Sony executive VP and chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda has revealed that PlayStation 3 manufacturing costs have been reduced by around 70 per cent.
“The cost reduction since we introduced the PS3 is very substantial and this is on schedule,” Oneda said during a conference call following the publication of Sony’s first quarter financial results.
Nintendo’s DSi comfortably topped the hardware chart in Japan during the week ended July 26, while Square Enix’s Dragon Quest IX continued to dominate software sales.
According to Media Create, sales of Nintendo’s handheld more than doubled those of its nearest rival, Sony’s PSP, while Dragon Quest IX sold 270,000 copies to take lifetime sales beyond three million copies.
Nintendo DS – 80,362
PlayStation Portable - 30,523
Nintendo Wii - 23,995
DS Lite – 12,385
Jeff Junge, who led the recent acquisition of Midway Games’ development studios and IP, has been promoted to senior VP of business management at the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.
As part of our look at id’s new multiformat shooter-cum-driver Rage featured in the new issue of Edge, out in UK shops on Monday, we saw that the frame rate of the PS3 version currently lags some way behind the 360’s.
The 360 version matches the PC’s 60 FPS while the PS3’s framerate runs at just 20-30 FPS. “The PS3 does lag a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance out of it,” Carmack acknowledges.
Capcom has reported record results for its first financial quarter ended June 30, 2009.
Net sales increased 19.2 per cent to 19,497 million yen ($204.5m/£123.6m), operating income jumped 23 per cent to 3,664 million yen ($38.43m/£23.23m), and ordinary income rose 2.3 per cent to 4,117 million yen ($43.18m/£26.1m).
“As a result, we marked the best net sales, operating income and ordinary income since quarterly release announcements began,” the company said.
Doublesix studio head James Brooksby has called on the platform holders to make digital sales figures publicly available.
Speaking as sales of the studio’s PSN arena-based score-attack shooter Burn Zombie Burn passed 70,000 sales, Brooksby said the current lack of sales transparency “is hindering the development” of digital distribution channels.
Format: PC
Release: Out now
Publisher: PopCap
Developer: In-house
Shane Kim, VP of strategy and business development for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, has moved to assure retailers that the new Xbox 360 Games On Demand service isn’t likely to cannibalise physical sales.
According to Kim, Microsoft is a big believer in both digital and retail distribution. "... Everything we've done in digital distribution spaces has expanded the market, [and] has not been a share-shift between retail and online. And we think the effect will be the same thing here.”
Capcom’s Monster Hunter Tri has shipped one million copies ahead of its Japanese release on Saturday.
In doing so it has become the first third party Wii game to have an initial shipment of over one million units, according to the publisher.
Promising enhanced graphics and online modes, the game will be available as a standalone title or bundled with Nintendo’s new black-coloured Wii, which also releases on August 1.
As game sales continue to fall at traditional retail outlets, a number of digital distribution platforms are enjoying significant year-over-year revenue growth.
While NPD reported that US games industry sales suffered a fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines in June, Valve saw a 97 per cent increase in download sales year-over-year during the month, and competitor Direct2Drive recorded a sales increase of 56 per cent.
Nintendo has reported heavy profit and revenue declines for the first quarter ended June 30.
Net income, or profit, fell 60.6 per cent to 42.3 billion yen ($445m/£270.8m), while revenue declined by 40 percent to 253.4 billion yen ($2.7b/£1.62b)
Operating profit was down 66 per cent to 40.4 billion yen ($425m/£358.7m).
Wii hardware sales totaled 2.23 million units during the quarter, down from 5.17 million during the first quarter of last year. Lifetime Wii sales now stand at 52.62 million.
Sony posted an operating loss and revenue decline during the first quarter ended June 30, both of which extended to the firm’s PlayStation business.
Sony's company-wide operating loss totaled 25.7 billion yen ($270.5m/£165.4m), compared with a 73.4 billion yen profit a year earlier.
