News
-
Slowing console sales, strong yen send game giant’s bottom line south; DS sales approach 136 million.
Today, Nintendo reported its earnings for the six months ending September 30, and the results would not make corporate mascot Mario jump for joy. For the April-September period, the Kyoto, Japan-based company reported a rare loss of ¥2.01 billion ($24.7 million) versus a profit of ¥69.5 billion ($854.6 million) during the same period the year prior.
Nintendo’s six-month revenue was also down year-over-year, falling 33.7 percent from ¥363.2 billion ($4.5 billion) from ¥548.1 billion ($6.7 billion). Today’s report came a month after Nintendo revised its annual earnings estimate downward by 21.4 percent.
One factor for the decline was the continuing strength of the yen against the dollar. Another was slowing hardware sales. For the six months ending September 30, the company only sold 4.97 million Wiis worldwide, down from 5.75 million during the same period the year prior. To date, some 75.9 million units of the console have been sold, with an installed base of 10.8 million in Japan, 35.9 million in the Americas, and 29.2 million in other territories. Wii software sales to date total 610 million units.
The DS’s sales decline was more precipitous. April-September sales of all versions of the handheld went from 11.7 million units in 2009 to 6.7 million units in 2010. As of September 30, 135.6 million units of the handheld have been sold, including 31.6 million in Japan, 49.3 million in the US, and 54.8 million in other territories. Life-to-date DS software sales total 773.3 million units.
Looking ahead, Nintendo predicts it will sell 4 million 3DSs the first quarter of next year, along with 15 million software units for the handheld. The portable, which does not require 3D glasses, goes on sale February 26 in Japan and sometime in March in North America and Europe. It will cost ¥25,000 ($300) in Japan, with pricing in other territories not yet announced.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“Nintendo posts six-month loss, Wii sales near 76 million” was posted by Tor Thorsen on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:21:24 -0700 -
Pixel perfect.
Yesterday’s release of Criterion’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit demo serves to remind us that when it comes to cross-platform development, the Guildford-based studio is in a class of its own. Everything about the demo suggests that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the new racer are almost totally identical.
In our Face-Off features we often talk about the social gaming network you have being more important than often minor technical differences, and Hot Pursuit is probably the most dramatic example of how important your friends list is in terms of which version of the game you should purchase.
The more people you’re connected to playing the game, the better it gets. The demo craftily introduces you to this by locking out one of the two events, only making it available when someone else on your friends list has downloaded and played the sampler. With times logged, the competition begins in earnest and the ingenuity of Autolog system begins to manifest itself.
-
EA Canada, Black Box reportedly see NBA Elite, Skate development teams cut; up to 100 may have been pink-slipped; EA admits “season roll-offs” of payroll.
Today was apparently a dark day at Electronic Arts’ two Vancouver-based studios. According to a Shacknews report, both EA Canada and EA Black Box have been hit by layoffs. Specifically, the teams behind the Skate franchise and the long-delayed NBA Elite 11 were both hit, with sources saying “as many as 100 employees” were sent packing.
When contacted by GameSpot, an EA spokesperson would only confirm there had been layoffs today but would not say at which studios or give a number of staff reductions.
“As you know, seasonal roll-offs that follow game launches are common and vital to maintaining a healthy business,” the rep said. “Because so many of our games ship in the holiday quarter, the team size adjustments tend to follow in the same time frame. However EA is growing, and several of our studios are looking to hire talented people.”
If Black Box was involved, the layoffs would be just the latest in a round of cuts at the developer. In December 2008, the studio was “consolidated” into EA Canada after EA shut down the studio’s satellite campus. It was hit again by layoffs just a month later in January 2009 as part of a series of wider payroll cuts across the EA internal studio structure.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“EA’s Canadian studios hit by layoffs – Report” was posted by Tor Thorsen on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:38:36 -0700 -
New controllers, better stories are key.
THQ does not see the need for more powerful videogame consoles and would rather focus on innovative inputs and richer stories.
CEO Brian Farrell told IGN, “Frankly, the last thing I think the industry needs now is new hardware. You look at the games coming out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 now and they look stunning.”
