It’s official. The PlayStation 3 has outsold the Xbox 360 in lifetime sales, surpassing it for the first time over this past 2012 holiday season. PS3 @ 77 million woldwide sales, Xbox 360 76 million woldwide sales.
Those are worldwide sales however, and the lead is only slight, whereas the Xbox 360 is largely perceived to have WON the current-generation console war, with a huge sales lead in North America that the PS3 has never been able to catch (of course, the Xbox 360 was released in 2005, getting a year jump start on Sony’s competing console).
Typically the sales leader in North America is considered to be the console to win the war, as the United States is the most important and biggest territory in terms of sales and audience in the Western world. So the console that wins America, is often declared the winner of the war.
This new sales data was revealed in a new report by IDC on the videogame industry (Worldwide Video Game and Entertainment Console Hardware and Packaged Software 2012-2016), as reported by Game Informer.
Minecraft Xbox 360 screenshot… CREATE… ANYTHING! Now the best-selling XBLA game EVER!
Minecraft for Xbox 360 Live Arcade sold 400,000 units to become the best-selling XBLA game of all time, dethroning Trials: Evolution for that title!
This is a huge feat for developer Notch and the Minecraft-brand, and continuing proof that the Indie-darling is a license to print money, and that the game will blow away sales expectations for whatever platform it lands on.
Developer Mojang and creator Markus Persson tweeted the news, saying:
“Well then. Saw the official sales numbers for the first 24 hours of Minecraft Xbox 360, and it’s very, very good. Profitable in an hour.”
Dark Souls Wallpaper as the game sales pass 1.19 million!
Dark Souls has sold 1.19 million copies, helping push Namco to their best fiscal year in sales since 2008! The Japanese publisher’s portfolio was led by From Software’s Dark Souls, the popular sequel to the hit RPG Demon’s Souls, but had a number of other hits as well.
Here is the Dark Souls launch trailer.
Among Namco Bandai’s best-selling titles were Ace Combat: Assault Horizon which sold an astounding 1.7 million copies, and was a reboot of the series following 2006′s Xbox 360-exclusive Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (which only sold 700,000 copies worldwide). Selling nearly a million copies were the following titles: One Piece: Pirate Warriors (940,000 copies sold), Tales of Xillia (770,000 sold, Japan only. Not out in the West yet), Soulcalibur V (690,000 sold) and Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi (700,000 copies sold).
Those numbers for Soulcalibur V must have been a bit disappointing, as Soulcalibur has always been a huge series for Namco Bandai, to have it beaten out by the latest Japanese RPG in the Tales series seems like it’d be embarrassing.
Here is the Soulcalibur V launch trailer.
All in all, the fiscal year ended with Namco Bandai earning $5.7 billion in revenue, that’s ¥454.2 billion, which is their best since March of 2008 and up 15%. Net profits were $241.8 million (¥19.3 billion) which is also their best performance in four years and 10 times what they earned last year. Dark Souls obviously, was a huge contributor to that haul.
Namco Bandai anticipates a more difficult fiscal year ahead, as the publisher doesn’t have as many heavy hitters in its lineup, although it does have some. They include the sci-fi FPS Inversion, the Fighting game Tekken Tag Tournament 2, a Dragon Ball Z Kinect title for Xbox 360, the international release of One Piece: Pirate Warriors and a PC version of Dark Souls.
Portal 2 has sold in excess of 4 million copies announced Valve, the premier developer and publisher of the Steam Platform and hit games ranging from Half-Life to Left 4 Dead. This statement was made in an interview by NeoGamr by Valve’s David Sawyer.
This does not make Portal 2 a huge success over the original Portal though, as Portal 1 also sold 4 million copies. Although this does mean that Portal 2, and the Portal franchise as a whole, are EXTREMELY successful.
Four Million units in sales is nothing to scoff at in any sense of the phrase. What’s even more amazing is to consider that these sales numbers do NOT include Steam sales… which means the real numbers are likely double that!
The newest Portal 2 DLC, the Perpetual Testing Initiative level editor Downloadable Content, is now available, giving fans more of what they love!
This new content allows players to create, share and download Portal 2 levels! Greatly expanding the replayability of the game, and allowing players to publish their devious creations to the Steam Workshop, where other fans can browse, vote on and download new fanmade levels for them to try out!
Here’s a funny Portal 2: Perpetual Testing Initiative trailer.
…. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City kicked ass and took names with 1.7 million copies sold, 25th best ever for Capcom.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City sales are in, and it sold more than Street Fighter X Tekken. Selling a higher amount than the anticipated fighter is quite the feat for the Resident Evil series as a whole and this third-person shooter spinoff by Slant Six Games in particular.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was slammed by critics and the game received largely negative review scores across the board due to a myriad of reasons. Claiming poor design, bad AI, glitches and boring environments among others. IGN called Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City “little more than a poor-man’s SOCOM and a destitute man’s Resident Evil”, and some reviewers went as far as to say that the game has badly hurt the Resident Evil brandname as a whole… Although that’s some kind of stretch considering that Operation Raccoon City is a spinoff and not part of the core Resident Evil series.
Despite all this, sales of the game were extremely promising, as Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was released on March 20th and has sold 1.4 million copies as of March 31st, on only two platforms (Xbox 360 and PS3).
