Wii Takes US Lead In Console War

Just in case people were actually thinking the Xbox 360 was going to hold out against a viral console, Nintendo is now the best selling console in the United States. Anyone really surprised?

This months sales figures for consoles broke down something like this:

  • Nintendo DS: 783,000
  • Wii: 666,700
  • PlayStation 3: 405,500
  • PSP: 337,400
  • Xbox 360: 219,800
  • PlayStation 2: 188,800

Barring the crazy hand held sales of the Nintendo DS, you can clearly see Nintendo holds top-spot yet again, but this month Sony’s PlayStation 3 followed right behind. Although there was a good 200,000 difference, Sony didn’t do so bad; imagine if Nintendo had an MGS4 killer app?

Metal Gear Solid 4 sold 871,300 copies, individually, and roughly 1-million if you include those bundled with the PlayStation 3. The question is clearly answered, MGS4 helped sell Sony’s consoles. The new question will be: Can Sony keep the 2nd place rank against Xbox 360?

Until Gears of War 2, there isn’t a killer game for the Xbox 360 and GoW2 probably won’t move any consoles, those that love the series bought their console when Gears of War arrived. The next big console mover may, in fact, be Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 as it’s no longer exclusive to Sony and the 360 is a more cost effective way to get into the game.

How does Nintendo continue to keep the pace? Perhaps because their games are still in top positions with Wii Fit in 4th place, Wii Play in 5th place and Wii Kart in 7th on the June 2008 software charts.

(Thanks, 1up)

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Episode 735: Long DiscussionsEpisode 735: Long Discussions

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  • Red Dead Redemption coming to PC later this month
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Let us know what you think.

The post Episode 735: Long Discussions first appeared on Gaming Podcast.

Activision: Cleaning House, Losing StudiosActivision: Cleaning House, Losing Studios

Now that Activision has merged up with Blizzard all under Vivendi it’s time to consider what to do with all the additional overhead, management, internal studios and sheer amount of people working on projects within their organization. In other words, it’s time to trim the fat and get leaned out for the long haul.

This isn’t unexpected news, the only way to grow more effective as a large company is to remove some of the access baggage that can slow you down and let your competitors take control. This is a sad job which nobody takes pride in (most normal people anyway) but it could mean the difference between rising to the top and sinking like a brick.

“We are focused on improving efficiency across the combined organization and are concentrating on businesses where we have leadership positions that are aligned with Activision Publishing’s long-term corporate objectives,” Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said in a statement. (gamespot)

It’s important to be aggressive as a large company, just like you would be as a startup company. There is a reason startup companies grow into powerful competitors that win, grow and eventually become (or be purcahsed by) larger companies.

As part of this move some staff will be migrated to new projects, persumably reporposed into other divisions or allowed to find new jobs somewhere else. This is called “realignment” by those in the management organization, and currently those up for realignment are:

  • Radical Entertainment (Prototype, Crash of the Titans)
  • High Moon Studios (The Bourne Conspiracy, Darkwatch).
  • Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict, Ground Control)
  • Swordfish Studios (50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Cold Winter)

These realignments along with other organizational changes will effect a few working game titles:

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  • Ghostbusters
  • Wet
  • Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
  • World at Conflict: Soviet Assault
  • 50 Cent Blood on the Sand
  • Zombie Wranglers
  • Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
  • Several Xbox Live Arcade titles

At this point we’re not sure which, if any, will continue to be developed under Activision and which will be sold off to other companies or retired. Surely, those money making titles will be sold off if Activision has no plans to finish them.

Again, it’s hard to consider this a bad decision. This is a decision of growth over having too many “Cooks in the kitchen” making soup. It’s better to have rock solid titles of epic proportions than a large pool of mediocre titles with minimal sales and bad reputations, and that’s why they spend a lot of time in the office working on this and having a type of  office chair for long hours on a computer is really helpful in this area.

It’s not that the titles they’re questioning are necessarily bad, but are not the leading titles in their space and are should be either given a stronger team to work on them or retire them entirely. To build a stronger team with passion and direction it might be best to sell the franchise(s) to other organizations so they can do it right with time and attention to detail.

(Thanks, gamespot)

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