The stories for this week:
- October NPD Data Released
- inFAMOUS May be Short
- Halo 3: Recon Short Too?
- Midway Cuts Jobs/Sheri Redstone Steps Down
- Last Week of Gaming Rush (except for Prince of Persia)
October NPD Data Released
October’s NPD data was released this week. There were honestly a few big surprises in my mind. The first one is that Fable II scored the top sales for the month, selling almost 800,000 copies in just 10 days. This probably means they have sold a million by this point. Obviously the sales in November will look different, probably with Gears of War 2 being top dog and the sales of Guitar Hero: World Tour coming into focus. Another surprise is that Fallout 3, which had been reported as having shipped 4.5 million copies worldwide did not take the top spot here and was actually third with 375,000 copies sold.
The biggest surprise of course is that the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 by almost a 2:1 margin. As expressed in this post by Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality, Sony said that it had increased sales by 56% from the same time last year. That sounds good, at least until Bill points out that the price drop had been announced October 18 last year and that you’d have to be nuts to buy a PS3 in-between there and the actual price drop at retail in November of last year. Good investigative journalism by Bill and Sony’s really shining up bad news on all fronts honestly. At least they have the lead in Europe in current sales.
Source: Joystiq
inFAMOUS May Be Short
Although Sucker Punch’s creative director says gaming is more about “quality than quantity” he also talked about how inFAMOUS may be short, which to me means they are basically shooting themselves in the foot before the game even comes out. He uses God of War and Grand Theft Auto IV as two examples of games where people wanted more. I’m not sure I agree with either since I think God of War was just long enough and GTA IV is pretty lengthy because it is a sandbox game at its heart and the story narrative missions are plentiful. Now, Sucker Punch’s game has been sold as a sandbox game and somewhat similar to Microsoft’s Crackdown, however if this is a sandbox game why is he saying it could be about as long as God of War (about 7 hours)? Just confuses me. When I first saw this game I was pretty excited by the trailer, then I saw the game being played at E3 and my excitement really dropped.
Source: Eurogamer
Halo 3: Recon Also Short?
The story is right here on Co-Optimus, but I figured I would put it in Beyond Co-Op as well. I’m not too surprised that it may not be very long, but I am a bit worried that although Bungie says they don’t view this as a $60 title. They may not view it that way, but what is to say Microsoft doesn’t view it that way? I think Microsoft needs to nip this in the bud and give a price pretty soon. Yes, the game will sell, but I think it may leave a bad taste in people’s mouths if it is at the $60 price point. Honestly though, Halo 3 wasn’t that long of a game, but was certainly longer than the 3-5 hours they are talking here.
Source: Co-Optimus from the new issue of Game Informer
Midway Cuts Jobs/Sheri Redstone Steps Down
I’ve been hitting this pretty hard in recent Beyond Co-Ops. You may remember Midway having to borrow $40 million in order to manufacture their fall lineup of TNA Impact!, Blitz: The League II (a good game mind you) and the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Well, word comes this week that Midway Chicago has laid off under 10% of its workforce and CEO Sheri Redstone stepped down earlier this week.
I can only guess that should Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe not do well that this may be the death knell for Midway. Maybe someone will buy the company out from under Sumner Redstone. With the censoring of MK vs. DC in order to get a Teen rating while the European release sees the uncensored version, things could be bad for Midway with this game. Good reviews and initial impressions could help though, we shall see.
Source: Joystiq
Last Week of Gaming Rush (except for Prince of Persia)
The constant avalanche of game releases starts to close up with this week’s releases. The only other notable major game coming would be Prince of Persia in early December in my mind. There are other games coming out, but that is the only major one I see. This week we see the aforementioned Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe on Sunday, Need for Speed Undercover, Left 4 Dead, Tomb Raider: Underworld, The Last Remnant, Shaun White Snowboarding and Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff on DS (hell yeah! Old school TB anyone?) for the rest of the week. Hopefully your wallet won't scream too much.
Source: me