Sales -- Engadget

sales posts

Leaked Walmart ad reveals Xbox 360 Arcade with $100 gift card, $300 HP G60 laptop

by Ross Miller posted Nov 4th 2009 at 12:29AM

It's not quite a $99 Xbox 360, but if this apparent Walmart scan via Kotaku is to be believed, that $199 Arcade version is getting a $100 gift card promotion going into effect this Saturday. In real terms, that boils down to a $234 Xbox 360 Pro for first-time buyers, seeing as you'll be needing that $135, 120GB hard drive, too. Also listed are a Sony Blu-ray player for $148 (we're guessing the currently-MSRP'd $199 BDP-S360), and a $298 HP G60-519WM, which touts a 2.2GHz Intel Celeron, 15.6-inch HD display, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3GB RAM, and a 250GB HDD -- not a bad followup at all for that Compaq CQ60. Some interesting spy shots from the Slick Deals forum seem to give credence to the scan, although we're still playing wait-and-see -- that $100 gift card with the Xbox 360 arcade is almost too good to be true, even if it is just a clever tactic to clear shelf space in the lead-up to Black Friday.

Update: Sure as the sun, an official ad has popped up on Yahoo's front page. Screenshot after the break.

[Thanks, just4onepost]

Read - G60-519WM spotted
Read - $199 Xbox 360 Arcade with $100 gift card?

Continue reading Leaked Walmart ad reveals Xbox 360 Arcade with $100 gift card, $300 HP G60 laptop

Sony's PSPgo sells 28,000 units on first day in Japan, physical media points and laughs

by Tim Stevens posted Nov 3rd 2009 at 9:48AM

Remember the "platform sales boost" that Sony was tauting after the PSPgo's release in the US? The question on everyone's minds was of course how much of that boost was buoyed by the new kid on the block, and while Sony still hasn't given us any domestic figures (nor will it ever, probably), we now know that the thing sold 28,000 units on its first day of availability on its home turf in Japan. That's certainly better than the measly 1,000 units moved in Australia over the same period, but hardly encouraging when you look at its predecessors. According to Media Create the original PSP sold 171,963 units in a day in Japan. The PSP-2000? 130,000. UMD may be hated by everyone, but it seems to still have legs.

Nintendo profits sink on declining console sales, weak game selection

by Thomas Ricker posted Oct 29th 2009 at 6:18AM

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Nintendo just announced that its interim net profit was cut by more than half to ¥69.49 billion (about $770 million), from ¥144.83 billion last year at this time -- figures that won't be helped by the cheaper Wii price tag announced at the end of September. Speaking of which, Nintendo sold only 5.75 million Wii consoles from April to September (down 43% from last year) and cut its full year sales forecast for the April 09 to March 2010 period to 20 million units, down from an expected 26 million. DS sales were also off 15% from last year and we doubt that a bigger screen on the new DSi LL model will change that dramatically.

Windows 7 breaks Amazon UK pre-order volume record, ousts Harry Potter

by Vladislav Savov posted Oct 21st 2009 at 8:24AM

Take it from us, your London-based sleuths, when anything sells faster than Harry Potter books or DVDs in the UK, it's scorching hot. Case in point is Microsoft's Vista successor, which has sold so well that it has beaten the Amazon UK pre-order record previously held by J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In fact, Windows 7 was able to tally up more sales in the first 8 hours of pre-order availability than Vista was able to collect altogether. Now that's what we call an upgrade.

Acer fulfills prophecy, overtakes Dell as number two PC maker worldwide (update)

by Ross Miller posted Oct 14th 2009 at 8:14PM

As if on cue, here's some new data research firm Gartner lending credence to Lanci's boasting. Looks like Acer has leapfrogged over Dell for the number two spot in global market share for the third quarter of 2009, from 12.5 to 15.4 percent of the Big Pie Chart™. Meanwhile Dell is just below at 12.8 percent, and HP is sitting happily atop with a 19.9 percent ownership.

Update: Let us adjust our glasses a bit. According to the charts, Acer is number two in worldwide PC sales, not in US as this previously reported. Stateside, the company is sitting at number three at 13.9 percent, behind HP (25.7 percent) and Dell (26.2 percent). Apologies for the confusion, the person responsible for eyesight has been subsequently sacked, the person responsible for the sacking has been sacked, etc.

