UNSCleric.com

In summary, the Xbox 360 beat the PS3 in hardware sales, GTA sales, and Microsoft jumped from a little over 10 million Xbox Live subscribers, to 12 million, which is double what it was last year.  GTA’s sales numbers are from only five days of reporting, since the cut-off for the April NPD occurred just a few days after its launch.

April Software

1. GTA IV – Xbox 360 – 1.85 million
2. Mario Kart Wii – Wii – 1.12 million
3. GTA IV – PS3 – 1.00 million
4. Wii Play w/ remote – Wii – 360K
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl – Wii – 326K
6. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue – PS3 – 224K
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness – DS – 202K
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time – DS – 202K
9. Guitar Hero III – Wii – 152K
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – Xbox 360 – 141K

April Hardware

- Wii: 714.2K
- DS: 414.8K
- PSP: 192.7K
- Xbox 360: 188K
- PS3: 187.1K
- PS2: 124.4K

(Below: Microsoft Press Release)

By the numbers: Xbox 360 is the most significant contributor to industry spending and growth

- 188,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in April. (April NPD data)

- Xbox 360 has a record-setting attach rate of 7.6 games per console, the highest attach rate in history for a console at this point in its lifecycle. (April NPD data)

- Consumers have spent more than $9.7 billion on the Xbox 360 experience. (April NPD data)
 
- *Xbox 360 titles accounted for $186 million of all third party game sales this generation, or 53% of share. (April NPD data)

- *Xbox 360 games accounted for three of the top ten games in April, and secured the #1 spot with “Grand Theft Auto IV.” (April NPD data)

- *Not only are we selling more games, games play better on the Xbox 360. Xbox 360 has 91 titles with a Metacritic review score of 80 or higher, compared to just 50 for PS3 and 22 for Wii.

(For the rest, click here.)

EA Sports extends NFL deal through 2012 season
Peter Moore announces gaming division will keep monopoly on top US sport through 2013 Super Bowl; “further investment” could bring back NFL Coach series.

Just over three years ago, Electronic Arts tackled the sports genre by announcing it had signed a multiyear exclusivity deal with the National Football League and the NFL Players, the players’ union. Under the agreement, EA Sports’ Madden NFL franchise was the sole official licensee for the US’ most popular sport, forcing rival 2K Sports to get creative with its own pro-football series.

Today, EA Sports announced that it has extended its contract with the NFL and NFL Players through the 2012 season. That means the Redwood City, California-based publisher will retain exclusive game rights to all NFL teams, stadiums, and player likenesses and information through until the Super Bowl XLVII champion is crowned in 2013.
Though Madden NFL is its most famous franchise, EA Sports also publishes a variety of other NFL games, including NFL Street and NFL Tour. However, part of the renewal agreement is to “look at different ways to bring more consumers in,” according to EA Sports president Peter Moore.

One way Moore is hoping to lure more Americans into the Madden fold is through the incorporation of content from the NFL Films production company and the NFL Network cable channel into the “Madden game experience.” Other new EA Sports initiatives include a continuation of the “family play” option for Wii games, expanded investment in the wildly popular fantasy football phenomenon, and undefined initiatives to court football fans during the spring and summer months.

“Both EA Sports and the NFL agree that we need to look at different ways to bring more consumers in,” Moore told GameSpot. “Traditionally, when the Super Bowl’s over, our football business is over, and there’s research that shows there are millions of people out there that can’t get enough football 12 months a year.”
EA Sports’ newest attempt to court those football fans, NFL Tour, wasn’t treated kindly by critics, but is “doing OK” at retail, according to Moore. However, the former Xbox 360 marketing chief isn’t satisfied with just pumping out more NFL Tour or NFL Street. “I think we need to be more innovative,” he said. “For years, we’ve done Street versions of games, and I think it’s time we looked at online models and perhaps doing something that’s truly contra-seasonal.”

