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July NPD: NCAA Football and Minecraft lead software, 3DS still on top
The NPD Group has released its report on sales in the physical retail channel of the games industry during the month of July, with both predictable and surprising results. On the predictable side of things, all three segments (Hardware, Software and Accessories) continued their downward year-over-year decline, with total Hardware sales suffering a 34-percent decrease: $99.4 million this year as compared with $150.9 million over the same period in 2012. Despite this industry-wide decline, Nintendo's 3DS saw a 14 percent year-over-year increase in sales as it held its spot as the best-selling piece of hardware for a third month in a row. This is the first time a handheld has topped the market for such a lengthy period since the Nintendo DS' three month streak in the fall/winter of 2010, according to NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 remained the best-selling home console for the thirty-first month in a row. As per usual, the Accessories segment suffered the least amount of market fluctuation, experiencing only a three percent year-over-year loss and bringing in $133.4 million in sales. Also maintaining the status quo, this segment's stability continues to be attributed to steady sales of digital currency and subscription giftcards.
PAX Prime schedule is live, already exhausting to look at
Going to PAX Prime? The organizers of the annual Seattle show, which runs from August 30 through September 2, have just posted the full schedule online and it's a doozy. Peter Molyneux's story time session will kick off the show on Friday morning. Other notable panels cover how Naughty Dog pitched The Last of Us, a roundtable with Grifball experts, a Firaxis Games talk and the requisite games journalism panels that happen every year. Then there's the PAX 10, a gathering of ten top indie games as chosen by 50 industry experts, which will be showcased on the floor. It's going to be a hectic show, so you'd best start combing through the packed schedule if you're planning on spending that long weekend bumping elbows with your fellow enthusiasts in Seattle.
'The Last of Us' multiplayer has less gore in Europe
Your nail bomb will have a slightly less dramatic result when you toss it in a UK match of The Last of Us multiplayer, as Naughty Dog confirmed the European version of the game will be slightly different than its North and South American counterparts, reports Eurogamer. While North America can happily blow opponents limb from limb (or head from torso), Europe will have no such luck, as the gore has been dialed down for the region. Attacks that would result in an exploding head in US multiplayer just get a blood spurt in the Euro game. This thread on the PlayStation forum showcases regional differences. Germany's fairly strict requirements with regard to depictions of violence seem to be to blame for the changes. A user going by the name of "Ramify" posted on the Naughty Dog forums, providing several examples of the visual discrepancies, and received an email reply from "EvangM," which said, "The gore and violence ratings are subject to local regulatory boards in various countries, so the game must be slightly changed in order to accommodate those choices." At this point, it seems a little bizarre to be breaking down the difference between an exploding head and a gushing head wound - pretty sure they're both fatal - but it's not difficult to understand why some players are upset about buying "censored" content, especially if they picked up a Season Pass before any of the changes came to light.
Minecraft blocks top spot on UK charts, Pikmin 3 takes a dive
A relatively quiet week on the UK charts allows for some meditative crafting, with Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition squarely in first place. The Last of Us moves up to the second of us again, as Pikmin 3, which debuted last week in second, drops all the way off the top ten and into ... still looking ... still looking ... there it is: 15. It's not all bad news for Nintendo, as Animal Crossing: New Leaf moves up into third this week and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team stumbles ever so slightly from fifth to eleventh. The Smurfs 2 occupies fifth place, with a sales increase of 115 percent following its debut two weeks ago. That's just smurfed-up. Check out the UK top ten after the break.
The Last of Us comic book influenced Ellie's history
We learn a lot about Ellie as she treks across the country with Joel in The Last of Us, like her fondness for gnomes, the fact that she can't whistle, and that her best friend's name is Riley. The game's writer and director Neil Druckmann revealed at Comic Con that Riley might not have even existed if it weren't for the work done by Faith Erin Hicks on the recently-released The Last of Us comic book miniseries. (Spoiler warning: If you 'haven't played the game yet, now's the time to stop reading.) "During the last speech Ellie gives during the game, she lists off all the people that have died on this journey, and the first name she lists is Riley," said Druckmann. "She was the first to die. They were both kind of bitten at the same time, but that little snippet in the comic influenced the development of the game, because originally we didn't have anyone with Ellie when she was bitten." It sounds like a minor change, but Ellie's guilt at surviving when Riley died is a big part of what motivates her actions in the game. A few other elements from the comic made it into the game, including some belongings in Ellie's backpack. "You can see how Ellie got some of them in the comic, and that was something that came up fairly late in development and we had to make some changes, but I felt like it really helped tie those two stories together," said Druckmann. Dark Horse's trade collection for The Last of Us miniseries will be out later this Fall.
