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by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:22
Famitsu’s mid-year sales report for the video games industry in Japan has revealed success for Nintendo in both the software and hardware market.
For the period covering December 28th 2009 to June 27th 2010 New Super Mario Bros emerged as the best selling game, with 1.4m units shifted, bringing its lifetime sales in the territory to nearly 3.9m units.
Other strong performers included Square Enix pair Dragon Quest VI and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and Namco Bandai’s God Eater.
In keeping with the increased popularity of Western games in Japan, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 all made the Top 100.
In the hardware charts DS emerged as the best selling platform, with sales of its various guises reaching a total of just under 1.4m. Very close behind it was the PSP, which continues to flourish in Japan despite its struggles in the West. Its sales to date in 2010 stand at over 1.2m units. Both the Wii and PS3 have failed to hit the 1m unit mark yet in 2010.
Lifetime sales of the Wii are almost exactly double those of PS3, standing at 10.4m. Coincidentally, DS’s lifetime sales of 30.5m are almost exactly double those enjoyed by the PSP.
Here are Famitsu’s numbers in full, as published on NeoGAF:
Hardware Sales:
1. Nintendo DS [DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL] - 1,390,176 / 30,550,765
2. PlayStation Portable [PSP, PSP Go] - 1,243,802 / 14,630,257
3. Nintendo Wii - 934,010 / 10,436,009
4. PlayStation 3 - 827,906 / 5,219,313
5. Xbox 360 - 103,481 / 1,301,354
6. PlayStation 2 - 53,216 / 21,856,978
Software Sales – Top 20:
1. [WII] New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo) - 1,401,895 / 3,887,045
2. [NDS] Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie (Square Enix) - 1,293,916
3. [NDS] Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 (Square Enix) - 1,194,584
4. [NDS] Tomodachi Collection (Nintendo) - 1,012,437 / 3,324,385
5. [PSP] Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (Square Enix) - 728,286
6. [PSP] Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker (Capcom) - 727,823
7. [WII] Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) - 695,295 / 1,993,828
8. [WII] Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo) - 613,290
9. [PSP] God Eater (Bandai Namco) - 605,316
10. [PS3] Yakuza 4 (Sega) - 552,531
11. [PS3] Hokuto Musou (Tecmo Koei) - 544,807
12. [NDS] Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs (Pokemon) - 475,275
13. [NDS] Pokemon HeartGold/SuperiorSilver (Pokemon) - 393,862 / 3,776,459
14. [NDS] The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo) - 376,054 / 696,994
15. [WII] Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo) - 366,833 / 1,909,639
16. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 329,570 / 2,779,332
17. [PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom Unite [PSP The Best Reprint] (Konami) - 294,446 / 330,591
18. [PS3] Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition (Konami) - 258,961
19. [PS3] Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix) - 193,179 / 1,891,435
20. [NDS] Inazuma Eleven 2 (Level 5) - 186,066 / 1,129,681
Other notable entries:
26. [PS3] Lost Planet 2 (Capcom) - 162,701
29. [PSP] Valkyria Chronicles 2 (Sega) - 153,388
30. [PS3] Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope International (Square Enix) - 152,297
31. [PS3] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 Blue Samurai Challenge (Konami) - 141,800
36. [PS3] Super Street Fighter IV (Konami) - 132,664
37. [PS3] NieR Replicant (Square Enix) - 127,649
46. [PSP] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 (Konami) - 97,382 / 211,704
50. [PS3] Grand Theft Auto IV Episodes from Liberty City (Take 2) - 94,399
55. [PS3] God of War III (SCE) - 88,956
58. [360] Monster Hunter Frontier Online (Konami) - 82,490
60. [WII] Pokepark Wii (Nintendo) - 80,204 / 323,279
61. [PS3] Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (Square Enix) - 79,959 / 244,578
62. [NDS] Quiz Magic Academy DS (Konami) - 74,670
63. [PSP] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 Blue Samurai Challenge (Konami) 74,123
76. [PS3] Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (EA) - 63,469
81. [WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 60,290 / 3,653,124
84. [PS3] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 (Konami) - 59,399 / 436,739
90. [PS3] Call of Duty Modern Warfare (Square Enix) - 52,115 / 149,028
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40016/JAPA...s-best-sellers ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:21
Microsoft's efforts to ensure a strong start for its Windows Phone 7 OS continue, with senior director Todd Brix confirming that app developers are being offered financial incentives to support the platform.
According to Business Week, Brix confirmed that those incentives may include free tools and test handsets, but also funds for software development and marketing, with revenue guarantees if apps don't sell as well as expected.
