Thursday, January 11, 2007

Nintendo Records Best Holiday Selling Season in U.S. Video Game History

 

REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 11, 2007 – There has never been anything like it. Independent U.S. sales figures released by the NPD Group today confirmed a red-hot launch for the new Wii™ system by Nintendo, and the crowning of the portable Nintendo DS™ as the best-selling video game device of any type for both the holidays and all of 2006.

Along with stunning success for The Legend of Zelda®: Twilight Princess and historic sales of accessories, including more than 1.5 million extra controllers for Wii alone, Nintendo recorded the most successful across-the-board holiday performance in U.S. video game history.

Among key results:

* Consumers purchased every Wii console available at retail—more than a million in just the 44 days between U.S. launch and year end.
* With sales of another 1.6 million systems in December alone, Nintendo DS achieved full year sell-through of 5.3 million.
* The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was purchased by an extraordinary 86 percent of Wii buyers, or more than 900,000 games for that system alone. Coupled with the companion version released in December for Nintendo GameCube™, the two versions of the newest Zelda title totaled approximately 1.5 million unit sales in less than seven weeks, which would represent one of the five best-selling games for the entire year.
* Wii owners also purchased an average of three additional games from a wide library of choices, in addition to the Wii Sports title packed in with every hardware system.
* Two Nintendo DS titles, New Super Mario Bros.® and Brain Age™: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, also were top-10 sellers for the year.
* Throughout the November/December holiday shopping period, Nintendo accounted for more than half of all video game hardware systems sold in America.

Earlier this week, Nintendo increased its projected worldwide financial performance for the year ending on March 31 to be the best in company history.

“Millions of players, both hard-core and brand-new, are already enjoying the unique entertainment provided by Wii, but demand for the system remains incredibly high,” says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “So our work is just beginning. We’re dedicating ourselves to maximizing both manufacturing and distribution full bore throughout 2007, to make sure everyone who wants to experience the future of video gaming can do so just as soon as possible.”

The momentum behind Wii will continue unabated through the early weeks of 2007, with retail debuts of WarioWare™: Smooth Moves, Wii Play™ and Mario Party® 8 from Nintendo; a host of third-party releases; and a steady stream of classic games made available via download with the Wii Shop Channel.

Nintendo Press Release

Source: Nintendo Records Best Holiday Selling Season in U.S. Video Game History
Originally published on Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:10:48 GMT

Massive WarioWare: Smooth Moves email advert

 

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Thanks Mexxim!

Source: Massive WarioWare: Smooth Moves email advert
Originally published on Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:48:22 GMT

Lexicon Entertainment interview

 

A portion of C3 interview with Glory Days 2 developer Lexicon Entertainment…

Cubed³
: Can you please tell our readers a little more about yourself and your role in the company? Also, how large is the team working on Glory Days 2?

Oliver Denis: Hello, I’m Olivier Denis and I am the creator of Glory Days2. Actually, hundreds of people have helped me in the creation of Glory Days2. We really took time to read journalists and public comments before developing this second opus. More concretely, Raphael Gesqua, in particular recognized for his music for Motoracer and Fade to Black (and Flashback, and can’t quote them all as there are too many) will work on the music for this game. I also working with a comic author, Julien Rolland, who knew perfectly how to adapt the very strong character of each pilot.

Beyond that, I have the friendly assistance of Christophe Kohler, Frederic Brutin, and George-Henri Portefait. For the rest, I guess we could say that we like to work day and night. ;) Ultimately, I’ve attached more and more importance to remain a very small team in particular to respect the final quality of my game. I work on games that I want to play and release them on the market when they are perfectly finished. Glory Days2 is the fruit of more than four years of hard work.

C3: From the recent information released, it seems that Glory Days 2 will use elements from a number of genres. What genre would you say the game predominantly focuses on?

Read the full interview here

Source: Lexicon Entertainment interview
Originally published on Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:04:09 GMT

Wii Wireless Sensor Bar with 25 Foot Range

Wii Wireless Sensor Bar with 25 Foot Range

IGN reports on a sensor bar unveiled at CES that should be hitting the market soon. The company boasts their sensor bar will pick up the Wii Remote up to 25 feet away from the IR source. It runs on 4 AAA batteries with up to 30 hours of life. No price point was mentioned.

 
 

IGN: The Godfather Blackhand Edition Interview

 

The Godfather Blackhand Edition Interview

We shake down EA producer Joel Wade in this exclusive Wii-specific interview. No wise guys allowed.

by Mark Bozon

 

January 11, 2007 - Coinciding with the official announcement of The Godfather Blackhand Edition for Nintendo Wii EA Senior Producer Joel Wade sat down to chat with IGN about the upcoming release, specifics on the game's unique control, and EA's future with the Wii console.

Source: IGN: The Godfather Blackhand Edition Interview