think the PS2 has sold some 7 million consoles worldwide

Slightly more. 80 million as of Dec 2004.

Huh?

The reports that many of Japan's larger department stores did not accept preorders for the PSP fearing shortages was widely reported, as was the fact this contributed to the long lines on the PSP's launch day. A few quick glances at google turn up:

Like many other major retailers in Japan, Yodobashi did not take PSP preorders. As a result, more than 1,200 hopeful game fans lined up throughout the long, cold night, some taking up their position as early as 3pm the previous day. .

Meanwhile, shortages of Sony's PlayStation Portable are already beginning to hit home in Japan, with the vast majority of retailers no longer able to take preorders ahead of Sunday's launch of the console."

It will be interesting to see what happens (in just over a week) when the PSP is launched in Japan. Retailers have not been accepting many preorders, and the device will be in short supply.

Sony's PSP preorder campaign was... practically nonexistent. There was no advance warning of preorders, which had most people checking in with shops on an almost daily basis trying to find out what was up. Of course, shopkeepers were completely in the dark as well.

What you won't find if you look around, however, are reports that the 2005 shipment of PSPs sold out. The first day shipment of PSPs of 200,000 did mostly sell out (i saw a figure of 160,000-180,000 in the hands of consumers on day one, which would seem to imply it would have been sold out entirely in some areas), but by the end of the year there would have been many of the PSP's 2005 shipment of 500,000 available-- I cannot find total sales figures for the year but by December 26 only 360,000 PSP units had been sold, which would have meant nearly half of the PSPs sold were on the first day. Again, the illusion of PSP "shortages" appears to mostly be a result of low availability on the first day, and since such a large chunk of 2005's PSPs weren't sold it seems reasonable to say that even if Sony had had more GPUs, they would NOT have sold any more PSPs.

Japanese Console Hardware Chart

PlayStation 2 - Last Month Sales 67,558; Total This Year 2,026,980

GameBoy Advance SP - 43,959; 2,125,520

GameCube - 4,880; 516,493

Xbox - 1,200; 32,966

GameBoy Advance - 1,024; 189,677

Swan Crystal - 76; 7,156

PSone - 60; 13,754

It's Hoihoi-san!

Chris Mattern

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but almost as long as there were games, there was the copying of games. Games are software/data. By virtue, it is capable of being copied.

Copy protection works against that trend by basically adding in a password block, crippling the disk format, crippling the game, and now crippling the OS on which it runs.

Personally, I think the reason why games have been pirated is because of the cost of games.

A game is worked on for how long? 6 months? 1 year? Let's say a game is worked on for 2 years by a team of people... say.. 12. What would their salaries or hourly wages be? Let's say they are salaried at $65,000/year. (Some get more, some get less). A quick round of punching into the calculator reveals the salary for 2 years of continual work by 12 people on this project at an average salary of $65,000 is $1.56 million. Which when dispersed into varying numbers of games produced follows the following:

• Distribution of labor costs across number of copies:
• 100k copies : $15.60 each
• 200k copies : $7.80 each
• 300k copies : $5.20 each
• and so on...

But how many copies are often made and sold in a given period of time? Hmm... why not check out Magic Box? They list the number of games sold PER YEAR, PER nation, PER console/system. This number for good games is typically in the 1.x million titles per year range while the poor performing games are in the 100 thousand per year range.

So let's take a middle road. Let's say a company produces 500,000 copies of a game per year since it is mildly successful and sells all of them. Their labor spread per copy is $3.12 per game copy. To produce the physical box and materials for the game at the production house is probably about the same(to err on the side of caution for the producers). So +$3.12 per game(includes shipping/tax/etc).

We now have a game that took 12 people 2 years to make and has been pressed and shipped in crates to the tune of a subtotal cost of $6.24. Let's round up to $7 per copy.

Now, let's compare this rather "high" production price of this hit game to how much it would sell on the racks: $39 - $59 per copy.

That's $32 - $52 margin per game.

Bear in mind. The store will tack on anywhere from 10% to 100% of the price at which they acquired the game from the publishing house.

So let's say the stores tack on 100% or 50% or the game wholesale cost. That would mean that the distribution house is selling the games wholesale at (100%): $20 - $30 per game or (100%): $10 - $15 per game to the stores.

