holiday-season
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Activision-Blizzard makes lots of money, no update on Blizzard earnings
Activision-Blizzard has released their third-quarter numbers for the financial year of 2009, and as you might expect for the company in charge of Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and World of Warcraft, business is brisk. They were expecting to bring in around $700 million, and ended up pulling in around $50 million more than that. It's good, we guess, to be the king. Blizzard, in particular, laid claim to three of the top five selling PC games in North America on the good side, and on the bad side, Activision acknowledges in the press release that they're happy to have WoW back online in China, but a little worried about the troubles it's seen over there lately. Strangely enough, there is no information in the earnings about how much money World of Warcraft has pulled in for the company, or any updates about subscriber numbers. Usually, that gets at least a mention, so maybe, with subscribers certainly down in China, Activision-Blizzard wants to keep that under their hat for now.
Iwata: Keep dreaming of a white console Christmas
Whether or not you've been able to find Wiis in stores as of late, the holiday season is a completely different beast. Even now, in July, company president Satoru Iwata can't promise that there will be enough Wiis stocked to meet demand this Christmastime. If Wiis are scarce, this will be the third holiday season in a row that people in the U.S. and UK have had difficulty locating the console. Iwata promises that the company is doing everything in its power to avoid this situation, and is on schedule to develop 2.4 million units for 2008 by the end of the year. We can imagine only that some other Nintendo stock (we're looking at you, Wii Fit) will be a nightmare to find this holiday season, too.[Thanks, Thomas!]
Pachter says: DS on top this holiday season
The past few NPD sales charts have shown the Wii (and in one instance, even the Xbox 360) overtaking the Nintendo DS. If you believe in the powers of super-analyst Michael Pachter, though, the DS will reclaim the number one spot in the U.S. this holiday season. The Wii, he thinks, will follow as the second most sold piece of gaming hardware. If Pachter is right, it looks like Nintendo will be sitting pretty for the holidays.We have to wonder, however, if he would predict that the Wii take the top spot if limited supply wasn't an issue.
This holiday season will make or break the Wii
At least, that's what Eidos's Julien Merceron believes. The company's chief technology officer said recently in an interview, "Either third party developers and publishers will make money on the Wii platform [this Christmas], or they won't - and if most of them don't I think we'll see a big drop in support for the Wii next year, which could have some consequences for Nintendo, and very positive ones for Microsoft and Sony." The way Merceron sees it, it's obvious that some Nintendo titles will make money this season, but third party games are another story. Of course, if third parties produce unimpressive stuff, we think that they shouldn't expect to be rewarded. Yet, it's a shame if quality games like Zack & Wiki don't succeed. But, what do you think? Will third party games sell well on the Wii this holiday season, and, more importantly, is the Wii's success depending on it?
Sony announces its holiday lineup - surprises not included
Sony has announced its full holiday lineup for the PS3, PS2, PSN Store and the PSP. While it would've been nice to have included games we didn't know were coming, confirmation that these games will all make it out before year's end is nothing to complain about. We'll list the full list of PSP releases here, starting with the first party titles. For third party releases, be sure to check past the jump. It's a long list, so chances are there's something that will interest you coming out in the next month or two. Though having said that, a decent number of these games are already out. PSP(R) (PlayStation(R)Portable) First-party: Jeanne d'Arc NBA '08 SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike Syphon Filter(R): Logan's Shadow
