What a week. There were lots of info and confirmations from this year’s E3, but not a lot of brand new games. As for how I would rate each of the press conferences? Let me break down E3 2008 for you.
I was looking forward to this month. Looking forward to how much of a hardware pusher Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots was. I even participated in NeoGAF’s June NPD prediction thread.
These were my predictions for June 2008:
[360] 210K
[NDS] 490K
[PS2] 135K
[PS3] 320K
[PSP] 200K
[WII] 660K
Let’s see how I did:
February’s NPD data is in and it’s too amazing to ignore. For the second month in a row, the PS3 outsold the XBOX 360 in the United States. What’s shocking is the PS2 sales which was nothing short of staggering beating both the PS3 and XBOX 360. Nintendo’s one-two punch dominated the hardware charts.
Was there a price drop in the United States for the PS2? No, more like a Target $99 special. The public likes their gaming hardware cheap!
Software sales are at the simExchange’s post if you’re interested.
I’m sad over Wipeout Pulse’s sales because it’s a great game that deserves your money.
Did you ever wondered who publishes the best games? Does EA really produce crud year after year? Well, someone at Next Generation decided to do some digging and compile a list of the top publishers from 2005 to 2007.
According to the data collected, the likes of Sony Computer Entertainment, Nintendo, and Capcom have been faring quite well when it came down to reviewer ratings. Interestingly, the quantity of games being churned out have increased over the past 3 years despite the rising cost of development. This is could be attributed to services such as XBLA which attract many one time publishers to dump their offerings onto the gaming scene.
As for EA? They’re not bad; certainly in the top 10 year after year. Let’s hope the quality increases with the addition of Pandemic and BioWare into the Electronic Arts umbrella.
Every console manufacturer has their “face”. The person who interacts with the public and represents the organization. These folks aren’t your typical PR shills who toot their own horns or bash the competition without regard; they communicate their respective platform’s positions and strategies to the public in a very human way.
Microsoft lost their face last year when Peter Moore left Microsoft for EA Sports and now Sony is losing one of their most respected personnel, Phil Harrison. Nintendo still has Reggie — no worries there.
Next-Gen’s editor wrote a nice recollection of the importance of Phil Harrison and all the good he brought to the PlayStation platforms. To me, I’ll remember him as the well spoken bald dude who announced LittleBigPlanet and PlayStation Home at GDC 06.
January NPDs were released not too long ago with some shocking numbers as follows:
Hardware Numbers
Software Numbers
My comments and amateur analysis below.
BestBuy says yes. According an apparent leak of information, the PLAYSTATION 3 80 GB SKU is going the way of the dodo. With no visible replacement any time soon, it looks like consumers will not have the choice of a PS2 backwards compatible PS3 to choose from once stock is gone from the retail channels. That is, if Sony does not announce some form of PS2 software emulation solution for the 40 GB SKU.
Is this a huge loss? For some, yes. If you care about having four USB ports, the media card reader and PS2 backwards compatibility; your time to pick up a PS3 could be rapidly approaching. On the bright side, if this discontinuation turns out to be true and SCEA does not announce a new replacement SKU, they can finally get rid of the multi-SKU strategy and the consumer confusion which comes with it. The only thing consumers may have to worry about is which color to choose from: white or black?
According to a job posting (poorly translated here) found on Sony Computer Entertainment Inc’s Japanese website, Sony is looking to fill, what appears to be, a “general PlayStation family emulation” engineering position. According to the job posting translation, Sony is working to improve and/or implement ”PS/PS2/PS3/PSP” emulation for the PS3 and “next-generation systems” (PS4?)
I personally don’t pay attention to the monthly NPD numbers, but December NPD numbers are just too significant to pass up. Without further ado, here are the hardware numbers:
System - December 2007 - Annual 2007
PlayStation 2 - 1.1 million - 3.97 million
PlayStation 3 - 797.6 K - 2.56 million
PlayStation Portable - 1.06 million - 3.82 million
Xbox 360 - 1.26 million - 4.62 million
Wii - 1.35 million - 6.29 million
Nintendo DS - 2.47 million - 8.50 million
Everyone did well, but some obviously better than others. Nintendo was just ridiculous. 2.47 million units in one month? Serious profits there. The PS2 numbers impressed me as well considering the “next-gen” competition. Everything else was as expected, though.
For the rest of the sales figures (including software sales) check out the thread at NeoGAF. Thanks sonycowboy.