Granted, this is alot of guestimation based on numbers from the publishing business. However, one has to wonder how much is being tacked on for anti-piracy and such when you consider that in order to sell 500k games per year, you need to produce more than that. More like to the tune of 2-3 million copies of the game. At 2 million copies, your labor cost per game is $0.78 per copy. Your printing and pressing costs likewise drop to around $1 per copy or less. So at 2 million copies, you are looking at about $2 to produce one game, but the price consumers buy it at is around 20 times that.

Anti-piracy and licensing costs for games only amounts to a few cents per copy. Otherwise, no one would license the game title or the anti-pricy software. So where does all of the padding come from?

Fear of piracy and sheer greed and desire for profit.

If the games didn't cost so d*mn much, there would be a respect dropoff in pirates as well as a higher level of purchases of the game.

The only reason why it goes is because people are willing to pay for the game and then end up copying it for friends until the level of "cost" is reduced to the right level. So a few friends, say.. 5 friends get together and chip in some money to buy a $50 game. They copy it amongst themselves and get to LAN party together. What is the cost of the game per person? $10.

In the screenshots, such as this the frogs are talking in Chinese, not Japanese...
Its very doubtful there was an official version....maybe a hacked Chinese version?
My chinese is a bit rusty and the screen is low res, so I can't make out the last character, but the first four are:
jiegou shih ni
Which means something about your results, I guess the last character is kind of important!

To put that in perspective:

Super Mario 64 - 5.94
Grand Theft Auto 3 - 5.35 (million copies sold)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - 2.63
Metal Gear Solid - 2.43
Enter the Matrix - 5 million(?)

Which one of these things...is not like the others? Admittedly these numbers are US sales, perhaps Enter the Matrix sold these ridiculous millions of copies in Europe and Asia. Again, though, that seems somewhat implausible.

Also, as anyone with any sort of business acumen will tell you, units sold speaks very little about net profit. And let's not forget that Shiny reportedly paid $10 million for the Matrix license. What's that smell? Ah...fresh books. Delish.

I guess my only real reason for writing this is that I find Bonell to be somewhat unsavory and feel somewhat unnerved by the possibility that anyone takes him or his company at their word. He strikes me as something of a con man. I don't like that he bought and is now wearing Atari's rough-sewn skin as a branding rain-slicker and I don't like his comments about the future of gaming what games are supposed to be:
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.n ytimes.com/2003/12/21/magazine/21GAMES.html
For an excellent summation of why Bonnell's comments are a proverbial avalanche of bullshit:
http://www.costik.com/weblog/2003_12_01_blogchive. html

Anyhow, the only point of that rather shallow tirade was that I sincerely hope no burgeoning game designers are being led astray by the parade of delusion that is Infogrames' press releases.

By the way, the source on those statistics is http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-USPlatinum.shtml

The rest of your points are pretty spot-on, but...

Face it US corporations usually produce lots of rather lousy non intuive sequels, whereas japanes companies used to go for the riskier sides and didnt rely entirely on sequels and shooters.

This really isn't fair or particularly true. Sure, Japan gets more weird or niche games overall, but outside of a few exceptions that doesn't mean they ever sold all that well. Looking at the twenty best-selling games in Japan so far this year (via Magic Box's recent news), I only see two games that aren't existing franchises or sequels. Maybe it used to be better, but I think if you actually look back you will see it has almost 'always' been like that in Japan - niche games do niche business, almost always, almost everywhere.

And US game devs have made lots of innovative games, it was just that in the past you were more likely to see them on a PC rather than a Japanese console. This is even more true for European devs.

20 is plenty, this far ahead of launch. The Magic Box (And another set here) has screenshots from more than 20 titles, and none of them are Mahjong or any other kind of board game (the closest is something called "Pool Game," but it doesn't look to be billiards). As for "dubious value," I try to stay a little more objective than that. It would certainly depend on the unannounced price per game, wouldn't it?

At any rate, Tales of Eternia, Dynasty Warriors, Armored Core Formula Front, Makai Wars, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, Gagharv, and possibly Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory will likely be getting my money.

20 is plenty, this far ahead of launch. The Magic Box (And another set here) has screenshots from more than 20 titles, and none of them are Mahjong or any other kind of board game (the closest is something called "Pool Game," but it doesn't look to be billiards). As for "dubious value," I try to stay a little more objective than that. It would certainly depend on the unannounced price per game, wouldn't it?

