April
Latest
Mac sales spike in April
It may be the cruelest month, but for Mac buyers apparently April was hotter than the middle of summer, AppleInsider reports. An analyst note from Lehman Brothers quotes NPD data with a 50% year-over-year boost in Mac sales last month, combined with a 15% bump in iPod unit sales for the same period versus the year-ago data.Granted, in April of last year we didn't yet have Leopard to entice buyers, and the product line was beginning to seem a trifle long in the tooth, but what's impressive to me about this sales surge is that it smiles in the face of economic uncertainty, increased cost of living and general fiscal heebie-jeebies. Do Macs make people feel more secure and happier, or do they just seem like a more stable and dependable choice versus buying a new PC and having to roll forward to Vista?
Xfire breaks 10 million users, 16,000 years online
Gamedaily has the report that Xfire, the online service for gamers (that we have coordinated a few events with in the past), has broken a whopping ten million users. That, you'll probably realize, is just as many as World of Warcraft, and in fact, while Xfire apparently has support for over 1,200 games, World of Warcraft always seems to rank pretty high on the list.In fact, our friends at Xfire have another number that they've shared with us: in the month of April alone, Xfire users spent 16,000 years online -- that is, if you add up all the time spent online by all the users of the client just in April, you get a time period longer than pretty much the whole history of civilization on Earth. That's huge.Which makes us wonder just how long players actually spend in WoW -- surely not all WoW players are using Xfire, so the number has to be much bigger than that. At any rate, Xfire is apparently banging, and odds are that WoW is playing a big part.
DS releases for the week of April 28th
Here we are, still working through titles from last week, and they go and release more games. It's just not fair!Oh, wait. No, we want them to keep doing that, don't we? Now if only we had more money, things would be just perfect! This week, the U.S. sees the most releases, but unless you're into exercise/training games (like this blogger, who is stoked over Let's Yoga), it's probably not the best week ever. Patience, for they will release yet more games soon. Brain Voyage Iron Man Let's Pilates! Let's Yoga! Toy Shop Stretch past the break to see what's in stock for the rest of the world's major markets.
DS releases for the week of April 21st
Just as we were getting lulled by the weeks of slow releases and were convinced we had time to whittle away at that ever-increasing backlog of DS games, a week of awesome bursts out of nowhere. Between Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and The World Ends With You, we expect a lot of gamers to be pretty busy in the coming days. Dream Pinball 3D Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time River King: Mystic Valley The World Ends With You Hit the jump to see what's out in the rest of the major markets. Hint: it's quite a list.
DS releases for the week of April 14th
This week sees a return to U.S. gamers getting actual games (huzzah!), and the disturbing trend of games being released in Europe continues. Games released before they hit the U.S., even. Clearly, the end of the world is upon us. We expect a rash of heart attacks in the EU gamer contingent any time now. If you're still alive by the end of the week, let us know how you feel about The World Ends With You. AMF Bowling Pinbusters! Cory in the House High School Musical 2: Work This Out! Major League Baseball 2K8 Fantasy All Stars Rondo of Swords Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys!
Win a chance to play Age of Conan PvP [updated]
So would you like to play some Age of Conan PvP non-stop starting on April 18th and going through to the 20th? If so then Funcom, Eidos and GameSpot have just the beta event for you -- with a catch. You've got to go through the GameSpot website to sign up for the chance to be one of 15,000 lucky winners, which means you also need to have a GameSpot account to sign up in the first place. We're not all too happy about the GameSpot side of this awesome beta event, but read on to find out why we think it's still very much worth it to sign up.Update: It looks like the sign-up page is having technical issues that are being worked on.
Wii Warm Up: Mario Kart vs. Wii Fit
If all the recent rumors are to be believed, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit will be releasing awfully close to one another. Of course, that alone is reason to think that at least one of those dates will change (and our money's on Mario Kart), but in the event that they come out within a few weeks of one another, will you just suffer and be broke ... or will you choose? If you must choose, which one wins?
