Nintendo seems ready to resume its dominance over its video game console competitors, Microsoft and Sony, and to shake off several tepid months of sales, an analyst suggested Monday.
Those comments came after Nintendo put out a press release boasting that it had sold 550,000 Wiis in the U.S. during Thanksgiving week, leading Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter to estimate that the company may have sold about 1.1 million of the consoles for all of November.
Analyst Michael Pachter thinks the Wii is ready to resume its dominance over its rivals.
(Credit: Nintendo)Last November, Nintendo moved 2.04 million Wiis, so if Pachter is correct about this month's data--his estimate was based on a formula in which November sales numbers are equal to roughly double the Thanksgiving week sales figures--the company sold only a little more than half the units it did a year ago. Still, Pachter estimated that Microsoft and Sony will have sold about 700,000 Xbox 360s and PlayStations, respectively, during November.
A Microsoft representative said that, while the company doesn't provide internal sales numbers, Black Friday week Xbox sales were the best of the year and at least two times the previous week. A Sony representative said that the PS3 had a banner Thanksgiving week, and that 440,000 of the consoles were sold during the week. Nintendo did not respond to a request for sales numbers for Thanksgiving week a year ago.
Using Pachter's formula, the PS3 sales numbers would mean that about 880,000 of the consoles were sold for all of November.
Since the true beginning of the so-called next-generation console wars in November 2006--when both the PS3 and the Wii were released, joining the Xbox 360, which hit store shelves a year before that--the Wii has been the dominant player, routinely outselling its competitors.
Now the prices for all three consoles are within $100--the Wii and the lowest-priced Xbox are $199, while the PS3 is $299. That has led to an increase in sales for Nintendo's peers, especially for the PS3, which in September won its first month ever for U.S. sales, according to industry analyst the NPD Group.
Indeed, even Nintendo has acknowledged it had lost some of its steam. Last month, the company's president, Satoru Iwata, said, "The Wii has stalled."
But Pachter suggested that the Thanksgiving week numbers show that Nintendo has simply been a victim of its own success, and that the sales of the Wii--and its handheld game machines, the DS and DSi--are still very impressive.
"You can't really criticize Nintendo for" past success, Pachter said. "They're definitely going to be very solid and dominant this holiday season, but last year, they were so large and dramatic, (those numbers) are going to be hard to compare to."
For the Thanksgiving week, Nintendo said it sold more than 1.5 million devices, meaning that it sold almost 1 million of the DS and DSi. And to Pachter, that might be the most impressive data point of all.
After all, he said, the DS first came out in 2004. "When is this thing going to get old?" he said. "It never dies. It's amazing to me, but people just keep buying them."
Still, Nintendo's biggest advantage--over the PS3, at least--is that the Wii costs $100 less. And if Sony ever drops the PS3's sticker under $200, that could mean big trouble for the Wii, Pachter said. Such a move would force Nintendo to do something dramatic to keep up.
While he didn't say that Nintendo would need an entirely new console at that point, he did say that a sub-$200 PS3 would force Nintendo to do something like add a processor and graphics card similar to what is available on the PS3 and the Xbox. And that, among other things, means high-definition.
"I think consumers need that," Pachter said.
Updated at 5:10 p.m. with comment from Microsoft, and at 7:55 p.m. with comment from Sony.
March revenues for the video game industry dropped 17 percent from a year ago, the NPD Group reported Thursday, the first time in the current recession that the business has seen sales fall.
For the month, the analyst firm reported that the industry turned in total sales of $1.43 billion, down 17 percent from $1.72 billion a year earlier. Hardware sales were down 18 percent, while software was down 17 percent.
But while the numbers look poor, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said she attributed some of the drop to the vagaries of the calendar.
"While it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the sky is starting to fall on the video games industry given this month's results, it's important to remember that two very big things are different this year than last," Frazier wrote in a note accompanying NPD's report. "First, Easter fell in March last year whereas it fell in April this year, and last March included the release of Super Small Bros.: Brawl, which went on to become the fourth best-selling game in 2008."