At any rate, Tales of Eternia, Dynasty Warriors, Armored Core Formula Front, Makai Wars, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, Gagharv, and possibly Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory will likely be getting my money.

Very true that sex sells, but will it sell the Xbox/components? I'm skeptical. Microsoft has tried these shenanigans before without much success.

Even adding U.S. and Japanese sales, nothing on the Playstation tops Mario 64's U.S. sales of 5.94 million. Closest looks like Gran Turismo's 5.8 million combined and Final Fantasy 7's 5.73. I couldn't find numbers for Europe or other markets, and had a tough enough time picking the right search terms for Google to get the site above (too many sales sites).

Even adding U.S. and Japanese sales, nothing on the Playstation tops Mario 64's U.S. sales of 5.94 million. Closest looks like Gran Turismo's 5.8 million combined and Final Fantasy 7's 5.73. I couldn't find numbers for Europe or other markets, and had a tough enough time picking the right search terms for Google to get the site above (too many sales sites).

Xbox Top Sellers:
- MechAssault
- Crimson Skies
- Ninja Gaiden
- Knights of the Old Republic

No driving game, FPS or PC port in the bunch.

Did you really think that no one would catch you in this obvious lie? Halo, Splinter Cell, and Project Gotham Racing are the best-selling XBox games ever (search for "XB"), selling at least 3.18, 1.42, and 1.14 million copies each, along with the Xbox port of Grand Theft Auto (1.02 million). Ninja Gaiden may have recently surpassed this, as the numbers may be as much as a few months old, but I doubt that anything has recently raced past Halo and Splinter Cell.

From these pictures it looks like the demo units were made of metal.

Also the designs are not necessarily final. Some cosmetic touches can be added before now and the winter holiday season.

My (current) personal favorite is Games Are Fun. I consider them to be the spirtual successors to the GIA. The _actual_ successor to the GIA, GameForms, has a decent amount of E3 stuff, but normally they're glacially slow on updates.

The Magic Box is also pretty good. They're sometimes a little slow to update, but they've got a fair bit of E3 stuff up now.

What other smaller and mostly independent game websites do people like to visit, both for E3 news and normal day to day happenings?

A strategy game from Nippon Ichi on the go? A SRPG from the creators of Disgaea, portable!. I'll definitely be picking up Makai Wars, even if I know nothing about it. Here's hoping it comes out here.

XBox million sellers in the US (source):

Halo: 3.10 M
Project Gotham: 1.07 M
GTA: Double Pack: 1 M
Splinter Cell: 1.33 M

And some more that did fairly well (note: different site--less complete and numbers are slightly more out of date). (source)

DoA3: 0.73 M
Ghost Recon: 0.79 M
Mech Assault: 0.51 M
Spider Man: The Movie: 0.51 M

So: no, Halo isn't the only successful XBox game, and the discrepancy presumably wouldn't be so large if it wasn't for the massive gap in advertizing between Halo and every other game combined. Then again, that may be a strategy for Microsoft: create a franchise that it can later use to draw in customers. In which case...

Wait for several people to claim that Halo 2 doesn't live up to the original despite being an improvement in basically every way!

However, where mobile gaming is concern, I think GBA is quite behind other players -

Not to try and actively bash you here, but as far as general market data and public opinion appears, you are in a microscopic minority.

By way of an example or two, the hardware sales for the GBA and GBA SP combined are outstripping even the PS2 in both the US and Japan.

Contrary to what you may think by browsing some of the bigger gaming message boards, many people play the system/games they do because it's FUN, not because it has the most neato whiz-bang technical specs.

N-Gage, for example, although criticised, is actually a better platform for mobile gaming, with possibilities like bluetooth gaming and over-the-air gaming.

If you overlook all the other glaring, horrible flaws it has, maybe. Nokia is supposedly going to/has redesigned the thing, but at this point there's a mountain of negative publicity and public opinion to overcome.

And even then, simply having wireless capabilities does not make it a better platform - I understand that Nintendo will soon be releasing ( in the US ) a 2.4 Ghz wireless adapter, packaged with the Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green remakes.

However, where mobile gaming is concern, I think GBA is quite behind other players -

Not to try and actively bash you here, but as far as general market data and public opinion appears, you are in a microscopic minority.

