Reuters, Jan 22 2008: Leading economists are warning that the only chance the United States will avoid slipping into recession is if it successfully transitions to an entirely Nintendo DS-based economy, a process begun in secret by the Treasury during Q4 2007.

And so another holiday season is all over, but the cryin’. Once again, given the lack of anything else going on in my life, I turn to the monthly sales data released for the month of December, courtesy of the NPD group.

Hardware Sales (Annual 2007 in brackets)
Nintendo DS 2.47 million (8.50 million)
Wii 1.35 million (6.29 million)
Xbox 360 1.26 million (4.62 million)
PlayStation 2 1.1 million (3.97 million)
PlayStation Portable 1.06 million (3.82 million)
PlayStation 3 797.6K (2.56 million)

(more…)

Today I’m going to kick off my blogging year with a new feature in which I demonstrate my advanced age and decrepitude by describing things I’ve only recently come to realize, but which you’ve most likely known a long, long time. It’s… Late to the Party!

Part the First: The Wii is Awesome.
That picture to your right (presented in a wistful sepiatone to convey the feeling of olde timey days) is me gettin’ busy with my new Wii, which Santa was nice enough to give me permission to buy for myself and my ladyfriend after she planted the seed several months ago (by mentioning that “it could help us get in shape”) and promptly forgot about it.

I’m well aware that all you video game types are totally over the Wii, but for someone whose most recently owned video game system prior to this one was an Atari 2600 purchased by my Grammy in 1982, this was a pretty major leap to make. But 25 years seemed like a long enough time to allow for technical improvements, so I took the plunge (productivity be damned), and let me tell you that it was worth the wait. So far I’ve learned that a) my arms don’t know the difference between swinging a Wii remote and swinging a baseball bat, b) I am just as crappy a virtual bowler as I am an actual bowler, but the shoes don’t smell as bad, and c) my girlfriend can beat the crap out of me at boxing (to the point where I actually found myself yelling “I’m trying to punch you in the face! Why can’t I punch you in the face?!” followed by “Stop iiiiiiiiit!”). In any case, I’m just now discovering that it’s awesome, so be kind to your elders and cut me a break.

Part the Second: Rihanna is a Hottie.
While visiting my ladyfriend’s parents on New Years, I happened to see the video for a song called “Umbrella” for the first time. It’s by a singer named Rihanna, who spends the entire video strutting around in fishnets being splashed with water and naked covered in silver paint, and for all I know it’s been all the rage for the past five years while I was living alone in a cave teaching myself to juggle balls of mud. (I also think I read somewhere that the song was originally offered to Britney Spears, but I for one am glad she declined it, since I would just be spending the whole video thinking about how bad all that water would be for her toe fungus.)

But in any case, while the song is inarguably catchy, let me state now for the record that I concur with the 98% of men and lesbians worldwide who strongly believe that this Rihanna lady could melt the paint off Satan’s furnace. It is a scientific fact that an ordinary man accidentally seeing Rihanna in person would literally have his genitals burned completely off. So exercise caution if you believe she may be in your vicinity. But speaking of exercising caution…

Part the Third: It Is Possible to Be Eaten by Wild Animals at the Zoo.
Who knew, right? All those times I was dragged off to the zoo to stare at sleeping lemurs as a child, I was actually entering a terrifying death trap. The most interesting thing that happened while I was there was when the giraffe took a really enormous crap.

Awesome Video Of The Day

Pretty Much The Coolest Fucking Thing I’ve Ever Seen In My Life

Not long ago, virtual reality wasn’t really much of a reality at all (unless you had access to a CAVE or were watching The Lawnmower Man). We’ve come a long way since then, and now some guy named Johnny Lee has figured out a way to turn a regular TV and a Wiimote into, like, the coolest thing of all time.

