I'm not going to pretend to know the development costs for Super Monkey Ball, but even if 340K units sold was enough to cover those costs, it certainly wasn't a significant profit.

I agree that good, innovative 3rd party games should sell on the Wii, but there is some hesitancy as developers figure out the Wii market. Developers do seem to have a better grasp on the 360 market, which accounts for the quantity, quality and sales for 3rd party games on that platform.

Don't forget that MLB Power Pros is getting really good word of mouth and got an 8.4 on IGN (no GameSpot review yet).

Yeah Power Pros is really good and I hope that the game being brought over here isn't just a one-time thing.

New bundle announced for Japan. 40 GB PS3 packaged with Dynasty Warriors 6......

http://www.siliconera.com/2007/10/09...n-ps3-package/


Interesting comments from a developer of COD4. Evidently, they built the same functionality that is in XBL into the online components of the PS3 version. I wonder if other developers may purchase this code or Sony would be interested in incorporating it into their 'Home' software...........



Interesting tech market research about what is most wanted for the holidays. The Wii being the most wanted of the three consoles shouldn't be terribly shocking, but the reason for it is pretty interesting. While the PS3 is the most wanted console amongst men, the Wii was the clear leader amongst women, boosting it to the top of the overall list when comparing consoles. We knew this at some level, but these polling figures bear it out.

Also, HDTV interest is way up from previous year. Expect a big push of new HDTV's this holiday season.

http://www.srgnet.com/pdf/Holiday%20...er_10_2007.pdf

Woot! Love the Timesplitters series.

Nintendo steps on their own next-gen dick, as their scheduled BIG GAME for Christmas, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, is delayed till 2/10/08

Booooooooo. I thought it was only delayed a bit. Next year is a long time to wait!

Isn't Mario Galaxy their BIG GAME for Christmas? It is for me, at least.

Super Mario Galaxy >>>>>>>>> Smash Brothers

At least Nintendo will take the extra time to polish a game rather than rush it out like some companies, but yeah it really sucks for fans of the series. From a business perspective it gives them a big seller for early 2008 while Wiis will probably sell like hotcakes up through Christmas season either way.

In other big news EA is to acquire Bioware and Pandemic Studios. I'm already looking forward to the Mass Effect cellphone port.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071011/20071011006083.html?.v=1

Given the rate at which EA acquires game studios, I suppose it's inevitable that at some point I'll work for them...

Oh god.. Hasta Luego, Bioware, I was hoping that you would avoid the dim mak touch of EA

Please don't let EA kill Bioware...PLEASE don't let EA kill Bioware...

Lol @ bioware.

PWNED

I'm glad Nintendo is waiting but that does put a bit of a damper on Christmas for them. I wonder if they are still expecting supply issues and then bumping a huge game and system seller to Q1 2008 isn't such a bad idea.

SSBM was still the best selling Gamecube game so perhaps that may be a few too many ">"

SI

Oh I was talking about how I feel about the games personally, not the sales potential. Super Mario Galaxy just looks, as a Brazilian might say, "fuck awesome."

I was looking forward to Smash Bros. way more than Galaxy.

I like Mario games but the whole sphere 'maps' in Galaxy just doesn't do it for me, looks like a serious headache inducer. Hopefully that's only a small portion of the game.

They already own 20% of our stock, although they have not yet made a move to acquire enough of the rest to buy us outright.

It's weird that everything I've read claims that the Mass Effect IP belongs to Microsoft, but EA are claiming that it was part of their purchase.

I wonder if that means basically "Okay, here's this exclusive trilogy on the Xbox 360, that's contractual, but after that, Mass Effect is a free agent IP."

Euro Sony exec announced yesterday that a PS3 system will be bundled with MGS4 and DualShock controller in March 2008 in PAL territories. No mention of which PS3 will be in the bundle.

Looks like Capcom may have a PS3 announcement late next week. Capcom developer response yesterday when asked about the Monster Hunter 3 move to Wii and the PS3 crowd's negative response: "Let's see how they feel at the end of next week".

Apparently Frys is selling the XBOX360 premium right now via mail order for $400, and it includes Bioshock, Half-Life 2 Orange Box, Two Worlds, Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Forza 2. The software alone is worth $250.

Checkout slickdeals.net for the link.

There's some nuts deals popping up in bundles everywhere. There's actually a bundle 'war' going on between Blockbuster UK and some of its competitors right now in the UK. They're offering 360's and PS3's with basically 3 games free. Similar deals on both systems here in the states as you mentioned. It's a great time to buy right now if people are looking for a 360 or PS3.

Assassin's Creed will apparently be delayed until next year on the 360 and PS3. Typical culprits on both systems: Memory issues with the PS3 version and not enough space on the DVD for the 360 version.

