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The 25 Games Industry Influentials of 2006
Next Generation has up a list of the people it considers the game industry's top 25 people of 2006. Headlining the list are the veterans of this round of the console wars, with the rest of the folks notables from individual game companies. Plus two guys who make a comic. From the article: "6. Todd Howard, Bethesda - On Xbox 360, Oblivion has sold over 800,000 copies in the U.S., generating $50 million in revenues. Todd Howard, the game's executive producer, has spent four years on an RPG that captured many gamers who did not see themselves as the types to lope around grassy fields, collecting mushrooms and perhaps doing the odd bit of combat. The game's goal was to allow players to 'live another life' and it certainly succeeded. This is what makes Oblivion one of the most important games of the decade, as well as one of the best games."
Well, if you ship a half million consoles, your company (SCEA) gets 2 spots in the top 25.
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Well, technically speaking SECA sold well over 15 Million pieces of hardware (PS2+PSP+PS3) and over 10 Million pieces of sofware this year; Nintendo has sold well over 20 Million pieces of hardware (DS, GBA, GC, Wii) and over 40 Million pieces of software this year. (Both approximate values because of no good european numbers)
World of Warcraft is an important piece of software, but it hasn't sold that many units in 2006 (being that it was released in 2004) and Blizzard is not even in the same weight class as Nintendo or Sony. Yes WoW probably should have been added (probably in place of Best Buy) but saying that Nintendo or Sony should give up one of their spots for Blizzard is laughable.
agreed 100%. This is the sad state of big retail game development. Great to see Chris Delay (introversion) there, but he is the exception.
Too many people at the 'top' of the games biz talk about 'products' and 'skus'. Most of them don't even play games, or know how they work. The finance director at the last big company I worked for wouldnt recognise one of the companies games if it smacked him in the face.
We have big budget games now, but sadly none of the enthusiasm or passion makes it through to the end product in lots of those games. Worse still, the developers are kept at arms length from the actual gamers, not even allowed to chat freely about the games with those who buy them.
Sad times.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Microsoft went from not-in-the-industry-at-all, hated by everyone, and doomed to failure by all, to number 2 in their first console release with the original XBox
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By losing $4 billion (or approximately $200 per system sold)
Now with a solid customer base, they released first in this generation, and are number 1 now. You don't call that successful?
They've been out for 12 months whereas their competition has been out for less than one month; in the month the Wii has been available Nintendo as sold 1/4 as many units as the XBox 360 sold in its year. No I don't consider a marathon runner who got 20 minute head start and is running out of breath while their competition rapidly closes the gap particularly successful because they are ahead.
Nintendo, on the other hand, was number 1 in the NES and SNES days. After that, it's been all downhill. They got trounced by the PSX two generations ago. And last generation they got beaten out by newcomer Microsoft! This generation they've taken a huge risk with the Wii and the jury's still out on how they'll do over the next few years.
They also have the best selling, most criticaly acclaimed product in the industry currently (the Nintendo DS) and the best selling home console worldwide since it's release (Wii); you're right that the jury's still out but the Wii is now the best selling videogame system in Both Europe and Australia (at launch) and is selling remarkably well in both North America and Japan.