“If we were to have another $1000 box that the hardware guys have to subsidise and that software developers have to spend even more money developing, that model just doesn’t work.”
-
Available now until November 8th, Valve’s free Second Annual Scream Fortress update treats gamers to a monster-sized grab bag of Halloween content including the new Mann Manor map, randomly dropped Haunted Halloween Gifts, four new ‘scarechievements’ and Team Fortress’ first boss monster, Horseless Headless Horsemann… …
-
But Kinect the “centrepiece of our strategy”.
Rare’s next game is Kinect Sports and the studio is one of the motion-sensing add-on’s most vocal supporters, but new boss Scott Henson has denied the famed UK company has become a Kinect-exclusive developer.
However, Kinect development is the “centrepiece” of Rare’s strategy, Henson, who Microsoft has just announced as Rare’s new studio manager, told Eurogamer.
“Kinect will be a key part of the studio’s future,” he said. “I’m not suggesting it’s going to be exclusive, but it will be the centrepiece of our strategy for sure, because there is a lot of opportunity there.”
-
News
Fallout: New Vegas – Become a master criminal using just a magic bucket and a loophole (Fallout: New Vegas)
Oct 28, 2010Exploring New Vegas? Short on cash and low on ammo? Resigned yourself to thieving for supplies, but can’t be bothered with all the aggro that goes with it? Don’t want to waste your last valuable Stealth Boy on a simple case of common robbery? Well have we got the exploit for you.
All you’ll need is a common-or-garden bucket. Because buckets in Fallout: New Vegas, it seems, have mystical properties. They turn your crime invisible allowing you to get away with the most blatent and surreally amusing crime in all of Nevada. …
-
Resident Evil and Vanquish creator Shinji Mikami’s studio, Tango Gameworks, announced today that it has been acquired by Bethesda parent company ZeniMax, and will now develop games published under the Bethesda label… …
-
Reviewers “didn’t get a massage.”
The lead designer of Blacklight: Tango Down has hit back at critics of the downloadable multiplayer FPS on the eve of the game’s belated PlayStation Network release.
The game divided reviewers when it landed on PC and Xbox Live Arcade earlier this year. Eurogamer’s Dan Whitehead was less than impressed, awarding it a meagre 5/10, though more favourable write-ups helped it to a Metacritic average of 61.
“I think a lot of reviewers treated it like it was a $60 game,” explains Zombie Games’ project lead Jared Gerritzen. “We got a lot of rave reviews from people that treated like it was a DLC game.”
-
Futuresource Consulting projections indicate smartphone growth, microtransactions will fuel explosive growth over next four years.
For gamers interested in the gaming landscape in the year 2014, the past couple of weeks have been productive. Last week, market research firm Screen Digest predicted streaming game services would slowly ramp up to become a $400 million industry by 2014. By that same year, Futuresource Consulting believes the mobile gaming market will have reached $10 billion, the firm said this week.
According to Futuresource’s report, Apple’s App Store will continue to be a major player driving growth in the mobile gaming sector. In 2010, the firm expects App Store sales to hit $1.7 billion in global revenue, a figure it says accounts for 30 percent of the total market. As for the remainder, Futuresource found that 60 percent of games were downloaded through “network operator stores,” while the remaining 10 percent came from other app stores, such as the Android market.
“There is no doubt that paid-for apps games are leading the gaming charge,” Futuresource mobile analyst Patrik Pfandler said. “Our forecasts show apps-based gaming will account for more than 95 percent of total mobile gaming revenues by 2014–that’s despite the glut of free apps games out there.”
Pfandler went on to note that apps gaming will continue to grow on the back of in-game payments as part of a free-to-play, microtransaction-based business model. “In the longer run, we’re going to see ad-funded apps games start to gain more traction as well,” he said.
One other driving factor for mobile game growth is the increased adoption of smartphones. According to Futuresource, smartphone ownership is expected to grow by 50 percent this year, topping 270 million units worldwide.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“Mobile gaming to hit $10 billion by 2014 – Study” was posted by Tom Magrino on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:16:26 -0700