Nintendo currently owns 72% of the handheld market, with Game Boy Advance at 41%, Nintendo DS at 31%, and PSP at 28%.

The NPD Group also released US hardware sales for the month of November (in total units sold):

* GBA: 892,438
* PS2: 546,096
* NDS: 381,619
* PSP: 359,772
* Xbox 360: 332,121
* NGC: 278,284
* Xbox: 191,320

Unreal Tournament and Unreal Championship have sold more than 9 million units worldwide

The first independent figures regarding the launch performance of the Xbox 360 in North America have been released by the NPD Group, revealing that 325,902 consoles were sold by the end of November.

Shortages of the hardware at retail have held back Microsoft's console sales, which lag behind the early performance of the original Xbox - which sold 556,000 units in a comparable amount of time after launch back in 2001, despite direct competition from Nintendo's GameCube, launched only three days later.

Activision, in particular, will be delighted with this showing; Call of Duty 2 was far and away the most popular launch title for the Xbox 360, and with just over a quarter of a million sales, 77 per cent of all Xbox 360 purchasers brought home the game with their console.

Electronic Arts took the next two places in the inaugural Xbox 360 monthly chart, with Madden NFL 2006 selling some 178,000 units, and Need for Speed Most Wanted selling 108,000, while Microsoft's Perfect Dark Zero - the best selling title in the UK at launch - was the highest ranked first-party game at number four, with sales of nearly 86,000 units.

Battlefront II was the top-selling title for the month, racking up over a million unit sales, and was followed in the ranking by EA's Madden NFL 2006, which sold 627,000 units - up significantly over the performance of last year's iteration.

Dragon Ball Z * One of the hottest brands in the video game industry with more than nine million units sold since May 2002

EA spokesperson Peter Nguyen told the Straight that the two “underground” series games have sold more than 15 million units. Assuming that the average video game sells for approximately $50, total retail sales would be in the $750-million range.

The Nintendo DS has sold a remarkable 8.83 million units worldwide with 2.37 million units of that being sold in the US. The DS has also performed well on the software front, 5.16 million for the US and 23.8 million worldwide.

Nintendo GameCube is still selling, knocking the 10 million marker on the head in the US and 19.31 million units sold worldwide. Software sales for the GameCube are at 79.49 million units sold in the US and 169.51 million worldwide.

Figures for the Game Boy Advance (all versions) are currently at 29.8 million units in the US and 70.04 million units worldwide. Software sales for the US have reached 128.34 million and 296.12 million worldwide.

Nintendo also revealed the performance of their top five franchises in terms of software sold. Mario topped the list at 184 million units, followed closely by Pokémon with 143 million units. Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Metroid completed the list with 47, 44, and 11 million units each, respectively.

Blizzard has announced that their highly popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft, has surpassed 5 million users worldwide.

The home of the Casual Games weekly top seller chart, the all time best sellers chart and many other sales charts for ‘casual’ games sold in placed like Real Arcade.

Australia Sales Chart, Week Ending December 18
There was no new action in the majority of the charts, but the lower reaches saw a couple of returning favorites from earlier in the year. After a week’s absence from the charts, the Xbox version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted showed up again in the #10 spot, and the long-astray Nintendogs came home to #9 with Dachshund & Friends.

Other than that, the chart remains untroubled by big releases. Sales of Need for Speed: Most Wanted for PS2 sufficiently picked up again to bring it up to #1 over last week’s NFL Rugby League 2, which fell to #4 this week. That shift also brought WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw and Buzz: The Music Game Quiz both up one notch, to #2 and #3 respectively.

Other games hanging around on the chart are PSP smash hit Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, this week as last week at #5, Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, now up to #8, and the twin Sony punch of SingStar 80s Bundle and EyeToy: Play 3, taking up the #6 and #7 spaces.

