The Full Circle 360 News Report 12.14.07

Posted by Mike Minotti on 12.14.2007

NPD sales numbers are in! Which of the three home consoles sold the most in November? It was the Wii! What? No, I don't understand the concept of a "teaser" very well.



NPDs, NPDs! I love the NPDs! Nothing brings me more joy than looking at these numbers every month. All of the fanboy bitching and moaning in the world means nothing when you're looking at the cold, hard numbers. Luckily, November's NPDs just came in. I'll cover it in detail in the news post, but let's just say that sales, in general, were high.

Oh, everyone who yells at me for not liking Halo enough will be glad to hear that I played some co-op with my brother today. He wanted me to play one level with him. What he didn't tell me was that the level was over an hour long. I got 50 achievement points out of it, at least.

That's almost one point per minute! Not quite as satisfying as getting 1000 points in that Avatar: The Last Air Bender game in only five minutes.

Hmmm, is Air Bender one or two words?



The Barrel is still Exploding strongly, my friends. AJ and myself have begun our countdown to our favorite games of the year. This week we reveal our #4 picks. Plus we have more news and commentary on the now dying down GameSpot drama. Fun stuff, I assure you.






News

NPDs! 1st is the worst, 2nd is the best…



November was expected to be a big month in sales, thanks to a bunch of new releases (the start of the holiday season helped, too). Here are the console numbers for November:

• PlayStation 2: 496,000
• PlayStation 3: 466,000
• PlayStation Portable: 567,000
• Xbox 360: 770,000
• Wii: 981,000
• Nintendo DS: 1,530,000

The positions are pretty much unchanged. Everyone just saw a big increase in sales. The 360 sold 366,000 units in October. December is expected to be an even bigger month, so maybe we'll see the 360 pass the 1 million mark there.

Let's take a look at the software sales:

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360): 1,570,000
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii): 120,000
3. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360): 980,000
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2): 967,000
5. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii): 564,000
6. Mass Effect (Xbox 360): 473,000
7. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PlayStation 3): 444,000
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii): 426,000
9. Halo 3 (Xbox 360): 387,000
10. Assassin's Creed (PlayStation 3): 377,000

Thanks to Call of Duty 4, the month's best selling game was on the 360. Call of Duty has become a pretty big blockbuster series, and CoD4 was an incredibly critically praised game. Both of those factors led to the high sales.

Assassin's Creed also sold phenomenally. Ubisoft is pleased, to say the least. They raised there quarterly earnings forecast, and have declared Assassin's Creed to be the fastest selling new IP ever. I guess this means we'll be seeing AC2 sooner rather than later.

Mass Effect also broke the top ten, which is great news. The game was marketed well and received warmly by critics, but some feared that the game's rather hardcore play style would not translate to good sales. Happily, the skeptics are wrong.

You know what's kind of weird? The 360 version of Guitar Hero 3 isn't on the top ten, but the PS2 and Wii versions are. Well, I guess that's not too weird, considering that the PS2 and the Wii have larger install bases than the 360, but I would have thought that a game like GH3 would have sold better on the 360 than on the Wii. Guess I was wrong. Looks like the casual market who eats the Wii up loves them their Guitar Hero.

Rock Band is also absent from the top ten. I'm sure the game's large price tag is to blame, but I am a bit disappointed. Hopefully holiday shoppers will help bring it to the top ten list in December.

Community Arcade is coming.



You know the XNA Game Studio? Basically it's giving streamline game making tools to independent game makers. As great as that is, we're still waiting for the part where we get to play these games.

Well, the plan is to release a Community Arcade, where game creators will be able to self publish there work, and others can download. Don't expect this feature anytime soon (we're not even sure if it will make in time for 2008), but an announcement regarding XNA and the Community Arcade is expected at the Game Developer's Conference in February.

Sensible World of Soccer coming next Wednesday.



That would be December 18. This will be a new version of the popular Sensible Soccer series. I use the word popular loosely, since I know next to nothing about this series. Still, I'm sure it has its fans. I must admit, I do like the name.

Weekly Releases

MX vs. MTV Untamed – 12/17
Oh god, they're not even taming them this time! God have mercy on our souls.

… wait, that's it? Jeez, maybe I should have put a real description for that game instead of just a throw-a-way joke.

Weekly Poll

There used to be a poll. Does anyone miss the poll? I kind of miss it. Well, it's kind of less work for me, but stil…

Weekly Trailer

Here's some gameplay footage for the Burnout Paradise demo that will be coming out soon.



Target Topic: Sales

You know, the NPDs have been kind of predictable lately. Wii in first, 360 in second, PS3 bringing up the rear. Oh sure, there was that one month when Halo 3 brought the 360 to the top momentarily, but so far this console war has been all Nintendo.

But is that really a bad thing for Microsoft? Not really. First place, console war… those are all arbitrary things. On its own merits, the 360 has proven itself to be a fine console. The consumer would seem to agree. The 360 continues to outsell the PS3, the system that the 360 is most like.

That's the interesting battle here; 360 vs. PS3. Look, it looks like the Wii may already have first place in the bag. Yeah, I know it's early, but I still feel like it's a safe prediction. I know, a lot of you think that the Wii is fad and people will get tired of it soon. I'm not so sure. I mean, just look at the software sales for November. Wii Play was the 5th best selling game for the month of November. Freaking Wii Play! A game that came out in February, for Christ's sake! A game that was reviewed poorly by just about every major gaming journalism outlet. It lasted them a whole year! All they need to do is keep bringing stuff out like that, and it will always sell millions. And that's exactly what they're doing. Wii Fit will be huge. Wii Music will be huge. They're building a brand here, and it's going to be pretty dominant in the gaming scene for awhile.

Alright, so back 360 vs. PS3. The big question is if the PS3 will be able to beat the 360. I don't know. Despite its most recent price, it was 300,000 units shy of the 360 in November sales. And while Microsoft's new IP, Mass Effect, thrived, Uncharted didn't make fare as well sales wise.

Will Metal Gear and Final Fantasy be enough to push the PS3 ahead? I think it's important to remember that both of those series may not be as strong sales pushers as they once were. MGS3 was a sales disappointment, and Final Fantasy games are hit and miss when it comes to pulling in huge, huge sales numbers. Now, these new installments are getting more hype than MGS3 and FFXII then, so they may have a pretty big impact on sales. But as big an impact as Halo 3 had for the 360? I doubt it.

What I'm trying to say is that I expect sales to stay like for the remainder of the generation. The Wii will usually be in first, the 360 in second, and the PS3 in third. Something dramatic is going to have to happen to change that.

The Other Guys

Nintendophiles' Theo Fraser has info on Burnout for the Wii, No More Heroes, and gifting Virtual Console games.

The SIXAXIS' Mark Salmela is doing his Game of the Year thing, nominating games and what-not. I find it funny that he would nominate Halo 3 while I, the Microsoft guy, would not.

Game Over

I wonder what the Insensible World of Soccer would be like.