Perhaps, but one game's fortunes are unlikely to be enough to turn around an entire industry, especially given that hardware sales dropped about the same as overall revenues.
Overall sales were also down 2.7 percent from February's $1.47 billion, and each of the six hardware platforms NPD tracks--Sony's PlayStation 3, PS2 and PSP, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii and DS--had lower sales in March than in February. The PS3 and Wii led the drops, with 21.0 percent and 20.2 percent lower sales, respectively.
By comparison, the Xbox saw its sales fall between February and March, but less than the PS3 and Wii, and Frazier reported that Microsoft's console was the only one with good year-over-year news.
"While it's not unusual for March hardware sales to be lower than February," Frazier wrote, "I thought we'd see higher unit sales on most platforms. The Xbox 360 was the only platform to achieve a year-over-year sales increase."
Frazier also said Nintendo's numbers were noteworthy, given the effect of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl on the company's March 2008 sales.
"Wii and NDS hardware sales remained brisk, taking the top two spots for (March 2009) in hardware unit sales," she wrote. 'It's important to keep in mind that the (game's) effect from last year impacted hardware sales as well, so while the year-over-year comps are down for the Wii, the sales are still impressive."
Still, the Wii--the darling of the video game industry media since its surprise success became almost institutionalized--has seen some negative press recently.
In March, for the first time, the PS3 outsold the Wii in Japan, and many observers wondered if that milestone indicated that Nintendo's console's dominance had finally come to an end.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata opened the Game Developers Conference Wednesday in San Francisco with a keynote address about the company's design philosophy. He didn't announce much in the way of news, however.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)SAN FRANCISCO--In a keynote address short on news, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revved up a packed Game Developers Conference house here Wednesday morning with tales of the company's design strategies.
Nintendo had been mum in advance of the speech, leaving many in attendance hoping that the company would announce something big, along the lines of a hot new game or even a piece of new hardware. In the end, though, Iwata's revelations were limited to three new games and a new storage infrastructure for the Wii virtual console.
The games included Rhythm Heaven, an American version of a rhythm game for the Nintendo DS that Iwata said had already sold 1.7 million copies in Japan. The company got the capacity crowd excited by giving everyone in attendance a copy of the new title.
In addition, Nintendo will also be releasing a new Wii Ware game called Rock 'n Roll Climber that lets players use their Wii controllers and a Wii Balance Board to simulate the motions of climbing a rock wall. The rock and roll element seems to come into play only in the sense that when they complete a wall, players get to pick up a digital guitar and shred for a moment or two.
The last game Nintendo unveiled during the keynote was a new Zelda title for the DS called The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. It should be out later this year, Iwata said.
Finally, Iwata said that Nintendo has released Virtual Console Arcade, a selection of arcade classics, as well as a series of Final Fantasy titles for Wii Ware: My Life as a Darklord: Final Fantasy Chronicles; Final Fantasy IV: The After Years; and the original Final Fantasy, for Virtual Console.
One game Nintendo announced during its Wednesday GDC keynote was Rock 'n Roll Climber, which allows users to employ their Wii controllers and a Wii Balance Board to simulate climbing a rock wall.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)And the last piece of news of any note from the speech was an announcement of the Wii System Menu 4.0, an upgrade to the existing Wii Ware menu structure that also features the ability to save on and load games directly from high-capacity SD cards, which should be able to store up to 240 titles each.
At the beginning of his address, Iwata said that worldwide Wii sales have now exceeded 50 million units, making the hit console the fastest-selling video game device in history. Further, the DS has now sold 100 million units worldwide.
It was clear that many in the audience were hoping for more. However, there was also an unmistakable love affair between the thousands of developers on hand Wednesday and the Nintendo president, who, in a classy gesture, thanked them for their hard work supporting Nintendo over the years.
