lost in games

Last week i posted about some big announcements in this year’s CES coming from Microsoft regarding the 360. Well, no announcements. Just more video content will be available this year (Of couse this does not affect the island of Cyprus….)

As for the Skype feature on PSPs it is now official with a possible firmware update in January. But guess what. Only for PSP Slim. What about the gamers who chose the PSP from the start?

A big thank you for nothing to Sony and Microsoft.

Blu-ray winning the war

After Warner Bros announced that it will now only release its titles in Blu-ray (previously it was both formats) the Sony camp seems to have made the decisive step to end this pointless war. With the majority of movies now released exclusively only on Sony’s format it seems that the HD-DVD format will slowly die.

Sony move deals blow to Microsoft - Financial Times

Microsoft

Rumours are circulating aroung the world of internet and gaming relating to a big announcement coming from Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show which is held on January 7th-10th. What could be so big that Mr Gates himself will make this announcement?

For one, that a new 360 SKU will now also incorpotate internal HD-DVD playback. There is also the suggestion that Microsoft will license the Xbox platform to consumer electronics manufacturers such as Toshiba. This will mean having a digital video recorder, with a hard drive, high definition HD-DVD and Xbox gaming capabilities. That’s taking the PS3’s blu ray capabilities head on.

Of course for now these are just rumours so we will have to wait few days to see what actually will be announced.

Sony

The Sony rumour already appears closer to being an actual fact. It seems that the Skype service is heading to the PSP. On Sony’s CES 2008 web site one of the PSP’s features is the ability to use Skype. Sony also recently released a microphone for the console and there is a microphone-equipped camera on the way.

It appears that SWOS was released today on XBLA for a while but the game was broken and was subsequently pulled back. There has been no official release from the developers on what went wrong but it is a shame if they don’t manage to release it prior to the Christmas holidays.

This is what has been announced on Major Nelson’s site.

“This game has been pulled. I’ll post an update when it is available again. In the meantime, if you downloaded this busted version, please delete it and when the new one is available you’ll be able to downloaded it again (at no charge if you purchased it.) While you do that, I’ll go yell at some folks for letting this happen. Apologies and the moment the proper version is available I’ll update this post.”

Update: Codemasters have released an official statement regarding the issue, Eurogamer link

NPD has released the figures for the month of November in the US. My first reaction is that i expected the Wii sales to be much higher (519K in October). Nintendo still seems unable to raise to production for the console and it is hurting it. The 360 has more than doubles its sales (366K in October) but this is in line with analysts’ expectations. The PS3 on the other hand has managed to almost quadruple its sales (121K in October) and looks like it is starting to gain some ground.

But the hands down winner is the DS. 1.53million units sold just in November??? In October it was 458K….

As for the software side, my game of the year so far topped the charts. Good one Infinity Ward.

Hardware Stats

Nintendo DS – 1.53 million
Wii – 981K
Xbox 360 – 770K
PSP – 567K
PlayStation 2 – 496K
PlayStation 3 – 466K

Software Stats

1. CALL OF DUTY 4 (Xbox 360, Activision) 1.57 million
2. SUPER MARIO GALAXY (Wii, Nintendo) 1.12 million
3. ASSASSIN’S CREED (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) 980K
4. GUITAR HERO III (PS2, Activision) 967K
5. WII PLAY w/remote (Nintendo) 564K
6. MASS EFFECT (Xbox 360, Microsoft) 473K
7. CALL OF DUTY 4 (PS3, Activision) 444K
8. GUITAR HERO III (Wii, Activision) 426K
9. HALO 3 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) 387K
10 ASSASSIN’S CREED (PS3, Ubisoft) 377K

The overall industry numbers:
Category: YTD 06 / YTD 07

Video Games: $8.76 billion / $13.12 billion (up 50%)
Video Games Hardware: $3.01 billion / $5.21 billion (73%)
Console Hardware: $1.88 billion / $3.82 billion (103%)
Portable Game Hardware: $1.13 billion / $1.4 billion (24%)
Video Games Software: $4.72 billion / $6.27 billion (33%)
Console Software: $3.55 billion / $4.84 billion (36%)
Portable Game Software: $1.17 billion / $1.43 billion (22%)
Video Game Accessories: $1.03 billion / $1.64 billion (59%)

Good morning all.

Although i am taking the day off today and thought i would post only later in the day i saw this piece of news and couldn’t resist.

