The NPD has released its US video game industry figures for October, which reveal that total monthly revenue from hardware, software and accessories among all manufacturers fell to $1.07 billion, constituting a 19 percent drop from what the American gamer spent over the same period last year. After being toppled from its chart-leading ways in September by a price cut-boosted PS3, the Wii has regained its sales throne by chopping $50 off its own entry fee, making itself buoyant in the US, if not the world. The PS3’s own sales have suffered a slump after the September euphoria, while the 360 is still wearing the dunce cap in third place. Microsoft’s response has been to keep banging that drum about being the only console to show year-to-date growth, but when you’re selling less than half as many consoles as Nintendo, you have to grasp at whatever straws are nearby. Speaking of Nintendo, its DS sales so far this year have continued at such a rate as to threaten its own 2008 hardware sales record — set by the Wii — with ten million units sold. So there you have it: Sony fails to maintain its September lead, Nintendo keeps churning, and Microsoft keeps hoping for better times ahead. Full list of figures after the break.
Continue reading NPD: Wii reclaims lead in US sales, but console gaming market shrinks by a fifth
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds
NPD: Wii reclaims lead in US sales, but console gaming market shrinks by a fifth originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the DS Lite will be old ancient news by the time Easy Piano hit the market, but those who’ve learned to be content in life (and have somehow managed to resist the urge to snap up a DSi in place of their older handheld), have probably been hunting for this date. Valcon Games has just announced that its piano-teaching title (and the highly comical / interesting 13-key accessory) will be landing in North America in “early 2010,” but it didn’t go so far as to fess up to an MSRP. Not like it matters — you know you’re totally lining up to snag this during a midnight launch, regardless of how many heirlooms are forced onto Craigslist.
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Easy Piano bringing keys to the DS Lite in ‘early 2010′ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As you know, there’s one thing we love more than gadgets — wanton destruction. Combine the two (on someone else’s dime, o’course) and we’re having a pretty good day. That said, we’re glad that there are others out there with our bent, including Amusement, a “gaming lifestyle” mag based en France. Apparently, the theme of the current issue is “computer bugs,” with a number of articles illustrated in a clever, artistic, Gallic manner. But that’s not what caught our eye — no, we were into the pictures of handheld game consoles (specifically, a Nintendo DS and a PSP Go) being shot through particle board. Feel free to peep some more action photography after the break — and we’ll just go back to working on our coilgun.
[Via SlashGear]
Continue reading French magazine shoots handhelds through boards, much to our amusement
Filed under: Gaming
French magazine shoots handhelds through boards, much to our amusement originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You may simply be able to chalk this one up to some freewheeling speculation and rumination, but Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata went pretty far out on a limb in talking about the future of the company during a recent sit-down with the Financial Times, and indicated that Nintendo may just be looking outside the gaming industry for a little inspiration. Apparently, Iwata is intrigued by the Kindle “because it’s a new business model in which the user doesn’t bear the communications cost,” which he says wouldn’t “fit Nintendo customers because we make amusement products.” He did go on to note though, that “in reality, if we did this it would increase the cost of the hardware, and customers would complain about Nintendo putting prices up,” but said that “it is one option for the future.” At the same time, however, Iwata also seemingly downplayed the short-term potential for download-only games, saying that he thinks “it will take quite a long time” for the industry to shift to them — although he did hedge his bets somewhat by pointing out how unpredictable the games business is.
[Via Electronista]
Filed under: Gaming
Nintendo’s Iwata muses about Kindle-like business model for future handheld originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There ain’t much to glean from Shigeru Miyamoto’s recent sit-down with Popular Mechanics, but in the never-ending quest to learn more about Nintendo’s next-generation Wii, a few tidbits of interest have been highlighted. Miyamoto, who is responsible for creating the likes of Mario and Zelda (amongst others), spoke at length about current titles, the future of video games as a whole and on his view of the not-yet-named Wii 2. In answering a question about the future of motion-sensing in the Big N’s consoles, he ran off topic a bit and noted that “it would be likely that we would try to make that same functionality perhaps more compact and perhaps even more cost-efficient” when speaking about future hardware (which honestly may have been talking strictly about accelerometers). Of course, this is about as predictable as it gets — hardware tends to always shrink and get cheaper as technology improves — but hey, there it is! Now, let your imaginations do what they were born to do.
[Via TechRadar]
Filed under: Gaming
Nintendo’s Miyamoto: next-gen Wii hardware could be “more compact, cost-efficient” originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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While Microsoft tries to figure out if it should take Tegra-powered Zune HD in a gaming direction or the Xbox in a portable direction, there are wild rumorings from the underground that claim Nintendo is planning on using Tegra to power a next generation DS handheld. The primary source on this comes from Bright Side of News (which doesn’t have a big track record to judge by), who claims the debut is planned for late 2010 and conjectures that the device could either use the upcoming 40nm 2nd-gen Tegra tech, or the existing, tried-and-true 65nm chip. There were rumors from Yahoo! Games of a Tegra DS afoot at GamesCom in August, with higher resolution screens and full backwards compatibility, and PC Perspective also claims its own NVIDIA insiders are confirming this — the evidence is certainly stacking up. If it turns out to be true it’s going to mean a pretty dramatic jump forward in portable gaming power, but either way this generation of handhelds seems due for a refresh, and there’s plenty of ultra compact silicon floating about to make a graphical leap possible.
[Via PC Perspective; thanks, Fernando]
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds
NVIDIA Tegra to power next-gen Nintendo DS? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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