According to Moore, one promising possibility for expanding EA Sports’ NFL portfolio is to resurrect the NFL Head Coach series, which debuted in 2006 but has laid fallow ever since. “Things like Head Coach…well, for me, I love the X’s and O’s,” he said. “It’s something that I would love to do if I wasn’t in this business. When we look at the success of the Football Manager titles in Europe, there’s no reason we can’t do the same thing here. We’ve kind of tiptoed into it so far, but I think you’ll see continued investment in things like Head Coach.”
But although he was quite loquacious about the renewal of the NFL deal, Moore was downright reticent about EA Sports’ plans for its other exclusive US football agreements with the NCAA and the Arena Football League. “We’ll get to those when we get to those,” he said.

Due to its corporate corruption of course.  I haven’t talked about GameSpot since they fired one of their most dedicated employees for writing an honest, negative review on a game that just so happened to have a multi-million dollar advertising deal coming up with the CNET-owned company.  You can read all the details about that story, which occurred in late November 2007, here:

11.30.07: More Evidence Of Mainstream Gaming Media Corruption

12.02.07: More Coverage On GameSpot’s Corruption

Here is today’s story:

“It was a tough decision to let go of something [I've] been so thoroughly attached to for this many years,” he said. “It’s a crying shame that things went down the way they did, but like I said, I think my time had just come, the time to let it go.”

Joystiq has confirmed with longtime Gamespot staffer Alex Navarro that he will be resigning his position at the CNET gaming site in response to the controversial firing of editorial director Jeff Gerstmann.

“I felt like it was just time for me to go,” Navarro told Joystiq in an exclusive interview. ” Certainly [the decision to leave] had a lot to do with the whole Jeff [Gerstmann] situation. … I wouldn’t have left if this situation hadn’t gone down the way it did. … Sometimes you just realize a place isn’t for you anymore, you know?”

Navarro has been a mainstay on the site since early 2003, writing hundreds of reviews and appearing regularly on video podcast The Hotspot. His last day at the site will be Jan. 24.

——–

This news comes just one week after Frank Provo, another long-time writer for GameSpot, quit the site as well:

Frank Provo, a freelancer and major contributor to the site for nearly eight years, recently announced he would no longer be contributing to the site.

Provo made no bones about the reason for his departure. “I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons,” he wrote. “I believe CNet intends to soften the site’s tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.” And Provo is in a position to know, according to an earlier post on his LiveJournal. “All the proof I need is in the way the staff reacted to Jeff’s dismissal and to what went on in the closed door meeting that took place on November 30th,” he said. “Any staffer that continues to work there once this fervor dies down does so with the fear that, one day, management will ask them to soften up their tone and scores… and they will either have to swallow their integrity and abide, or risk taking a stand and being let go,” he added back in December.

I’ve removed any links to GameSpot in the above articles, because there’s no reason to ever give that corrupted site’s owners anymore ad revenue.  If you care anything about restoring honesty in the mainstream gaming media someday in the future, I would advise you do the same, and never hit up that site again.

Also posted on Xbox.com

These came out a few days ago, but I finally got around to post them now.  As usual, the PS3 is in last place, even behind the 7 year-old PS2.

Nintendo DS (Handheld) - 1.53 million
Nintendo Wii - 981,000
Xbox 360 - 770,000
PlayStation Portable - 567,000
PlayStation 2 - 496,000
PlayStation 3 - 466,000

TOP 10 GAME SOFTWARE TITLES, NOVEMBER 2007
1) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) - 1.57 million
2) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 1.12 million
3) Assassin’s Creed (360) -  980,000 (Over 2.5 million sold overall)
4) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2)  - 967,000
5) Wii Play (with remote) (Wii)- 564,000
6) Mass Effect (360) -  473,000 (Over one million sold)
7) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3) - 444,000
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) - 426,000
9) Halo 3 (360) - 387,000 (Over five million sold)
10) Assassin’s Creed (PS3) - 377,000

Are there any developers out there, that are going to look at the PS3, in last place, and say, “Hey, I want to develop a game for that console, it’ll only cost tens of millions just to begin development, and it’ll have to sell a million copies just to break even!  Let’s do it!”  The only developers doing that are the ones being bribed by Sony with large sums of money, because unfortunately for Sony, their lies and hype talk don’t work anymore.