The other notable announcement from the Nintendo keynote was a new feature for Wii Ware which will allow users to store up to 240 games on a single high-capacity SD card. They will also be able to auto-load the games straight off the SD card.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)Most of Iwata's talk revolved around a summary of the design philosophies of legendary Nintendo game maker Shigeru Miyamoto. Those, boiled down to bullet points, Iwata explained, are personal communications, a prototype stage, the use of small teams, simultaneous work on multiple projects, an acceptance of trial and error, and finally a mass production stage.
Iwata joked that it's well-known that Miyamoto's games usually stem from his personal hobbies. For example, Iwata said, when Miyamoto got a dog, the hit game Nintendogs soon followed. Similarly, his interest in gardening led to the sleeper hit Pikmin. And Miyamoto's devotion to exercise directly contributed to the creation of the massively successful Wii Fit.
Alluding to non-disclosure agreements that are common in the games industry, as well as in many others, Iwata joked, "I have asked (Miyamoto) to stop talking about his hobbies when he's not at work."
Iwata also talked about a perception that Nintendo's deep pockets create an unfair playing field for third-party developers making games for the Wii or the DS. He said that while the company acknowledges the issue, he thinks that third parties have amply demonstrated their ability to succeed on the platforms. For example, he said, 75 third-party Wii games from seven publishers have sold in excess of 1 million copies.
And that said, he urged the developers in the room to keep on doing what they've been doing.
"The future of video games is in your hands," Iwata said. "And I cannot wait for you to show us your surprises."
SAN FRANCISCO--Electronic Arts said Wednesday that it plans this summer to release an all-new, stand-alone version of Spore for kids.
The new game, which will allow multiple children to play together in a very Spore-like universe, will be called Creature Keeper, said Lucy Bradshaw, the general manager of EA's Emeryville, Calif.-based Maxis studio, which created Spore.
In addition, at its "State of the Universe" event here, EA also unveiled plans for Galactic Adventures, the first expansion to Spore. It is planned for a spring release and will feature a set of new tools for the massive space stage of the hit evolution game that, in addition to the existing "play," "create," and "share" tools, will let players choose to create their own adventures in space.
(Credit:
Electronic Arts/Maxis)
And EA topped off its set of announcements by saying that it expects to release all-new versions of Spore for the Nintendo Wii and DS game consoles, titled Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena, respectively.
The announcements were the first EA has made that showcase the video game giant's future plans for Spore, a game that it has clearly invested huge resources in. The game, from legendary designer Will Wright, tasks players with navigating five distinct stages--cell, creature, tribe, civilization and space. Though it has sold fairly well, some have argued that it hasn't lived up to its advance billing, particularly because it was years in the works. Also, the game was originally released with a version of digital rights management that limited the number of installs consumers could have. Many people resisted the DRM restrictions, and late last year, EA removed them.
However, either because of the DRM or in spite of it, Spore became one of the most pirated games of 2008.
Now, with Creature Keeper, EA and Maxis hope they can attract a much younger audience to the Spore universe. Unlike the original game, the kids version will allow multi-player play. It does not require Spore to play, but it will allow kids to import creatures from the original game. It will be released for PC and Mac, just as the original game was.
The idea, said Bradshaw, is to give kids an easier way to experience the fun and exploration of Spore, and to do so with other friends.
"They can invite friends over," Bradshaw said, "and have play dates with their creatures."
With the Galactic Adventures expansion (see video below), meanwhile, EA is attempting to address one of the biggest criticisms of the main space stage of Spore: That players could not directly interact with the worlds they encountered during their interstellar journeys. Instead, they would be restricted to flying above any planets they found along the way.
Now, however, they will be able to beam down to new planets. More important, however, may be that Maxis is making available to Spore players a set of planetary adventure creation tools they've previously only had in-house.
Among other things, the expansion offers players terra-forming tools, making it possible to build all-new planets from scratch, and populate them with all manner of buildings, creatures, rivers and other geographical features. Players can choose any creation from the 65 million item-strong, player-created Sporepedia, the official Spore social media system.