By way of an example or two, the hardware sales for the GBA and GBA SP combined are outstripping even the PS2 in both the US and Japan.

Contrary to what you may think by browsing some of the bigger gaming message boards, many people play the system/games they do because it's FUN, not because it has the most neato whiz-bang technical specs.

N-Gage, for example, although criticised, is actually a better platform for mobile gaming, with possibilities like bluetooth gaming and over-the-air gaming.

If you overlook all the other glaring, horrible flaws it has, maybe. Nokia is supposedly going to/has redesigned the thing, but at this point there's a mountain of negative publicity and public opinion to overcome.

And even then, simply having wireless capabilities does not make it a better platform - I understand that Nintendo will soon be releasing ( in the US ) a 2.4 Ghz wireless adapter, packaged with the Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green remakes.

I only have Japanese Data, but they're selling at about 1/10 the rate over there.

Kind of like how Pong was so popular because of its story? Then Ms. Pac-Man totally had a better story, which is why it was so popular. Super Mario Bros. had the best story yet. Then there was Doom... Man, that Doom story took at least a paragraph to tell. It owned.

Story is sometimes important, but it is possibly the most overrated element (maybe graphics are). Look at the FMV games that focused on story and Square's Bouncer. These are games that worried about story. Chris Crawford has been focused on stories for years and nobody remembers who he is... How did Deux Ex2 do with its great story? :) A story can't make up for medicore game play

I don't think Half Life was even that popular on the console. Why not? Same story... Probably because FPS work best with the keyboard mouse so the game itself just wasn't as fun as it was on the PC. Half Life never even got a cartoon like Street FighterII. My point is even though Half Life was popular in a niche you know what games completely killed it in terms of popularity, even if you limit yourself to the PC? The Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Those are fun "sand box" games. No story unless you want to make one up. Sports games like NHL Hockey 200x and party games like Eye Toy and Mario also do extremely well without stories. License games also do very well.

Take a look at the top 30 games. You can see there are games in there with story elements like Ninja Gaiden (currently in 1st place), but is it at the top because there is compelling character development or because you get to be a Ninja? I'd say because it is cool to be a ninja. There is basically no story, at least no compared to a book, or even a sitcom for that matter. Doors open, hundreds of faceless ninjas pop out, and you remoreslessly kill them for 95% of the time you are playing the game. There is only a bit of down time to pace the game where you get story hints, right? Here is the story for Ninja Gaiden.

The bottom line is games need to be fun. I'll admit I loved Half Life and I'm totally looking forward to the 2nd one probably because of the story, but the gfx, sound, and story are like icing on the cake. There needs to be a fundementally enjoyable experince there for the game to succeed. If they can give you a little break between levels to pace things out and put in a compelling story then even better. I thought Star Craft did that well. The thing you do is "Build a base and kill the other base", but with a story behind it. Same with Grand Theft Auto. "drive from point A to B", but sometimes you're picking something up, other times you're dropping something off.

Worry about a fun game first of all and once you've got that get an advanced graphics engine and write a good story. Don't do it the other way around like Bouncer.

Given the fact that the Xbox sells poorly in Japan, I wouldn't count on it. Any game that Square Enix makes for GBA or PS2 is going to sell thousand of copies because the user base for those consoles is much, much larger: why spend money on porting the game to a platform that has a small user base when I could use that same money to make (or remake) a game that has the potential to sell a thousand times more if I release it in a console with a larger user base? That's why we have stuff life Final Fantasy I & II for the GBA and Dragon Quest V for the PS2 instead of any game for the Xbox.

FFXI was a perfect game for the Xbox, since it already had a hard drive and could connect online with minimal hassle, plus Square had already ported the game to PC. And Square Enix still hasn't released it for the Xbox. The console is not in Squeenix's radar as of now. And frankly, I don't think that porting or making games for the Xbox would count as a next level, anyway,

Nintendo of America may have removed one of the biggest selling points of the series by using standard GBA packaging and carts. Americans won't pay $20 for these games, and the retro appeal that made the Japanese versions collectors items is gone.

Way to go, Nintendo.

One of the strongly debated issues about emulators is that they are used to play "abandonware" or software that the copyright holder is assumed will never release again.

Well, that used to be fairly reasonable in the 90's when the arcade and console videogame market were in this huge transition towards fully immersive 3D games; nobody thought there would be a future for 2D, and then many old games were automatically assumed to be abandoned forever.

