Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: Official Xbox 360 sales figures; don't play "King Kong" on the Xbox 360?; February will be Black ...

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Official Xbox 360 sales figures; don't play "King Kong" on the Xbox 360?; February will be Black ...

Official Xbox 360 sales figures
Don't play King Kong on the Xbox 360?
Black is coming in February!
Dark Sector gets a publisher and a date

NEWS:

1. Official Xbox 360 sales figures

NPD Group has released the first independent figures for North American sales of the Xbox 360, and it's a might dissapointing.

Sales totaled 325,902 consoles by the end of November, way behind the 556,000 units sold in a comparable timeframe after the first Xbox's launch in 2001 (with direct competition from the Nintendo GameCube, launched only three days later). The low-chip yield (and probably other unacknowledged business decisions) are seriously hurting initial sales.

The bright spot is Xbox 360 software sales, coming in 1.27 million units -- an attachment rate of 3.9 (the original Xbox had an attachment rate of 2.4).

Activision's Call of Duty 2 makes up over 77% of those sales at number 1, with Electronic Arts titles taking up the #2 and #3 slots (Madden NFL 2006 with 178,000 units and Need for Speed Most Wanted selling 108,000 units). Interestingly, first-party Microsoft's Perfect Dark Zero came in at number four (almost 86,000 units).

2. Don't play King Kong on the Xbox 360?

That's what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told the BBC about the Xbox 360 version of Peter Jackson's King Kong - The Official Game of the Movie.

Evidently, the development team used high-def TVs during development for the Xbox 360 version, so the game plays too dark to be playable on many standard-definition TVs. Whoops.

The game should be fine on high-definition televisions.

I just played the Xbox 360 demo on a 19" LCD (via the first-party high-def VGA cable), and it looks fine.

3. Black is coming in February!

Criterion-developed title Black had a vague "2006" release date, with many retailers and industry publications listing it as available in April.

But that changed yesterday when publisher Electronic Arts announced Black will hit consoles in February.

Black looks to do for the FPS genre what Burnout did for the racing/wrecking genre -- make it loud, ridiculously unrealistic, and a ton of fun.

Based on the premises "if Hollywood can make a handgun sound like a Howitzer, why can't we", and "the bullets are the heroes", Black has been described as "gun porn" and "The Matrix lobby scene".

I'm stoked.

More info (including movies) here.

4. Dark Sector gets a publisher and a date

Dark Sector was one of the first next-generation games ever teased (way back in April of 2004).

D3Publisher of America (D3) has signed the title for developer Digital Extremes. D3 Publisher is a Japanese developer previously known for its budget-priced games, and opened D3Publisher of America as a wholly owned subsidiary in November 2004 to directly publish and market its parent company's titles in North America.

I'd be more excited about the announcement, but the ship date for the game is Q3 -- of 2007.

And for grins and giggles, here's an excerpt from my April 5, 2004 "Xbox Buddies Newsflash", first mentioned Dark Sector:

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XBox Buddies Newsletter (week of 04/04/2004)
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THIS ISSUE
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Halo XBox Bundle Confirmed
First next-gen console game unveiled
Brute Force for XBox Next?
PS3 to use Blu-ray Discs?
Oddworld Seeks New Publisher
Microsoft "resting" XSN Sports this season
Preview: Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, to kick major b***
New Releases
------------------------------
NEWS
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2. First next-gen console game unveiled
> Dark Sector, a sci-fi action game by Digital Extremes (PC series Unreal and Unreal Tournament and Unreal Championship for Xbox), will debut on "next-generation consoles". TeamXbox said DE has confirmed the title will be on XBox.
> "Dark Sector is the next step in the first person action gaming experience by blending the intense action elements of first person shooters with the scope and character evolution of a persistent online universe."
> Check out the slick clip, which DE says is all in-game (no cutscene cheating): http://www.darksector.com/.
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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Official Xbox 360 sales figures; don't play "King Kong" on the Xbox 360?; February will be Black ...

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