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IGN: PS3 Oblivion loads quicker, looks nicer than 360
IGN got some hands-on time with the long-awaited PS3 port of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and came away with some quite favorable comparisons to the Xbox 360 version. Load times that were seven to ten seconds on the 360 have been reduced to three to five seconds on the PS3, according to IGN. What's more, the frame rate drops that accompanied entrances to detailed areas have been eliminated, and the graphics have been improved with higher resolution textures, improved shading and an increased draw distance (to minimize far off object popping up suddenly). Amazing what newer hardware and an extra year of development time will do, isn't it? Still, it's not all wine and roses for PS3 owners. While the "Knights of the Nine" side-quest will be preloaded on the PS3 disc, the rest of the downloadable content available to Xbox 360 and PC players will not be available, though the content packs "may find their way to the PlayStation Store at some point in time in the future." Hopefully PS3 adventurers will be too busy playing the massive main quest to notice the omission when the game comes out in March. [Thanks, Phranctoast]
PSP hardware shipments plummet, software up slightly
When Sony released their fiscal Q3 (Oct. - Dec. '06) financial results recently, most of the focus was on the PS3 and how the costs of its launch contributed to a massive loss for Sony's games unit. But, as the UK's Pocket Gamer points out, a massive slowdown in PSP shipments worldwide is probably just as worrying for the company. In the three month holiday period, Sony shipped just 1.46 million PSP units worldwide, a nearly 72 percent decrease from the 6.22 million units shipped during the same period a year ago. Broken down territorially, Europe and Japan each got roughly 900,000 systems while North America saw only an anemic 10,000 PSP units shipped in the three month period (no, that isn't a typo). For comparison, Reuters reported in November that Nintendo planned to ship 1.5 million DS units to Japan in December alone. But not all is doom and gloom in the Sony numbers. NPD data from December showed relatively healthy sales of nearly a million PSPs in North America, suggesting that Sony slowed North American shipments to let retailers sell off some of the 2 million systems shipped during the summer months. And despite the slowing hardware shipments, PSP software shipments actually rose 20 percent to 21.2 million units worldwide for the holiday season. Still, it's easy to look at this massive shipment slowdown and see the tide decisively turning towards Nintendo in the portable market share battle.
Japan: What can Microsoft Do? do? do?
While those in the west see the Xbox 360 a definite success (so far), Japan is a completely different story. Having only sold 300,000 units throughout the first year in its lifespan, the 360 has a long way to go in the land of the rising sun. Gamasutra sits down with a localization specialist and Kotaku's Japanese correspondent to discuss Microsoft's prospects in Japan. The prognosis: it needs work. While the two disagree on a few points (the localization director sees the glass half-empty, whereas the other sees it half-full) the overall picture is somewhat grim. The Xbox 360 has been gaining some ground in the past few months. Titles like Blue Dragon (and to a lesser extent Gears of War) have helped generate 360 sales, but it's not nearly enough to gain a decent market share. Microsoft's biggest hurdle will be penetrating the culture barrier and understanding Japanese consumers (and apparently Do! do! do! isn't cutting it).With more Japanese titles on the way (namely Lost Odyssey), Microsoft better get its marketing crew in gear if they want to stand a chance in Japan. If MS can get a foothold in Japan, it means more variety for everyone, and that's always a good thing.[Via Xbox-Scene]
Gray Lady confirms Wii's early success