"We are investing a lot to attract developers big and small to Windows Phone 7 to let them understand what the opportunity is and provide as many resources as we can to help them be successful on our platform," he says.
The interview confirms rumours that have been bubbling in the app developer community for some time now about Microsoft's calculated pursuit of successful iPhone developers in particular.
These developers could be forgiven for taking a wait-and-see approach to Windows Phone 7, which will launch with its first smartphones later this year.
http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/37860...indows-Phone-7 ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:20
Apple will give away a free bumper to all iPhone users effected by the antenna issues that have led to widespread dropped calls, a move the firm says will solve the problem.
While the news will no doubt come as huge relief to customers, one upshot affecting the trade is that the large number of third party iPhone case manufacturers may now find themselves with less of a market for their own products – depending on how the specifics of the offer pan out next week.
Steve Jobs made the announcement at an impromptu press conference today. Unfortunately only a select few journalists were invited to Apple's headquarters for the announcement – however the below is true according to a number of live bloggers including Mac World, Arstechnica, and the New York Times.
Apple initially did its best to play down the fracas surrounding its iPhone 4 antenna issues, by claiming the dropped reception issue affects a tiny minority of users, with 0.55 per cent of users complaining to AppleCare.
The conference started by playing a YouTube video entitled The iPhone Antenna Song – a video which essentially implied the media have overreacted.
When Steve Jobs emerged, the CEO opened with: "You know, we're not perfect. And phones aren't perfect either. But we want to make all of our users happy. And if you don't know that about Apple, you don't know Apple."
After reeling off some stats about how well the iPhone 4 has performed so early in its life cycle, Jobs went on to say that ever since they heard about the antenna issue, they have "been working our butts off to come up with real solutions."
Jobs appeared to go into remarkable detail on similar antenna issues effecting HTC and Blackberry phones – reiterating the company line that this sort of complaint is common on all mobile phones – as is evident in its leaked complaint procedures.
Admitting the firm knew about the potential problem in development, Jobs claims it was however unavoidable. "We haven't found a way around the laws of physics... yet," he, presumably, joked.
He went on to announce as of next week users would be able to pick a case from the Apple website, and it will be shipped out to them for free.
A particularly emotive Jobs finished his speech, saying: "We love our users. We really love 'em. And we try very hard to surprise and delight them. We work our asses off for them. And it's great. and we have a blast doing it.
"We do all this because we love our users. When we fall short, we try harder. We pick ourselves up, figure out what's wrong, and we try harder. And when we succeed, they reward us by staying our users, and that makes it all worth it."
Earlier this week, the problem gained the attention of the US Government, with Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, reportedly writing to Steve Jobs urging Apple to come up with a "permanent fix" to the problem at no cost to customers.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/34000...h-antenna-gate ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:19
Apple has promised to send a free case to everyone who has purchased an iPhone 4, and will also bundle a case with devices sold between now and September.
The measure was announced at a press conference today, called by Apple after mounting criticism of iPhone 4's antenna issues.
Apple will also refund people who've already bought one of its official 'bumpers' for their iPhone 4, and offer a full refund to anyone who wants to bring back the handset itself.
CEO Steve Jobs apologised to users for the antenna issues, but nevertheless claimed that loss of reception when the handset is held in a certain way is not unique to iPhone 4.
Indeed, one section of the press conference was set aside for showing videos seeming to show the same problem with the BlackBerry 9700, HTC Droid Eris and the Samsung Omnia.
"iPhones aren't perfect," said Jobs. "It's a challenge for the entire industry."
He went on to say that 0.55% of iPhone 4 buyers have called Apple's technical support department to complain about reception issues, and only 1.7% of buyers have returned the handset - compared to 6% for the iPhone 3GS at this stage.
Why is Mobile Entertainment writing about this? Well, app developers have been following antennagate closely - they're judging how to allocate their resources in terms of supporting the iPhone 4's specific features, like its Retina Display and gyroscope.
With that in mind, there was another big stat in the press conference: three million iPhone 4s have been sold so far.
That's the addressable base, although it's too early to tell how antennagate - and today's announcements - will affect the sales rate in the coming months.
Those sales will be boosted by the fact that iPhone 4 is going on sale in 17 more countries on July 30th.
http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/37874...iPhone-4-users ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:19
Capcom has revealed the next title in its long-running and iconic series, Mega Man Universe.
The game was announced by Head of Research and Development Management for Capcom, Keiji Inafune - who also happens to be the original designer of Mega Man and producer of Dead Rising.
"We are thrilled to finally be able to announce Mega Man Universe" said Inafune.