But, the Gameboy Advance changed all that, we are getting re-releases, remakes and rehashes of great, old games because the GBA is not a "3D powerhouse" and it doesn't need to be. I'm actually happy those games are released again, and so are millions of gamers. Just look at how the insane success of the Famicom Mini games in Japan makes the GBA sell even better than the PS2

This is what an emulator really endangers, it makes it more difficult to market an old game, and in fact the argument about "emulators saving good games from the past" is very much reversed as Nintendo can't sell a game to a market that got it for free. And Nintendo of course is trying to (rightfully) protect their IP, it may not be the right way to do it, but what other choices do they have?

OK, I see one alternative. I'm not saying it's good or bad to emulate games, but Nintendo and others should contact the emulators' developers and discuss in good faith about the reality of which games are never going to be released and allow them to be legally distributed and emulated. Of course, this is something very unlikely, but still possible in light of iTunes' success as an alternative distribution model.

Thing is, Nintendo is still a corporation and most of the time it makes decisions that are not popular with gamers, but sometimes you can get good remakes from these decisions. Pac-Man Vs., Super Mario Advance 4 (SMB3) anyone? Nintendo simply doesn't want anyone to compete with their own, official, legal emulators.

I think that for a game to really become abandonware in these new times, it now needs to be abandoned by both the copyright holder AND the consumer, since it is already proven an old game can sell like new. That leaves a lot less room for the emulation scene.

This is a phase that everyone goes through. Either because of something in your life (often something subtle) or just a batch of mediocre games that temporarily sour your opinion of the entire medium, you stop playing games for awhile. I did the same thing when I was around 17. I stopped playing games for about a year or two straight and missed out on most of the interesting games that were released for the original PlayStation. But it wasn't a part of "growing up", "putting away childish things", or some other moronic platitude that non-gamers would give you. It's just a temporary change in the way you choose to entertain yourself.

This is something that we all do on a regular basis, but we don't really notice it until it strikes a medium that we actually care about. Personally, there was a time when I watched at least a couple of movies on DVD every week, burning through them at about the same rate as most regulars buyers/renters do. But now I haven't watched a movie on DVD in a good three months or so, but I haven't even noticed it. Why? Because I don't visit six or seven movie sites a day, but I do visit Insert Credit, GameSpot, Video Fenky, GAF, The Magic Box, Penny Arcade, and Slashdot Games just about every day. If you're actually posting on this site, then I'm guessing that you have a pretty similar set of sites that you visit.

I'm guessing that you'll pick up something really good in about a year or two and then you'll be addicted again just like the rest of us. But then again, if you really are of the mentality that "games are kids stuff", then maybe you'll deprive yourself of them forever. I really don't see how Metal Gear Solid or Knights of the Old Republic are any more childish than any of the TV shows or movies that I watch, but that's just me. Maybe that's why I really don't see myself abstaining from video games as I grow up any more than I see myself suddenly abstaining from television, movies, or music.

Why do people keep going back to SMB3? It only outsold SMB1 in North America, and the North American record was broken by Final Fantasy VII (and Ocarena of Time for those who look only at Nintendo sales records).

In North America, SMB1 outsold SMB3 by far, 40 million vs 18 million. Zelda:OoT only sold 3.57 million in the US (ok, so only isn't the right word except in comparison to a handful of Mario titles). FFVII sold 2.45 million in the US.

Worldwide I'm fairly sure Pokemon beats the lot of them, but it depends on whether you split them into versions or not (which is a debate in and of itself, since there are people who own both the near identical red and blue versions).

Red and Blue combined in the US is 9.85 million, but the US charts have always split the Pokemon versions. In Japan the individual Pokemon games come close to outselling SMB3, and the combined versions come close to outselling SMB1, but then SMB3 only sold 3.84 million (still a huge number of sales for Japan) and SMB1 6.28 million. FFVII sold 3.28 million copies in Japan, and OoT sold 1.45 million.

Japanese Platinum Charts
US Platinum Charts (doesn't go back to NES games unfortunately).

I think you'll find that the games that come closest in the US to SMB3 are GTA3, GTA:VC, and Mario 64. Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Blue, and Goldeneye are the only other titles on the list over 5 million.

