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February NPD: Dead Space 3 on top, Aliens: Colonial Marines in sixth
Dead Space 3 outsold Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in February to snag the No. 1 spot, throwing the latter to No. 2, according to the NPD's US sales data. Following those, in descending order, are Crysis 3, NBA 2K13, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and the critically lambasted Aliens: Colonial Marines. Check out the full list at the very bottom of all these figures.Total physical video game sales in February, including software, hardware and accessories, totaled $810 million, down 25 percent from February 2012. The NPD estimates used games and rental sales hit $90 million, while digital transactions made $319 million, bringing total sales for the month to $1.2 billion.All consoles saw increased sales from January to February, with the Wii U up 40 percent and Vita up 30 percent. Xbox 360 sold 302,000 units in February and topped US hardware sales for the 26th month in a row, Microsoft made sure to point out.
Now Playing: March 11-17, 2013
The legend arises this week with God of War: Ascension ... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Nintendo consumes mushroom, stock grows over 7%
Nintendo has enjoyed a healthy bump in its stock price. Thanks to a weakening yen and an upswing in the US job market, the company's stock was up 7.38 percent as of the market closing on March 8, up to ¥10,330 ($110). Other Japanese companies, as GamesIndustry.biz notes, have also benefitted from the improving US economy and weakening yen, including Sony, Konami, Capcom and Namco Bandai.A weak exchange rate is good for Nintendo, as it improves the number of yen earned per US dollar spent on its products. The downward trend in yen value recently boosted Nintendo's financial outlook for its fiscal 2012, ending March 31, despite the company dramatically reducing its hardware sales target for the Wii U and 3DS.
Now Playing: March 4-10, 2013
Become a survivor this week with Tomb Raider... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
New Nintendo eShop releases: Retro City Rampage, Runner2
Two high-profile indie games make their way to Nintendo platforms this week. Runner2 has actually been on Wii U since Tuesday, but it's worth noting in case you only check the eShop on the "official" update day. And finally, Vblank's Retro City Rampage comes to WiiWare as promised, where it will very likely be the last major WiiWare release. The Wii version includes the bonus "ROM City Rampage," a genuine 8-bit remake of the game!On 3DS, there's a demo of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, which hopefully lasts longer than the title. And Fractured Soul is on sale for $7.99 for the next week!
Angry Birds Toons series crash lands weekend of March 16, 17
Sure, it's a bit later than expected, but Rovio is preparing to finally unveil its Angry Birds cartoon series. Angry Birds Toons is set to premiere next month – "March 16/17" is listed in the trailer above. So what time is equidistant between March 16 and March 17? 12:01am? It'll debut sometime that weekend, the Angry Birds Twitter account says.An Angry Birds movie is also in production, with a planned release of 2016. Currently the film project has two producers attached to oversee development: executive producer David Maisel, whose work includes Iron Man, and producer John Cohen, who is best known for his work on Despicable Me.
Now Playing: February 25 - March 3, 2013
Put your fighting skills to the test this week with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Catch musical Pokemon 'Meloetta' at GameStop in March
In the world of Pokémon, you go into tall grass to search for new creatures in the wild. In the real world ... GameStop. From March 4 to March 24, you can bring your DS and your copy of Pokémon Black, White, Black 2, or White 2 into a participating store to receive Meloetta, a Melody Pokémon who can change Formes mid-fight, using a move learned at Café Sonata in Castelia City.To learn more about Meloetta, you can see the "Meloetta's Moonlight Serenade" short through the mobile Pokémon TV app. We're reasonably certain that's the only time we're going to refer you to a cartoon for information. We're not making any promises.%Gallery-179803%
Nintendo returning to Gamescom in 2013
Nintendo bailed on Gamescom last year in favor of its own "sampling events" throughout Europe. Nintendo will return to the world's largest video game convention for the 2013 iteration, which takes place in Cologne, Germany from August 21-25.Other publishers attending this year include Bethesda, EA, Konami, WB, the newly gigantic Wargaming, and Deep Silver, who might suddenly have something to show (and something not to show). There's no word yet on whether Microsoft will attend, having skipped last year as well.
Now Playing: February 18-24, 2013
Take hunting in an urban jungle to new levels this week with Crysis 3... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
PSA: Amazon video game Gold Box Event coming Tuesday
Like a stealthy jungle cat patiently waiting for its tired, limping prey to drop its guard, so too does Amazon's devious sales engine stalk the emaciated husk of our post-December wallet. Its latest attempt at snaring our monetary entrails, an all-games Gold Box Event, will begin at 3 a.m. Eastern time on the morning of Tuesday, February 19.We won't know exactly what said Gold Box Event's Lightning Deals or Deal of the Day will consist of until Tuesday. In the meantime, Amazon has also marked down a sizable number of games and accessories as part of its Winter Deals sale, which includes Halo 4 and a year of Xbox Live Gold for about $40 each.
