Source: videogamesblogger.com

Xbox 360 owners have had the best Arcade sales yet thanks to the “Summer of Arcade” promotion in which Microsoft released a string of very high profile and high quality Xbox Live Arcade games that included the likes of Braid, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Galaga Legions, Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Castle Crashers.

The monthly sales numbers speak for themselves. For the month of August, sales were up 67%, which is a record-breaking high. In addition to that percentage, Xbox Live had a 58% increase in unique members who purchased downloadable content during the month of August.

So obviously Microsoft’s summer strategy to release a string of high quality and highly anticipated games to their Xbox Live Arcade service worked wonders.

“At E3, we committed to refocusing the Xbox Live Arcade business, vowing to release bigger and better games while focusing on quality and not quantity,” commented Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten in a statement. “The debut of the new strategy proved to be a huge success, with the Summer of Arcade making August the highest grossing month to date.”

And there are still a number of great titles that Microsoft plans to release in the coming months, among them Portal: Still Alive, Banjo-Kazooie, Uno Rush and a game based on the hit Comedy Central animated series South Park.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Today, on Monday, from 12:01 AM PST for up to 24 hours, Xbox Live will be offline worldwide for maintenance. As a result, Xbox LIVE and the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only. The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions.

This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which is expected to be available in November 2008. Since you’re not online playing games on your Xbox 360 right now, you might as well check out what this new Xbox experience is all about by watching a trailer that walks you through it.

An in-depth look at the avatars:

Source: infendo.com

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold Wii in Japan for the week ending Sept. 14

On the strength of an aggressive price drop and the release of the popular RPG Infinite Undiscovery, Microsoft sold 28,681 Xbox 360 units in Japan, Famitsu reports. These figures were just enough to pass Wii, which sold 27,057 units.

Sony moved 8,050 PS3 units.

Microsoft has struggled to capture a Japanese audience since joining the console business. The company sold 24 million original Xbox units worldwide before discontinuing the system in late 2006, but only 473,000 were purchased in Japan.

Microsoft has sold approximately 720,000 Xbox 360 consoles in Japan since launching in Dec. 2005. By contrast, Sony has sold more than 2.3 million PS3 consoles in Japan since Nov. 2006, and Nintendo has sold more than 6.7 million Wii consoles in Japan since Dec. 2006.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

August’s American video game sales data from the NPD is in, and like almost any month the past year, it shows an unchanged result: A Nintendo system on top, this time the DS Lite outsold all other systems.

NPD analyst, Anita Frazier, had this to say: “August industry sales remain strong and realized a 9% gain over last August, although the month posted the first single-digit percentage growth in 27 months. Despite smaller growth this month, the industry is up 32% year-to-date and remains on target to achieve annual revenues in the range of $22 to $24 billion. Across hardware, software and accessories, products for the Wii platform contributed 28% of total industry dollar sales for the month of August.”

Video game hardware overview:
1. Nintendo DS — 518,300
2. Nintendo Wii — 453,000
3. PlayStation Portable — 253,000
4. Xbox 360 — 195,200
5. PlayStation 3 — 185,400
6. PlayStation 2 — 144,100

To no one’s surprise Madden NFL 09 has a strong launch with over 2.3 million sales. Too Human’s debut could mean this will be Silicon Knight’s best selling game yet if sales keep up. Despite not showing up in the top 10, looking at the year-to-date, Grand Theft Auto IV is the top-selling game at 4.8 million sold in America through August.

Video game software overview top 10:
1. Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360) — 1 million
2. Madden NFL 09 (PS3) — 643,000
3. Madden NFL 09 (PS2) — 424,500
4. Wii Fit (Wii) — 372,700
5. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) — 322,400
6. Wii Play (Wii) — 359,100
7. Soul Calibur IV (Xbox 360) — 174,000
8. Too Human (Xbox 360) — 168,200
9. Madden NFL 09 (Wii) — 115,800
10. Guitar Hero On Tour (DS) — 111,200

Source: videogamesblogger.com

It has been CONFIRMED that Microsoft will be closing Ensemble Studios after the developer finishes up and releases Halo Wars in the first half of 2009, their upcoming RTS set in the Halo universe. Microsoft has owned Ensemble since 2001.

“The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars,” the publisher said in a statement. “This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble’s talent or the quality of Halo Wars–in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game.”

But that won’t entirely be the end of the company, as the key players within Ensemble are set to form a brand new development house and have already entered into an agreement with Microsoft in order to continue supporting Halo Wars with post-launch content. In addition to working on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.

Though Microsoft will close the studio, Ensemble brass plan to soldier on. As part of today’s statement, the studio said that “the leadership team” will form a new development house, and has already entered into an agreement with Microsoft to continue supporting Halo Wars post-launch, “as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.”

As for why Microsoft decided to close Ensemble, they had this to say: “This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.”

The Age of Empires brand has sold more than 20 million units since the first installment debuted on the PC in 1997. According to the NPD Group, Ages of Empires III for the PC has sold 1.15 million units in the US alone through July 2008, with The Warchiefs expansion tallying nearly 305,000 more. (The second expansion, Asian Dynasties, was developed by Rise of Nations creators Big Huge Games.)

