I'm surprised that I have watched so little of the Olympics this year. I usually watch a decent amount.

Anyway I've been doing alot of gaming this weekend mostly consisting of alot of Bionic Commando: Rearmed (yesterday) and alot of Soul Calibur IV (today). Played a whole bunch of SCIV online today and they were all really good games with a few awesome ones as well. Oh how I wish this game had a way of recording matches.

Ah, well WoW gets everybody, and it got me.

I shall be getting a copy after all, though I won't be paying for it.

Afternoon...well, more like evening now from Melbourne lads.

More of the usual - Soul Calibur. However, I've also been playing Devil May Cry 4, Haze and Sega Rally - all PS3. Sega Rally is awesome...albeit shallow. Though it's good to see that Sega is making this the arcade Sega Rally 3. Devil May Cry 4 is great stuff - though the checkpoint system is stupid. Perhaps God of War spoiled me?

Haze deserves some explaination. It's ok - by far not the best shooter on the system, but barely the worst either. Though there is some absolutely bullshit moments that make it suck. Namely, whenever the game decides to make the Nectar (I haven't swapped yet) malfunction on you, and render you fucking useless. The effect is cool (everything's grayscaled but yourself), but all of a sudden, it makes it difficult to make out enemies, and you can't use the scope on your gun. How in the fuck that works, I have no idea.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/in-depth-analysis-games-and-console-sales

NPD ANALYSIS EXTRACTS

PlayStation 3 sales have dropped back from the high in June when Metal Gear Solid 4 bundles were selling well. The Nintendo Wii has rebounded slightly from a dip in June and the Xbox 360 appeared to get a modest boost from the clearance priced 20GB models.

The PSP still sells under half what the Nintendo DS sells each month, but that understates how well the PSP hardware is doing. Overall, the PSP is selling quite well and lacks the software sales to be declared a complete success.

Compared to the same period from Jan-July 2007 vs 2008 figures...

Now the Wii is ahead of the Nintendo DS and each of those is far above its sales figures from 2007. The PlayStation 3 has doubled its hardware sales and moved from last place in 2007 to third place in 2008. The PSP and the Xbox 360 are in precisely the same positions in this ranking as they were last year, with only modest growth in sales. Finally, the PS2 is the only system down year-on-year and moves to last place.

A quick mental computation with the figures above will reveal the following fact: Wii and Nintendo DS sales together are greater in 2008 than the combined sales of the Xbox 360 and all three of Sony's systems.

Nintendo's two systems accounted for nearly 50% of all dollars generated by software in July 2008. Sony's three systems garnered 31% of the revenue while the Xbox 360 alone generated 22%.

MGS4 wont make it in the years top ten:

It now seems likely that one of the most important PlayStation 3 titles of the year – perhaps the most important one – will not make it onto the list of top 10 games for all of 2008. Back in 2001, Metal Gear Solid 2 did make the annual top 10 list with only two months of sales.

Still, one has to understand MGS4 sales in context. First, the PS3 installed hardware base is still relatively small, although it is not as small as the PS2 base was when MGS2 launched. Moreover, many copies of MGS4 are making it to the market bundled with 80GB PS3 systems, and these copies are not included in the software totals reported by the NPD Group. Finally, aside from Call of Duty 4, few action games have enjoyed multiple months of high sales in the past year.

So what titles will likely make the top 10 software titles for 2008? Here is a quick preview:

• Grand Theft Auto 4 – Over 4.2 million units

• Super Smash Bros. Brawl – Over 3.2 million units

• Guitar Hero III – Over 2.5 million units

• Mario Kart Wii – Over 2.4 million units

• Wii Play – Over 2.3 million units

• Call of Duty 4 – Over 1.6 million units

• Rock Band – Over 1.5 million units

• Wii Fit – Over 1.4 million units

That's already eight titles with sales greater than Metal Gear Solid 4, and most of those will continue to experience significant sales throughout the rest of the year.

THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE SALES

In the first 20 months after launch:

• Wii: Third party software accounted for over 56% of Wii software sales, or 33 million units

• Xbox 360: Third party software accounted for over 82% of Xbox 360 software sales, or 29 million units

• PlayStation 3: Third party software accounted for over 83% of PS3 software sales, or 20 million units

Nintendo would want third parties to look at their total units while Microsoft would want you to look at its percentage of sales.