April NPD: Let us show you our dominance
Someone (and everyone they know) must really be all about the Pokemans, because the Pokémon powerhouse rolled over everything else last month. Though Diamond and Pearl were released at the end of April, they still managed to move a staggering number of units to take the top spot by a wide margin over ... Super Paper Mario. And everybody's extra Wiimote (aka Wii Play) took the fourth spot over both Guitar Hero II titles.Honestly, it was not pretty. We're almost a little ashamed, but what can you do when you're just this awesome? Oh, hey, and it looks like everyone picked up a new DS Lite in celebration, because the little handheld money machine dominated hardware sales as well.It was a good month to be Nintendo. The numbers themselves are tucked away after the jump, but you already know the story: the big N is officially the juggernaut of the moment.
Japanese hardware sales, Apr. 23 - 29: Double feature edition
Due to the holiday week in Japan, the sales numbers were a little slow, but now they're here ... and so, without further ado, we present the following commercial script.[AUDIO ]It's called the DS, or the handheld system that dared to put two screens of uncensored, hardcore action into the hands of gamers. [VIDEO]EXTREME CLOSE-UP ON BOTTOM SCREEN. PULL BACK TO SHOW ENTIRE DS.][AUDIO]Iwata and Miyamoto are back, only this time, they're back to back with dual screens that will tear you in two. [VIDEO]CUT TO CARTOON MIYAMOTO AND IWATA PORTRAIT.
DS releases for the week of April 30th
This week is apparently the official week for movie tie-ins, because that's all we have coming out for our beloved DS here in the States. This week, Europe and Australia are the places to be, when it comes to games, and how often do you guys get to say that? Don't worry -- tomorrow, some delay will be announced for you guys, and it'll be back to business as usual.We don't poke fun at you. We're commiserating. Luckily, this week there are games slated to hit PAL regions that are worth the wait, particularly in Australia. On the shelves this week in the U.S.: Shrek the Third Spider-Man 3 For the rest of the world, check after the jump.
DS releases for the week of April 23rd
As you may have heard, there's some serious Pokémon action this week, and the sheer magnitude of that spotlight has somewhat dwarfed everything else -- but fear not, there are other games for those who aren't Poké-fans. Note that we're not promising they're good ... we're just saying that they are, in fact, games. We're curious how SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters turns out, definitely, since we've heard mixed reports. Classic Action: Devilish Pokemon Diamond Pokemon Pearl SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters DS Check after the jump to see what's out this week in the rest of the world. Japanese-speaking importers, take note: there is some serious hotness releasing in Japan this week, along with 367 other games.
DS releases for the week of April 16th
For gamers in the U.S., tax time has passed, and that means that some of you are just about ready to relax with a shiny new game. If that's the case, we sure hope you like word and number puzzles, because that's the dominant theme this week.US releases Classic Action: Devilish The New York Times Crosswords Sudokuro Toon-Doku For the rest of the world, hit the jump.
DS releases for the week of April 2nd
What a week! At this rate, we could almost use a DS drought, just to give us time to save up some cash! But we shouldn't complain, since our counterparts in the UK and Australia aren't having much of a week as far as releases go. Isn't that always the way of it? One week, we get a ton of games and they get none, and the next week it's reversed. The only thing we can ever count on is that Japan is going to debut a veritable truckload of new titles. No matter what's going in the rest of the world, the Japanese must have their new DS games.US releases Cake Mania Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales Honeycomb Beat Konami Classics: Arcade Hits
APD alert: Wii Helm
ThinkGeek is apparently offering a brilliant new product: the Wii Helm. Besides the +7 charisma you'll obviously receive, the Wii Helm allows one to strap in a Wiimote to the top of a sleek, shiny helmet to free up both hands for other endeavors. The demo video shows a daring pioneer in her quest to utilize head motions to conquer Wii Sports.Yes, it's a joke, and a clever one at that. But upon watching the video, we here at the Fanboy could only think of a glorious future, in which the official Night at the Roxbury game features realistic head-bobbing for super-mega-funtime. Truly amazing.Another "joke" at ThinkGeek involves this tie, which we thought was horribly cruel, because it is awesome in every single way. However, torrents of furious E-mails (nineteen of which were ours) have forced ThinkGeek to actually start manufacturing the product in the near future. Viva la 8-bit![Thanks to Dustin, Alex, and Liqwid!]
