Black Friday sales for the video game industry were excellent. Nintendo sold 1.8m systems for the week ending November 29 while machines from rivals Microsoft and Sony combined to sell about 1.1m units.
Software sales were quite strong as well, but the vast majority of the spike this week is simply from the fact that Americans spent $10 billion ($30/per American if every American shopped) on Black Friday according to various reports, and a lot of that went to video games.
Last year, Black Friday week sales were strong as well, but Wii, DS, and Xbox 360 saw significantly better sales this year. PS3 had the weakest Black Friday to Black Friday growth, at 13%, and PS2 declined.
Sony's machines accounted for about 1 out of 3 video game machines sold (31%) during Black Friday week in 2007, this year that ratio is down to about 2 out of 9 (22%) as the shares for Microsoft and Nintendo increase.
Although Wii had a smaller percentage incr... More »
Sr. Producer Rusty Buchert of Sony Santa Monica Studios shared the following today via PS Blog:
Hi all, it’s Rusty again from the Santa Monica Studio. We are getting ready to launch Everyday Shooter PSP on the PSN store today, and we are really thrilled about how it has turned out. Between Jon Mak, Backbone Entertainment and us, we have Jon’s thoughts about how everything went on getting this made. Hope you all like what we’ve done.
First things first: the seaweed is gone, but the hashbrowns are still in the freezer.
So Rusty wanted me to write a little blog post about Everyday Shooter for PSP. I don’t really know what to talk about so I guess I’ll start chronological and see where that goes.
I actually tried porting Everyday Shooter to PSP way back around December 20th, 2007, and stopped around December 27th, 2007. Here’s an old video I found from back then:
Per Grace Chen (Senior Manager, PlayStation Store) today:
Hey, everyone. It’s time again for the weekly PlayStation Store update.
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Qore: Presented by the PlayStation Network is a monthly interactive video production covering the world of PlayStation. Qore provides its audience with exclusive behind-the-scenes access to developers and their games, from both the SCE Worldwide Studios and the third-party community, where the audience member can freely navigate through the content.
File size: 1.34 GB
Qore Episode 07: December, 2008 (free)
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Various video game publishers have spoke out recently to either condone or criticize second-hand video game sales for eating into their profits.
Atari president Phil Harrison isn't worried though, as he says their future strategy is to make games that people will want to keep hold of stating: "it's no coincidence that the most valuable games, the one's that have the most lifetime as a game experience, are the one's that don't get resold, that don't get traded.
The games that have the embedded community, the embedded commerce, the extended, expandable experiences, are the one's that you would never want to trade, the one's you want to keep hold of. And that's perfectly in line with our future strategy so we're not that concerned about it," he said.
To quote: Speaking at the Atari Live event in London yesterday, the publisher said t... More »
IGN has gone through Famitsu's 11-page feature on Final Fantasy: Dissidia and translated several new details recently.
Square Enix apparently considered putting a FFXII character in the game, but were concerned it would solidify "the character's image and skills in players' minds and thus affecting the main FFXIII".
Famitsu also revealed that gamers will be able to choose a Memory Stick installation of 245, 373, or 528 megabytes. Finally, Ikeda, the main programmer for the game, says that the 245MB install will allow "smooth battles."
To quote: If all that isn't enough to make you wonder how Square Enix is fitting Dissidia on one UMD, here's something that should do the trick. Famitsu also reveals that Dissidia has a "Command Battle" mode of play.
Here, the normal action-based battle system is replaced with a menu system, allowing players who aren't so hot on action games to still engage in combat.
Atari has made available a new Ghostbusters: The Video Game trailer today.
As recently reported, the game will be released in June 2009 and is slated to hit PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 care of developer Terminal Reality, with Red Fly Studios handling the PS2, Wii and Nintendo DS editions.
Those interested can check out the Ghostbusters - Atari Live Trailer below courtesy of dpadmagazine via DailyMotion.
At the ATARI LIVE showcase event in London today, Atari and CD Projekt RED announced plans for the global release of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf on PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft in autumn 2009.
Press Release: LONDON, UK – 2 December 2008 – Based on the story of multi award-winning million-selling PC role-playing game The Witcher and completely rebuilt pixel by pixel for the new generation of consoles, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf brings the unrivalled RPG experience to Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 with a brand new combat system for thrilling dynamic action, and a new engine delivering matchless state-of-the-art visuals.
The game is underpinned with the evocative and enthralling story which helped secure the original game’s status as PC role-playing game of 2007, based on the mature and compelling universe created ... More »
Mr305 has released an update to TweakDisplay, a plug-in that gives a set of 20 visual effects to your PSP. It also has a way excellent visualizer for your music!
This plug-in works with most homebrew out there, spicing them up with some psychedelic effects that'll definitely give you PSP gaming a new kick.
This plug-in's been brewing for months now and a lot of people finally got to get their hands on it when it was officially released yesterday, containing the following effects:
- Contrast Boost that mimics PSP-3000's improved contrast via Software.
- Brightness Boost with variable adjustment
- Physically Flipped XMB with natural keymapping (PSP 1000 Feels lighter than it is, if held this way )
- SUPER Stylish Music V... More »
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