Net loss was 37.1 billion yen ($390.5m/£238.7), compared with a net profit of 35 billion yen the previous year.
Revenues also fell 19.2 per cent to 1.6 trillion yen ($16.83b/£10.25b).
York-based developer Revolution Software is to enter the handheld digital download market via a new division called Revolution Pocket.
The division will release new and classic titles for iPhone, iPod touch, Android, PSP Go and DSi, beginning with Beneath A Steel Sky – Remastered for Apple products this autumn.
French publisher Gameloft has reported a second quarter sales increase of 17 percent.
With first quarter sales also up by 22 per cent, revenues for the first half came in at €60.1 million (£51.5m/$84.3m), up 20 per cent on the first six months of last year.
Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy has entered the used videogames market.
“This week, several of our Dallas and Austin stores will test a kiosk-based model that allows customers to insert their used games into a kiosk that will scan it for functionality, and immediately issue a voucher that is instantly redeemable for a Best Buy gift card,” said the company’s chief marketing officer, Barry Judge.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves picked up three gongs in the E3 2009 Game Critics Awards, including the Best Of Show honour.
The PS3 exclusive title was also voted Best Console Game and Best Action/Adventure Game.
The only other title to receive multiple awards was Scribblenauts for DS, which was named Best Original Game and Best Handheld Game.
Castle Crashers has “become the fastest growing XBLA game in history,” according to independent developer The Behemoth.
Released in August 2008, the side-scrolling beat ’em up was last year’s bestselling Xbox Live Arcade title, and it has now hit one million players, according to the game’s leaderboards.
The Sims 3 has topped boxed PC software sales for the second week running in the US.
While market research firm the NPD Group has announced that it will no longer freely distribute weekly PC game sales data to the media, its latest rankings for the wider PC software market show The Sims 3 as the only game to crack the top ten during the week ended June 13.
Duke Nukem developer Apogee Software has alleged that 2K Games was working on a new Duke Nukem game titled Duke Begins.
In a counterclaim to a suit filed against it last month, Apogee - the legal name of 3D Realms – claims that Take-Two and its 2K Games publishing label halted work on Duke Begins, which was in development at a third party studio, in a bid to force Apogee to sell the Duke Nukem franchise rights for less than their true value.
Publisher THQ has signed the lease for a large Austin, Texas-based studio to house Vigil Games.
The developer, which was acquired by the publisher in 2006, is currently working on Darksiders, a PS3 and Xbox 360 action title scheduled for release in January 2010, and a MMO game based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe that is “expected to be released in a few years.”
A US study conducted on behalf of the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) has found that new point of sale disc activation technology could increase annual sales by $6 billion.
‘Benefit denial’ is the concept of denying shoplifters the ability to use stolen goods by shipping them to stores in a disabled state and only activating them at the point of sale.
Take-Two has announced that it will release a PSP version of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.
The Rockstar Leeds developed game will be available at retail on UMD and as a download from the PlayStation Network in North America and Europe this autumn.
"Rockstar Leeds has shown incredible talent in creating games that raise the bar in terms of depth and innovation on portables, and with Chinatown Wars we have a rich, fast-paced, and incredibly addictive entry into the series," said Rockstar founder Sam Houser.
Format: WiiWare
Release: Out now
Publisher: Over The Top Games
Developer: In-house
Activision Blizzard’s Prototype has taken the top spot on the UK all formats chart in its second week of release, driven by sales of the Xbox 360 version.
The action title rose one position to displace The Sims 3, which had held the number one spot for the previous two weeks.
Wii Fit jumped back into the top three, while Ghostbusters: The Videogame entered at number four. The PS3 version of the Sony published title generated 98 percent of weekly sales, while the PS2 edition accounted for the remainder.
EA Sports boss Peter Moore has challenged US president Barack Obama, who said recently that kids should be spending more time outside exercising instead of playing games, to try EA Sports Active.
Speaking on health care reform last week at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Obama said: "It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the videogames and spend more time playing outside."