EA's just revealed its financial figures from the Q3 Christmas 2007 period (October-December), which shows the company making a whole lot more revenue than ever before.
When you break down the figures for handheld games, Nintendo DS was by far the most impressive performer, with sales up 122 per cent from $55 million in Q3 2006 to $122 million.
EA released only five DS games during that time; Boogie, Need for Speed ProStreet, EA Playground, The Sims 2 Castaway and The Simpsons Game but still the DS sales accounted for eight per cent of EA's total turnover.
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has been talking about the DS, Nintendo's future plans for its games and the possibility of non-gaming services being made available to download to DS from public wi-fi hot spots around the country.
He also said "One of the lifestyle proposals we'd like to put into effect in the first half of this year is an experiment aimed at getting people to use their DSs in public spaces as part of a larger effort to make the DS a more helpful tool for people in their everyday lives.
He went on to say "It's a portable, single-architecture platform that can receive anything given a wi-fi hot spot with over 20 million units in use in Japan and about the same amount in the US and Europe. I really think the idea of making it a gaming machine that's also useful in your daily life is a good one, and possible. We'll be keeping an eye on the experiment's results while hopefully increasing the number of places you can use your DS in progressive steps."
Like the PSP's satellite navigation add-on and the new Skype capabilities, the DS has also already had uses found for it in everyday life – language translation software is available for it and in Japan the console has been used to give tourists information when they are on museum tours. Meanwhile, a recent test in the US enabled users at a baseball game to order food as well as watch the game on their DS.
In his interview, Mr. Iwata also speaks about there original idea to do something different with both DS and the Wii.
He went on to say "We knew that if games appealed to fewer people, the future was going to be bleak. And with video games being demonised by the public, it was hard to see how games could flourish in all that. So we knew we had to change it... Hearing stories about customers who seemed like they'd never touch a game scouring store shelves for a copy of Brain Age is what encouraged us."
The hardened gamer should rest easy. Iwata followed this up by saying that Nintendo would still support more experienced gamers by giving them games such as Zelda, and also more new challenging games although he thinks the benefit of pick-up-and-play titles is they allow experienced gamers to play with newcomers – something the CEO said was missing from the market.
So the future of DS is looking bright for the casual gamer and the hardened Nintendo supporter exactly what we'll be able to download to our DS in the future that's useful remains to be seen. Money off coupons for Tesco? Maps? We hope that Nintendo has something a bit more exciting up its sleeve, which im sure it has!!!
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Saturday, 15 March 2008
The Launch Of The Wii Fit Balance Board
The Wii Fit Balance Board is a clever device that is pressure sensitive and detects shifts in balance in any direction. You put it in front of your TV, step on and use it to interact with the varied activities. The great thing about it it's wireless, so there's no chance of you tripping over a cable and picking up an injury. On this subject I would say that you should probably make sure you leave some space around it as im sure until you get the hang of it, the odd overbalancing will take place and you don’t want to fall head first into the glass coffee table!!
Its due to be relaesed on the 25th April 2008 and is expected to be a great hit with all ages and lots of pre-orders have been taken. Its sure to be a best seller this christmas.
The big question people have been asking "can this really get you fit?" In fact several studies have claimed that Wii games can help you with fitness and even promote weight loss because they're so physical. John Moores University in Liverpool found that users could lose up to 12kg a year from exerciseing daily using Wii Sports sessions
Wii Fit is the first Nintendo Wii game specifically design to help gamers get into shape. It features over 40 different activities separated into four training categories of Muscle Workouts, Aerobic Exercises, Yoga and Balance, each one designed to test you in a different way. They'll help you burn fat, condition and tone muscles and increase aerobic stamina. All of this from the comfort of your own living room.
Nintendo has said it has at least ten games in development that support the board and not just fitness games either. Fighting and Sports games can also take advantage of the unique balance-based interface.
Use the Wii Balance Board for daily Wii Fit tests: Tests offered by the Wii Fit evaluate two key measures that everyone can track via progress charts:
Body Mass Index (BMI): A weight evaluation based on a ratio of weight to height.
Wii Fit Age: The Wii Fit Age is measured by factoring the user's BMI reading, testing the Wii Fit user's center of gravity and conducting quick balance tests.
The Wii Fit is designed to appeal to all members of a household and training falls into four fitness categories:
Aerobic Exercise: Wii Fit's 10-minute exercises are designed to get the heart pumping.
