The stories for this week:
- Final Fantasy XIII Releasing in America and Europe March 9th, 2010
- Gamestop to Begin Selling DLC in Stores
- Modern Warfare 2 is Burning the Benjamins
- October NPD Numbers Out, Some Good and Bad News
- Assassin's Creed II, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Left 4 Dead 2 Highlight Last Major Release Week
Final Fantasy XIII Releasing in America and Europe March 9th, 2010
Big news for those of us that have been waiting. Final Fantasy XIII will release in both North America and Europe on March 9, 2010. The game will be released on both PS3 and 360 and it is believed the 360 will have multiple discs. I don’t know which version to pick up, probably the PS3 one just for the one disc. I’m pumped for this game, it’s been a while since the last one.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Gamestop to Begin Selling DLC in Stores
Gamestop is deciding that they can’t let the digital download revolution pass them by, so they will begin a pilot project where you can purchase DLC at stores and it will cue up on your system for download when you get home. There’s been no info given out of exactly how they’re going to get these connected to your system or anything. They plan to roll out the pilot project in the first three months of 2010 at various stores. Should be interesting to watch.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Modern Warfare 2 is Burning the Benjamins
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold through almost 5 million copies in its first day. In total, Activision prices sales at $310 million over the various editions available. This makes it the biggest selling game in 24 hours of all time, overtaking Halo 3. Of course it helps when you are on multiple consoles versus a single one. This game will certainly help Activision’s bottom line…unlike other ones.
Source: Colony of Gamers
October NPD Numbers Out, Some Good and Bad News
October NPD numbers came out late Thursday. The good news is that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves sold over half a million copies. The ever popular Borderlands also sold over half a million combined on the three versions available at retail (these do not include Steam numbers for instance). The 360 version sold over 400k itself, meaning Michael Pachter was wrong about 2K sending it out “to die”. Eat your humble pie Pachter…you should be used to it by now.
The bad news is that the PS3 saw a 30%+ drop in sales over last month. All systems except the Wii dropped in sales from the month before. Other bad news is that Brutal Legend only sold 215k over the two versions (360 sold about 150k, PS3 66k) and the 360 version did not hit the top 10. The real bad news lays at Activision’s feet though as DJ Hero (our review here) only sold 122k over FOUR versions (360 - 62k, PS3 - $39k, Wii - 19k, PS2 - 3k). That’s not very good. Do we point to the price ($120) being the mitigating factor here or was it something else?
Source: me
Assassin's Creed II, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Left 4 Dead 2 Highlight Last Major Release Week
The Gaming Armageddon essentially wraps up this week with a variety of games coming out. Assassin’s Creed II (360/PS3) and Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines (PSP w/PS3 connection) both come out on Tuesday. Everything I’ve heard has said AC2 is a fantastic game and I certainly hope so. I liked the first game, but it got very repetitive if you were just going through the story and not doing any side stuff like finding the flags. It is sounding like they have fixed what was wrong and made it flow better…we shall see.
New Super Mario Bros. comes out this week allowing up to 4 people play at the same time. I’ve heard the game is rather hard and it includes the “demo mode” that plays the game for you. I think this is going to be a popular Wii game, especially for families. Left 4 Dead 2 comes out this week as well and will sell like gangbusters if pre-sales are any indication.
Other games include Tony Hawk RIDE which could see the same fate as DJ Hero since it is at the same price with the needed peripheral. LEGO Indiana Jones 2, God of War Collection, Little Big Planet on PSP and a Sims 3 expansion pack round out the week’s releases. Your wallet should breathe a sigh of relief after this week, although there are some games coming in December like the new Zelda game on DS and The Saboteur.
Source: me, Weekly Release