You can always count on the New York Times to confirm what most people have acknowledged as conventional wisdom weeks ago. To that end, the Gray Lady today has an article looking at the relatively warm welcome the Wii has received when compared to the PS3. The Times recounts more now-tired tales of hard-to-find Wiis, PS3s piled in shops, and the Wii's potential appeal to new gamers ("My husband broke a sweat playing golf on there," one mother declares). The biggest fireworks come from Sony spokesman Dave Karakker, who derisively calls the Wii an "impulse buy" and Nintendo marketing head Perrin Kaplan, who angrily argues that Sony's reports of slow Wii shipments are "absolutely inaccurate." Save it for the ring, fellas. Possibly the most notable thing about the article, though, is the absence of any practical discussion of the Xbox 360 and its effect on the next gen race. Sure, the 360 might seem like old news compared with the more recently released systems, but it does have a multi-million unit head start and just this past holiday saw a multi-platinum ultra-seller. Surely its impact warrants more than a passing mention in the eighth paragraph. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
Wii auctions outpacing PS3 on eBay
Cruising around eBay the other day for a deal on every single NES game, we stumbled across eBay Pop, a great little feature that lets you easily monitor the popularity and average selling price of various game consoles (and other products) on the world's most popular internet auction marketplace. Looking at the results for the past two weeks (above) we can see the Wii is the undisputed auction leader, selling over twice as many units as the PS3. That doesn't mean the Wii's dominance will last, though -- the number of PS3 auctions has shot up nearly 50 percent over the past two weeks, outpacing the Wii's increase by a good 20 percent. The Wii is also in the lead for price inflation, with auctions finishing at an average of 151 percent of the retail price. PS3 auctions average around 127 percent of retail (though this might be slightly higher when accounting for lower priced 20GB units) and, surprisingly, Xbox 360 premium auctions are selling at an average slightly less than the system's $399 retail price. Also surprisingly, more people seem to want the original NES than the 360 core system. Guess people really want that hard drive. While these stats aren't indicative of the entirety of internet auctions, or even directly relatable to actual in-store sales of the systems, the regularly updated numbers provide some good data for those of us who thrive on the horse race aspects of the console transition.
Reduced 360 target causes VG stock dip
Resulting from Microsoft's lowered shipment target for the Xbox 360, several video game makers saw their stocks fall today. THQ, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Activision have all dropped, with THQ falling the farthest (4.7%). The stock drop comes after Microsoft announced that it had reduced its Xbox 360 shipment targets from 13-15 million units to 12 million units. Analyst PJ McNealy notes, "There is investor concern about a re-set of expectations around both the Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3." We find the all around stock decrease interesting, as another analyst, Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets, expects that Microsoft's shipment reduction will have a negligible effect on software sales (though it does make the possibility of a 360 price cut unlikely).It will be interesting to see how the market reacts when Sony makes its financial report on Tuesday.[Via Joystiq]
Early 2007 price cut for 360 "unlikely"
According to an analyst for Lazard Capital Markets, a price cut for the Xbox 360 in early 2007 is "unlikely." One of the primary motivating factors for this is Microsoft's recently revised shipment forecast. After announcing that revenues were up, Microsoft altered its Xbox 360 shipment forecast from 13 to 15 million units to 12 million units by the end of fiscal 2007 -- this works out to approximately 1.5 million consoles by June 30th. With the shipment estimate reduced, it doesn't make sense for Microsoft to cut the 360 price and damage its prospects for profitability. While a price cut is not imminent, the analyst did not rule out the possibility of promotional bundles, though this depends partly on the performance of Sony and Nintendo's new consoles.So there you have it, don't expect a price cut any time soon.