Bradshaw said that the tools that will be available in Galactic Adventures were not ones that were originally planned to be included in Spore. Nor was the expansion long in the works, she said. Instead, she explained, the team at Maxis saw the ways that people were playing Spore and listened to requests from players to have more interaction and control over the space stage.
While EA isn't talking about total sales figures for Spore at this point, Bradshaw did say that to date, there have been more than 65 million creations uploaded to Sporepedia, and more than 6 million downloads of the Creature Creator, a tool that allows people to make their own Spore creatures without owning the full game.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime holds up the new DS-i handheld device.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)Updated at 10:42 a.m. PDT with new information from the rest of the Nintendo press event.
SAN FRANCISCO--Nintendo on Thursday said it expects to ship a much higher number of Wii video game consoles to retailers this holiday season than it did last year.
At its annual fall media event here, the Japanese company's North American president, Reggie Fils-Aime, told the gathered media that the company intends to try to address the well-documented shortages of the Wii that occurred during the 2007 holiday season.
He didn't say exactly how many Wiis had been available last year, nor how many more would be making their way into consumers' hands this time around. And he didn't even commit to being able to satisfy all demand this year.
"Will there be enough (Wiis) to meet demand?" Fils-Aime said. "Talk to me in January."
Still, it's important for the company to at least try to address the shortages that resulted in long lines at retailers that happened to have a few Wiis available.
But Fils-Aime added that the company is in uncharted territory with the Wii, and he suggested that the company doesn't have the ability to judge exactly how many units would be required to satisfy all consumers this holiday season.
He did say, however, that Nintendo expects to increase supplies of the Wii by about 50 percent in the fourth quarter of this year.
Asked how much more demand there had been for the Wii during last year's holiday season than available units, he said there was no way to quantify that.
"All we know," Fils-Aime told me, "is that as soon as units were available at retailers, they were gone in seconds."
Fils-Aime opened his remarks by unveiling Nintendo's new DS-i handheld console. However, because Nintendo also had a media event in Japan last night, that news had already made its way around the world.
A publicity photograph of the new Nintendo DS-i.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)He said the DS-i will not be available in North America until well into 2009 because there is still strong demand here for the existing DS Lite. He explained that the DS Lite is still selling better here than any device ever has and that there is still a large amount of penetration to be had.
In fact, he said that while one in every two Japanese households already has a DS or DS Lite, that number is just one in five in North America. Nintendo said it won't release the DS-i, which is expected to cost the equivalent of $180 in Japan, in North America until that penetration rate is higher.
Whether there are warehouses full of DS Lites that still need to be sold is not clear, and Nintendo isn't saying what its specific game plan is regarding the North American transition from DS Lite to DS-i.
... Read more
Update at 2:10 p.m. PDT: This story now reflects Nintendo's response to a request for comment.
If there's one thing that's sure to get video gamers talking, it's a rumor that there could be a new Wii, Xbox, or PlayStation console on the horizon.
Well, the hot topic of discussion du jour is that there could be a new Wii by 2011, according to a post on the blog What They Play.
(Credit:
Nintendo)
That site "has heard from multiple sources in the game development and publishing community that Nintendo is currently showing early presentations of its next home console hardware. Apparently set to hit the market 'by 2011,' the device is said to be the true 'next generation' Nintendo console, and far more than a simple refresh of the current (Wii) hardware."
The post continued, asserting that this rumored new device could have high-definition capabilities, as well as a "greater emphasis on digitally distributed and backwardly compatible content."
For its part, Nintendo said it does not comment on rumors.
It could be mere coincidence (because odds are that even if the rumors are true, Nintendo wouldn't want to confirm them for quite some time), but on Thursday, the company is hosting its annual media day here in San Francisco. And I'd been told that it would "have news" it would be releasing at the event. Until now, I'd assumed the news would be something only minimally consequential, but of course, announcing a new Wii development project would make a few headlines, I would think.