Muscle Conditioning: Wii Fit features controlled motions using arms, legs and other body parts.
Yoga Poses: Classic poses in Wii Fit focus on balance and stretching.
Balance Games: Wii Fit features fun activities, such as heading soccer balls and ski jumping, that challenge the Wii Fit player's overall body balance.
The Wii balance board has a weight limit of 136kg so if you want to use it and your already over that weight you’ll have to start loosing weight now!! Once your down to the weight limit and you start using the wii fit board im sure the weight will drop off you and you’ll be as fit as a butchers dog!
Its due to be relaesed on the 25th April 2008 and is expected to be a great hit with all ages and lots of pre-orders have been taken. Its sure to be a best seller this christmas.
The big question people have been asking "can this really get you fit?" In fact several studies have claimed that Wii games can help you with fitness and even promote weight loss because they're so physical. John Moores University in Liverpool found that users could lose up to 12kg a year from exerciseing daily using Wii Sports sessions
Wii Fit is the first Nintendo Wii game specifically design to help gamers get into shape. It features over 40 different activities separated into four training categories of Muscle Workouts, Aerobic Exercises, Yoga and Balance, each one designed to test you in a different way. They'll help you burn fat, condition and tone muscles and increase aerobic stamina. All of this from the comfort of your own living room.
Nintendo has said it has at least ten games in development that support the board and not just fitness games either. Fighting and Sports games can also take advantage of the unique balance-based interface.
Use the Wii Balance Board for daily Wii Fit tests: Tests offered by the Wii Fit evaluate two key measures that everyone can track via progress charts:
Body Mass Index (BMI): A weight evaluation based on a ratio of weight to height.
Wii Fit Age: The Wii Fit Age is measured by factoring the user's BMI reading, testing the Wii Fit user's center of gravity and conducting quick balance tests.
The Wii Fit is designed to appeal to all members of a household and training falls into four fitness categories:
Aerobic Exercise: Wii Fit's 10-minute exercises are designed to get the heart pumping.
Muscle Conditioning: Wii Fit features controlled motions using arms, legs and other body parts.
Yoga Poses: Classic poses in Wii Fit focus on balance and stretching.
Balance Games: Wii Fit features fun activities, such as heading soccer balls and ski jumping, that challenge the Wii Fit player's overall body balance.
The Wii balance board has a weight limit of 136kg so if you want to use it and your already over that weight you’ll have to start loosing weight now!! Once your down to the weight limit and you start using the wii fit board im sure the weight will drop off you and you’ll be as fit as a butchers dog!
Sunday, 9 March 2008
A Free Wii-kend away
You may think this is a joke but im absolutly serious, you can have a Wii-kend curtiousy of the Wii games console!!!!
This is not a new idea actually it has been done before on other hard to come by items and items that are cheaper abroad than they are here in the UK.
The Wii-kend idea has been going since the middle of last year, as far as i can make out, it may have been going on for longer than this.
It was my son who actually told me about it when he went on a fag (cigarette) weekend in November to Benidorm Spain. He was there with his mates and he saw someone who he recognised from home but didnt acually know his name. He went up to him and asked who he had come over with. He told him he was here on a Wii Weekend, my son had an idea what he was on about has he was here for something similar.
He asked him how much he was paying and what he got out of it, he said just a free weekend with the lads.
It works like this, you get a cheap flight, theres cost £49 on FlyBe flying from Birmingham at 7am on Saturday morning. The Hotel cost £30 a night specail rate for two people sharing. So far cost £64 for flight and accomodation. Arrive at hotel in benidorm at around 12noon. The first thing they did was go and find shop to purchase 10 Wii’s as there was ten of them on the trip.
They paid 300 Euro’s each for the Wii’s around £180. Apparently there was every console you can get at the place they went to. DS’s Playstations and Xbox’s were in plentiful supply. They went to get the Wii’s first because the whole weekend was based on them purchasing a Wii. Apparently they did do there homework first and rang first to make sure there was a supply in benidorm before flying over as otherwise it would have been pointless.
Wii’s purchased and that was it; the weekend could start in earnest. Back to the hotel wii’s safely in the hotel safe and out they went on the town for the night. The next day they had on the beach lazing around and then watched Man Utd in one of the many football bars benidorm has to offer.
Last few beers in the bar, back to hotel to pick up cases and Wii’s and off to the airport to catch the 7.30pm flight back to the UK.