September 2007 Sales Numbers
October 2007 Sales Numbers

When Electronic Arts bought up Bioware and Pandemic a few days ago, some said it was good, because this would give the developers more time and money to work on games thanks to the over-watch of the mighty EA.  The fact is, EA has been taken to court by employees in the past for being forced to work unpaid overtime and other unsatisfactory work conditions.  EA of course has tried to strike this from the record by having its employees delete the stories from sites like Wikipedia, but all that does it make people like me mention it even more frequently.  On to today’s new though…so EA is buying up all their third party developers, and supposedly fostering them with bags of money and all the time they need to make a game right?  Wrong.  They’re buying up these people, and then dumping them on the street.

Restructuring, layoffs forthcoming at EA, Mythic Studios

Owing to sagging profits and and a less-than-firm grip on their once invulnerable spot at top of the third party heap, Electronic Arts is looking to make some changes in their corporate structure, starting with Mythic and their Redwood Shores studio. An internal email from a trustworthy source who wishes to remain anonymous reveals that John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, has tasked every studio and company within the monolithic publisher with getting their rising costs in line with revenue, which in plain English means layoffs.

The email from Mythic VP Rob Denton was sent to all employees of Mythic and details some of the plans to reduce costs by cutting jobs as well as some actions already taken. Headcount will be managed through “attrition, performance management, stricter hiring guidelines and layoffs”. Over the next two months, the Ultima Online team will be moving from EA Redwood Shores to Mythic’s Fairfax, VA studio to streamline operations. Meanwhile, a number of employees at both studios have already been let go as of earlier today, with more to follow as EA tightens its belt in the coming months.

While this is the first we’ve heard directly of the layoffs, increasing efficiency and lowering costs in the face of falling profit margins and flat revenue can’t be achieved by just two of over 20 studios. While we were asked not to print the email in its entirety, one direct quote from the email we can show you is the following:

“Given this, John Riccitiello, our CEO, has tasked the company to get its costs in line with revenues … Every studio, group and division of the company has been tasked to review its overall headcount and adjust its organization to meet the needs of the business moving forward.”

Such an order coming from the top likely means some far-reaching consequences within the company.

The only good thing is that maybe EA is done buying up developers for the time being, but the bad news is that we have to watch them kill off development teams one by one in their downward spiral of debt since it seems more and more people are sick of being ripped off by purchasing average and below-average EA-developed games.

They have arrived.

Xbox 360 Tops Console Sales in September and outsells PS3 5:1

As the holiday season heats up, September 2007 is sure to go down in history as one for the record books. The launch of one of the greatest properties in entertainment history, “Halo 3” (Microsoft Game Studios), was largely responsible for driving the biggest month in US video game history with consumer spending on games reaching an all time high for 2007.

Hardware Sales
PlayStation 2 215K
PlayStation 3 119.4K (weekly sales decline of 27%)
PlayStation Portable 284.5K
Xbox 360 527.8K
Wii 501K
Nintendo DS 495.8K
Game Boy Advance 75K

Software Sales
1. 360 HALO 3 MICROSOFT (CORP) 3.3 million
2. WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA 282K
3. NDS LEGEND OF ZELDA: PHANTOM HOURGLASS NINTENDO OF AMERICA 224K 4. PS2 MADDEN NFL 08 ELECTRONIC ARTS 205K
5. 360 SKATE ELECTRONIC ARTS 175K
6. 360 MADDEN NFL 08 ELECTRONIC ARTS 173K
(360’s Madden launched last month with 800,000+, an all-time record)
7. WII METROID PRIME 3: CORRUPTION NINTENDO OF AMERICA 167K
8. 360 BIOSHOCK TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) 150K
9. NDS BRAIN AGE 2: MORE TRAINING IN MINUTES A NINTENDO OF AMERICA 141K
10. PS3 HEAVENLY SWORD SONY (CORP) 139K

