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Nintendo has one million seller per console in last quarter

by JC Fletcher (3 hours ago)

The NPD suggested that audiences were receptive of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (by which we mean they bought it), but new data from Nintendo reveals just how successful the game was in its debut month.

In its list of million-selling first-party titles for the last quarter (ending June 30), Ocarina of Time is the only 3DS game listed, having sold 1.08 million copies -- approximately 270,000 in Japan, 810,000 elsewhere.

Nintendo's other platforms also feature one lonely million seller each ... well, technically there are two on the DS, combined: Pokemon Black and White sold 1.36 mllion in the quarter, bringing it up to a global life-to-date total of 12.87 million. And Mario Kart Wii repped for the Wii all by itself, selling 1.22 million in the quarter, up to a ridiculous 2.82 million lifetime total.

• Source: Nintendo (PDF)

Rock Band Weekly: Beastie Boys, Heart, James Brown, Rufus

by Alexander Sliwinski (5 hours ago)

Next week's Rock Band DLC is all over the place, featuring a diverse variety of artists covering a wide spectrum of musical tastes. It's like Harmonix's DLC offering hit the shuffle button. If you're super bad, head on past the break for details.

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• Source: RockBand.com

Riccitiello: Focusing on 3D makes for 'poor returns'

by Alexander Sliwinski (7 hours ago)

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has plenty to worry about at present, but a future full of 3D displays isn't one of them. VentureBeat reports that at EA's recent shareholder meeting, the executive responded to an inquiry about stereoscopic 3D games by saying, "We have not seen a big uptake for 3D gaming. We have not seen a big uptake in 3D TVs in the home. We are not here trying to drive a market. We are here to react to what consumers want."

And consumers don't appear to be demanding the tech -- evidenced by Nintendo's financial report yesterday, accompanied by an announcement of a significant price reduction of its 3D handheld.

Riccitiello said EA will continue focusing on mobile, social and online. Those are markets where they are seeing "really high returns," compared to the "very poor returns focusing on 3D."

• Source: VentureBeat

Redbox stuffing more kiosks with games

by Alexander Sliwinski (22 hours ago)

Redbox's addition of games to its crimson kiosks has apparently been a success, with the company announcing today that it will expand the availability of games to 27,000 kiosks nationwide beginning August 1. The company also stated that it has rented over 4 million PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 games since it began its game rental experiment in 2009.

The August 1 expansion means that approximately 5,000 additional kiosks will carry games, which the company currently charges $2 a night (plus tax) to keep. Find the game kiosk nearest you by heading to the Redbox site.

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Capcom sales fall in 1st fiscal quarter, income rises

by Richard Mitchell (1 day ago)

Capcom has reported financial results for its first fiscal quarter of 2011, which ended June 30. The company reported sales of ¥11.95 billion ($153.7 million), down from ¥19.04 billion ($244.91 million) during the same period last year -- a 37 percent decrease. Despite the dip in sales, Capcom managed to pull in a net income of ¥338 million ($4.35 million), up by 58 percent from ¥213 million ($2.74 million) during the same period last year.

Sales of "consumer online games" fell sharply, with Capcom stating that Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Monster Hunter Freedom 3 and Monster Hunter Frontier Online Forward "basically" met sales projections.

Specifically, The Mercenaries 3D – available since June 2 in Japan and since June 28 in the US – moved 400,000 units. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade, only available as DLC for a few days in June, sold 300,000. Monster Hunter Freedom 3 still managed to move 100,000 copies despite being released all the way back in December.

Meanwhile, Capcom's arcade sales were up eight percent despite the difficulties faced after Japan's earthquake earlier this year. Social games are also doing quite well for the company, cresting 19 million downloads largely on the back of Smurf's Village.

• Source: Capcom (1), (2) [PDF]

NintendoWare Weekly: Let's Golf 3D, Burn the Rope

by JC Fletcher (1 day ago)

OK, you can't get those free 3DS Virtual Console games yet, but there is new stuff on 3DS if you want to pay for it. Let's Golf 3D is only the fourth original 3DS game to be released on the eShop in North America -- and that's counting two 3D Classics remakes.