TW LW Title Publisher Formats
1 2 Need for Speed: Most Wanted EA PS2
2 3 WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw THQ PS2
3 4 Buzz: The Music Quiz Bundle Sony PS2
4 1 NRL Rugby League 2 HES Interactive PS2
5 5 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories Rockstar PSP
6 9 SingStar 80s Bundle Sony Xbox
7 8 EyeToy: Play 3 Pack Sony PS2
8 10 Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire EA PS2
9 - Nintendogs: Dachshund & Friends Nintendo Nintendo DS
10 - Need for Speed: Most Wanted EA Xbox

December 23, 2005

Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending December 18
Game software have increased once again in Japan, in what is generally the second busiest retail week of the year, with sales up 22 percent on last week, and 163 percent above the weekly average. This underlies a strong end to the year which looks set to continue into the next few weeks, with major releases such as Kingdom Hearts II and a new Nintendo DS Brain Training game yet to come.

The number one title was the latest in Namco’s Tales of role-playing series, with Tales of the Abyss recording an impressive 404,667 unit sales. Aided by the time of year and the tenth anniversary of the series in Japan, this is notably better than the performance of Tales of Legendia in August which recorded around 242,000 sales in its first week, as well as January’s Tales of Rebirth, which had approximately 335,000 units sold in the first week.

The rest of the chart, though, has been completely dominated by Nintendo format games, with no less than six first party titles from the publisher itself. Animal Crossing: Wild World recorded sales of above 100,000 for the third week running to come in at number two with 183,699 units sold, while Mario Kart DS also sold more than 100,000 in its second week with 145,666 units.

Nintendo’s results in terms of hardware sales are even more extraordinary, with the Nintendo DS accounting for 65.89 percent of all hardware sold this week with a total of 408,770 units sold - only 60,000 less than achieved during the launch week. Considering the continuation of underwhelming performance of its game software, the PSP has also sold well, with 95,689 units sold for a 15.42 percent share of the market.

The Xbox 360’s second week on the charts, though, has been even more disappointing than the first, with the console, showing 8,623 units sold, failing to outsell even the GameCube. This is a performance so far in Japan beneath even the low standards of the original Xbox’s launch - in large part thanks to the continued non-appearance of Dead or Alive 4 or any other prominent Japanese-developed titles.

The PlayStation 2 was the third best selling console this week in Japan, with a 8.92 percent market share and 55,342 units sold. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles was next with a 5.48 percent overall share (Game Boy Advance SP: 19,098, Game Boy Micro: 14,432, Game Boy Advance: 416), followed by the GameCube at 2.88 percent and 17,849 units sold. Despite plenty of stock the Xbox 360, as mentioned, could manage only a 1.39 percent market share and 8,623 units sold, beating only the original Xbox on 0.03 percent and 182 units sold.

TW LW Title Publisher Format Release Date
1 NE Tales of the Abyss Namco PS2 2005.12.15
2 4 Oide yo Doubutsu no Mori Nintendo DS 2005.11.23
3 2 Mario Kart DS Nintendo DS 2005.12.08
4 NE Final Fantasy IV Advance Square Enix GBA 2005.12.15
5 10 Tamagotchi no PuchiPuchi Omisecchi Bandai DS 2005.09.15
6 9 Pokémon Fushigi na Dungeon: Aka no Kyuujoutai Nintendo GBA 2005.11.17
7 6 Pokémon Fushigi no Dungeon: Ao no Kyuujotai Nintendo DS 2005.11.17
8 11 DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain Nintendo DS 2005.05.19
9 1 Rogue Galaxy Sony PS2 2005.12.08
10 12 Gentle Brain Exercises Nintendo DS 2005.06.30

Domestic sales of Nintendo DS portable game machine reached 5 million units in less than 13 months after its launch in early December 2004, the fastest-ever pace in Japan's video game market, Nintendo said on Monday.

Bilder said "Blitz," which was released in October and has sold 350,000 units, fictionalizes real behavior that the NFL tries to downplay, such as off-the-field fights and wild parties. Its release came around the same time authorities in Minnesota launched an investigation after allegations surfaced of misconduct during a boat party attended by several Minnesota Vikings players.