The Last of Us still king of UK charts
The Last of Us hits the UK for six this week - that's cricket lingo for a home run, sort of - matching the six-in-a-row runs of Black Ops 2 and FIFA 12 as the UK No. 1. We'll stress again just how slow it's been new releases wise, but it's still a very impressive run for the Naughty Dog game, after shipping 3.4 million units worldwide in the first three weeks and becoming the US best-seller in June. Elsewhere, as the industry prepares itself for the chaos of the holiday season, right now it's all quiet on the retail front. Dynasty Warriors 8 is the only new release in the entire top 40, marching in at fifth, otherwise it's a muted shuffle in the top five. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition is back up to second in front of the Nintendo duo of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. A little lower down lies Max Payne 3, a surprise seventh thanks to discounts, while FIFA 13 and Tomb Raider are perilously close to dropping out of the top ten for the first time in the history of ever and ever. Well, we say perilously close, but it's not without some new games, is it? Bring on the August already.
June NPD: 3DS still on top, Ouya sales 'light' [update]
The NPD Group has published its monthly report outlining the performance of the physical sector of the video games retail market, with unsurprising results with respect to both the industry's overall performance and which games sold the most between June 2 and July 6. Nintendo's 3DS remained the best-selling piece of hardware for its second month in a row with "nearly 225,000" units sold according to Nintendo, while the Xbox 360 held its spot as the best-selling home console by moving 140,000 units. The overall industry brought in $593.3 million from the sale of hardware, software and accessories (read: Skylanders toys and digital currency giftcards) at brick and mortar retail locations. This was a 15 percent year-over-year decrease from the $700.6 million the industry brought in during the same period in 2012. The hardware sales segment and its collectively accumulated $142 million suffered the most severe year-over-year loss out of the three subsections, down by 30 percent from last year's $201.5 million. June was also the first month of availability for the Ouya, the Kickstarter-funded Android microconsole that kicked off a growing craze for Kickstarter-funded Android microconsoles. "Retail sales for Ouya (not counting direct sales through ouya.tv) and were relatively light for a new console," an NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in a statement. "This may be due to the lack of a major marquee title driving consumers to seek out the console, low awareness due to Ouya being a new brand, or low inventory volume due to manufacturing constraints." The period's 10 best-selling games were lead by three different console exclusives: The Last of Us, Animal Crossing: New Leaf and the physical SKU for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition. New physical sales of console and portable games in general were down 10 percent from last year, ringing up $296.1 million at the end of the period.
The Last of Us high-fives this week's UK charts
The Last of Us extends its run as the UK's No. 1 to five weeks, and much like Joel and Ellie it continues to survive no matter what comes its way. Not even a pair of headline plumbers can unseat the PS3 exclusive - still, Nintendo's Mario and Luigi: Dream Team does reach third in its debut week, just behind a resurgent Animal Crossing: New Leaf in second. As the summer continues to swelter in the UK, video games are clearly way too exhausted from all the heat to make their way onto retail shelves. Dream Team is the only new release in this week's top 10 - the 3DS RPG reaches North America on August 11 - meanwhile, former No. 1 Aliens: Colonial Marines climbs back up to tenth on the back of price drops.
The Last of Us ships 3.4 million in first three weeks
Sony Computer Entertainment said Naughty Dog's The Last of Us "surpassed all sales expectations" after shipping 3.4 million units worldwide, including download purchases, in just under three weeks. SCE declared the melancholy horror the fastest-selling PS3 game of the year, as well as the fastest-selling "new software title" in the console's history - in other words: the fastest-selling new intellectual property. "These sales figures are a testament to the blockbuster quality of The Last of Us," said Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida. "The teams at Naughty Dog are true visionaries and their storytelling capabilities are second to none, this title is an undisputed demonstration of that. SCE continues to be committed to delivering unique gameplay experiences that redefine the interactive entertainment industry and The Last of Us is a perfect example." Like a zombifying fungus, The Last of Us has really grown on critics and fans alike. Joel and Ellie's grim adventure notched all five stars in our review, with our Richard saying it had a "curious inertia" that he couldn't deny from seeing through to its end. Meanwhile, The Last of Us did what BioShock Infinite and Dead Island: Riptide just fell short of this year: infecting the top of the UK charts for four weeks straight.