The lifetime figures for the Wii are important because they do show that the Wii is moving third party software units better than the Xbox 360 did during that same period after its launch. Third parties can find sales on the Wii, but few should expect to compare to Nintendo's own software.

PS2 owners shun PS3?

However, this does appear to suggest that current PlayStation 2 owners are almost twice as likely to be Wii owners than PlayStation 3 owners. That, in itself, is quite interesting and suggests that the owners of the 42.5 million PS2 systems sold in the United States could prefer the Wii over Sony's newer system.

---------------------------------------------

So it's true, third party sales are highest on wii. Hrmph. ????

foolz said:

It's a freaking 2d revolution!

Well so far this certifys that 2D won't be leaving handhelds. The DS is finally able to render decent 3D models and many developers still won't make the move. That saying there still is a lack of console 2D games as well as 2D games that truly push the dimension.

darthhomer said:

Afternoon...well, more like evening now from Melbourne lads.

More of the usual - Soul Calibur. However, I've also been playing Devil May Cry 4, Haze and Sega Rally - all PS3. Sega Rally is awesome...albeit shallow. Though it's good to see that Sega is making this the arcade Sega Rally 3. Devil May Cry 4 is great stuff - though the checkpoint system is stupid. Perhaps God of War spoiled me?

I just ordered Devil May Cry 4 (PC) online yesterday. Hope I enjoy it. That saying I'm REALLY dissapointed with how Capcom marketed the game on PC. I mean they blamed it all on piracy when in reality they were so clueless with PC gaming that they didn't even release the game as a Direct Download on any site which usually makes the majority of a games sales.

ravenprose said:

iga_bobovic said:

New week, what have you guys been doing lately?

My TV is finally back, so I can watch the Olympics on a big screen now. So much better when you can actually see what's going on. Saw the Dark Knight this Sunday, awesome movie, but is Batman suffering from a throat cancer or something? The gruffy voice is retarded. Joker and Harvey are awesome.

Agreed. That gruff voice was the most stupid thing in that movie. It's weird because he didn't sound that bad in the Batman Begins (still pretty bad, though).

He sounded like this, don't you think the same, Hamster loving Dora fan

SEGA's Wii Game is a ground-up, brand spanking new House of the Dead,it's all but confirmed by SEGA themselves.

No ones around huh... *scratches balls*

ravenprose said:

I spent the weekend reading. I picked up two Dean Koontz novels (Darkfall and Winter Moon), and have been going back and forth between them.

I used to read a ton of Koontz books. Haven't read one in years. He started writing 1000 pages for a novel that could have been a few hundred. Have you read Tick Tock? That's my favourite, it's hilarious.

dvader said:

Played tons and tons of BC Rearmed, what a fantastic game, a classic in every way.

I saw Tropic Thunder, I LOVED it!! Its hilarious, has good action scenes, incredible acting from Downey Jr., all around awesome film.  Downy steals the movie, he becomes this fake role in the movie, you almost don't see Downey, and he is hilarious. Stiller is Stiller, maybe the weakest role in the movie but he is just one part of many. The biggest surprise was Tom Cruise, he maybe had the single funniest role in the movie. I loved it.

Random fact of the day, did you know that Afrika (PS3) changed its international name to Hakuna Matata. I hear it means no worries for the rest of your days.  Its Sony's problem free, philosophy. Ok I am done.

Never heard of this movie at all, is it a comedy? Action comedy?

That joke made my buttocks clench. Where is the hotel dusk review?

punk rebel ecks said:

SEGA's Wii Game is a ground-up, brand spanking new House of the Dead,it's all but confirmed by SEGA themselves.

Where is that confirmed? I hope it's not a lightgun game. Headstrong are the Battalion wars developer.

bugsonglass said:

have still just been playing the DS (but i have ordered some wii games which i'll find when i go back home in less than two weeks), mostly New super mario bros, trauma centre 2 and the world ends with you.

have also been watching death note on that website IGA gave some weeks ago, but there's about a dozen of the later episodes which aren't there for some reason so i stopped watching.  bit annoying

What is death note like?

I was going to get trauma centre 2, but I thought I would wait for the second wii one which still isn't out in europe.