Using the internet for entertainment: Men use the internet more than
women as a destination for recreation.

Men use the web for more kinds of entertainment and recreation than women do, with
just a few exceptions. Women play games as much as men, they listen to audio clips and
watch video clips, and they share files. But men pursue a host of other activities with
greater enthusiasm.

Both men and women do instant messaging, and exchange invitations. Men and women
are about equally likely to go online to listen to music, and watch videos. Sharing files
has a more volatile history. First men did this more often, and now women do. Finally,
men and women are equally likely to go online for no particular reason and to play online
games.

Online activities done by men and women equally

Play games / 36% men / 37% woman / Jun 05
Download games / 22% men / 19% woman / Jun 05
Play lottery or gamble / 4% man / 4% woman / May 03

Part 5. Functions of the internet: How men and women use it as a tool to communicate, transact, get information, and entertain themselves.

How Women and Men Use the Internet - 32 - Pew Internet & American Life Project
Men have recently closed the gap with women in playing online games. Women have
traditionally led men in this data point; as late as November 2004, significantly more
women, 44%, than men, 34%, said they had played games online. In that same survey,
about equal numbers of men and women also said they downloaded such games to play
online. 15

While the last few years have seen tremendous growth in gaming, for one segment of the population, college students, gaming is virtually a commonplace. Computer, video and online games are woven into the fabric of everyday life for college students. And, they are more of a social/socializing activity than most suspected.

• All of those surveyed reported to have played a video, computer or online game at one time or another. Seventy percent (70%) of college students reported playing video, computer or online games at least once in a while. Some 65% of college students reported being regular or occasional game players.

• Students cited gaming as a way to spend more time with friends. One out of every five (20%) gaming students felt moderately or strongly that gaming helped them make new friends as well as improve existing friendships.

• Gaming also appears to play a surrogate role for some gamers when friends are unavailable. Nearly two-thirds (60%) of students surveyed agreed that gaming, either moderately or strongly, helped them spend time when friends were not available.

• Two-thirds of respondents (65%) said gaming has little to no influence in taking away time they might spend with friends and family,

• Students integrate gaming into their day, taking time between classes to play a game, play a game while visiting with friends or instant messaging, or play games as a brief distraction from writing papers or doing other work.

• Gaming is integrated into leisure time and placed alongside other entertainment forms in their residence, and that it forms part of a larger multitasking setting in which college students play games, listen to music and interact with others in the room.

• Most college student gamers seem to associate positive feelings with gaming, such as “pleasant” (36%), “exciting”(34%), and “challenging” (45%). Fewer students reported feeling frustrated (12%), bored (11%), or stressed (6%) by gaming.

• Close to half (48%) of college student gamers agreed that gaming keeps them from studying “some” or “a lot.” In addition, about one in ten (9%) admitted that their main motivation for playing games was to avoid studying.

• College student gamers’ reported hours studying per week match up closely with those reported by college students in general, with about two-thirds (62%) reporting that they study for classes no more than 7 hours per week, and 15% reported studying 12 or more hours per week.

• One third (32%) of students surveyed admitted playing games that were not part of the instructional activities during classes.

According to a TheStreet.com report, Klasell had previously expected Microsoft to ship 2 million systems worldwide for the holiday season. But, after analyzing media reports and having "conversations with retailers", Klasell has revised his estimate to only 1.2 million Xbox 360s shipped so far, with 700,000 to 800,000 of those going to the U.S. region, though these figures are still unconfirmed.

Quake and Doom are the jewels of Id's portfolio. Since the original Quake came out in 1996, Id has sold more than 11 million games. And more than 20 million units of other first-person shooter games using Id technology have been sold.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nintendo Co. Ltd (7974.OS: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday worldwide sales of its Nintendo DS portable video game player have hit 10 million worldwide, with about 4 million sales coming from the United States.