"This game will break the mold and challenge the conventional wisdom of what a Mega Man game can be. When fans finally get to see it, I believe they'll envision their most far-out Mega Man dreams coming true."
The most recent Mega Man titles returned to the series' classic roots by using 8-bit visuals and returning featuring platforming gameplay that was extremely punishing.
What are Ryu and Arthur doing in this Mega Man trailer? The blue bomber may be invading Capcom's other properties if this trailer is any indication.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:17
Nintendo UK general manager David Yarnton has admitted that demand for the Wii and DS has "declined".
Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, Yarnton blamed falling demand for the Wii and DS on the "cycle" and the recession, but made a point of saying everybody was in the same boat.
"We've had very good years," he said. "It's [falling demand for Nintendo consoles] part, I suppose, of the cycle. We're not recession proof. We've probably as an industry been better than other industries."
When asked whether demand for the Wii and DS had peaked, Yarnton replied: "We obviously would like to be selling more. It has declined. But the whole market has as well. It's not just ourselves."
The Wii and DS have been hugely successful in the UK. Nintendo's sold 12 million DS consoles and eight million Wiis on these shores.
Despite the mammoth sales, Yarnton reckons there's plenty of room for even more.
"We think there's still plenty of opportunity for the product. There are a lot of people still waiting to get into gaming. There is a lot of interest from older people, people that normally didn't game. We've got some innovations on the way as well.
"We've got Nintendo 3DS. I think it's quite a leapfrog, actually. Especially when you look at the other technology out there in TV and movie, where with 3D you have to wear glasses, whilst with our 3D offering you don't have to wear glasses.
"There are no real new models coming out [from Sony and Microsoft]. No leapfrogging. They're [the new Xbox 360 250GB] just derivatives of the original versions they've had. We still with Wii have got a lot of technology we haven't fully harnessed and a lot of development of games coming that I think will still wow people when they see it."
Yarnton also denied the accusation that Nintendo has been forced to slash prices ("The actual price, when we launched Wii in 2006, recommended retail was about £179. We don't set the price. And that price hasn't changed"), and had his say on UK tax breaks for game developers, which were scrapped in the last budget.
"We support it very much," Yarnton said. "We as an industry want to be on a level playing field, not only on a global basis, where we know there are tax breaks right around the world, from Canada to Korea to Australia, but also with other creative industries, such as the movie industry, where there are tax breaks. There are sound arguments that show with the tax breaks we'll actually create more jobs."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ni...emand-declined ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:17
Nintendo UK general manager David Yarnton has admitted that demand for the Wii and DS has "declined".
Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, Yarnton blamed falling demand for the Wii and DS on the "cycle" and the recession, but made a point of saying everybody was in the same boat.
"We've had very good years," he said. "It's [falling demand for Nintendo consoles] part, I suppose, of the cycle. We're not recession proof. We've probably as an industry been better than other industries."
When asked whether demand for the Wii and DS had peaked, Yarnton replied: "We obviously would like to be selling more. It has declined. But the whole market has as well. It's not just ourselves."
The Wii and DS have been hugely successful in the UK. Nintendo's sold 12 million DS consoles and eight million Wiis on these shores.
Despite the mammoth sales, Yarnton reckons there's plenty of room for even more.
"We think there's still plenty of opportunity for the product. There are a lot of people still waiting to get into gaming. There is a lot of interest from older people, people that normally didn't game. We've got some innovations on the way as well.
"We've got Nintendo 3DS. I think it's quite a leapfrog, actually. Especially when you look at the other technology out there in TV and movie, where with 3D you have to wear glasses, whilst with our 3D offering you don't have to wear glasses.
"There are no real new models coming out [from Sony and Microsoft]. No leapfrogging. They're [the new Xbox 360 250GB] just derivatives of the original versions they've had. We still with Wii have got a lot of technology we haven't fully harnessed and a lot of development of games coming that I think will still wow people when they see it."
Yarnton also denied the accusation that Nintendo has been forced to slash prices ("The actual price, when we launched Wii in 2006, recommended retail was about £179. We don't set the price. And that price hasn't changed"), and had his say on UK tax breaks for game developers, which were scrapped in the last budget.
"We support it very much," Yarnton said. "We as an industry want to be on a level playing field, not only on a global basis, where we know there are tax breaks right around the world, from Canada to Korea to Australia, but also with other creative industries, such as the movie industry, where there are tax breaks. There are sound arguments that show with the tax breaks we'll actually create more jobs."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ni...emand-declined ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:15
GAME has seen "amazing demand" for the new Xbox 360 250GB.