It would be pretty easy to make fun of this guy for being kind of a dork, but you know what? He’s like a thousand times smarter than I am, and while I’m sitting here making dick jokes and snarky little remarks, he’s furiously coding some awesome new program that will one day produce amazing new video games that I, the retard consumer, will then purchase. Then I’ll be staring at my TV with infrared lights strapped to my glasses, ducking and weaving around the living room like “whoaaaa.” Then my girlfriend will walk in and be like “you look like a fucking dork.”

Hubris sucks.

(more…)

For those of you living in primitive, over-seas, possibly Australian lands, you might not be familiar with the sudden onslaught of consumerism that overtakes America in November. Immediately after Thanksgiving, people across the land venture out of their dwellings for days and weeks on end, purchasing everything they see, all in a futile attempt to celebrate the birth of their Pagan lord, Jesus. It’s horrific.

Consequently, November, and it’s sequel, December, are some of the biggest months of the year for the retail industry. Video game retail sales are no different, and unsurprisingly, tend to spike abruptly in these two months. Below we present the video game sales data for November, courtesy of the NPD group. As always, if used properly, this data will back up any argument you want it too.*

*up to, and including “Don’t shoot, here are five excellent reasons why I’m in bed with your wife”

Hardware Sales (lifetime in brackets)

Nintendo DS 1.53 million (15 million)
Wii 981K (6 million)
Xbox 360 770K (7.9 million)
PSP 567K (9.5 million)
PlayStation 2 496K (40 million)
PlayStation 3 466K (2.5 million)

Software Sales

360 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 1.57 million
Wii Super Mario Galaxy 1.12 million
360 Assassin’s Creed 980K
PS2 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 967K
Wii Wii Play (w. Remote) 564K
360 Mass Effect 473K
PS3 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 444K
Wii Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 426K
360 Halo 3 387K
PS3 Assassin’s Creed 377K

Percentage gain over October sales:

Wii: 89%
Xbox 360: 110%
PS3: 285%
DS: 232%
PSP: 98%

(more…)

As you’ve probably heard, the Nintendo Wii is once again going to be very difficult to find this holiday season. Anxious shoppers are camped outside stores right now, chasing rumors of fresh Wii shipments. The handful that are available on E-Bay are going for 50% markups. And it seems that every other day a mainstream media outlet is telling the story of another frantic parent, desperate to obtain a Wii to replace the soiled Tickle-Me Elmo doll that no longer captures their children’s imaginations.

At first glance, this isn’t a terribly interesting story - nothing more than a byproduct of the ever-growing consumerization of Christmas, another reminder that the world we live in grows nastier and meaner every day. Typical holiday cheer stuff really.

But if you venture into some of the damper video game forums around the Internet, you can find a few people suggesting that Nintendo has deliberately kept supplies of the Wii tight in order to artificially generate free publicity and buzz for their machine. They reason that since the Wii has been in short supply for 12 straight months, this can represent nothing more than black-hearted malice on the part of Nintendo – the sort of anti-consumer malice normally associated with sinister American companies, like Microsoft or Frito-Lay.

“Not so,” counter Nintendo supporters, speaking from the carpeted floor in their parents rec rooms, “for to deliberately keep Wii’s in short supply, Nintendo would be losing money in sales. No amount of free publicity could make up for that,” they add, straightening their stained Yoshi t-shirt.

Another answer remains largely unspoken, given that it doesn’t fall neatly into the “NINTENDO IZ EVIL / NOES THEY ARE GOD FTW” cadence of modern online discourse: Nintendo may simply be incompetent. The short supply of Wii’s is due to Nintendo trying to make as many Wii’s as possible, and failing, possibly via some sort of I Love Lucy style conveyor belt shenanigans.