Big Fish Acquires FunPause

Casual gaming website Big Fish Games, one of the top four casual gaming websites, has acquired French casual game developer FunPause.

Big Fish Games, which publishes, develops and distributes online games, distributed 100 million casual games to 25 million customers in 2005, and also released 365 games the same year. The acquisition of FunPause is expected to help Big Fish gain an even stronger grasp on the burgeoning worldwide casual games market.

"We are excited to be a part of the fastest growing casual game site in the world," said Emmanuel Marty, director of Big Fish Games Studios Europe and former CEO of FunPause. "We are being given the liberty to maintain our creative freedom to produce award winning games, while benefiting from the years of experience and success that Big Fish Games brings to this market."

The Montpellier, France-based FunPause developed Atlantis and Fairies, both of which hit number one on casual game distribution sites Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Shockwave.com and EA's Pogo site.

Big Fish Games was in the news recently when indie developer Telltale signed a multititle agreement with the company last month.

But despite its almost overnight success in the US, Xbox hasn't been a hit in Japan. In 2005, the Xbox 360 sold 81,770 units in Japan, while the original Xbox sold 123,000 units in the first three days of its 2002 release, according toFamitsu/Enterbrain, Inc.And Microsoft controls only 5 percent of the Japanese market, compared with an estimated 80 percent for Sony.

CiRCLE's licensed DVD music quiz tops the charts
Ellie Gibson 13:42 09/01/2006
More than 400,000 copies of NOW game sold in the UK alone

Following a Christmas which saw bumper sales of interactive DVD games, Derby-based publisher CiRCLE has released figures for its first DVD title, Now That's What I Call A Music Quiz.

According to CiRCLE, more than 400,000 units have been sold since NOW was released on December 5th. The game saw off rivals such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire 3 to become the the best-selling DVD game of quarter 4 2005 - and it's still topping the UK's DVD game retail sales chart.

The NOW DVD game features more than 1500 questions, single and multiplayer modes and tutorial commentary by DJ Mark Goodier. All musical content is provided by Virgin, EMI and Universal, who are responsible for marketing and distributing the CiRCLE-developed title.

CiRCLE has confirmed plans to release further DVD games in the future, and games licensed by the Discovery Channel, Eurosport, FIFA and the NBA are due out in the first quarter of this year.

The interactive DVD format has grown increasingly popular since it first emerged in late 2003 - sales rose by 600 per cent over the course of just one year, and more than one million copies of blockbuster titles such as Scene iT? and the original WWTBAM have been sold.

According to a Screen Digest forecast, the format will generate USD 1 billion by 2007, with 300 million consumers from around the globe playing DVD games - a figure that's set to hit 493 million by 2010.

Madden 2004 sold an estimated 4.8 million units.

Call of Duty managed 1.7 million followed by less than a million for Big Red One.

PC and Xbox 360 game Call of Duty 2 (1.5 million)

The 2004 game X-Men Legends sold 1.2 million with last year's X-Men Legends II probably hitting around 750K. A third game this year is estimated to manage only 550K.

True Crime Streets of L.A. has sold 2.1 million units since its 2003 launch.

The move would make strategic sense for Nintendo, which has sold over 13 million units of the Nintendo DS worldwide in the past year, and is believed to have fairly low levels of stock of the existing hardware in the retail channel in most of its major markets at present.

600,000 Xbox 360 U.S. game units sold in U.S.-NPD

Since the 360 was launched less than two months ago, the trial version of the game has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, according to Canessa. Nearly 45,000 people have purchased the full game and had their high scores posted on Xbox Live's global-leader board.

U.S. Video Game Industry Achieves Record-Breaking Year

Naysayers thought it couldn't be done, especially with the terrible sales performances during the fall/winter period, but thanks largely to portable gaming the U.S. video game industry has set a new record of $10.5 billion.

