Sony had a hard time of things this holiday season and execs are probably wiping their tears away with the sales reports. Entirely unsurprisingly the Wii and the Xbox 360 pwned the PS3.
The Wii reigned supreme, bringing in doubled sales from last year. Nintendo is likely doing a little dance as we speak. Meanwhile the Xbox 360 increased sales by 8%. Given the crappy economy that’s a great achievement.
Alas, Sony can’t claim the same. The PS3 sales dropped by 9%, leaving the PS3 consoles collecting dust on the shelves.
Japan gets to brag this time around because they’ll be the ones getting to experience Fragile when it’s released on January 22 there. Us on the other side of the world don’t get to be so lucky, at least not yet.
Fragile looks like a beautiful game packed with action, adventure, puzzles, and a splash of horror all mixed together. Odds are that only a small sample of the gaming population will enjoy this fine game, but with a lot of luck, it will make its way over seas for those of us that can apprecaite its potential.
A couple of days ago I finally succumbed to the allure of the iPhone 3G and took one home with me. Since I’d had an iPod Touch for a few months, I was already familiar with the Apple Applications Store, but I honestly hadn’t spent a lot of time (or money) downloading games. This has since changed. I’ve been trying out a few different games and I’ll probably mention them here from now on.
Today I want to talk about Topple.
Topple is a highly addictive, hella fun game developed by ngmoco. The game is sort of like Tetris in reverse. The purpose of the game is to stack randomly and oddly shaped blocks on top of each other and reach the goal line at the top before your tower crumbles. It’s truly fun times and an awesome way to kill time while waiting around.
The following video gives you a really good look at the game in action:
If this looks like something you might enjoy, you can currently get the game for FREE at the iTunes Store. However, this is a limited time offer and will eventually be going back to its regular price of $0.99 (which I think is well worth it).
Looks like Fable 2 fans will have to hang on a little longer to get their highly anticipated expansion. According to to Xbox.com’s Fable 2 expansion page the new content won’t be available until the end of January. It was supposed to hit anxious hands next week but “unexpected technical difficulties” have pushed the date into the new year.
Sorry to those that were looking forward to this next week. On the plus side, there should be plenty of other things to do around this time, so hopefully this unexpected delay won’t throw too much of a wrench in your plans.
GAMEROX has developed a new chair that’s designed especially for young gamers. The idea behind the creation is to provide a seat that enhances posture development, core strength and balance skills.
GAMEROX promotes body movement during gaming. So for parents that are concerned about their kids staying stationary for long periods of time while playing, this might be something to look into.
Hard to say whether this actually does what it says it does, but it’s an interesting idea. The big question on my mind is whether kids will actually enjoy playing on it, or if it’s something they’ll try once and toss aside.
Check out the chair in action in the video after the cut.
Writer Rhianna Pratchett was hired to help the self-called “infantile” developers at Triumph Studios tone down the “big boobs and violence” that had been initially put in the game.
As a female gamer this sounds like great news to me, though I’m sure there’s plenty of people that like the big boobs and extreme violence.
Regardless, Pratchett seems to have done her job and done it well, helping to shape the storyline of the game and bring a bit of maturity to the team.
Triumph Studios director, Lennart Sas said, “We sometimes have to tone down stuff we do because we are quite infantile guys who like stupid stuff like big boobs and violence, and Rhianna has to make it more subtle.”
What do you guys think? Good move or bring back the boobs?
Attention all of you European PS3 owners and SingStar fans, there’s a new and free patch for the game available that will allow your non-backwards compatible PS3 to play PS2 SingStar titles.
Essentially, your download should begin automatically when you insert the copy of the game. You should be able then to play PS2 SingStar games.
Hopefully this is good news for a lot of you that were lamenting your inability to play PS2 titles on the PS3.
Nintendo might be sitting pretty at the top in the console wars, but when it comes to software, Microsoft’s got the lead. The economic crisis seems to be hitting everyone but the world of video games. Anxious shoppers tossed games into their carts like they were Halloween candy. And the results are in.
Gears of War 2 (Epic, Xbox 360) - 1.56 million units
Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch, Xbox 360) - 1.41 million units
Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 796,000 units
Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 697,000 units
Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 637,000 units
Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch, PS3) - 597,000 units
Guitar Hero World Tour (Vicarious Visions, Wii) - 475,000 units
Left 4 Dead (Valve, Xbox 360) - 410,000 units
Resistance 2 (Insomniac, PS3) - 385,000 units
Wii Music (Nintendo, Wii) - 297,000 units
The Xbox 360 managed to get 3 out of the 10 spots, including the number 1 and 2 positions, thanks to Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty. But Nintendo dominated in numbers once again, picking up half the slots. And that leaves only 2 slots for the PS3, with Call of Duty and Resistance 2. Alas, Resistance 2 was the only PS3 exclusive to make it on the list. Sorry, Sony.
Nintendo has to be feeling pretty darn proud of themselves. Both the Wii and the Nintendo DS are dominating the sales charts for November, setting records left and right and leaving Microsoft and Sony in the dust. Granted, Microsoft and Sony have nothing to cry about, really. Despite the economic crisis neither company is doing too poorly.
But then, Nintendo is just pwning:
With more than 3.6 million combined systems sold in November, Wii™ and Nintendo DS™ set new hardware sales records, according to the independent NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States. The Wii console sold more than 2 million in November, a new all-time record for a non-December month. The Nintendo DS system sold more than 1.56 million in November, which is now the second-highest total for a non-December month in history. The Wii console has sold 15.4 million in the United States since it launched in November 2006, and Nintendo DS has sold nearly 24.6 million in the United States since it launched in November 2004.
Valve has announced that the PC upgrades for Team Fortress 2 will finally be making their way to the console version. The Xbox 360 version will be receiving “pretty much” all the upgrades that the PC version got.
“We are actively working on a massive Xbox 360 update,” says the blog “which will include pretty much everything we’ve shipped on the PC in the last year. We’ll provide you with a rough date when we have one.”
Meanwhile, even more upgrades for the PC game have been announced and there’s no word yet on whether those will inch their way toward the console version. But going by the fact that they’re spreading the joy with the previous ones, one can hope that Xbox 360 owners will get to enjoy them too.
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Sony had a hard time of things this holiday season and execs are probably wiping their tears away with the sales reports. Entirely unsurprisingly the Wii and the Xbox 360 pwned the PS3.
Nintendo might be sitting pretty 
Valve has announced that the PC upgrades for Team Fortress 2 will finally be making their way to the console version. The Xbox 360 version will be receiving “pretty much” all the upgrades that the PC version got.
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