Resistance: FOM sequel expected in November 2008.......

http://www.n4g.com/ps3/News-74547.aspx

Looks like Microsoft may be considering a 3D world online much like Home for the PS3.......

http://kotaku.com/gaming/hedge-bet/m...too-309709.php

Warhawk will have an expansion pack with new maps, vehicles, and weapons sometime in December. No word as to what the price (if any) will be.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl has a new release date of February 10th......

http://wii.ign.com/articles/826/826577p1.html

In the rumor departments, Dark Cloud 3 for the PS3 is reportedly in development. Also, Michael Pachter is predicting a 400K month for the 360 in September, which would be their highest non-holiday month on the 360 since release. September NPD numbers are expected at the end of this week.

If DVD space is a "typical" culprit on the 360, what other games can you name that have been delayed due to DVD space? The only other game mentioned in these discussions was about Rage, and that only because they chose to ship on 2 (again because they are showcasing tech that is all about tons and tons of texture data), not because they made some big stink about how limiting DVD size was.

You'd think XBox 360 numbers would be higher than 400k.

It was 276k last month, and this is a five week period v. August's four week period.

Halo sold something like 1.7m copies I think the first day/weekend/something, and even though people say "well all the Halo people already had a 360" that can't be entirely true. Even if 90% of them already did which sounds rather high IMO, that'd be 170,000 extra 360's sold, meaning at least 440k.

Maybe a lot of people bought one in August due to the price drop, but I'd figure Halo 3 is a lot bigger than a $50 drop on the main SKU. We'll find out on Thursday night I suppose.

N'Gai discusses the loss of three major developers in three weeks from Microsoft Game Studios and how that could affect the console and game outlook.........

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/level...-all-mean.aspx

New PS3 model is evidently in the works. This may be the system that ends up being bundled with MGS4..........

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/15/p...nds-at-the-fcc

Spanish retailer is reporting that there will be a 50 Euro price cut on the Premium and Elite 360's. This will bring the Elite price down to the same price level as the newly released 40 GB PS3 and put the Premium model 50 Euros cheaper. Really good price war developing in Europe, which should benefit consumers. UK numbers since PS3 price cut show that the PS3 has already sold 250K units. Spanish and German sales have also been strong.

GTA IV has had rumors that one of the reasons for delay on the 360 version is that they're trying to squeeze it on one disc and aren't able to do so. However, there are plenty of other issues on both the 360 and PS3 versions, so it's not the sole reason. Lost Odyssey is going to be released on 4 discs, so it obviously had some disc size issues as well.

To your point, I've always stated that I think the 'one disc idealism' isn't that big of a deal for me personally. If FFXIII came out on 3 or 4 discs, I wouldn't complain at all. I'm not sure what the big stigma is about multiple disc games, but it does exist amongst some gamers. If it didn't, they wouldn't delay the game trying to get it to fit on one disc. The smart developers say 'the hell with that' and just stick it on multiple discs.

Target let one slip evidently. 40 GB PS3 is in the system and will be released October 28th. Rumors still abound that Spiderman 3 for BR will be the bundled disc.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/16/4...arget-for-399/

Capcom announce a Bionic Commando remake is currently in development for the 360, PS3 and PC. No mention of a release date.

Great article about sports games and just how bad they are at this point by Bill Abner........

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...Stagnant-State

Good article and I agree with most of what he has to say. Has he reviewed MLB Power Pros, for me that game is a breath of fresh air for console sports games.

The Gameshark review (Bill Abner is an editor there) for MLB Power Pros is already up.

http://www.gameshark.com/reviews/278...Wii-Review.htm

Also, MLB Power Pros is being displayed prominently at their blog (http://www.sportsgamerblog.com) because they want it to do well. Bill and the group over there actually wrote out a complete play guide for a Japanese baseball game that played well simply because they were so tired of the bad games here in the U.S.

MLB Power Pros and NHL 08 are both the best sports games I've played in eons. So while I agree with some of his points on the genre, I think there is still a lot of good happening in sports games as well.

I don't know how sales are going elsewhere, but at my store the new premium Xbox's with the new chipset and all and Marvel UA and Forza are flying off the shelves as quickly as Wii's.

Meh. I can't get the URL tag to work the way I want it to.

Summary: Sony's gone from the 20/60 tag-team at system launch to 80 GB with a 40 GB very likely on the way. 80 has software backwards compatibility, 40 loses BC entirely and gets reduced from 4 USB ports to 2 - which I really don't understand with the whole "wireless controller has battery built-in and must be recharged via USB" thing.

Is that tacit admission that with the Bluetooth issues they've had, we're not likely to see many games with more than two player local multiplayer going forward?

