TJ announces his nuptials the previous week, finally marrying his live-in girlfriend of 10 years. All that, and many parables that had to be cut from the podcast lest it last 90 minutes.
That said, there’s plenty of news this week:
Let us know if you spent $50,000 on a virtual spaceship.
Microsoft is reporting their European sales are the best they’ve seen in the history of Xbox 360 sales. They’re claiming the sales are double what they were in the 2007 holiday season. They are saying 8-million consoles have been sold to date in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Microsoft’s fast to push out their press release, probably hoping to overshadow any reports Sony may be releasing for sales numbers. At this point, we’ll have to believe their press release as fact until someone proves it otherwise; Microsoft would hate to be caught in a lie. Unfortunately, NPD figures aren’t collected in Europe so we have to wait for all the other metric gathering companies to release final December 2007 figures.
Sony could, in fact, see a doubling of their sales figures as well, we’ll have to wait and see.
This week it’s Jordan Lund’s turn to be absent, while Jonah Falcon and Paul Nowak discuss just how bad The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is. This week’s Gaming Flashback is Peter Molyneux’s ambitious title Black & White.
In the news:
There’s also some Reader Feedback, while the Question of the Week is, “How in tune with an MMO’s story are you while playing?”
Circuit City seems to have a problem paying their bills or so it seems, as Sony stopped their shipments mid-transit and returned them before hitting the distributors command center. In this unfavorable market climate, with the holidays around the corner, it seems bad for Circuit City to lose the trust of Sony.
Sony is afraid, “Circuit City couldn’t pay for the shipments” so the merchandise was turned around and returned home. Considering Sony, more than likely, wouldn’t have shipped the products to start with unless Circuit City was in good standing suggests things might have been “learned” after the shipment left the docks.
Circuit City’s been in some bad situations before, having a rough time dealing with competition in a very low margin, high volume, world of electronic retail. I’ve witnessed CompUSA disappear after the local Best Buy moved in and now Best Buy sits about 80 yards from Circuit City.
This is unfortunate because Best Buy can use some competition before they take over the bulk of this industry leaving only Wal*Mart and a few smaller stores to keep them in check. Considering I just purchased a 2-year warranty on my Rock Band 2 drum kit at Circuit City I’m fearing I’ll have to break the hardware sooner than later!
(Thanks, Gizmodo)
Congratulations TJ!