Why do people keep going back to SMB3? It only outsold SMB1 in North America, and the North American record was broken by Final Fantasy VII (and Ocarena of Time for those who look only at Nintendo sales records).

In North America, SMB1 outsold SMB3 by far, 40 million vs 18 million. Zelda:OoT only sold 3.57 million in the US (ok, so only isn't the right word except in comparison to a handful of Mario titles). FFVII sold 2.45 million in the US.

Worldwide I'm fairly sure Pokemon beats the lot of them, but it depends on whether you split them into versions or not (which is a debate in and of itself, since there are people who own both the near identical red and blue versions).

Red and Blue combined in the US is 9.85 million, but the US charts have always split the Pokemon versions. In Japan the individual Pokemon games come close to outselling SMB3, and the combined versions come close to outselling SMB1, but then SMB3 only sold 3.84 million (still a huge number of sales for Japan) and SMB1 6.28 million. FFVII sold 3.28 million copies in Japan, and OoT sold 1.45 million.

Japanese Platinum Charts
US Platinum Charts (doesn't go back to NES games unfortunately).

I think you'll find that the games that come closest in the US to SMB3 are GTA3, GTA:VC, and Mario 64. Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Blue, and Goldeneye are the only other titles on the list over 5 million.

- Nintendo announced its new hardware today, which is a Nintendo DS (dual-screen) portable system (tentative name), it is a completely new product separated from the current GameCube and GameBoy Advance systems. The dual-screen system will have two connected 3" TFT LCD display panels with backlit, and two separate processors, the machine will have the ARM9 main processor and ARM7 sub-processor.

- The Nintendo DS will use rewriteable media for games, which has a capacity up to 1Gbit (125 MByte). Nintendo explained the dual screen concept can eliminate the need to toggle between different screens, and open new perspectives to gaming. More details of the system will be available in E3 2004.

Nintendo confirmed to Famitsu magazine that they will present a new game system at E3 2004 in May. The machine is not a successor to GameCube or GameBoy Advance, this product can play back existing game titles.

Terribly inspecific, I know. I'm looking for a better web quote (something from Iwata directly would be good) but I fear that it wouldn't have any greater precision.

Chart for the end of last year.

They sold ~98,400 XBox systems in Japan in 2003.

Chart for the week ending January 4th of this year.

They've sold ~3036 XBox systems in Japan in the first week of 2004, which, if it could be held constant, would mean a significant increase in sales for the year. I'm guessing that they'll come out with more sales this year, but not the 150,000 or so that the first week's numbers could indicate.

Chart for the end of last year.

They sold ~98,400 XBox systems in Japan in 2003.

Chart for the week ending January 4th of this year.

They've sold ~3036 XBox systems in Japan in the first week of 2004, which, if it could be held constant, would mean a significant increase in sales for the year. I'm guessing that they'll come out with more sales this year, but not the 150,000 or so that the first week's numbers could indicate.

I'm surprised you think FF3 won't come over here. I mean, they've re-released the all the other pre-sony FFs over the past couple of years, why not 3? Also, I saw on the magicbox not to long ago that FF3+Secret of Mana is their next project once they finish Front Mission First. =)

I haven't been a huge fan of the PSX/2 Final Fantasy incarnations, but I can't believe the attitude (pervading this comments) that this one is going to be like all the previous games; I think there's a lot of hope for innovation. People working on the game (and who exactly escapes me at the moment) have said that people won't know this is Final Fantasy and the fact that a lot of staff from FFTA is working on this game is a good sign. Also, as mentioned on FFXII is supposed tot take place in Ivalice, the same place as FFTA. There is a huge opportunity for this being a very different FF game, despite the conjecture here that says otherwise.

(Thanks be to Tycho for the link.)

The tech specs claim PSP to have a 4.5" (that should be more or less 11.5 cm) 16:9 display, that would mean more or less a 10x5.7cm (3.9"x2.2") screen, according to the images the screen width should be roughly the half of the overrall console length, while being the media radius 6cm (2.36") an overrall height between 6 and 6.5cm (2.36" - 2.56") is to be expected.

So aside form the mistakes I did with the numbers the PSP size should be more or less 20x.6.5cm (7.9"x2.5")... is either that I have a way too much limited idea of portability or that I werar trousers with far to short pockets, but I fear that it'll be not incredibly confortable to carry this console around.

http://www.the-magicbox.com/

These "hard to find" numbers that gamespy has, plus the numbers you're looking for, updated weekly.