Acer: we'll overtake Dell as world's number two PC maker... soon

by Laura June posted Oct 14th 2009 at 11:24AM

Acer's President Gianfranco Lanci is talking some big talk these days, but not completely without reason. The Taiwan-based computer manufacturer says it does not expect to see a decline in revenue this year over last, meaning that it should clear somewhere in the realm of $17 billion -- its 2008 revenue figure. Much of the good news (and sales) hails from Asia, where retail markets have not been as hard hit by the economic insanity of the last year. Moreover, Lanci also said that with these figures, Acer "can finally pass Dell" sometime between this quarter and the next. He also added that the company expects to "breach the gap with HP" when it comes to notebooks, netbooks, and smartphones. So... that means we can expect a ton of Acers this year, right? Right.

Update: Well, that was fast.

PSP Go launch inspires three-fold sales increase for platform

by Tim Stevens posted Oct 8th 2009 at 7:28AM

Like it or not, the PSP Go is loose in the wild, sashaying around with neither physical media nor respect for sensible price-points. Nevertheless, it has generated a rather sizeable boost in interest for the PSP platform as a whole, with Sony saying that sales for all PSPs are up 300 percent over the week before the console launched. It's easy to see why, given the buzz surrounding the new iteration of the hardware as well as the hugely anticipated Gran Turismo finally coming to fruition. What we don't know is how many of those new sales were of the Go and how many were of the existing PSP-3000, a stat that would have shown whether indeed the "aspirational" new system would inspire some to just go ahead and buy the old system instead. We know which we would choose, how about you?

[Via gamesindustry.biz]

AmazonBasics: Bezos and Co. starts private-label consumer electronics line

by Darren Murph posted Sep 20th 2009 at 12:51PM

You had to see this coming. Or not. While Amazon has certainly shown an ability to do well in the consumer electronics space (ahem, Kindle anyone?), we never exactly envisioned the mammoth e-tailer to spark up its own private-label line of consumer electronics. Designed to go mano-a-mano with the likes of Monoprice and other cut-rate accessories providers, AmazonBasics will -- at least initially -- offer consumers AV cables, blank DVD media and other inexpensive doodads for not much cheddar. Everything the outfit sells through this initiative will ship in frustration-free packaging, and Bezos has already committed to expanding the line "in the coming months." As expected, these products will be eligible for free (albeit slow) shipping if you break the $25-per-order mark, and while Americans can begin ordering today, it'll be a tick before these wares trickle out to international portals. So, industry -- are you scared yet?

Read - AmazonBasics
Read - Amazon's press release

Stateside PS3 sales up 300% following Slim introduction

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 13th 2009 at 5:11AM

Boy, it sure likes Sony did something right slimmin' down (and slightly cripplin') that new PS3 of theirs. And sure, considering that the British picked up PlayStation 3 purchases a whopping 999%, maybe a Stateside retail bump of a "mere" 300% (for the first week after the price cut) is small potatoes. Or maybe we're just growing jaded. If this isn't great, good news enough for Sony, check it: as of August, according to a survey by GamePlan Insights, five of consumers' top 10 most-wanted games are on PS3 (including Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Assassin's Creed 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2). For more exciting facts, figures, and details, check out the PR after the break.

[Via Joystiq]

Continue reading Stateside PS3 sales up 300% following Slim introduction

Microsoft's training materials teach Best Buy employees how to trash Linux

by Paul Miller posted Sep 8th 2009 at 11:36AM

Look, nobody's saying Linux is perfect for every consumer (or even most), but Microsoft's "training material" for Best Buy employees casts the open source operating system in a bit of a bad light -- and isn't exactly accurate. A few of the humorous tidbits in the Linux comparison guide include mentioning World of Warcraft as incompatible with Linux (despite great support for it under WINE), calling Linux's safety reputation a "myth," and describing Linux updates and upgrades as difficult and time consuming. The availability of Windows Live Essentials as a "free download" is also quite laughable -- Linux has endless free alternatives to Microsoft's Live Essentials, and many of them are better than what Microsoft offers. Not to say there hasn't been the odd consumer that was burned by purchasing a Linux-running netbook, but we'd say there are enough tangible benefits to Windows for Microsoft to avoid misinformation when talking down the open source competition.