Now, apparently, there's another filing for a new SKU with the FCC. It's either for DualShock 3 or for something else entirely. If it's something else entirely, we're looking at six SKUs within a year'ish of launch.

I can't wait for about five or ten years from now to see if David Sheff updates "Game Over: Press Start to Continue," because I'm seriously curious what kind of conversations are going on in the Sony board room right now.

The number of USB ports has nothing to do with the number of player that can play locally on the machine. You can have between one and seven controllers on all PS3 machines, regardless of the number of USB ports. The only change is that you have less ports to charge your controllers with. Given that they have a life around 40-50 hours, you rarely should need more than a couple of ports anyway. If you truly do need 4-6 USB ports because you have that many players playing at one location for long periods, you can pick up a USB port expander for 10-20 dollars to allow more ports. It certainly has nothing to do with any connection issues, as reports of that occurring are pretty infrequent.

Interesting sales info coming out of the UK. Evidently, the introduction of the 40 GB machine (which has no PS2 BC at all and no games included) has created a sales rush on the discounted 60 GB version (with BC and 2 games included for only 50 pounds more).

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6181094....stnews;title;2

That must be very encouraging for Sony to realize that the box they are discontinuing is selling well.

I'm not sure it's all that surprising. There's a certain segment that wants the BC in their PS3 and with the dropped price and the 2 extra games included, its the better value at this point. The new PS3 that has just been reviewed by the FCC is likely the successor to the 60 GB machine. They won't stick with one SKU in the EU.

I expect that the same thing will happen in the U.S. when the 40 GB machine comes out. There's going to be a run on the remaining 60 GB SKU stock to get the remaining units with full BC.

I'd say a very large segment. Again, Sony is one of those companies that seems to be trying their hardest to not make their product an easy buy. As soon as the price point comes down, they strip one of their key features - a built-in excuse to upgrade from a PS2 to a PS3. It makes no sense, especially when the chipset that enables BC is so cheap.

Right when I begin to think, "hey, this may not be such a bad buy after all," - they pull the carpet out from under you and you start from scratch again.

Wonder what the price for the 60GB one will be when the 40 is released...

The PS3 is a lot like a luxury automobile. The quality is very good, but then you see the price and think, "Do I really want to pay that much for 4 wheels when I could get a Ford or Chevy that could do the same thing for a lot cheaper?"

The 360 is a lot like Kia. It's an affordable machine that has some quality issues, so they resolve that problem by offering a much longer warranty to cover any problems down the road.

Nintendo would end up being the Toyota of the bunch. Reliable car at an affordable price to the masses.

If they do drop it, it will go to $449. Of course there's not 2 games packed in like the EU version.

Dropping BC seems like such a dumb move. It's throwing away one of PS3's advantages over the 360.

It's still available on 2 of the 3 systems, so it's not being dropped. You can still get it if you want it.

I'm not sure anyone knows the exact cost savings that Sony is getting from the dropped BC in the 40 GB box. My guess is that the money they saved would have been better spent by just leaving it in the 40 GB box and avoiding the negative response it's receiving from the hardcore gaming group. They certainly aren't saving anywhere near the $100 that is the price difference between the 40 GB and 60 GB machines.

I don't play BC games much at all, but I'm glad I have the 60 GB machine to give me that option. I honestly think that the 60 GB machine has been the best value from the start and is still the best PS3 machine available if you evaluate both price and value.

Which is exactly what I said.

But say, tell me - what's going to happen when they introduce DualShock controllers, and the battery life suffers because of it?

What's going to happen if you get a game where all four players want to play, and more than two controllers are either dead or die in the middle of playing?

The fact that they would take out two USB ports - which surely has to be cheaper to include than the backwards compatibility - combined with the fact that so many of the 'multiplayer' games are currently multiplayer only online, and I'm wondering if that's not a tacit admission that they don't plan to pursue four player games terribly frequently, even though the system will support up to seven.

I'm going to put that line right up there with Microsoft's "It's only happening about 2-3% of the time" line.

"pretty infrequent" my fat, hairy ass.

As mentioned before, for about $20 you can expand two ports to six ports. So for those that truly need it, it's a minimal upgrade cost. I have 4 ports and very rarely use more than 2 at any time, despite having 4 controllers and using all of them occasionally for 4 player Warhawk games. I think that's the norm rather than the exception and it would appear from the reduction of USB ports that Sony is of the same mind. I think the BC reduction is a much bigger omission than the USB ports. I doubt many will even notice the USB reduction.

I have no information on your ass, so I'll refrain from comments on it. :)

The reports have been sporatic at best and have been nothing like the openly publicized problems that you mention with the 360. If you have an article detailing the widespread problems with the controllers, please post it.