As you can see, Sony is in last and second last place, just barely beating out the ancient Game Boy Advance.  Then, PS3’s big game for the year barely makes the top ten list, still being beat out by months old games.  It’s clear to see why Sony is so desperate right now, I don’t think any of us know how truly afraid they must be right now.  These numbers tell the whole story, and this story is not going to have a good ending for Sony.

It was just announced a short while ago that Electronic Arts is purchasing BioWare and Pandemic, two major game developers in the gaming industry, an industry that will be run into the ground by corporations like Electronic Arts. 

The acquisition will cost EA about $775 million, which includes a $650 million cash payment to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp., which directly owns the two developers, and an additional $155 million in equity to select VG employees.

VG Holding is owned by Elevation Partners, which invested $300 million in BioWare and Pandemic in November 2005, creating one of the world’s best-funded and largest independent game development houses.

Elevation Partners (which includes U2 front-man Bono) was formerly headed by John Riccitello, who left EA in 2004 to form the company. Riccitello re-joined EA as chief operating officer in April.

What is the deal with all these current and former EA employees jumping around from place to place?  Why is one of the former CEOs of EA now running the Xbox division at Microsoft?  With all the amazing games coming out this year and next, it’s hard to have a bad view of the industry, but when you see one corporations continually purchase any and all developers, especially those that rival it, the future of the industry begins to look a lot less customer friendly.  It is not a good thing when one company buys up all its competition and is the only player in the game, just look at what Comcast has done to cable TV and Internet prices.

Here is just a small cross-section of EA activities in just the past two years.

12/8/05: EA Buys Jamdat for $680 million

12/20/04: EA Buys Big Chunk of Ubisoft
“Pending further information, we consider this operation as hostile,” an Ubisoft spokesman told Reuters agency.

“We think this operation is aimed at securing the studios of Ubisoft that are ready to face the next generation of gaming consoles,” he added.

6/21/06: EA Buys Mythic
10/03/06: EA Buys Digital Illusions, creator of Battlefield
8/24/06: Phenomic Games Purchased by EA
9/6/06: EA licenses Unreal Engine 3 and Buys Criterion (creator of Burnout) for $48 million
12/13/04: EA Buys NFL License Exclusivity

“This is a dark day for gamers, one that firmly shows corporate might has completely stifled any and all creativity in their industry. Football fans, you have only one option. Buy
Madden? No, it’s NOT to buy Madden. Show EA what they have done is wrong. It’s about all
we have left to do.” - Matt Paprocki

1/18/05: EA Signs 15-year Exclusivity Deal with ESPN.

8/8/07: More EA at MS & Ubisoft

8/15/07: More Deception from EA & EA’s Wikipedia Corruption Exposed

There’s even more, which I talked about in my article about Electronic Arts last December, but as you can see, this is not the first time EA has spent nearly a billion dollars on buying up companies or licenses, it’s not even the second or third time.  I personally have not purchased an EA game in nearly ten years now due to their actions, but obviously calling for a boycott of this company, which many have done, does not work since the gaming industry is so large now and is mainly aimed at the casual gamer crowd, who has no idea any of this is going on. 

EA employees were also caught earlier this year deleting negative things about the company from their Wikipedia entry.  BioWare owns the Mass Effect license as well (which means EA now owns it), so the planned exclusive trilogy for the Xbox 360 is most likely down the drain.  I don’t really know what to say anymore when it comes to EA, all the facts are right there for you to see…it’s a sad day for gaming.

(Thanks to Bluetane for the heads-up on this story, he was also the first one to alert me back in August in the article above.)