…The awesome box art for Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City featuring the badass evil Bioweapon from Resident Evil 2!
This makes Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Capcom’s 25th best-selling title of all time! So despite the critics (the game has a 52 out of 100 Metacritic score) and the bad reviews, the game seems to be popular and has seen solid sales that make a sequel likely, and may redeem the Western-developed game in the eyes of its Japanese publisher despite the harsh reviews. And let’s face it, if they make another one, they’ll likely fix all of the problems that hurt the debut entry.
Here’s the Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City launch trailer.
Although hopefully Slant Six will work to patch up a lot of these issues in the near future, given that it is an important online third-person shooter for Capcom.
Sales of Capcom’s other AAA, big-name title of mid-2012, Street Fighter X Tekken, were lower than Capcom had hoped, but still not too shabby. The highly anticipated Street Fighter X Tekken crossover Fighting game sold 1.4 million copies since it’s release on Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 6th, 2012. I wonder if releasing both heavy hitters in the same month hurt sales some?
….Here’s the awesome boxart for Street Fighter X Tekken, featuring Ryu & Chun-Li of Street Fighter vs Nina and Kazuya of Tekken!
Unlike Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Street Fighter X Tekken was universally praised by critics and has a 84 out of 100 Metacritic score. However Capcom had banked on the game selling 2 million units, so in some ways it is a disappointment. Of course, the game garnered lots of negative press when it was discovered that the game disc contained content that Capcom intended to charge players to access as “Downloadable Content”. And this controversy may have hurt sales of the game (although I find that unlikely).
Here’s the Street Fighter X Tekken launch trailer.
Speaking of Resident Evil: Raccoon City’s low review scores, the developer told GameSpot, “It’s challenging,” said studio producer Mike Kerr. “A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into the game and obviously we’d like to see the review scores be a little better than they are right now.”
Concept art for the iconic Licker enemy, reborn in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.
Capcom announced that net sales have dropped 16% year over year for the publisher, down to $1.02 billion (¥82.06 billion yen) with operating income (profit) dipping to $154.1 million (¥12.32 billion). Although they expect a much bigger year by the end of 2012 thanks to big-name titles like Resident Evil 6 and investments in “high growth potential content”.
My brother’s favorite Tekken character, Ogre, bringing the pain in Street Fighter x Tekken.
Resident Evil 6 will be released this October 2nd 2012. We’ll learn much more about what other games Capcom has in store this year and in the future at E3 2012, taking place from (June 5–7).
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200 Dollars! Poor Nintendo, they’ll rebound though.
As Nintendo’s year-old 3DS portable sells more systems than the original DS during its first year, Nintendo has reported the companys first annual loss of ALL TIME.
It’s hard to believe, but Nintendo is one of the most financially secure company’s in the world, and has carefully manipulated and strategically played the market to maximize profits. In fact Nintendo is the only company that makes sure that it sells each system it releases for more than it cost the company to make the system, which has caused Nintendo to make bucketloads of cash (more like islands worth :P).
That trend was broken with the Nintendo 3DS however after it had an extremely rocky start, causing Nintendo to slash the price of the system from it’s high of $250 at launch to a mind-boggling $180 only months later.
However the 3DS has picked up substantially since the holiday of last year in terms of sales and interst, and the 3DS system is on track to have a MUCH better performance than it’s predecessor, the original DS… and that’s saying something as the DS is one of the best-selling systems of all time life-to-date.
The 3DS so far has sold over 5 million units (the original DS sold only 2.3 million) in its first year and has sold 9 million videogame copies with over 100 titles available (compared to 5 million with the DS from 58 titles). And that’s not even counting the over 500 games available for the digital Nintendo eShop… whereas the DS launched with no digital store available! The average 3DS consumer has downloaded at least 5 titles… Last but not least, the 3DS has generated over $1.2 billion dollars in revenue already, whereas the DS had generated only $540 million in the same amount of time! QUITE THE DIFFERENCE!
As for Nintendo’s first ever yearly loss, the company saw a 36% drop in hardware and software sales year-over-year, with a 36% drop in revenue. That equaled up to a loss of $458 million (¥37.3 billion in Yen, the Japanese currency) in sales…
Thankfully the Wii U will be launching this year to replace the Wii and usher in the next-generation! Nintendo will be the first manufacturer with two next-gen systems on the market (the 3DS and the Wii U) and that should help spur sales and interest in Nintendo products immensely, especially given that the next Xbox and next PlayStation systems are not likely to hit until 2013 at the earliest. As such, Nintendo expects that they will turn a profit by this September 2012, leading a return to profit for next year. And believe-you-me, this has been a harsh lesson for Nintendo who is unlikely to put themselves in the same position ever again, as having to announce their first ever annual loss must have been a very bitter pill to swallow for a very proud Japanese company who was on top of the world with sales at the height of the Wii’s success. Seeing the Wii fall so low will only improve how the company does business in the future.
Game-wise, Nintendo expects for sales to be improved thanks to the likes of New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS this August, Animal Crossing 3DS this Fall, a new Brain Training game this Summer, strong and extended Nintendo Network programming and digital releases, upcoming DLC for their games and the release of their next console, the Wii U.
Here is a video analyzing what we know of New Super Mario Bros. 2 for 3DS.