MS: Less than 50% of 360 owners had Xbox 1
In a recent interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Microsoft's general manager of game development, Chris Satchell, speaks at length about the future of the Xbox 360 and its competition. He takes time to leverage the "set top box" ideal (as in, the 360 can do everything but make julienne fries), talks about Games for Windows and the ease of publishing titles for Windows and 360 simultaneously, and of course takes time to sully the competition. Perhaps the most surprising remark in the interview, is that less than half of Xbox 360 owners have an original Xbox. In other words, most 360 owners weren't Xbox fanboys to begin with, which means they're fresh from their PS2s, Gamecubes, and PCs. From a business standpoint, this is obviously a good thing, because it means the 360 is making a broad impact. Finally, Satchell takes a moment to sling a little mud Sony's way. Regarding Sony's online service, Satchell advises Sony to "copy Xbox Live a little more closely," adding, "My honest opinion is that it's pretty much a disaster. They keep saying that they have a free service. Well, if they don't have anything, of course it's free." Yowza. Hit the "read" link for the full interview.[Via Eurogamer. Thanks, Boff]
Gates: PS3 will never have graphics advantage
digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Gates_PS3_will_never_have_graphics_advantage'; Speaking with journalist and Xbox guru, Dean Takahashi, Bill Gates offered several jabs to both Sony and Nintendo in the wake of CES. Speaking on Nintendo, Gates expressed concern that the novelty of Wii could wear off without good graphics to go with it, and that he still considered Sony to be MS' biggest competitor (O RLY?). Regarding the PS3, Gates notes that the 360 has the advantage in every area. According to Gates, the 360 has good games, is easier to program, and is cheaper to produce. Because of the 360's head start, it also has the advantage of undergoing cost reduction at a much faster rate than the PS3 with its more costly components. Gates also stated that the PS3 has no advantage in terms of graphics and that it never will. In his words, Sony "burned a year" trying to get graphics out of the Cell processor, only to have Nvidia provide a chip at the last minute. Add to this the fact that the PS3 has no unified memory and that programmers have had longer to learn the intricacies of the 360 hardware, and the PS3 is caught in a cyclical game of catch-up.Finally, Gates managed to squeeze in one more denial of a larger 360 hard drive on the horizon. When asked about the need for more space -- especially with IPTV and DVR functions on the way -- Gates responded that much IPTV data is stored on servers and storage is unnecessary. To wit: "We don't have to change the Xbox 360 at all." Uh huh, and 640 kilobytes is all we'll ever need, right?[Via 1UP]
NY Times: Strong holiday for new consoles
The New York Times' Matt Richtel today takes a look at how the big three console makers did over the holiday season. Besides mentioning the now-familiar CES sales announcements from Sony and Microsoft, the story has some interesting quotes from analysts and retailers. Most surprising among those quotes might be confirmation from Gamestop COO Daniel A. DeMatteo that Playstation 3's are available at "hundreds" of the company's stores, while Wii consoles "virtually disappeared" when they came in. It's hard to evaluate this statement without knowing how many of each system Gamestop received -- indeed, analyst Paul-Jon McNealy notes earlier in the article how Sony "seems like they're really ramping up production." Still, the widespread reports of PS3s sitting on shelves does put a damper on Sony Senior VP Peter Dille's claim that "you can declare us a winner right now." We have to agree with Microsoft's David Hufford: "That sounds like spin." We'll see just how much spin when NPD releases its December sales numbers on Thursday. [Thanks Falafelkid]
Scaling, head start keys to 360 strategy [update 1]
Recently Microsoft has been wrangling journalists into testing both a 360 and a PS3 side by side, hoping to convince them that the PS3 isn't everything Sony cracked it up to be. Their most recent victim was Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera. Invited to a room with both systems hooked up to a 1080p TV (a Sony Bravia no less), Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg and Scott Henson welcomed his questions. Naturally, they deflected many of them -- those concerning bigger hard drives and microtransaction issues -- but that's what they are trained to do. They're like PR Jedi that way. After testing several games and a hi def movie, Ben gives the slight edge to Microsoft's box. The primary reasoning for this is Ana, the 360's internal scaler chip. Sony's console lacks a scaler, meaning that native 720p PS3 games cannot run in 1080p (it might also be why PS2 games look like crap on the PS3). This gives the 360 an advantage, particularly in multiplatform games and high definition movie playback. Kuchera notes, however, that it's unfair to compare 2nd generation games like Gears of War to PS3 launch titles like Resistance. Henson counters, saying that this is in fact part of Microsoft's strategy. In essence, the 360 will always be a software development cycle ahead of the PS3. For example, 2nd gen PS3 titles like, say, MGS4 will have to compete with 3rd gen 360 titles like Halo 3. It's an interesting argument, because from a consumer's standpoint, "fairness" never enters into the picture. The consumer can only compare what's available right now, making Resistance vs. Gears a perfectly valid test -- if you buy Henson's explanation anyway.In the end, it might not even matter if the 360 can be proven demonstrably better than the PS3. As long as it appears at least level with the PS3 in terms of performance, it may become increasingly difficult for the average consumer to justify the difference in cost. Whatever your feelings on the console war, the article makes for an interesting read. Hit the read link to check it out.[Via Xbox-Scene]Update: Corrected Ben Kuchera's name.