Having already sold more than 326,000 units by the end of November, the hard-to-find next-gen console saw another 281,000 ship during December, bringing the total to around 607,000.

Once one of the most popular game machines, the PC is losing ground to consoles, handhelds and even wireless phones. Even as the rest of the industry expands, sales of PC-based games are falling like a rock, dropping 12% last year, for instance, according to research firm NPD.

"It's inevitable that [PC game sales] will go down, but I wouldn't think they would go down that precipitously," said Michael Pachter, an analyst who covers the video-game software industry for Wedbush Morgan Securities. "You want to see everything up. You don't want to see anything down 12%."

Software makers sold about 45 million units of PC-based games last year, tallying $1.08 billion in retail sales, according to NPD. That was down from 2003, when they sold 52.7 million units with a retail value of $1.22 billion. And even 2003's sales totals were down 14% from the prior year, when gamemakers sold $1.4 billion worth of PC titles at retail.

However, the figures from 2005 appeared grim for one game platform in particular--the PC. According to a report released late yesterday by the industry-research group NPD, 2005 saw PC-game revenue slide from 1.1 billion in 2004 to just $953 million, a 14 percent decline. By volume, the drop-off was even greater, going from 47 million games sold in 2004 to just 38 million in 2005--a slump of 19 percent.

As one might expect, the number one game of 2005 was World of Warcraft, with 957,000 units sold. Taking both second- and third-place slots was Electronic Arts, with The Sims 2: University's 574,000 units and The Sims 2's 559,000 units.

France, Paris – 19 January, 2006 -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.’s World of Warcraft®, the world’s leading subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has surpassed the one million customer milestone in Europe, more than quadrupling the previously estimated size of the entire European MMORPG market since its launch in February 2005. In addition, World of Warcraft topped the sales charts* for full-price PC games in Europe last year. Worldwide, the game has a growing audience of more than 5.5 million customers.

"Psychonauts," though, was a critical darling – earning a spot on many critics' holiday buying guides. Despite this, the game never found an audience. Sales were awful, coming in at under 100,000.

The Rayman® range: 15 million units sold

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell®: over 12.5 million units sold

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six®: over 12.5 million units sold

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon®: over 8.5 million units sold

Myst®: over 11 million units sold

Prince of Persia®: over 5 million units sold

Chessmaster®: over 5 million units sold

Settlers®: over 5 million units sold

Brothers in Arms: 1.7 million units sold

Vivendi Universal has announced that multi-format title 50 Cent: Bulletproof has proved to be a hit with gamers, with more than 1 million copies sold in the US and UK since the game launched last November.

Dance Dance Revolution, a favorite at arcades, has built up a solid following among youth and adults, who enjoy the game's fast pace, fun music and sweat-inducing challenges. In the game, players must dance on a large pad lined with sensors, timing their rapid steps carefully to the music and to video prompts on the screen. Since the game was introduced on American video consoles in 2001, Konami has sold 3 million units.

The franchise has sold more than 60 million units since it first appeared in 1995.

Top 10 Games of 2005 were based on Star Wars. Star Wars Battlefront II for PlayStation 2 sold over 1 million units to rank sixth overall, while Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for PS2 sold about 931,000 copies for the eighth spot and Lego Star Wars for PS2 came in tenth place with sales of 807,000 units.

Star Wars Battlefront II for Xbox sold 779,000 units

Star Wars Battlefront for PS2 came in 16th with over 679,000 units sold and earned 87th place for Xbox with sales of over 347,000 copies

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for Xbox sold over 570,000 to earn the 27th spot for the year and the GBA version sold 326,000 copies for 100th place.

Lego Star Wars on Game Boy Advance sold over 491,000 copies for 38th place and the Xbox version sold another 417,000 copies for 53rd place.

Ubisoft had solid success with its Peter Jackson's King Kong game, which ranked 72nd for 2005 as the PS2 version sold approximately 376,000 copies in just two months.

