The Stupid Gamer

Here’s the (shocking) sales figures for the past week from our Eastern pals. Enjoy!

Hardware:
DS Lite 127,647
Wii 86,395
PSP 37,032
PS3 21,105
PS2 20,169
Xbox 360 7,041
GBM 1,864
GBA SP 1,498
GCN 554
DS 123
GBA 94

Software top sellers stats by number of titles:

Top 30:
NDS - 18
Wii - 5
PS2 - 4
PSP - 2
360 - 1

Top 50:
NDS - 29
PS2 - 8
Wii - 7
PSP - 4
GBA - 1
360 - 1

And here’s a chart shamelessly stolen from GAF that gives us a great look at where sales stand at the moment in Japan:

There’s this Miss Video Game competition going on and female gamers from all over are campaigning to earn votes. I only know one of the contestants personally, however, but I do know that she’d make a great winner. Yvonna works as a contributor to Advanced Media Network, but she’s extremely involved in the gaming industry and she actually plays games because she loves them–not for a paycheck or to boost her popularity. She doesn’t have the support of a WoW guild, and she hasn’t contacted Xbox Live clans to score votes; so she’s going to need some help.
You can view her page here: Yvonna Lynn

Thanks to NeoGAF, I have last week’s Japanese hardware sales numbers. I haven’t posted these in a while, but I want to get back to it. So, here they are:

DS Lite: 110,000
Nintendo Wii: 96,000
PSP: 45,000
PlayStation 3: 34,000
PlayStation 2: 24,000
Xbox 360: 9,000

Nintendo had a huge week, and word out of Japan is that it’s still extremely hard to find DS Lites and Wiis on the shelf. Hopefully Nintendo can eventually catch up to demand, it would be interesting to see how many units they could move in a week when stock was healthy.

I’ve been running around since the Wii launch looking for a Wii to buy for one of my friends. I got my own the night before launch, but it’s been a royal pain trying to get a second system. I’ve been hitting stores on a constant basis and asking nearly every sales clerk in the state of Utah if they have any Wiis and when they think they’d be getting more. The answer is almost always the same: “We had some this morning, but they sold out in about 10 minutes. People were waiting when we opened.”

What’s going on? Why can’t Nintendo get more of these things out on the shelves? I know that demand is insanely high, and I understand that they’re selling units worldwide, but this system is pretty much a souped up GameCube. They should be able to be pumping these things out in massive numbers. Heck, maybe they are, but I’m sitting here tearing my hair out trying to get a hold of one. I can’t imagine how those that don’t have one yet must feel.

On the other side of things, I tend to find PS3s everywhere I go. Either Sony is replenishing supplies at a furious pace, or the $600 tag is scaring people away for the time being. I’m guessing it’s more of the latter. With Resistance being the one game that everybody seems to have interest in playing, Sony needs more heavy hitters to move the system. Sure, the inclusion of Blu-Ray is cool, but not everybody is interested in a hi-def movie player at this point.

Anyway, here’s what I ran into at Target today, and pretty much every other day and in every other store:

PlayStation 3 Section:

Wii Section:

I can’t report on specifics now, but I’ve learned that a high-profile PlayStation 3 game has run into trouble in development. The game was once scheduled to be a major release for the PS3, but has been transformed into a mere 4 level download title to be sold over the PlayStation Network; similar to what happened with Gran Turismo HD except that you’ll have to pay.

Word is that SCEA is unhappy with the amount of money being spent on development of the title and the developer itself is pretty unhappy with SCEA. In the near future I’ll be able to reveal the title of the game, but for now just know that some title for the PS3 is about to become much less than it was originally intended to become.

In my opinion, this is a sign that the rocky start the PS3 has seen so far is going to be extended. If 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party developers are struggling to get titles out the door at a satisfactory level of quality, you really have to question how difficult developing for the PS3 can be. It’s too early to pass any verdict on the PlayStation 3, but I see shades of N64 all over the console at this point.

We’ll see if developers are willing to do what it takes to get their software up and running well on the PS3 or if they’ll be more likely to jump ship to the 360 and embrace the developer-friendly offering from Microsoft. Who knows, there may be a huge shift in the console landscape over the next few years if Sony can’t get things turned around soon.

I posted my review of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on drive over at AMN Tek, but I left out some of the technical mumbo jumbo. The review can be found here: AMN Tek

Anyway, for those that a few more specific doubts about performance, I’ll say a bit more here. From testing on similar setups, I can safely say that the 360 HD-DVD drive performs just as well as Toshiba’s A1 drive which is priced at $500. The drive can’t output at 1080p through component cables, but you can through a VGA connection. The problem is, however, is that most HDTVs accept DVI, component, and/or HDMI for their HD inputs. The 1080i resoultion is fine for movies, however, so don’t get caught up on the lack of 1080p support.

As far as sound quality goes, it is about the same as you’ll get with a decent DVD player. Unfortunately the drive doesn’t support any next-generation sound like Dolby’s TrueHD, because the Xbox 360 itself only supports up to Dolby DTS through an optical out cable. Still, the sound quality is excellent, but you don’t get the extra clarity of lossless audio.

The drive will push out visuals as nice as your TV will display them, so prepare to be amazed if you decide to pick one of these drives up. I still don’t know if HD-DVD is going to survive this silly format war with Blu-Ray, but for $199.99 I’m happy to enjoy it for however long it lives.

I wasn’t able to get down to CES this year, despite having a press invitation pass. Instead, I was in New York City and monitoring the CES news online and in the papers. I did, however, enjoy the offerings of the show and the implications that all of the new tech products have for the gaming industry. Panasonic and Samsung both had impressive showings for their upcoming lineups of TVs, but what I’m really excited about is Mitsubishi’s laser DLP sets coming later this year. It seems like Mitsubishi is always ready to step up and take the first jump in the TV market, and I’ll probably be happy to send some of my money their way when their new sets release.

The Apple iPhone is pretty awesome looking, but the $600 price tag and a Cingular exclusivity agreement have me bummed out. With the dual touch interface, I think the iPhone could definitely have some cool games and applications in the works.

Microsoft’s IPTV for the 360 was pretty cool, but I don’t know that it’s completely worth the money in the end. I’m sure those that buy into the service will be pleased, but only with a much larger hard drive solution.

Of all of the products shown, I still get most worked up about the TVs. There were cool gadgets all around, but the next-gen consoles really really on a killer TV set to be able to realize their fullest potential. I’ve been enjoying my HD-DVD drive (more on that in the next day or two), and I’d love to see what it looked like on a top of the line set.

Next year I doubt I’ll be pulled away for business like I was this year, so hopefully I can be down on the CES floor drooling over prototypes and soon to be released tech products. Until then, I’ll be keeping my eyes out for those laser DLP sets coming out this year.