NPD clarifies December sales info
The NPD group has made an official statement regarding yesterday's widespread news that the Xbox 360 narrowly outsold both the Wii and PS3 over the holidays. It appears that the sources that broke the story -- taken from a video segment on CNBC -- mistakenly attributed sales numbers to NPD. NPD's David Riley clarifies that CNBC only had numbers from November's NPD report. Any December sales numbers did not come from NPD. It is currently unknown from where the sales data in question was derived. We'll have definitive numbers when NPD releases them next week.[Via Xbox-Scene]
Rumor of the day: Tekken 6 for 360 [update 1]
Coming from several different sources is yet another rumor that a major PS3 exclusive is going to jump ship. This time it's the perennial combo crunching fighter, Tekken 6. Furthermore, Namco is already working on the title, and it will be available just after the PS3 version. Though Virtua Fighter 5 is nothing to sneeze at, industry watchers will know that Tekken is Sony's big name fighting franchise. Since its inception, no Tekken game has graced a non-Sony console, with the minor exception of Tekken Advance on the GBA. The info comes from an anonymous tipster at IGN -- supposedly the same person who leaked the Virtua Fighter 5 info. Could it be true? Company loyalty tells us no, but financial logic tells us yes. Namco brought Soul Calibur II to multiple platforms, only to have Sony snag exclusivity for Soul Calibur III. We're betting that Namco made a lot more money with Soul Calibur II (we're sure Link helped with that). Honestly, if Sony can't get PS3s into people's homes, publisher have no choice but to go multiplatform. This rumor is still tenuous for now, but it wouldn't surprise us if it was true.[Via PS3 Fanboy]Update: Reader, tpudd, reminds us that there was in fact one non-Sony Tekken game, Tekken Advance for the GBA.
Preliminary: Xbox 360 wins holiday sales battle [update 1]
The console sales horse race is more of a marathon than a sprint, but a Register report shows Microsoft edging out the competition in the all important holiday season. The report quotes preliminary NPD numbers mentioned on CNBC to show that Microsoft sold about 2 million Xbox 360s from Nov. 1 through Christmas day, beating out the Wii's estimated 1.8 million in sales. Sony lagged behind with an estimated 750,000 consoles sold through over the two months.A look at last month's numbers and some quick math shows that all three console makers picked up considerable steam going into Christmas, selling two-to-three times as many system in December as in November. The healthy numbers are also encouraging in light of last December's year-on-year decline in the game market as a whole.Consider these numbers to be hearsay until we can verify the actual NPD numbers later this month, but as it stands now it looks like a relatively un-merry Christmas for the PlayStation 3.[Thanks, Tom Stone][Update: Changed to reflect that Christmas may have been fine for Sony and their PlayStation brand as a whole. It only appears to be an un-merry Christmas for the PS3 ... but we won't know for sure until NPD verifies these numbers or releases their final report.]
Armored Core 4 prepares to assault 360
Joystiq brings word that the 360 version of Armored Core 4 should see a Japanese release in March, with an English version hitting the US afterwards. As with many releases these days, Armored Core 4 will come in both regular and collector's editions. The collector's edition comes with a bonus DVD and an art booklet. SEGA plans to bring both versions to the states, though a specific release date is unknown at this time. It's important to note that this is the first iteration of the Armored Core series to appear on a non-Sony platform. Though it was confirmed for 360 some time ago, From Software was initially cagey about platform designations. With other big name exclusives -- like Virtua Fighter 5 -- being culled from the PS3's library, we have to ask: is the era of 3rd party exclusives over?[Via Joystiq]
Get your vote on! Who's prettier: 360, PC, or PS3?