These figures are based on my sons costs which would be similar to the guys on the Wii-kend. £64 flight and accomodation £50 on a good night out including food, total £114. Now once home all Wii’s put on Ebay and all fetched lets say £300. So £114 plus £180 cost of Wii equals £294. So the sale of the wii covered the whole cost of the weekend, abit better than going to the nearest out of town shopping center. Only thing was they were 2 pin plugs but that didn’t matter as they work perfectly well will a converter or change to 3 pin plug.
www.consolesmarket.com
This is not a new idea actually it has been done before on other hard to come by items and items that are cheaper abroad than they are here in the UK.
The Wii-kend idea has been going since the middle of last year, as far as i can make out, it may have been going on for longer than this.
It was my son who actually told me about it when he went on a fag (cigarette) weekend in November to Benidorm Spain. He was there with his mates and he saw someone who he recognised from home but didnt acually know his name. He went up to him and asked who he had come over with. He told him he was here on a Wii Weekend, my son had an idea what he was on about has he was here for something similar.
He asked him how much he was paying and what he got out of it, he said just a free weekend with the lads.
It works like this, you get a cheap flight, theres cost £49 on FlyBe flying from Birmingham at 7am on Saturday morning. The Hotel cost £30 a night specail rate for two people sharing. So far cost £64 for flight and accomodation. Arrive at hotel in benidorm at around 12noon. The first thing they did was go and find shop to purchase 10 Wii’s as there was ten of them on the trip.
They paid 300 Euro’s each for the Wii’s around £180. Apparently there was every console you can get at the place they went to. DS’s Playstations and Xbox’s were in plentiful supply. They went to get the Wii’s first because the whole weekend was based on them purchasing a Wii. Apparently they did do there homework first and rang first to make sure there was a supply in benidorm before flying over as otherwise it would have been pointless.
Wii’s purchased and that was it; the weekend could start in earnest. Back to the hotel wii’s safely in the hotel safe and out they went on the town for the night. The next day they had on the beach lazing around and then watched Man Utd in one of the many football bars benidorm has to offer.
Last few beers in the bar, back to hotel to pick up cases and Wii’s and off to the airport to catch the 7.30pm flight back to the UK.
These figures are based on my sons costs which would be similar to the guys on the Wii-kend. £64 flight and accomodation £50 on a good night out including food, total £114. Now once home all Wii’s put on Ebay and all fetched lets say £300. So £114 plus £180 cost of Wii equals £294. So the sale of the wii covered the whole cost of the weekend, abit better than going to the nearest out of town shopping center. Only thing was they were 2 pin plugs but that didn’t matter as they work perfectly well will a converter or change to 3 pin plug.
www.consolesmarket.com
US Gaming Industry Sees Record Sales in 2007
The NPD Group provided a reminder this week that market growth is not guaranteed. The gaming industry in the US ended the year (2007) with record retail sales of nearly $18 billion.
This week The NPD Group the industry-research firm released US retail sales data for the January 2008 period. While software sales for the month were up 11 percent to nearly $611 million, hardware sales fell by a quarter to around $378 million. Combine that with a modest decline in accessory sales, the industry overall was down 6 percent for the month, posting $1.18 billion compared to January 2007's $1.25 billion take.
Despite this, the month contained indications that the industry actually grew. That was because the January 2007 reporting period was five weeks long as opposed to this January's four-week span. Analyst Anita Frazier said that the numbers are much rosier when this adjustment was taken into account.
The big winner in the gaming market was console software which was nearly 50 percent up when compared to last year.
Hardware sales were down and a lot of this was to do with poor supply that assertion was backed up by a statement from Microsoft saying the Xbox 360 was suffering from temporary shortages.
Nintendo's longtime lead on its competitors was also slimmed. The Wii once again took the console sales crown, by a narrower margin than in previous months. In a month that saw significant advances for the PlayStation 3's chosen Blu-ray disc format, Sony's system ran nearly neck-and-neck with the Wii, selling 269,000 systems compared to the Nintendo’s 275,000. 3rd placed Nintendo DS racked up 251,000 sales, while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable brought up the rear, selling 230,000 units each.
Familiar faces dominated the software list, with Modern Warfare and Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 once again beating all challengers, notching up 331,000 in sales. Another favourite Guitar Hero on the Wii and Xbox 360 took third and fifth respectively, Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii was sixth and the DS edition of Mario Party in ninth.