Activision (publishers of COD4 and Guitar hero3) and Vivendi (owners of Blizzard and thus World of Worldcraft have announced that they are merging. The new company will be called Activision Blizzard and the deal will be worth USD18.8billion.

This merger creates a second juggernaut in the industry to rival EA. The combined companies are expected to have a revenue of USD3.8billion in 2007 compared to EA’s USD3.65billion.

The different strengths of each company should make this a perfect fit in terms of product line-up. I hope the quality remains high. Only time will tell.

First of all please note that this is for the time being a rumour that has been circulating in the gaming world and has yet to be officially confirmed.

Primotech has a story that Jeff Gerstmann, the editorial director at Gamespot and also part of The Hotspot podcast team, was sacked from his job. The story claims it is because he gave Kane & Lynch: Dead Men only a 6 while Eidos, the publisher of the game, at the same time was pumping big amounts of money in Gamespot through advertising.

Penny Arcade’s comic strip is also running the story.

I won’t comment on this until it is confirmed. If anyone finds out anything more please let me know.

Dear Microsoft,

Although i will never, ever forgive you for completely abandoning the original XBOX once the 360 was launched i want to say thank you for this latest update of the backwards compatibility.

I don’t say that often but when a company, two years after launching its console, is still updating the backwards compatibility i do find it commendable.

You announced yesterday that a further 80 titles of the original XBOX are now playable. In this updated backwards compatibility list i found Freedom Fighters. I have been wanting to play this game for some time now but was put off by the fact that i had to bring back the original XBOX to the living room. Although this is still US only i believe and hope that real soon i will be able to play my PAL version too.

At a time when one of your competitors asks gamers to pay a premium to have backwards compatibility i applaud your commitment to letting gamers have a taste of the old.

Thank you again. I am a happy customer.

Following the better than expected commercial success of Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty 4 the publisher has raised its expectations for the 3rd fiscal quarter financial results.

The statement released by the company revises the outlook up from USD 1.05 billion to USD 1.23 billion. For the full financial year revenues go up from previous expectations of USD 2.07 billion to USD 2.30 billion.

Although the success is based on existing franchises and not on original IP, it’s still great to see that it is because these franchises are being improved upon and this is appreciated by the gamer consumer.

Oh the memories…..

Finally, it is coming to XBLA. According to Eurogamer the game is due to be released on the 19th of December. From what i have read, Codemasters have not changed a thing on the game. They simply improved on it visually (giving you the option of HD and retro visual style) and also added an online one on one feature. If it stays true to the original version i will be taking mighty Apoel against the world! How sweet is that???

What I also want to see is 4 player offline matches. The accessibility and familiarity of the game will attract people who are not into the more complicated FIFA and PES and that would make it a great party game during the holiday period.

US videogame hardware and software sales increased 73 per cent in October according to NPD sales data. Total sales were USD 1.1 billion, compared with USD 643 million a year earlier.

After the Halo 3 and the 360 dominating September’s charts the Nintendo machine is back on track with the Wii and DS claiming the top 2 spots. 360 now in 3rd and it does not seem that the Halo effect is strong enough to carry the console above the Wii. PS3 in last place with the 40GB version only made available in November.

On the software side the Guitar Hero franchise is now one of the great franchises of the gaming world.

NPD Analyst comments:

“Guitar Hero has certainly established itself among the elite video games properties. Very few games sell in excess of 1 million units in their first month in market, but Guitar Hero III did easily with combined sales of 1.4 million units in only 6 days. Since it has broad appeal, it’s also the type of game that should continue to do very well throughout the holidays.”

Hardware

Wii — 519K
Nintendo DS — 458K
Xbox 360 — 366K
PlayStation Portable — 286K
PlayStation 2 — 184K
PlayStation 3 — 121K

Software - October’s top 10:

1. Xbox 360 “Halo 3′’ * (Microsoft) 433.8K
2. Xbox 360 “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock’’ w/guitar (Activision) 383.2K
3. Wii ”Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock’’ w/guitar (Activision) 286.3K
4. PS2 ”Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock’’ w/guitar (Activision)271.1K
5. DS “Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass’’ (Nintendo) 262.8K
6. “Wii Play’’ w/remote (Nintendo) 239.7K
7. Xbox 360 ”Half Life 2: Episode 2 The Orange Box’’ (Electronic Arts) 238.4K
8. PS2 ”Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock’’ without/guitar (Activision)231.7K
9. PS2 “FIFA Soccer 08′’ (Electronic Arts) 129.7K
10.DS “Brain Age 2: More Training’’ (Nintendo) 116.9K