Engamer » sales

Getting Smarter: Nintendo Brain Age creator turns down $11 million

mike — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:38:22 +0000

The brains behind Brain Age, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, may be smart but he’s turned down about $11 million in royalties form Nintendo. The money is his share of the $22 million in royalties Nintendo owes Tohoku University for the technology in the 17 million copies of Brain Age (Brain Training outside of North America).

After years of gaming, but not ever having picked up Brain Age, I’m convinced that it’s just a game. Basically, no matter what’s happening on-screen you get better with practice. Maybe the activities in this game apply to real life better, maybe not, but playing any game is going to do your brain more good than scrolling through the TiVo. No amount of support from Nicole Kidman, Patrick Stewart, or any other celebrity is going to convince me that Brain Age is any better for me than a steady diet of Gears of War and Guitar Hero.

Extra credit or something to Dr. Kawashima for not taking the money, but he sounds like a fossil. Despite his success developing games for Nintendo he only allows his sons to play video games for an hour a day on weekends and not at all during the week and he’s completely stopped playing video games too. Apparently his “hobby” is research. Do you really want to spend an hour having that kind of fun?

[via PhysOrg]

PC Gaming is Dead: 2007 Sales Numbers (unless you play MMO)

mike — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:19:06 +0000

Only one PC game in 2007 sold over a million units (and it’s name is Warcraft). The PC game take of $911 million is a lot of money, but console games had a record year and total sales of $17.94 billion. Another comparison, the #10 console game sold twice as many units as the #2 PC game.

Game publishers need to wake up and realize it’s a lot easier to buy a console than a new PC. Both Crysis and Bioshock were huge titles available, on the PC, and made headlines. Neither made the PC top 10 list though. The numbers are over at Shacknews (2007 PC sales and 2007 console sales) and are worth some attention. WoW is actually the number one and two PC game for sales. It doesn’t change that fact that Mario Party 8 beat out the whole rest of the PC game field, but it stands out to me that none of the six Warcraft or The Sims games on the top 10 list require much PC hardware to run.

What does that mean to gamers? … you’re better off paying eBay release-day prices for a Wii, PS3, and XBox 360 than you are to drop $4,000 on a new gaming PC.

Better Games, New Consoles Drive Record Games Sales This Year

mike — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:24:29 +0000

Sweet games like this year’s Maxim top 10, plus those left off like Rock Band, and the always-out-of-stock Nintendo Wii have fueled a record year of game sales. New sales numbers from NPD Group put the console and game total for November at $2.63 billion. The total for 2007 is now $13.1 billion. Even without December this year has topped the 2006 total, $12.5 billion.

Grab the exact numbers at the link below. The reasons why are pretty clear to all of us in the Engamer bunker. Better games. More games. And more better games. And maybe a little help from the many high-price-point options.

The huge selection of good games for the newer consoles, plus Wii games that are even selling to retirement homes — i.e., selling to what used to be a nongaming demo — helped put this year over the top. Without at least a few decent games we sure wouldn’t drop $800 on a console bundle. The record will be set a whole lot higher by the end of the year. December is usually the biggest sales month. Even with the Wii always out of stock we sure wouldn’t mind pocketing a slice of this month’s sales.

[via Ars Technica]