The videogame retailer opened 400 stores at midnight for the release of Microsoft's "whisper quiet" new Xbox 360.
"At midnight, over 400 GAME and Gamestation stores opened across the UK to allow our customers to get their hands on the new Xbox 360," Neil Ashurst, head of PR for GAME and Gamestation, said.
"There has been amazing demand for the new version of this ever-popular console, which includes a new slim design, 250GB hard drive and built-in WiFi connectivity. There was a fantastic atmosphere in our stores as hundreds of people queued to be one of the first to play on the new console."
Microsoft announced the new Xbox 360 250GB during its press conference at E3 2010 last month. It costs £200 in the UK.
The new Xbox 360 has already done the business in the US, where it helped sales rise by a whopping 88 per cent year-on-year.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/am...r-new-xbox-360 ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:14
Sony might have been bottom of the pile for US sales throughout June - and forced to praise monthly year-on-year sales growth again - but that hasn't dampened the company's expectations of the "big impact" PlayStation 3 will have this holiday.
"Videogames are fuelling new innovation for the entire consumer entertainment category, and today's numbers are a testament to the big impact we'll play this holiday," said Sony America's Patrick Seybold.
"With a healthy flow of PS3s back in the channel, and 11 months of PS3's consecutive growth behind us, we're confident the PS3 will become the main entertainment hub for many new consumers this year and provide countless reasons to congregate in the living room."
All of which will be helped by the "groundbreaking" PlayStation Move, he added.
Sony's now sold 13m PlayStation 3s in the US and 17m PlayStation Portables.
Microsoft focused, unsurprisingly, on the chart-topping success of the new "whisper quiet" Xbox 360. And signs of slowdown, we're assured, are not on the horizon.
"Retail demand for the new Xbox 360 250GB console remains high, and retailers continue to order as many units as Microsoft is able to supply," said the company in a statement.
Red Dead Redemption finished top of the software pile on Xbox 360, and sales of hardware, software and accessories combined to earn $333m. Not content, Microsoft also looked ahead, and it too claimed to be in the best position for the holiday bonanza.
"Collectively, Microsoft has also heard from retailers around the US that Kinect and its related games are a top priority this holiday," Ballmer's bunch added.
Microsoft has shifted 1,924,900 Xbox 360 units this year. The US total stands at 20,555,886.
Finally, Nintendo - for whom the birds sing - saw the Wii and DS account for half of June's hardware sales. On top of that, six of the top 10 games were on Nintendo platforms.
"Consumers continue to look to Nintendo for exceptional value and one-of-a-kind gaming experiences," said Nintendo of America's Cammie Dunaway. "Between games like Super Mario Galaxy 2, the pioneering motion controls of the Wii system and the portable fun of Nintendo DS systems, Nintendo offers something for everyone."
She, too, had a message for the autumn: "As we prepare to launch a remarkable line-up of new games in the second half of the year, we are grateful that consumers are supporting Nintendo consoles to continue their run as the nation's most popular game systems."
The DS added half-a-million sales in June to its regional total of nearly 42m. The Wii put over 400,000 sales towards its ever-closed 30m US landmark (currently 29,540,081).
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/np...o-sony-respond ...by Published on July 17th, 2010 21:14
Downloadable Tomb Raider game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will be exclusively available on the Xbox 360 for at least four weeks.
This is a requirement of all games that are a part of Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade promotion, Crystal Dynamics told Eurogamer in a new interview.
Guardian of Light will be released on Xbox Live on 18th August for 1200 Microsoft Points (£10).
Crystal Dynamics hopes the PC and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will be released on Steam and PlayStation Network respectively as soon as the window of exclusivity is up.
"As with all arcade titles, irrespective of platform, you have to go through your submissions before they agree and approve a date. Unlike a disc based title where we can pick our window, you have to go by what the first parties approve and give you a date, to make sure you're not coming out on the same day as five other titles. They like to manage the release window accordingly.
"We have requested a specific date and hopefully we'll get that and it's not too long after the 360 SKU.
"The agreement with Microsoft is, in order to participate in their hugely successful Summer of Arcade promotion, there is a window of exclusivity. That window of exclusivity is a set four weeks."
Other games in Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion include Limbo, due out on 21st July and Castlevania Harmony of Despair, which will be released on 4th August.
Crystal Dynamics hopes to have a release date for the PC and PS3 versions of Guardian of Light in "seven to 10 days".
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is Crystal Dynamics' first download-only game. The San Francisco developer took the reigns of the Tomb Raider franchise from Core Design after press mauled Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/la...-360-exclusive ...
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