Via GameSpot

Source: infendo.com

Microsoft is coming to terms with a harsh reality; drunk on rum and with all cannons firing, Nintendo has stolen the booty this generation.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, Microsoft’s Don Mattick admitted his company has realistic goals in terms of catching Nintendo this round.

Quite simply, that it won’t.

Even Microsoft’s top Xbox boss acknowledges the company is unlikely to catch up to Nintendo. “I’m not at a point where I can say we’re going to beat Nintendo,” says Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. Indeed, Nintendo is likely to run away with the lead in the current generation of console gaming, leaving Microsoft and Sony to battle for second place. Microsoft’s lead over Sony, coupled with the changes it’s bringing to the console, positions it to secure that spot, Mattrick says: “We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony.”

Faulty hardware aside, Microsoft had a good approach this generation. It hit the market a year early, established a strong games library with blockbuster exclusives and built the industry’s standard for online gaming services. Despite all this, Nintendo has breezed by Microsoft, and the company is losing ground to Sony, which has done as many things wrong this generation as Microsoft has done right.

Nintendo has sold 31 million Wii consoles worldwide. Microsoft follows with slightly more than 20 million 360 sales, and Sony trails with a steadily climbing 15 million PS3 sales, according to VG Chartz.

Source: infendo.com

Lord Toker, on if Wii hit a homerun or if Microsoft and Sony vulnerabilities make Nintendo look better than it really is.

“Just because Sony and Microsoft are having problems doesn’t mean the Wii wouldn’t have been a success. I’d say Nintendo hit a triple in opening inning and never stopped scoring. It’s a fun machine that uses a new perspective to give most gamers a new and welcome experience. Sure, it’s technically graphically inferior, but it delivers fun, fun, fun… when you don’t buy shovelware.

“Just like last generation, there was plenty of crap to be found on the dominant system [PlayStation 2], but I don’t base judgment on crap I don’t buy. Nintendo had the right strategy all along by keeping things simple and sweet. I do love my Xbox 360, just not the same. It’s kinda like the grandparents you don’t visit as much.”

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Microsoft announced lower retail prices for the various Xbox 360 console in America. Beginning September 5th, 2008, the various versions of the Xbox 360 will retail for the estimated prices of:

* Xbox 360 Arcade: $199.99
* Xbox 360: $299.99 (it’s unclear if it’s the 20GB or 60GB Pro)
* Xbox 360 Elite: $399.99

Microsoft touted the announcement as an industry milestone. “We are thrilled to be the first next-generation console on the market to reach $199, a price that invites everyone to enjoy Xbox 360,” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft.

The second recent Xbox 360 price cut coming to the US, follows Japan’s announcement of a price cut earlier this week. No word on any price cuts in other regions.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

In an interview with UK gaming magazine Xbox World 360, Gears of War 2 designer Cliff Bleszinski said:

“We’re basically at the 85/90% polish stage right now, doing some last minute optimisations. I boot the game up every morning and go through campaign mode, making sure it’s all stitched together and batshit insane.”

You can’t very well have a Gears of War 2 interview without anyone dropping a Gears of War 3 hint. Talking about the colors in the Xbox 360 FPS series, Mr. Bleszinski was quoted saying:

“We kind of actively aimed for the de-saturated look, but its since become de riguer for this generation of games. I think that’s why something like Mirror’s Edge has become kind of like an oasis in the desert of E3 - ‘Look! There’s a red crate! I love you!’

We actually have a little more colour in Gears of War 2 - reds, oranges. Hopefully you’ve noticed. What I can tell you is that if there was a Gear of War 3 it’ll be a total disco town: purples, pinks and greens everywhere!”

Gears of War 2 will launch worldwide on November 7, 2008. Microsoft Corporate VP of Global Marketing and Interactive Entertainment Business Jeff Bell stated in late 2006 that Gears of War is the first in a trilogy. Perhaps Gears of War 3 will follow another two years later in November 2010?

Via XW360

Source: videogamesblogger.com

In a recent interview with Cliff Bleszinski, the design director on Gears of War 2, he mentioned that “players’ Achievements in Gears 1 will unlock content in Gears 2, but they won’t automatically give you Achievements in Gears 2.” Meaning that as long as your Gears of War 1 gamertag on Xbox 360 or PC is the same as in the sequel, you can unlock characters and other things in Gears of War 2. For example: Defeat RAAM in Gears of War 1 to unlock the RAAM multiplayer skin in Gears of War 2.

Which resulted in IGN asking him if meants Epic Games are planning a Windows version of Gears of War 2?

To which Cliff answered: “Gears of War is a great franchise first and foremost for Xbox 360, and therefore we’re focusing on that platform for Gears of War 2. We’ve decided we’re not going to do a PC version this time around.”

Gears of War 2 will be released exclusively on Xbox 360 worldwide on November 7th, 2008.