More likely, the news that Nintendo will put out Thursday will be about a new multimedia DS handheld device, such as the one the video game blog Joystiq says could be unveiled at a separate press event in Japan Wednesday night.
... Read moreThe video game industry had better thank its lucky stars that hard-core gamers do what they do.
According to a report issued Monday morning by industry analyst firm, The NPD Group, the most active group of players, which it termed "extreme gamers," devote more than a full-time job's work week to their avocation. But they don't get insurance benefits for their efforts.
Rather, NPD's "Games Segmentation 2008" report explained, extreme gamers put in an average of 45 hours a week playing games, and, even better--for the video game industry's coffers--bought a whopping 24 titles in the last three months.
True, these committed gamers make up just 3 percent of the 174 million that NPD said play on PCs or Macs or dedicated video game machines. Still, that means 5.22 million people out there are putting in serious amounts of time gaming away. And if you stop and think about the dollars they're spending, if they're buying 24 games every three months, it's kind of breathtaking.
The NPD report identified seven different segments of gamers, including our extreme friends. The others include 9 percent who are "avid PC gamers," 17 percent who are console gamers, 14 percent who are online PC gamers, 15 percent who are offline PC gamers, 22 percent who are "young heavy gamers" and 20 percent who are "secondary" gamers.
... Read moreNintendo on Tuesday filed lawsuits in Japan against five companies it said are allowing the illegal downloading of games from the Internet and the subsequent playing of those games on the company's hit DS handheld device.
The video game giant filed its suit along with 54 game development companies, all in the hopes of stopping the defendants--which it did not name in a press release--from enabling the downloading.
Nintendo "filed a legal action with the Tokyo District Court regarding game copying devices such as the 'R4 Revolution for DS' seeking to stop the importing and selling of those devices based on Japanese Unfair Competition Prevention Act," Nintendo wrote in its release. "Nintendo and its game software developers report that the spread of game copying devices in Japan hinder the growth/development of the entire video game industry. Nintendo and the software developers will continue to be aggressive in taking legal measures in Japan against any game copying devices that operate like the R4."
Update: This story now reflects NPD data showing improved PlayStation 3 performance in the first two months of the year.
For many people, Sony's oft-maligned PlayStation 3 video game console had one no-doubt-about-it selling point: when it launched, it was by far the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market.
That's no longer true, what with plenty of low-cost players flooding the market now that Blu-ray has effectively vanquished HD DVD as the next-generation playback standard.
The PS3 will once again offer users the most advanced Blu-Ray features, despite the console's tepid appeal to video gamers.
(Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment of America)But with its announcement of a forthcoming PS3 firmware upgrade, Sony has once again given consumers a reason to buy the console for little more than its Blu-ray capabilities.
As Sony said, the new firmware will allow users to take advantage of something called BD-Live, and to dynamically download "additional content and special features" associated with movies on Blu-ray.
That means, Sony argued, that BD-Live "will keep your (Blu-ray) discs fresh with new content and in some cases exclusive content only accessible to owners of BD-Live enabled discs."
As an example, the company pointed to the planned April 8 Blu-ray release of two Sony films, The 6th Day and Walk Hard, both of which will have features accessible under BD-Live.
"With this update, the PlayStation 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player on the market with BD-Live functionality," Sony bragged.
Therefore, once again, consumers who want to be on the cutting edge of Blu-ray technology have one distinct place to go for it: the PS3.
Never mind that not once in the blog entry about the firmware upgrade on the official PlayStation blog does Sony use the words "video game." Never mind that in the mind of some in the video game community, the PS3 is the bastard child that has been outclassed most of the way since its launch--at least in sales--by Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360. New data from the NPD Group does show that the PS3 outsold the Xbox in the first two months of 2008, though Microsoft attributes that to shortages of its console in that time frame.
If you're Sony, do you care? Not if you can get people to buy the machine--which, unlike the Wii and the Xbox is available everywhere with no delays at all and has been throughout the past many months--to take advantage of the newest Blu-ray features.
After all, they say, when faced with lemons, make lemonade.
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