Nintendo has confirmed that the DS Lite’s successor, the DSi, will launch throughout Europe on 3 April 2009. It will be available in either black or white, with other colours to follow. Pricing has not yet been confirmed but we would expect it to retail at around £150 (approximately 180 Euro).
Despite recent gloomy news on the job market, the avid gamers perfect position is advertised on Sony Computer Entertainment’s Japanese website. Sony are recruiting a ‘games tester’ to work on a new model, as well as the existing PS2, PS3 and PSP hardware. The prospective candidate should have experience in games console hardware development. The lucky recipient can expect around £7.50 per hour with a minimum one year contract.
Further to the NPD hardware figures released last week (Sony sees PS3 sales slump), Sony has hit back, claiming that their future blockbuster software releases will continue to drive sales figures Sony’s Peter Dille has commented “The PlayStation brand experienced a record year in 2008 and we believe our blockbuster line-up combined with PS3’s position as the best Blu-ray player and sophisticated entertainment device will continue to fuel increased marketshare and momentum into 2009.”
I suppose only time will tell whether these comments will hold true.
According to figures released by research group NPD, Sony’s PlayStation 3 console has seen a year-on-year sales slump of almost 25% percent this January (US sales figures). In the preceding year it sold 269,000 consoles, whilst this year the figure is 203,200. Sony must be worried as their rivals see a major growth in sales (see previous post – Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii see sales surge) as well as Sony themselves suffering their widely publicised financial woes. The reasons for this sales slump cannot be solely due to the world’s current economic climate considering the performance of the PS3’s chief rivals. In my opinion it is down to two factors. The first is the consoles high price. It is over two years since launch and we have only seen one relatively minor price drop. The RRP of a PS3 is almost double that of either an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii. Sony must have to drop prices to compete but this lead to another problem for them – they are still loosing money on each PS3 console sold. In light of this I would assume that they are better off selling less until they reach a production cost where they can make money on each unit. The second factor concerns the integrated Blu-ray player. Since the formats launch the PS3 has been widely recognised as the best and cheapest Blu-ray player. Within the last six months new stand alone players from the likes of Sony and Panasonic have tipped the advantage away from a PS3 towards owning a dedicated Blu-ray player. It appears to me Sony is stuck in a hole with the PS3 that it may well struggle to get out of. Have you still not purchased a PS3 due to the high retail price? Why not obtain a free PS3 80GB console?
Research group NPD has revealed that sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 grew 25.5% from 230,000 consoles sold in January 2008 to 309,000 sold this year. Nintendo made an even bigger gain with sales of its Wii console up 59.5% from 274,000 units shifted last year to 676,000 this year. A report on Sony’s PS3 sales will be up later today.
Sony has told T3 magazine that total length of time the PS3 will remain on sale will be longer that that of the PS2. Their comment went along the lines of ‘the PS3 won’t celebrate its 2nd birthday in the UK until March 2009, and we’ve always stated that the life-cycle for this generation will be longer than that of previous models – we will see the PS3 sales far outlasting the PS2’. We would estimate that the PS4 won’t be around until 2012, thus leaving the PS3 to remain on sale a long time after its successors launch.
Western Digital has launched the first ever 2TB computer hard drive in the form of the CaviarGreen WD20EADS. The 3.5” drive uses four 500GB platters, has 32MB of onboard cache and a SATA interface. It will go on sale in the UK and Europe this week.
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Marketing research group NPD have released their 2008 software sales figures. They reveal that Guitar Hero World Tour sold double that of chief rival Rock Band 2 at 3.4m sales against 1.7m. Both games are available on the PS3, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii platforms.
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Konami has revealed that an all-new downloadable Metal Gear Online mission will be available on January 27. The PS3 exclusive will be available free of charge to all registered users of the game. Contestants are split into two different teams. The first team is tasked with detonating and protecting a bomb it until it explodes, whilst the second team must protect its base and neutralize any nearby planted bombs using a unique spray.
According to news agency Reuters, Sony Corporation is about to announce an annual operating loss of around $1.1 billion, down from a previously estimated $2.2 billion profit. This marks the corporations first loss in 14 years of trading. Factors are cited are weak sales and the impact of a stronger yen on the Japanese giant.