[Via technabob]

PS3 Slim sales up nearly 1000% in the UK, Noel quits Oasis (again)

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 8th 2009 at 10:55AM

It looks like Engadget editors aren't the only folk who prefer technology that's slimmer, cheaper, and better. According to an article at GamesIndustry.biz, a group that charts retail sales in the UK is saying that sales of the PS3 increased over 999 percent in the week since its British debut of the newer, slimmer form factor. And if that wasn't good news enough for Sony, the console has also outsold the DS, Wii and Xbox 360 by approximately 3:1. Although the last time it was the lead hardware format in the UK was the first week of 2008, the PS3 has never lagged as far behind the others as it has Stateside. But still -- a near 1000 percent increase? If true, that makes the States' 104 percent increase seem lackluster in comparison. Then again, maybe the Brits never realized that Disney Sing It! High School Musical 3 is available on platforms other than the PlayStation. That could explain a lot of things, actually...

Nokia N97 sells two million units in three months, Nokla sells two dozen

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 4th 2009 at 5:13PM

Well, maybe Nokia recently announced a 66 percent yearly drop in Q2 profit. And perhaps N97 reviews have been, how we say, less than stellar. But there definitely seems to be a fan base for the handset: according to Mobile News, sales of both this guy and the 5800 XpressMusic combined to total 10 million in the last 10 months, with sales for the former adding up to a whopping two million since its launch three months ago. In fact, half of the XpressMusic sales were generated since the launch of the N97 -- certainly suggesting that the younger sibling successfully raised the company's profile and brought its fellow handset along for the ride. Does this make Nokia the "undisputed leading player in the smartphones space," as the company's chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo put it? By sheer volume of devices, perhaps -- but mindshare continues to be a problem that we're guessing they're eager to see if Maemo 5 and the N900 can solve. The CEO of Nokla could not be reached for comment.

[Thanks, David D]

PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware sales jump last week amid price cuts, both beat Wii for once

by Tim Stevens posted Sep 4th 2009 at 9:47AM

If you're sick of hearing your grandmother brag about how popular her chosen console is while she rocks your world in Wii Sports Bowling yet again, maybe this news will finally shut her up. Last week, thanks to a flurry of price cuts and slimming waistlines, the other two players in the console war saw significant sales boosts. Xbox 360 numbers jumped 32 percent over the week before and the PS3 was up an impressive 104 percent. That puts all three consoles neck-and-neck for the American weekly sales lead, each one close enough to 75,000 units that the margin of error more than covers the lot. But, since both price cuts officially went into effect part-way through that week, we're expecting even bigger surges ahead -- and even bigger drops from the Nintendo's offering as we get further and further away from the release of Wii Sports Resort, seemingly the last game worth playing on the thing.

Walkman outsells iPod in Japan for first time in four years... but iPhone sales don't count

by Ross Miller posted Sep 3rd 2009 at 2:02PM

As with most accomplishments these days, we can't help but place a rather large asterisk next to Sony's award for managing to outsell the iPod lineup with its Walkman. According to Tokyo-based research firm BCN Inc., for the week ending August 30th, the Walkman series had a 43 percent share of the personal music player market versus 42.1 percent for iPods, marking the first time in four years that Sony's managed to get the upper hand. Got that? Good, now for a major caveat. For whatever reason, iPhones aren't considered part of the iPod line, meaning people who want the luxuries of the iPod touch and a wireless data plan aren't included in the survey. That's quite an omission -- the iPhone 3GS is currently the best-selling phone in Japan, after all -- and we gotta imagine it'd be more than enough to tilt the data in Apple's favor, even if you threw in Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones for good measure. But hey, it's still a feat in its own right, and Sony might as well celebrate while it lasts -- something tells us the gang in Cupertino has something up their sleeve soon.

Netbook sales growth doubles laptops in Q2 '09

by Donald Melanson posted Aug 31st 2009 at 5:56PM

While it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise given the fairly steady growth netbooks have seen since their inception as a product category, it's still pretty notable that they've apparently now managed to nearly double traditional laptops in sales growth during the second quarter of this year. That word comes from market research firm DisplaySearch, which found that netbook shipments grew an impressive 40% compared to the same quarter last year, as opposed to 22% for plain old laptops. As excitingly illustrated in the chart above, however, that still leaves netbooks (or "mini-notes") well behind laptops in terms of total shipments, although that seems almost certain to narrow considerably in the months and years ahead -- at least until the line between netbooks and laptops becomes so blurred that we just start calling everything "laptops" again.