After Gamespot released its comparison of 360 graphics versus PS3's, ZDNet felt obligated to get the people's opinion. ZDNet's own Adrian has posted a poll asking which console has the best graphics with your options being the Xbox 360, PS3 or a PC. I don't know how fair it is to compare consoles whos software development cycles are a year apart, but I'm throwing caution to the wind and voting on the prettiness factor none the less. And of course I would never tell you who to vote for (even though this is Xbox 360 Fanboy), but if you look at the image above, you'll see a certain winner emerging with around 50% of the votes. Take a look at the evidence, become edjamacated, and go vote![Via Digg]
Moore: 360 sales to exceed 10 million goal
Forget those fabricated stories about the 360's lackluster sales, because Peter Moore has the real goods. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Peter Moore reiterated Microsoft's goal of selling 10 million 360s by year's end. What's more, he states that Microsoft is well on their way to exceeding that number, thanks to strong sales during Thanksgiving. Said Moore, "They key is we're in stock, we're available, we're delivering well to retail. Certainly the consumer is recognizing the fact that we have a great price point as well as 160 games available and that flies in the face of our competition."Certainly, those are all great selling points for gift givers. Do you know anyone who picked up a 360 when there were no Wiis or PS3s to be had?[Via TeamXbox]
Invest virtual cash in game sales
Fanboys may have a serious fling with their various system, but are they willing to put their money where their mouth is? Apart from the indignity of having to go with a competitor (or give up on gaming entirely) if their choice fails to materialize as a big winner, most of the fanboy community doesn't have any tangible stake in the entire system; that is, they aren't going to be losing their livelihood over the downfall of one system or another. A new site, The simExchange, asks fanboys of all stripes to ante up and bet on who is going to be the best; albeit, without risking any real money. The simExchange is set up as a stock exchange where users can "invest" fake money in consoles and individual game titles. Game values are based on sales levels or anticipation level for those that aren't yet released/currently in short supply; Red Steel is a perfect example, rising sharply until Wii launch then nose diving afterward. The simExchange looks to be an entertaining diversion between your regularly scheduled gaming sessions and scouring Joystiq for news. The site could be a perfect way to test your ability to predict what's hot and what's not. Sign up and see if you can make a big profit, or you may end up diving off the top of the virtual stock exchange when you lose your eShirt. [Thanks, Matt B.]
NYC Virgin Megastore dominated by 360
360 Fanboy reader, Nick, sent us some pictures he took of the New York City Virgin Megastore's revamped videogame section (and a few shots of the HD DVD drive at Circuit City). Looking at the pictures, it seems like the 360 practically is the videogame section. Our tipster points out that there are six(!) demo kiosks and that the 360 has most of the prime shelf space -- note the 360 themed pillars in the above image. We'd like to see some shots of the competition for comparison, but either way, this is a mighty impressive showing for Microsoft's white box. To be fair, this doesn't mean that Virgin prefers the 360. More likely, the company knows that 360s will actually be in stock this holiday and hopes to sell as many as possible. It's a subject that's been beaten to death, but the sell out nature of the PS3 and Wii means that plenty of 360 purchases will be made by desperate gift givers.Has anyone else been to this store? Send us some pictures of the Sony and Nintendo sections, and we'll post 'em.[Thanks, Nick]
Xbox brings the sexy back [update 1]
Okay, so we're not exactly Justin Timberlake Fanboy, but we couldn't help but point out this video produced by On10's Laura Foy. Now, being fanboys, many of you are bound to point out a few fallacies in the video, like claiming the PS3 isn't backwards compatible and that the 360 has a "huge" hard drive. And, really, you should point out things like that. That's what fanboys do. Still, the video is funny and worth a watch. Check it out after the break.