Also, EA announced today that if you want to purchase Rock Band this fall, you will have to buy every single instrument with it (for a bundle price of $170+), as they will be offering no other option.  They also hinted that since Rock Band’s songs require a lot more work, due to being optimized for multiple instruments, that downloadable song pricing is going to be very unpleasant.  I’d be more upset about this, but really, anybody purchasing an EA game these days deserves to be ripped off.

 
In a new interview, Splinter Cell’s Producer and Technical Director drives the PS3’s technical abilities further into the ground by admitting that the PS3 cannot handle the kind of complex A.I. (artificial intelligence) that the Xbox 360 is capable of, a sentiment we have heard for well over a year now from a number of developers.

From Gameplayer.com’s interview - Page 3

While telling a mostly linear story, each level will be broken down into discrete chunks that are designed to take only around 15 minutes to play through. Each will be a distinct task, like infiltrating a building, or getting out again. This is great news for any gamer with loads of commitments in their lives: study, family, etc. “People who play just a little are still going to see progress.”

The main story will clock in at around 15 hours, yet there are so many ways to approach each challenge the replay value is essentially unlimited. Ubisoft calls this design approach ‘Scripted Problems, Unscripted Solutions.’ Our hosts played through each of the levels they showed us several different ways to demonstrate, and it was uncanny; each go felt like a completely different game. “After playing it hundreds of times, we’re still finding new things.”

So, Conviction is confirmed for PC and Xbox 360. But what about the other consoles? Double Agent was a 360 exclusive for a whole week. On this issue, Danny could give us a firm answer. “It’s NEVER gonna come out on the PS3 or the Wii.” It’s a logical decision. Nintendo’s console simply doesn’t have the graphical horsepower, and he candidly told us how the PS3 can’t handle AI nearly as well as the 360.

(Thanks to DavidGX for the story.)

Related News: 9.29.06 - Assassin’s Creed - Superior on Xbox 360

“At the tail end of IGN’s interview with Jade Raymond, producer of Assassin’s Creed at Ubisoft Montreal, she let it slip that the Xbox 360’s hardware’s superior threading will allow for better AI of NPC than will be found in the PS3 version.”

More recently, IGN reviewed the PS3 version of Madden 08 and had this to say when comparing it to the Xbox 360:

“Madden NFL 08 on PS3 is not a great game. It is a shadow of its cousin on 360. Though the feature set is identical, the drop to an unstable 30fps hurts considerably. The visuals and the gameplay suffer. If you are a real Madden nut and think you can fight through the framerate issues, Madden is an overall good game. It just doesn’t run very well. If you only own a PS3 and live for Sundays, then there really is no other choice than to give Madden 08 a shot.”

(Thanks to The Beta Max for the story.)

I’ve been a member over at CheapAssGamer.com now for over four years, from the very beginning of the site.  Since May 2006, a member by the name of Speedy1961 has given the forums over there a treat by posting all the Sunday ads early for everyone to see, he does it for every store, and usually has them a week or two in advance.  Lately, he broke the news of the PS3 price-drop (reported here) and also the Microsoft Points deal, resulting in many people saving hundreds of dollars, myself included.  Due to this site, and this member, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars at Circuit City that I never would have otherwise, but now after today, I may have to begin a boycott of the store.

From Kotaku.com -

The latest CAGcast brings word that electronics retailer Circuit City has served CAG Productions with a subpoena. CAG Productions is responsible for popular video game shopping community CheapAssGamer.com, which has 100,000 registered members. The retail giant wants CAG to turn over all personal information about registered forum member Speedy1961, who has been posting weekly CC ads prior to their release on the site. Speedy has also posted them on DVDtalk.com, and that site appears to have received legal action as well. The subpoena mentions one CheapAssGamer thread in particular, which prior to E3, revealed that the PS3 would get a price drop. That same thread also included pricing for games at Circuit City as well as game prices at Target and Best Buy. From the thread:

* GAMERS / MOVIE AFFICIANADOS: Please note $100 Price Break on Playstation 3 Game System which brings the price down to $499.99 // Remember that you can get 5 free Blu-Ray DVDs with purchase of any Blu-Ray Player / Game system by going here: http://www.bluraysavings.com/

This was wedged in between details about the Wii and other details. As mentioned above, information about Best Buy and Target was also noted. CAG Productions CEO David Abrams (AKA “CheapyD”) has hired a lawyer. “The CAG community’s trust and respect is very important to me, so I’ve hired legal representation to deal with the situation,” Abrams tells Kotaku.

