duhNeighbour's blog
Electronic Arts has revealed in its Q4 2008 fiscal numbers that game sales for Sony platforms far outweighed its rivals across the three months, with the PlayStation 2 leading the way on 166 million units, followed by the PlayStation 3 on 152 million.
The Xbox 360 managed 128 million units by comparison, with the Wii a relatively meagre 75 million units - meaning that both Sony console platforms combined accounted for 61 per cent of all EA console titles sold.
In terms of year-on-year sales the PS3 numbers almost tripled, showing growth from Q4 2007 of 192 per cent, while the Wii's numbers doubled, the Xbox 360 added 56 per cent and the PS2 added 42 per cent.
Additionally, the PlayStation Portable was responsible for the largest number of portable units sold - 69 million games in total gave it a 47 per cent share, while mobile phone titles accounted for 28 per cent and the Nintendo DS for the remaining 25 per cent.
PSP title sales grew by 77 per cent year-on-year, outpacing the DS on 33 per cent and mobile titles on 14 per cent.
Meanwhile PC game sales slowed by 11 per cent year on year, selling 114 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Source:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/sony-platforms-dominated-ea-fiscal-q4-2008-sales
GamesIndustry.biz has learnt that Valve approached Microsoft and Yahoo - among others - to build Steam before deciding to develop it themselves.
Speaking in an interview, Valve's VP of marketing Doug Lombardi, described how the developer tried to convince other companies to build the gaming platform but was repeatedly rejected.
"You know, we went around to Yahoo, Microsoft...and anybody who seemed like a likely candidate to build something like Steam," he explained.
"We basically had our feature list that we wanted. We wanted auto-updating, we wanted better anti-piracy, better anti-cheat, and selling the games over the wire was something we came up with later.
"We went around to everybody and asked 'Are you guys doing anything like this?' And everyone was like 'That's a million miles in the future...We can't help you.'"
Steam now serves as a digital distribution platform selling over 300 titles and hosts a gaming community with over 14 million accounts.
GamesIndustry.biz'full interview with Doug Lombardi is now available.
Source:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/microsoft-and-yahoo-rejected-steam-says-valve
GamesIndustry.biz has learnt that Valve asked Microsoft if it was possible to place its award-winning Orange Box title, Portal, on Xbox Live Arcade for download, but that it was rejected.
"We'd love to do that. Right now it's something we'd love to do. I'd love to sell Portal on Xbox live," said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. "[But] the platform holders aren't doing that right now. There's a size limit and all kinds of other things.
"We've asked them, we said we were open to it. So it's a decision for the platform holder and how they want to make the games available and how much bandwidth they want to [allow]."
But Lombardi did hint that something might be possible in the future: "I think it's a trade-off, we'll see it one day.
"It always happens once it's been proven and I think it's been proven now on Steam, so I'm sure it'll migrate back to the consoles just like everything else does."
Portal was one of five titles available as part of last year's acclaimed Orange Box release, and won three awards - including Game of the Year - at this year's GDC event in San Francisco.
Microsoft increased the size limit for Xbox Live Arcade titles last March to 150MB, up from its previous limit of 50MB.
Sources:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/portal-was-offered-to-xbla-but-rejected
Summary: According to a new report released on Tuesday, Nintendo trailed Sony last year in terms of the highest rated games, followed by Capcom, Lucas Arts, Atlus, EA, and Microsoft.
Full text:
In the wake of Electronic Arts saying it was unhappy with its low review scores two weeks ago, Next-Generation has compiled an exhaustive list of publishers who released 10 or more games in 2007, ranking them by combined average review scores.
Sony bested 26 other publishers with a combined average of 78% according to compiled data from GameRankings.com, followed by Nintendo with 75%, and Capcom with 74%. Lucas Arts, EA, and Atlus rounded out the top five with 73%, 72%, and 71% respectively, followed by Microsoft Game Studios at 69%.
Square Enix held the top spot in 2006 while Microsoft hoisted the honor in 2005, the data tells. Nintendo lingered in the third and second spot respectively.
Additionally, the report ranked publishers who released 10 or more games in a single calendar year in terms of their output, including ports. EA was number one in terms of sheer volume, followed by Activision and THQ.
Source:
Summary:An unknown gaming site from Ireland takes a stand against Xbox 360, saying it will no longer cover the console due to its infamous reliability, namely the dreaded Red Ring of Death.
Full text:
"Next Gen Ireland will be suspending all Xbox 360 coverage indefinitely," the publisher said on Thursday, this after all three of its review consoles experienced the fatal Red Ring of Death error in a single week.
Despite Microsoft's extended three-year warranty and repeated apologies, the site claims that the problem is compounded in Ireland, where Next Gen says that Microsoft fails to provide satisfactory service.
"Next Gen Ireland felt that we needed to take a stand as customers and not reviewers in this instance, and to be treated that way by Microsoft after they were at fault by releasing a console that was blatantly untested onto the mass market is unacceptable," continues the notice. "In our opinion, the after sales service we received today was atrocious and we can't stand for it."
Since launching in November 2005, a reported 33 percent of all Xbox 360s fail, something an unverified former employee said Microsoft knew when launching the system in an effort to beat Sony to market.
Microsoft was not immediately available for comment when contacted by GamePro on Friday.
Source:
Demo Xbox 360 dies from the infamous three red lights
One of Microsoft's demonstration Xbox 360 consoles has succumbed, rather publicly, to the infamous 'Red Ring of Death' in the company's XNA area at the Game Developers Conference.
The machine, videoed by BBC technology editor Darren Waters, has clearly developed problems the outcome of which will be familiar to a large number of owners of the console - three red lights surrounding the unit's power button.
Writing on the BBC's tech blog dot.life Waters references the hardware failure problem which could cost Microsoft up to USD 1 billion to deal with.
"Microsoft wants consumers to believe that its problems with the Xbox 360 console in terms of hardware failure are over. But wandering through the Game Developers Conference halls and it's clear that the problem persists," he says.
"On Microsoft's own stand at the show one of the demo consoles has a rather familiar problem - the red ring of death. There's no way of knowing if this particular console was manufactured before or after Microsoft identified the problems with the machines.
"But at the very least it's embarrassing for the company that its own stock of demo machines is still susceptible to the problem."
Sources:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33248
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3166379
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/02/red_ring_of_death_returns.html