Where are you guys getting current info on console sales? I've bene checking The Magic Box, but their charts usually lag by a couple of weeks at least.

Ok the GTA games are among the most succesfull games in history so I suppose that a two for one in a new package could be in someway considered a news... well good for them who have not yet bought some GTAs

That simply isn't correct. We need some numbers...

Jeepers Creepers 2 opened on Friday. Over the weekend it was seen by roughly 1.5 million people. I am not sure I would even classify it as a major motion picture, either. Certainly not as big as a Terminator, Matrix (considered a disappointment at more than 20 million tickets), Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo (more than 30 million tickets so far, it looks like), etc. But that weekend number still kills the sales of most console games.

(I am rounding up ticket prices to $10, too, which is largely not true. So ticket sales are even higher, perhaps significantly so! This is also all US-centric - it is hard enough to compile numbers for just the USA. For reference, some Japanese console game sales can be found here, though of course more games are sold in America or Europe.)

I can't find very accurate sales for the Nintendo games (which aside from Pokemon, have not sold as well as anticipated - Metroid Prime in particular), but I know Vice City broke all sales records in America by selling a million copies in two days. I am estimating here, but by now Vice City has maybe sold close to 10 million copies (it was at 4.4 million back in January - I am being a little charatible). I am sure it will still sell pretty well for a while, especially the coming port to Xbox. But the number of copies sold is still dwarfed by ticket sales for something like Finding Nemo. And really we should include future video/DVD sales, as well, seeing as how popular games have a much longer 'sell life' than a film at the theaters.

The original Super Marios Brothers is one of the best selling games of all time: ~40 million copies. Very good numbers, but this is partially because it was bundled with the NES itself! Super Mario Brothers 3 (which was not bundled AFAIK) sold 'only' around 17 million copies.

Now, I won't disagree that games like Vice City make more money than films like Finding Nemo (they do), or that they have far better profit margins than most films (again, they do - though maybe not for much longer, unfortunately. Let's see how Half Life 2 does...). But the truth is that big films nearly always sell more tickets than even the biggest games do.

Are you serious? 1,6% is just a dream for the Xbox in Japan. Look at this:
The Magicbox

http://www.the-magicbox.com/game080603.htm

GameCube's biggest flaw at this point is the FUD that keeps getting tossed at it, your post being a great example.

There are a lot of mature games for the GameCube, both in terms of games that are actually mature and in terms of games that get that big M for their rating. Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil, BMX XXX, Blood Omen 2, Mortal Kombat, i can look up more if you really want.

The media has often encouraged the view of the GameCube being for younger players, although their latest tendency has been to distort sales figures of the GameCube and XBox to make Microsoft look good and Nintendo look bad. The MagicBox reported on wednesday (you have to scroll down a little bit) that "Nintendo clarified that they have sold 800,000 units of GameCube worldwide in the first quarter of 2003, not the 80,000 units reported by other agencies such as Lycos, Reuters and Bloomberg."

Yet despite that, two days later most news sites are still reporting the 80,000 sales figure, and none of the major news sites have issued corrections to their reports, which are still being used as fodder for Nintendo-bashing. Only a few sites are reporting the correct number and are willing to say that the GameCube and XBox are actually neck and neck. Some people have claimed that 80,000 is an accurate number of units shipped, but if so, then the news sites should be reporting 80,000 shipped not 80,000 sold.

Some analysts think that Nintendo needs to cut prices to which i agree. However that alone won't be enough. They need to advertise the mature games for their system better. They're doing poorly because they're allowing Sony and Microsoft to gain the upperhand in the image department.

first looks to be us sales figures for consoles (halfway down page). second looks like japanese console figures (again halfway down the page).

first looks to be us sales figures for consoles (halfway down page). second looks like japanese console figures (again halfway down the page).

Can that number really be right? According to this chart at MagicBox the GameCube sold 4,500 unites the week of May 19th - May 25th. This Dengeki Chart says the GameCube sold 13,000 units in Japan for the week of July 21st through July 27th. So we know that sales have increased since the 4,500 a week amount, so let's say that 4,500 is the average for April - June, which is still probably low.

4,500 units a week over 12 weeks gives 54,000 units. They sold 54,000 units in Japan and only 26,000 in the entire rest of the _world_?