On WiiWare, the Virtual Console game Brawl Brothers is joined by a console release of the mobile puzzle game Burn the Rope. Not Cut the Rope, or You Have to Burn the Rope, just Burn the Rope.

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• Source: Nintendo

Nintendo cuts profit forecast by 82%

by Alexander Sliwinski (1 day ago)

If it wasn't clear already: the 3DS has not been a home run for Nintendo. In its revised earnings forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2012, the company dropped its estimated profit to ¥20 billion ($257M), an 82 percent drop from the ¥110 billion ($1.41B) it expected. The company stated the modification had been done to reflect "trends of stronger-than-expected yen appreciation and sales performance, the decided price reduction of the Nintendo 3DS hardware, and the sales outlook for the holiday season."

A similar cut in Japan (effective August 11) will take the system from ¥25,000 (around $317) to ¥15,000 ($190).

The steep profit reduction isn't Nintendo's only glaring concern, as the company couldn't regain investor confidence after announcing the Wii U at E3 and its stock currently sits at five-year lows.

For the first quarter ending June 30, Nintendo saw its net sales cut by half from the same period last year to ¥93 billion ($1.2B), causing a ¥38 billion ($489M) loss in operating income, with a net loss for the quarter staying relatively even to last year's at ¥26 billion ($334M).

• Source: Nintendo

'Half of all Netflix users connect via a game console,' Nintendo Wii used most

by Ben Gilbert (1 day ago)

Sorry Jackie boy, but it seems that Sony's PlayStation 3 has been dethroned as king of streaming Netflix. That's according to a recent Nielsen survey that pegs the Nintendo Wii as the most used device in households to stream Netflix (outside of the computer, of course), and puts all three gaming consoles in the lead in terms of Netflix streaming to devices.

The survey, based on 12,000 online interviews in March 2011, weighs a variety of devices against each other in terms of Netflix and Hulu streaming, from Apple TV on the low end at just one percent market share, to "Directly on Computer" as the most employed method at 42 percent for Netflix and 89 percent for Hulu. The Xbox 360 brought up the bottom of the list in terms of game consoles, with just 12 percent of Netflix users going that route and two percent of Hulu users.

The real bizarre factoid in this graph is that the Nintendo Wii is also (just barely) streaming more Hulu content than the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 -- especially odd considering there's no official support for Hulu on the Wii. We've reached out to Nielsen for clarification on that possibly erroneous statistic.

Update: Nielsen explained the Hulu on Nintendo Wii statistic as such: "The reason the survey shows 3% answering this way can be attributed to respondent error, which is common in survey research. In other words, because the survey measures self-reported usage, there can be a small margin of error in which some respondents will answer this way."

• Source: Nielsen

DDR-playing robot can't be a good sign

by David Hinkle (1 day ago)

If zombies don't devour our lumpy noggins, then surely the robot uprising will take care of "the human threat." . Based on this video from an undergrad at Purdue University, we know that robots are in the lead. First they learn how to play DDR, then they learn how to peel the skin from our bones.

• Via: I, Bioloid
• Source: YouTube

THQ laments 'disappointing' quality in recent games

by JC Fletcher (1 day ago)

THQ's earnings release and investor call have seemed to pile on the poor Red Faction series. CEO Brian Farrell called out Armageddon's disappointing sales in the release, and announced the effective cancellation of the series in the investor call.

Elsewhere in the call, he lamented the perceived quality of Armageddon and the other two most recent core games -- presumably MX vs. ATV: Alive and UFC Personal Trainer, though none are identified by name. "The last three launches we've had have been disappointing in terms of the quality," he said. "Mid-70s [in terms of Metacritic average] is not good enough, and the entire team in our core group knows that."

Farrell said the core group intends to focus on putting enough time and resources into its games to ensure higher quality. He specifically referenced Saints Row: The Third, for which "We believe strongly the quality bar is there." And that's how the game's signature weapon got its new nickname, "The Quality Bar."

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