The Last of Us outlasts the rest to top UK for fourth week
The Last of Us is the first of 2013 to make it four weeks as the UK no. 1, proving that's it really clicked with the country's consumers. Naughty Dog's PS3 horror survives a week longer at the summit than both BioShock Infinite and Dead Island: Riptide did, albeit in what's been a quiet month or so. The UK's currently consumed with its new champion of Wimbledon, the first British man to win the tennis tournament since the Stone Age. As for games, it's hardly championship stuff at UK retail, with very few new releases served up. The highest-ranking is Project X Zone, rallying to 18th. In the top ten there's barely any changeovers as Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Animal Crossing: New Leaf continue to be smashes, netting second and fourth.
The Last of Us holds off Minecraft in this week's UK charts
The Last of Us survives as the UK No. 1 this week after seeing off an attack from Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which crept up to make a No. 2 debut. So that's three weeks in a row for the Naughty Dog gripper, making it one of only a trio of games this year to achieve the feat, the other two being Dead Island: Riptide and BioShock Infinite. The country's welcome for a physical edition of Minecraft puts the block on Animal Crossing: New Leaf staying in second place, although the cuddly sim only has to move one door down to third. There's even more moving about going on further down the road, since Minecraft is one of four new releases in the UK top ten this week. Putting more Simoleons into the kitty is Sims 3 expansion pack Island Paradise, which washes up in fifth. Drifting just behind in sixth is Deadpool, while strategy sequel Company of Heroes 2 forms the last line of defense in tenth spot.
The Last of Us patch 1.02 removes sex hotline numbers, includes multiplayer fixes
Naughty Dog has wasted no time in removing the completely unintentional sex hotline telephone number it inadvertently plastered on a bulletin board inside of The Last of Us. The game's first patch, version 1.02, changes the "texture of a phone number on a bulletin board" as its only modification to the single-player experience. Multiplayer mode, on the other hand, has received a handful of technical corrections and gameplay adjustments, including improved host migration and fixes for miscellaneous crashing, camera and connectivity issues. The full patch notes can be found here, but what we really want to find out is: Who was answering those telephones after the apocalypse? Clickers? We're betting it was Clickers.
Naughty Dog working to strip sex hotlines from The Last of Us
Within The Last of Us, Joel and Ellie stumble upon various in-game magazines and postings littered with hotline numbers, first revealed two weeks ago after the game's launch. Turns out, some of those numbers are functioning phone sex lines – a mistake Naughty Dog is hoping to rectify. "That was an artist's mistake," creative director Neil Druckmann told Kotaku. "What happened was, they put some phone numbers in the game and then they thought they could just change the area code to 555, then it's invalid because it's what they do in movies. But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it. We're now working to take it out." Druckmann concluded that the working numbers are "just an honest mistake." The Last of Us launched on June 14, a game our own Richard Mitchell felt he had survived rather than completed. It would seem the majority of game critics agree.
Subway map artist and Naughty Dog settle The Last of Us complaint
Naughty Dog has apologized for the unauthorized use of an unofficial Boston subway in The Last of Us. The map, examined intently by protagonist Joel above, wasn't made by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority or Naughty Dog. It's the work of a Portland-based artist named Cameron Booth, who posted earlier this week that it was used "without permission or payment." e attacked Naughty Dog for stealing the work, and wrote (in a since-deleted post version) that he believed it unacceptable "to casually appropriate someone else's work and incorporate it into their game without any discussion." Since Booth revealed his complaint, Naughty Dog has reached out to him and Booth has now deleted his initial post, replacing it with the news that an agreement has been made. "It seems as if matters will be resolved to everyone's satisfaction shortly," Booth now says. Booth also apologized for his "initial vitriolic post," adding that both sides share "a lot of mutual respect for each other's creative work."