April Fools Alert #3: Blizzard gets rid of gold farmers
Tobold reports that in patch 2.1.0 Blizzard is planning on getting rid of gold farmers in just three simple steps. So in patch 2.1.0, you should expect the following: The ability to send items, gold, or CoD packages via mail will be removed. You will only be able to send letters via the in-game mail system. The ability to freely set prices in the auction house will be removed. Since players could transfer gold by putting up a worthless item for a high-price buyout, the minimum bid and buyout amounts will now be set automatically. The ability to transfer gold via the trade window will be removed. However, to allow people to market tradeskills, the trade window will be transformed into a tradeskill window -- allowing the crafter to select a recipe and the buyer to insert materials, for a pre-set fee. When the buyer provides materials and the money, the crafted item winds up directly in the buyer's pack after crafting. With no ways to transfer gold to potential buyers, the gold farming industry will quickly go out of business. Huzzah to Blizzard for finally solving this problem!
April Fools Alert #2: WoW 2008 expansion leak!
Apparently the fine machinima makers over at Dementia Myndflame have managed to get a sneak preview of the next World of Warcraft expansion. And they've even managed to escape Blizzard HQ with video footage! I could explain the whole thing to you, but, really, that would spoil it -- just watch the video and enjoy![Thanks, Clint]
DS Daily: Welcome, new DS owners!
We're sure that a lot of you are just getting back from stores, where you picked up your $19.99 Konami's Best Edition DS Lites. We're glad Konami solved that DS shortage, and at such a budget price! Welcome, new DS Fanboys, to the fold.We thought it was a little presumptuous of Konami to label the whole system as "Konami's Best", but we must admit, a lot of Konami's best work has been on the system-- two Castlevanias, Lunar Knights, etc. We can accept that. So what do you think about your new systems? And are any of you existing DS owners getting one at the budget price?
Wii Warm Up: On the new VC features
So, not sure if you guys noticed, but overnight Nintendo updated the Virtual Console, adding something that a lot of us have been clamoring for: realistic glitches. We personally were a little turned off by the eerie perfection of the VC, and we're glad Nintendo addressed our concern by adding random graphical errors and occasional blinking screens. It's a much more authentic experience if we have to turn the console on and off a bunch of times, and clean it out with alcohol before playing.This should go very nicely with the announced wireless NES Max. We've got ours preordered! What about you all?
April Fools Alert #1: MeoWWiki
Alert reader Scytherea of Dalaran sends in this breaking news: WoWWiki, a website we all know and love for its comprehensive World of Warcraft information, has transformed into MeoWWiki, a website of comprehensive cat information. Says the website formerly known as WoWWiki:We are proud to announce that everyone's favourite wiki is now all about the cats of Warcraft!And if you've ever been through the Blood Elf starting zone, you know there are plenty of varieties of cat in Azeroth.[Thanks, Scytherea]
Breakfast topic: Welcome to the first of April
The first of April is upon us again which means that for the rest of the day we need to be prepared for any sort of jokes by Blizzard and our fellow players -- and who knows what we can expect. Back in 2005, Blizzard announced the Pandaran Express. And in 2006, they fooled yours truly with a fake Burning Crusade race announcement. (Hey, they announced it on March 31st -- what were we to think?!) And this year? Well, nothing unusual has come from Blizzard yet -- but the day is still young!So are you prepared to resist the onslaught of April fools' jokes -- or are you planning on playing some jokes of your own?
