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EVE Online hits 500,000 subscribers, heads into second decade
Most modern MMOs launch to an initial flurry of sales followed by a steady decline in player activity, but sci-fi MMO EVE Online has lived life in reverse. The game initially failed to secure a large number of launch sales but has since grown organically into one of the most successful subscription MMOs on the planet. EVE developer CCP Games told Massively today that the game has now officially broken the 500,000 subscription barrier. Subscription numbers hit the 450,000 mark following the relaunch of EVE's Chinese server Serenity in December of last year, and they have continued to climb ever since. This new subscription milestone is attributed to the success of EVE's recent Retribution expansion and the anticipation building over upcoming console MMOFPS DUST 514, which is set on actual planets in the EVE universe. EVE is due to hit its 10th anniversary this year on May 6th, and developers have been taking the opportunity to look forward at what the coming decade will bring to the game. We caught up with CCP for a quick peek at the studio's plans for the future and to find out what kind of announcements we can expect from EVE Fanfest in April of this year.
Dungeon Fighter Online hits 197,000,000 registered players
No -- that's not a typo in the title. We didn't get attacked by a swarm of ninjas who knocked us out on the "0" button or anything like that. Nexon has announced that Dungeon Fighter Online has hit a worldwide total of 197 million registered players since launching in South Korea in 2005. To put it another way, put a penny in your hand and then imagine 196,999,999 more of them. That's a lot. The amazing thing is that DFO hasn't technically launched yet in North America, which should push this number far higher. What's a few million between gamers? The 2.5D game -- which is a crossbreed of a side-scroller beat-em-up and an RPG -- has grown by leaps and bounds in the NA beta, as Nexon has adjusted the level curve and added new content in preparation for the June launch. Nexon had a few other impressive numbers to sling about as well. Up to this point, players have killed more than 1.6 billion monsters, invaded over 25 million dungeons and engaged in PvP arena combat over 28 million times. Does this make DFO one of the world's most populated games? If you want to see the evidence for yourself, head over to DFO's site, sign up for the beta (there's no wipe going from beta to launch) and add to their hefty statistics.
WoW Insider Show live today on Ustream at 3:30pm Eastern
Gonna be a good one (but is it ever not?) on our podcast today -- Contributing Editors Lesley Smith and Alex Ziebart will both be in the virtual broadcast booth with Turpster and I, and we'll be talking about the biggest stories in World of Warcraft over the past week, including patch 3.1.1 and all of the fixes that have been dropping lately, server outages and how bad they've been, what things are like in Ulduar so far, what the new 5-man might be, and the crack-in-a-twinkie that is Peggle in WoW. That's actually a lot of stuff -- we better talk fast.The show starts up at April 25, 2009 3:30 PM EST var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, or you can just click below to find the embedded Ustream feed in the second half of this post. And of course if you can't make it to listen live today, don't worry, because the show will be recorded and available in its entirety (well, minus the preshow and aftershow that we usually do for the live listeners) on Monday as usual.Oh, and we owe you readers a big thank-you: our Twitter page did in fact hit 9000 followers this week (actually, over 9000), so it looks like Turpster and I will have to gussy up and turn on the cameras for a video show. Stay tuned to the show today for more information on that, and keep an eye on the site here for when we'll be doing it. It'll definitely be something to see. Get it? "See"? Video?
Wii passes 8 million sold mark in Japan
Game hardware sales may be slowing down in Japan, with the Wii slowing down more, but Nintendo can still find milestones to celebrate. According to Enterbrain, the Wii has sold 8 million units in Japan as of April 19. Worldwide, the total number of consoles (shipped) passed 50 million last month. Compared to that, 8 million may not sound huge, but it's about 5 million units more than the PlayStation 3 sold as of last month.Enterbrain also released a list of the top five Wii games in Japan and their life-to-date sales: Wii Sports (3,481,469) Wii Fit (3,301,373) Wii Play (2,672,811) Mario Kart Wii (2,218,756) Super Smash Bros. Brawl (1,789,924) [Via Kotaku]
WoW Insider Show Episode 84: The grass is greener
Good times as always on the podcast last Saturday -- we welcomed blogger Nick Whelan on, of his own Curse of Senility and the newest writer on our own Blood Pact column, all about Warlocks. Turpster and Michael "Belfaire" Sacco also joined us, and we answered your emails (including some follow-up on just how loyal you should be to your guild, even when they're not really progressing), as well as talked about the most popular WoW insider posts for the past week: why 25-man gear should be better than 10-man gear, new news out of patch 3.1 (which, if you listen to Turpster, is right around the corner), and all of the April Fools jokes that went around last Wednesday. You can download the show at any of the links below, or pick it up by subscribing in iTunes (and it's been a while since we asked you to leave some reviews over there, so if you haven't ever done that and really enjoy the show, please do tell people what you think). Also, don't forget that we're in the middle of a bit Twitter-drive: we're aiming for over 9000 followers on Twitter, and if we can pull that off, we'll be doing a video version of the weekly podcast, so you'll get to see our ugly mugs as we talk (and you could probably even convince us to dress up for it -- you haven't lived until you've seen The T in a tuxedo). And I don't want to put any pressure on you, but we're nearing our 100th show, and how cool would it be if we hit our goal by then and did the special show on the anniversary? Just sayin'.Enjoy this show this week -- we'll be back live next Saturday as usual.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 79: Argently competing
We had a great time as usual last weekend on the podcast -- Dan O'Halloran and BigRedKitty joined me on the WoW Insider Show, and we chatted about the most popular stories in WoW from the last week. We answered your emails, including how to fill up your guild with quality raiders and what kinds of things you can do to make leveling an alt easier (including not leveling an alt at all).And of course we talked 3.1 -- a little bit of class changes, lots of information about the new dual spec system, what the equipment manager is like (and what it can do for you), Ulduar and the bosses we've seen so far, and finally, the Argent Tournament: what we know and what we don't know just yet. And of course we updated folks on Turpster's new song (almost done, but not quite mastered yet), and on our drive to get over 9000 Twitter followers. If you aren't following us yet, head over to Twitter and hit follow so we can hit our goal and do a video podcast.Was a fun show to make, and hopefully you'll have just as much fun listening to it. We'll see you next week.Update: As promised, here's BRK's intro in mp3 form. No idea what you all wanted it for, but there you go.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Poll: How many Achievement points have you earned?
Sure, it's only been a few days, but achievements are all for nothing if you can't brag about them, right? We're curious -- how are you doing with achievement pointage so far? Have you not bothered yet, or have you been working tirelessly to earn a bunch of meaningless points?As of last night, I still had under 1000, but a few people online had up above 2000, so I'd expect the average to be in between those two. We aren't quite sure how many points there are total to be earned (you'd think that would be part of the UI, so you could compare yourself to the total), but from our calculations, it seems like there are probably around eight to nine thousand points or so to pick up.How many do you have so far?%Poll-21091%
'Vegeta! What does the scouter say about the DS's power level?'
Completing the trifecta of designer, limited-edition DSes we've featured this week is this wonderful handheld customization from deviantART member SSJ4Maromaru. We really think we saved the best for last. If you're unfamiliar with the meme phrase scrawled on its lid, hit this goofy video up. SSJ4Maromaru sketched the Saiyan onto his Electric Blue DS with a pencil before going over the outline with a Sharpie marker. Fantastic! If any of you now feel inspired to decorate your DS with Dragon Ball Z characters, make sure to send us the results!See also: What is wrong with the world today?
