TJ returns this week, as Blizzard continues to embarrass itself. No Gaming Flashback this week.
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week, there’s only one news item, but that’s because Jonah Falcon returns from PAX East 2012 to discuss the games he managed to check out and even play, including Assassin’s Creed 3, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Civilization V: Gods & Kings, Max Payne 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, Borderlands 2, Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 3, Orcs Must Die! 2, Tera, Solitaire Blitz, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Mark of the Ninja and Code Hero.
The show does cover one news item:
Finally, a new contest: win a free copy of Civilization V Special Edition on Steam. To win it, just state what your favorite civilization in history is and why. All that and Reader Feedback and a special surprise at the end!
Jordan Lund can’t make Episode 280, but fortunately, Paul S. Nowak makes his triumphant return, albeit pumped full of medication. Enjoy his drug-fueled babbling as he waxes poetic on the virtues of playing social networking games while high.
He was lucid enough to discuss the following news items with the gang, however:
Gaming Podcast is also running a new contest to win a free Steam code for the hotly anticipated XCOM: Enemy Unknown remake. All listeners have to do is answer the Question of the Week in the comments section, “What is your favorite game from the 1990’s?”
People see facts and figures constantly and brush them off as, well, facts and figures. But, when people see charts and graphs they “oooh” and “aaaah” over them because the visualization is easy to understand. Now, thanks to the NPD Group and Deutsche Bank, people are seeing some pretty graphs about the console battle. These show just how well the race is going on all fronts of the war.
Although the data is fairly small the colors show it all, the Wii crossed over the Xbox 360 numbers in unit sales and hasn’t stopped since the launch. Here we are, on the third holiday season since the Wii launch, and people still cannot find them in stores. Shortage? Doubtful. Considering the massive sales numbers and the fact that they did take the 360 in numbers it seems the supply just can’t meet the over-the-top demands, but why is the demand so high for the little Nintendo bundle of joy? People just can’t get enough Wii.
The Xbox 360 has much to brag about as well, they’re not first in the race but their nearest next-generation graphic console, the PlayStation 3, isn’t even close. The chart shows them both rising in much the same way, with the same “pops” along the sales chart but in a completely different scale. Since Microsoft doesn’t want to consider Wii a competitor, they’re clearly winning the war in their eyes.
Oddly enough, one of the big pops in Xbox 360 sales where around the PS3 launch. Perhaps these consumers were waiting for both consoles to launch before making a decision? More than likely, it was holiday related and had little to do with the PS3 launch but it is fun to ponder anyway.
What about software sales? We’ve heard the Wii has little to offer in terms of games while the 360 wipes the floor with the competition.
To our surprise, the Wii is rocking the sales figures in terms of software but still doesn’t compare to the Xbox 360. Microsoft pulls out 93-million units while Nintendo takes home a modest 73-million units in software… yet again Sony doesn’t show up to the fight. Looking at November 2007, you can see the Wii jumps significantly in unit sales, no doubt related to the Super Mario Galaxy launch — once they hit that figure they never looked back and continued to climb.
Although a few of us expected Sony’s PlayStation 3 to make huge progress this year, each month they have marginal growth is causing their competitors to excel beyond anyones imagination. We’re starting to wonder how well Sony’s “10 year plan” is going to work out with their competitors taking advantage of the market now when, in 10-years, they will be sitting on their pile of cash to re-invest in the 8th generation of consoles.
(Thanks, GameDaily)