(more…)

Here’s our monthly look at the North American console and video game sales for October, courtesy of the NPD group. We should caution that none of the information contained within will validate your console buying decision, or invalidate that of your friends. Studies show that how well your chosen console has sold in a given month has little to no effect on the length of your penis*

*(re: RFC 793 - Proposed measure for the value of an Internet user’s arguments)

Hardware Sales (lifetime in brackets)

Wii 519K (5 million)
Nintendo DS 458K (13.5 million)
Xbox 360 366K (7.1 million)
Playstation Portable 286K (8.9 million)
PlayStation 2 184K (39.5 million)
PlayStation 3 121K (2 million)

Software Sales

360 Halo3 433.8K
360 Guitar Hero III 383.2K
WII Guitar Hero III 286.3K
PS2 Guitar Hero III (w. Guitar) 271.1K
NDS Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass 262.8K
WII Wii Play (w. Remote) 239.7K
360 The Orange Box 238.4K
PS2 Guitar Hero III (no Guitar) 231.7K
PS2 Fifa Soccer 08 129.7K
NDS Brain Age 2 116.9K

Xbox 360 sales dropped down from 527.8K last month, which suggests that the “Halo” effect has all but disappeared. Nevertheless, given its strong game library, the 360 should be positioned for a strong holiday season. That is, assuming it doesn’t garner any more negative publicity about the RROD problems - or worse. What are the odds of a 360 exploding and killing someone before Christmas? Probably not high. But also probably not zero.

Measured on a weekly basis, the PS3 did a bit better than last month, though that’s essentially the same as saying that it “sucked a bit less hard.” Fact: PS3 sales are still hilariously low. However, these figures are from the period before Sony’s latest round of cuts to the PS3’s price and feature list, so Sony fanboys are hopeful sales might pick up yet. Nevertheless, at $399, the PS3 still represents the most expensive console available. If sales don’t pick up soon, industry experts expect that by next summer Sony will have slashed the feature list down to the point where a PS3 is composed of little more than a Sixaxis tied to an egg carton with some yarn.

As for everybody’s favorite bowling and cow-riding simulator, the Wii climbed back up to the top of the hardware charts this month, despite having yet another soft month of software sales. What on earth are people doing with their Wii’s? Aside from “not buying games for them.” It kind of makes
me wonder if everybody else knows something that I don’t. Is there a hardcore porn Easter egg in the Weather Channel? I looked for weeks but the only thing I ended up with was a sore wrist.

In software sales this month, the big news is the success of Guitar Hero III. GH3 sold very well across all platforms, including a healthy 286K units for the Wii, and a whopping 500K for the PS2 version(s.) This suggests to me that whether you play games in 480i or 1080p, the only thing that matters in the end is that you play them like a hurricane.

Once a month the NPD group releases sales figures for the preceding month of video game sales in North America. Every month fanboys and industry watchers pore over these numbers, looking for surprises, trends, and evidence that proves their favorite system is beating the fuck out of yours.

If there’s one thing that Cracked’s known for, it’s providing thoughtful analysis of the video game industry. Well, that, and our hate filled xenophobic slander of other cultures. It’s in that spirit that I present below my thoughts on the September NPD numbers. This will hopefully become a new monthly tradition here on Cracked, or at least it will until our next relaunch in May 2008, when we plan to become an unsuccessful webmail client.

September Video Game Sales (from the NPD Group)

Hardware Sales (lifetime in brackets)

Xbox 360 527.8K (6.8 million)
Wii 501K (4.5 million)
Nintendo DS 495.8K (13.2 million)
PlayStation Portable 284.5K (8.6 million)
PlayStation 2 215K (39.3 million)
PlayStation 3 119.4K (1.87 million)
Game Boy Advance 75K

Software Sales

360 Halo 3 3.3 million
WII Wii Play (w. Remote) 282K
NDS Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass 224K
PS2 Madden NFL 08 205K
360 Skate 175K
360 Madden NFL 08 173K
WII Metroid Prime 3: Corruption 167K
360 Bioshock 150K
NDS Brain Age 2: More Training In Minutes 141K
PS3 Heavenly Sword 139K

Analysis after the break…

(more…)