I think Reuters screwed up, and of course no one will read the correction they post later. Just one more bit of evidence for the percieved bias against the GameCube. What do you want to bet that if they'd made the same mistake for XBox someone would have stopped to question such an absurdly low number before the article was printed/put up?

Can that number really be right? According to this chart at MagicBox the GameCube sold 4,500 unites the week of May 19th - May 25th. This Dengeki Chart says the GameCube sold 13,000 units in Japan for the week of July 21st through July 27th. So we know that sales have increased since the 4,500 a week amount, so let's say that 4,500 is the average for April - June, which is still probably low.

4,500 units a week over 12 weeks gives 54,000 units. They sold 54,000 units in Japan and only 26,000 in the entire rest of the _world_?

I think Reuters screwed up, and of course no one will read the correction they post later. Just one more bit of evidence for the percieved bias against the GameCube. What do you want to bet that if they'd made the same mistake for XBox someone would have stopped to question such an absurdly low number before the article was printed/put up?

And you said " If you were actually paying attention to those sales charts, you'll also see that most Nintendo titles sell > 500,000 copies in Japan (exceptions are the American games like Metroid, Eternal Darkness). Of course you're so blind you can't see that."

Well let's go and take a look at those charts why don't we?

Let's see, highest selling GCN game, for the last chart, Naruto, with 116,000 copies sold total. Total number of GCN games on the top 30 chart, two. Top selling PS2 game? FFX-2 with 1.9 _million_ copies. Total PS2 games on the chart, fourteen. One XBox game makes it on the chart with 4,385 copies, both for total and that week.

Now sure, the GBA is kicking ass all up and down the chart, but i did specify consoles didn't i? And yes, the occasional GCN game will sell pretty well. However if on any random week, the GCN has exactly _two_ games that are selling more than 3,700 copies (what the #30 game sold for that week) then that seems to indicate that something isn't going so well, don't you think?

Now if you look at the chart for the best selling games of the 2002 fiscal year the numbers are almost as bad.

The GCN doesn't show up until #8 on the chart, with Mario Party 4 at 760,000. There are five PS2 games ranked above it, ranging from 780,000 to 1.8 million copies. The GCN has 6 games on the list, totaling 2.8 million and averaging, 481 thousand copies each. The PS2 has 32 games (more than everything else combined) totaling 15.6 million, and averaging 488 thousand.

So the PS2 is selling, on average, slightly more copies per game, and is doing so on a _lot_ more games and overall selling over five times as many units as the GCN over the entire year.

Now since i'm apparently blind, please tell me what it is i'm missing that shows that the GCN is doing well compared to the PS2?

And you said " If you were actually paying attention to those sales charts, you'll also see that most Nintendo titles sell > 500,000 copies in Japan (exceptions are the American games like Metroid, Eternal Darkness). Of course you're so blind you can't see that."

Well let's go and take a look at those charts why don't we?

Let's see, highest selling GCN game, for the last chart, Naruto, with 116,000 copies sold total. Total number of GCN games on the top 30 chart, two. Top selling PS2 game? FFX-2 with 1.9 _million_ copies. Total PS2 games on the chart, fourteen. One XBox game makes it on the chart with 4,385 copies, both for total and that week.

Now sure, the GBA is kicking ass all up and down the chart, but i did specify consoles didn't i? And yes, the occasional GCN game will sell pretty well. However if on any random week, the GCN has exactly _two_ games that are selling more than 3,700 copies (what the #30 game sold for that week) then that seems to indicate that something isn't going so well, don't you think?

Now if you look at the chart for the best selling games of the 2002 fiscal year the numbers are almost as bad.

The GCN doesn't show up until #8 on the chart, with Mario Party 4 at 760,000. There are five PS2 games ranked above it, ranging from 780,000 to 1.8 million copies. The GCN has 6 games on the list, totaling 2.8 million and averaging, 481 thousand copies each. The PS2 has 32 games (more than everything else combined) totaling 15.6 million, and averaging 488 thousand.

So the PS2 is selling, on average, slightly more copies per game, and is doing so on a _lot_ more games and overall selling over five times as many units as the GCN over the entire year.

Now since i'm apparently blind, please tell me what it is i'm missing that shows that the GCN is doing well compared to the PS2?