THIS IS THE NPD GROUP's DATA FOR US GAME INDUSTRY SALES FOR JANUARY 2008
Category Total Change
Video Games: $1.18 billion -6%
Video Game Accessories: $191 million -4%
Video Games Software: $550 million +11%
Video Games Hardware: $378 million -25%
Total Sales Per Week: $295 million +18%
Hardware Sales (units sold)
Wii: 274,000
PlayStation 3: 269,000
Nintendo DS: 251,000
PlayStation Portable: 230,000
Xbox 360: 230,000
Game Software Top 10 (units sold)
1) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (360, Activision) - 331,000
2) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 298,000
3) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) - 240,000
4) Rock Band (Xbox 360, MTV Games) - 184,000
5) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360, Activision) - 183,000
6) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 172,000
7) Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360, EA) - 144,000
8) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (PS3, Activision) - 140,000
9) Mario Party DS (DS, Nintendo) - 139,000
10) Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS, Sega) - 133,000
A statement from Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello is confident the company's revenue will jump to around $6 billion by the fiscal year 2011, with at least $900 million from digital revenue streams like downloadable content, in-game advertising and subscription fees. That would represent a growth of 71 percent over its 2008 fiscal year revenue forcast, which it expected to hit roughly $3.5 billion.
Other new announcements made by EA yesterday included a release date of September 7 for Spore (and possible PS3 and Xbox 360 versions).
http://www.consolesmarket.com
This week The NPD Group the industry-research firm released US retail sales data for the January 2008 period. While software sales for the month were up 11 percent to nearly $611 million, hardware sales fell by a quarter to around $378 million. Combine that with a modest decline in accessory sales, the industry overall was down 6 percent for the month, posting $1.18 billion compared to January 2007's $1.25 billion take.
Despite this, the month contained indications that the industry actually grew. That was because the January 2007 reporting period was five weeks long as opposed to this January's four-week span. Analyst Anita Frazier said that the numbers are much rosier when this adjustment was taken into account.
The big winner in the gaming market was console software which was nearly 50 percent up when compared to last year.
Hardware sales were down and a lot of this was to do with poor supply that assertion was backed up by a statement from Microsoft saying the Xbox 360 was suffering from temporary shortages.
Nintendo's longtime lead on its competitors was also slimmed. The Wii once again took the console sales crown, by a narrower margin than in previous months. In a month that saw significant advances for the PlayStation 3's chosen Blu-ray disc format, Sony's system ran nearly neck-and-neck with the Wii, selling 269,000 systems compared to the Nintendo’s 275,000. 3rd placed Nintendo DS racked up 251,000 sales, while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable brought up the rear, selling 230,000 units each.
Familiar faces dominated the software list, with Modern Warfare and Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 once again beating all challengers, notching up 331,000 in sales. Another favourite Guitar Hero on the Wii and Xbox 360 took third and fifth respectively, Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii was sixth and the DS edition of Mario Party in ninth.
THIS IS THE NPD GROUP's DATA FOR US GAME INDUSTRY SALES FOR JANUARY 2008
Category Total Change
Video Games: $1.18 billion -6%
Video Game Accessories: $191 million -4%
Video Games Software: $550 million +11%
Video Games Hardware: $378 million -25%
Total Sales Per Week: $295 million +18%
Hardware Sales (units sold)
Wii: 274,000
PlayStation 3: 269,000
Nintendo DS: 251,000
PlayStation Portable: 230,000
Xbox 360: 230,000
Game Software Top 10 (units sold)
1) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (360, Activision) - 331,000
2) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 298,000
3) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) - 240,000
4) Rock Band (Xbox 360, MTV Games) - 184,000
5) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360, Activision) - 183,000
6) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 172,000
7) Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360, EA) - 144,000
8) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (PS3, Activision) - 140,000
9) Mario Party DS (DS, Nintendo) - 139,000
10) Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS, Sega) - 133,000
A statement from Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello is confident the company's revenue will jump to around $6 billion by the fiscal year 2011, with at least $900 million from digital revenue streams like downloadable content, in-game advertising and subscription fees. That would represent a growth of 71 percent over its 2008 fiscal year revenue forcast, which it expected to hit roughly $3.5 billion.
Other new announcements made by EA yesterday included a release date of September 7 for Spore (and possible PS3 and Xbox 360 versions).
http://www.consolesmarket.com
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