The Last of Us tops UK charts for second week
The Last of Us' reign at the UK charts summit lasts on, with Animal Crossing: New Leaf unable to turn over the Naughty Dog game for the second week running. As the UK prepares for two weeks of tennis (and inevitable rain), the two games hold their 1-2 seedings despite dropping around half their sales. They're no doubt helped by a quiet week for the country's retailers; the only new release that charts in the top 40 this week is MotoGP 13 in 15th. So it's a top ten full of familiar faces, with FIFA 13 in third, Tomb Raider in fourth, and er, Max Payne 3 in fitfh. Over a year after leading the UK charts in its debut week, Rockstar's shooter enjoys a 600 percent rise in sales thanks to a big old price promotion.
The sound and music of The Last of Us dissected in developer video
This video, produced by SoundWorks Collection's Michael Coleman, shows the audio team from The Last of Us discussing the sound effects and music from the game. Specifically, the game's audio designers discuss the challenges involved in creating a soundtrack for the more desolate points in the game. Game Director Bruce Straley explains the "less is more" approach to The Last of Us' development, as heard through the game's audio tracks. It's a fascinating look (or listen?) into the ways Naughty Dog's sound and music team did their part in creating the game's environments.
The Last of Us is the first in UK
The Last of Us represented several accomplishments during its first week of sale in the UK, where it took the number one spot on the region's sales chart. According to Chart Track, the game is the first Sony exclusive to take the top spot since Uncharted: Golden Abyss on Vita in early 2012. It's also the third fastest selling game of 2013 behind Bioshock Infinite and the "weak" Tomb Raider, along with being the biggest launch for a new intellectual property since L.A Noire in 2011. Overall, a fine start to developer Naughty Dog's swan song for PlayStation 3. The cash infusions for the UK retail market didn't end with The Last of Us, as Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Leaf debuted in second and became (wow, y'all love your Tom Nook debt programs) the biggest non-Mario 3DS launch ever. The UK top ten indentured to Tom Nook can be found after the break.
Metareview: The Last of Us
Naughty Dog, best known for the Uncharted series, has received near universal critical praise for its PS3 swan song The Last of Us. Our review gave it a perfect score, which doesn't mean the game is perfect, it just means that when The Last of Us launches next week, you won't want to be the last of us who plays it. Edge (100/100): "At times it's easy to feel like big-budget development has too much on the line to allow stubbornly artful ideas to flourish, but then a game like The Last Of Us emerges through the crumbled blacktop like a climbing vine, green as a burnished emerald." Eurogamer (100/100): "It starts out safe but ends brave; it has heart and grit, and it hangs together beautifully. And it's a real video game, too. An elegy for a dying world, The Last of Us is also a beacon of hope for its genre." Giant Bomb (100/100): "There are bitter pills to swallow along the way, and nothing is taken for granted, not even characters. People live, people die. Sometimes it's fair, sometimes it's not. It's still a zombie game, but a sobering one. Take a deep breath." Gamespot (80/100): "The Last of Us stretches on for hours, forcing you to endure the suffocating atmosphere and unrelenting despair that citizens of this world have become accustomed to. And that time spent navigating the desolate wasteland draws you deeper inside." Polygon (75/100): "It's not a fun place to be, and likewise, the game isn't really a fun thing to play."
The Last of Us review: Humans, conditioned
There was a moment in The Last of Us that was so serene I could have watched it forever. Protagonists Joel and Ellie were finally afforded a breath – a stitch of peace – and I hesitated to nudge them forward. The moment was so starkly different from all the violence that preceded it, so beautiful that it was painful. I could have let them stand there until the disc drive in my PS3 broke down, until the power went out or the world came to an end. The pair had been through so much, it seemed cruel to make them move on. The Last of Us has a curious inertia though – the stumbling, inevitable momentum of a man off balance – and I couldn't deny it. Whatever laid ahead, I knew that their slow, torturous tumble was far from over.%Gallery-188659%
First look at The Last of Us multiplayer
Showing up casually late to the marketing party, here's a trailer featuring the multiplayer modes in The Last of Us. They seem to draw from the same well of brutality and paranoia evident in the single-player game.