January NPD: Black Ops 2 tops, DmC: Devil May Cry debuts in sixth place
Black Ops 2, Far Cry 3 and Just Dance 4 were January's best-selling games, according to NPD sales data, with Capcom's rebooted DmC: Devil May Cry sliding in at sixth place. As per usual, the full list of the month's top 10 best-selling games can be found after the break.During the five-week period running from December 30, 2012, through February 2, 2013, the combined might of the video game sales industry's physical retail channels earned a total of $834.7 million, a nine percent year-over-year increase as compared with January 2011's performance. This is the first time the industry has reported an annualized overall increase in sales in at least twelve months.2013's "January" is five weeks, as opposed to the traditional four, for calculation purposes. The NPD Group makes this adjustment once every six or seven years to combat data drift in its reporting, much in the same way our calendar system implements a Leap Day to correct for discrepancies between the number of days in the year, and the length of Earth's orbit.Therefore, January's year-over-year increase is actually the direct result of the extended recording period. If January's overall results are "corrected" for the additional time, the industry's physical retail performance is actually down by 13 percent, rather than up by nine. Regardless, hardware sales in general were responsible for $205 million of the period's total invoice, up four percent since last year without corrections and down 17 percent with.Once again, the Xbox 360 was the best-selling piece of overall hardware, as it has been for the last 18 months. January was also the console's twenty-fifth month as the leading console.Accessories sales saw the largest development in sales, increasing by 30 percent pre-corrections and four percent post – $256.6 million in January of this year versus $198.1 million last year. Meanwhile, Software sales saw the smallest pre-correction annualized jump with $373.1 million for the period, which is just one percent above the segment's earnings in 2011. After corrections, that difference drops to a 19 percent year-over-year loss.
New Nintendo eShop releases: Wii Street U, Dig Dug
Finally, you can browse your neighborhood through the tiny window of your Wii U GamePad. Wii Street U is free on the Wii U eShop today for a limited time, enabling augmented reality Google Street View. Grab it now, because it seems unlikely you'd want to pay for it.Meanwhile on 3DS eShop: video games! The NES version of arcade classic Dig Dug is available, as is a demo for chibi action game Naruto Powerful Shippuden. Bit.Trip Saga is also discounted. If you lack even one of the Bit.Trip games, this is a great way to get them all in a portable format.
Now Playing: February 11-17, 2013
Fight to survive the xenomorph threat this week with Aliens: Colonial Marines... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Activision Blizzard sees 'best performance in history' during 2012
Activision Blizzard and its many, many franchises brought in $4.85 billion dollars in net revenue over the course of calendar 2012, with $1.76 billion of that hitting its coffers during the three month period ending on December 31, 2012. Digital sales represented 32 percent of that total annual new revenue, raking in $1.54 billion.As far as actual profit is concerned, Activision Blizzard reports net post-tax income of $1.14 billion for the year and $354 million for Q4; a 5.8 and 257 percent year-over-year increase, respectively."Activision Blizzard delivered the best performance in its history," CEO Bobby Kotick said in the financial statement. "In the short-term, we expect to continue delivering strong profitability, but below our record setting 2012 performance, due to a challenged global economy, the ongoing console transition and a difficult year-over-year comparison because of Blizzard's record-shattering Diablo 3 success in 2012."In addition to said Diablo 3 success, Activision Blizzard also lists Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops 2 and Skylanders among the many reasons that it had such a successful year, with Skylanders as a series having crested $1 billion in lifetime sales.Looking forward, Activision Blizzard anticipates total net revenues for calendar 2013 to ring up at $4.08 billion, with $1.16 billion of that being generated during the year's first quarter.
New Nintendo eShop releases: Ken's Rage 2, Mega Man 2, Etrian Odyssey 4 demo
With the delay of Rayman Legends, today's release of Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage would be the Wii U's only retail game in February ... except it's exclusive to the eShop. So it's only kind of the only retail game this month.Things are a bit busier on the 3DS, with the arrival of the Etrian Odyssey IV demo and the Virtual Console release of Mega Man 2, the best Mega Man game.
Take-Two Interactive bags 405% year-over-year profit increase during Q3 2013
Take-Two Interactive has released its financial report for the three month period ending on December 31, 2012, or "Q3 2013" in technical terms. The company raked in net revenue (read: gross income) of $415.7 million during that period; a 75.9 percent increase over the $236.3 million it earned in Q3 of fiscal 2012.Net income (read: profit) was also up year-over-year, $71.3 million during Q3 2013 versus $14.1 million in 2012, which is an astonishing 405.9 percent increase. Meanwhile, Take-Two's nine month year-to-date figures are reporting a loss of $51.9 million, down from the $41.9 million loss reported at this same time in fiscal 2012.Revenues accrued from digital sales were up 244 percent year-over-year, an increase that Take-Two attributes to Borderlands, Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, NBA 2k13, the Grand Theft Auto series and all of those games' respective DLC.
Iwata: Merging hardware teams could result in more hardware
Speaking to investors, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata elaborated on Nintendo's aims regarding the merger of its console and handheld development teams. Iwata takes the surprising stance that putting the two teams together in Kyoto will result in more potential platforms, not fewer. "What we are saying is that we would like to integrate software development methods, operating systems, and built-in software and software assets for each platform so that we can use them across different machines," Iwata said. "This means that if we manage to integrate our platforms successfully, we may in fact be able to make more platforms." Iwata explained that the ability to share development resources and assets between teams will allow them to work more efficiently, and that they would be "spread too thinly" if they tried to work on more than the current console and handheld platforms. As usual, it's impossible to guess what Nintendo is up to in specific terms. "We feel that we are nearing a saturation point in terms of simply improving performance or enhancing graphics," Iwata said. "What is far more important for the future of video games is whether we can make new propositions in other aspects and create games out of something that people never expected to see in the form of a game." The problem with things we never expect to see is that we don't know what to expect, and therefore what to tell you.
Now Playing: February 4-10, 2013
Dismember the necromorph nightmare again, and this time bring a friend, in Dead Space 3... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
New Nintendo eShop releases: Puddle, Ikachan
The 3DS eShop is crowded today! Ikachan launches today, as does the Virtual Console release of Ice Climber and a bunch of other things. There are even new downloadable Mario decoration sets for Sparkle Snapshots 3D, if you're feeling like a bit of photo festooning. And don't forget Fire Emblem: Awakening, coming Feb. 4.Wii U has relatively few offerings this week, but they're interesting: Puddle and a demo of The Cave.