Remember, you can price-match any sale Circuit City is having over at Best Buy 110%.  Like I said in my story about the PS3 price-drop, Sony and Circuit City are very good friends, and it is very likely that Sony is all over Circuit City about how their price-drop got leaked early and took the bang out of their E3.  I think that is the reason that the subpoena focuses on the PS3 price-drop, and not the hundreds of others of deals he has exposed early over the past year and a half.

You can also send a message to Circuit City HERE and let them know that this kind of bullying tactic against a site that has helped their sales over the years is not appreciated, and that you will think twice about shopping at their store from now on due to this behavior.

More details here in the CAG forums and the Boycott Circuit City Thread.

Via Microsoft’s PR Blog -

Today, we’re announcing the appointment of John Schappert to Don Mattrick’s management team, as Corporate VP of LIVE, software and services.  In this new role, John will oversee all platform technologies and businesses, including console software, Xbox LIVE and Games for Windows—LIVE, XNA, and our efforts with simple, approachable pick up and play games.

As you might know, John comes to us from EA, where he’s been pretty busy, with things like managing EA’s worldwide portfolio of 13 studios, releasing over 100 SKUs (including leading dev and production for Madden NFL, Need for Speed and Fight Night), and managing almost 5,000 full-time employees. 

More information is available in the press release we just sent out. 

This is what I was afraid of when Don Mattrick was named the new leader of the Entertainment division at Microsoft.  Now he’s putting all his old friends from EA in-charge of everything over at Microsoft’s Xbox division.  Yeah, let’s not promote from within the company, let’s bring in people because you know them from before.  This new guy, John Schappert, is a senior VP and Chief Operating Officer over at EA, and has been up until now, so don’t think he is somehow removed from EA’s (even more) rampant greed and corruption over the past couple years.  Don Mattrick on the other hand had been gone from EA for a while.  I don’t understand why the Xbox division is allowing itself to be over-run by EA, one of the main cancers to the gaming industry, but if they allow these guys to begin running the Xbox brand, and Xbox Live, the way they ran things over at EA, then Microsoft might as well just accept 3rd place in the console race from now on.  No one is going to accept EA’s ways when it comes to an over-arching console/online plan, the segment of the industry they control is big enough as it is.

In related news, EA has continued their assault on one of their biggest rivals, Ubisoft.  Of course they are not assaulting them by delivering quality games to compete with, they’re simply going to use money to get their way, as usual.

IGN.com - EA Tightens Hold on Ubisoft

August 8, 2007 - Electronic Arts has raised its holding of voting shares in Ubisoft to nearly 25 percent, according to reports from French stock market regulator AMF.
First reported on Forbes.com Wednesday morning, the increase gives EA 24.86 percent of Ubisoft’s voting shares.

Calls and emails to EA and Ubisoft requesting comment about the development were not returned Wednesday, and it was unclear if Ubisoft’s founders or other shareholders saw a similar increase in voting shares.

Last year, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemote admitted that if EA is committed to acquiring Ubisoft, the French publisher would have little recourse. “We are not safe from a hostile action from Electronic Arts,” he said.

- UNSCleric.com: 12.18.06:  Electronic Arts May Buy Ubisoft

You would hope that someone would stand up to EA one of these days, but it seems everybody is content in just letting them seep into their companies.  (Thanks to Bluetane for the IGN story.)

In other news, a demo for Stranglehold is now available.  This week’s Arcade title Track and Field is online as well.