The Xbox Kong game, though unraked, sold about 180,000 copies in 2005.

Activision's Madagascar game came in 73rd and 75th place for 2005. The GBA title sold over 374,000 units, while the PS2 game sold about 370,000 copies.

THQ's The Simpsons Road Rage for GBA, which came in 85th place with sales of over 348,000 units, and The Incredibles for GBA, which took the 88th spot with sales of over 345,000 units.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sold over 212,800 units on GBA and over 173,700 units on PS2.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the first game to blend both the literary works and the film cast, sold over 282,200 units on PS2 and over 214,100 copies on GBA for 2005.

Date: June 2005
Downloads: 1,300
Buy page views: 965
Sales: 178
Price: 22.95 USD
Gross profit: 3551,1 USD
Conversion rate: 13.69%

July 2005
The figures for July are down to 6.1%, but thats due to a huge download spike whose sales impact might not have trickled through yet.

June 2005 - January 2006 (8 months)
Sales: 2000
Avg. Price: 21.45 USD (went up from 19.95 to 22.95 4 months ago)
Gross profit: 42900 USD

Income:
Date: December 18th - 26th Dec (9 days)
Downloads: 52,000 (including 2 Portals)
Sales: 165
Price: 19.99 USD
Gross profit: 3298.35 USD
Avg. Conversion rate: 0.3%

Expenses:
Total expenses: about 30% from gross profit (portals, affiliates, ecommerce provider and other fees)

Revenue:
Net profit: 2300 USD

Additional comments:
Xmas bonus was released as an experiment. The sales figures aren’t typical, Xmas bonus was targetted and released within 2 weeks of Xmas. No additional marketing was done. The Net Profit percentage is not typical. Normally we would advertise a title.

Game: Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys
Short description: Gameplay is a cross between a Frozen Bubble-type game and a Breakout-type game.
Developer: Blue Tea Games
Released: November 2004
Current Version: 2.4, revised 10 times.
Team size: 5 people
Time to complete: 2.5 months (v1.0)

Income:
Date: Jan 2005 - Dec 2005 (12 months)
Downloads: 555 000 (estimation)
Sales: 4993 units
Price: 19.95 USD
Gross sales: 99610 USD
Conversion rate: 0.6 - 1.2%

Distributed by Eidos Interactive, the original LEGO Star Wars was the No. 13 best-selling video game of 2005 (according to NPD Funworld) with over 2.5 million copes sold worldwide, and also won its fair share of awards. A few of the most notable include G4 Videogame TV's Best Adaptation of 2005 at the G-Phoria Video Game Awards, IGN.com's Best Platform Game, GameSpot.com's Best Use of Creative License, and it was one of 1UP.com's Hidden Gems of the Year. To date the first game has sold more than 3.3 million units worldwide.

General:
Title: Morning’s Wrath
Short description: Classic Adventure / RPG fusion. It combines rich story and puzzles with intense melee and spell-casting combat.
Developer: Ethereal Darkness Interactive
Released: October 1, 2005
Current Version: 1.3
Team size: 5 person team
Time to complete: 3 years
Distribution: Boxed and Downloadable version
Distribution Outlets: MorningsWrath.com, JustAdventure.com
Demo download size: about 80 MB

Income:
Date: Oct 2005 - Feb 2006 (5 months)
Downloads: over 3000 (2000+ from download.com, over 1000 from other places)
Sales: 100 units
Price - boxed: 29.95 USD
Price - download: 19.95 USD
Gross sales: 2000 - 3000 USD
Conversion rate: about 3.3%

Revenue share:
The manufacturer MRW Connected: about 50% (responsible orders, issues with sales, etc.)
Developers: about 50%

Expenses:
Bugdet: 3000 USD (tools, graphics and audio, little bonuses to developers during the development)
Webhosting Costs: Sponsored

Advertising & Promotion methods:
* Press Releases
* Demo
* Reviews
* Forums

Developer Blizzard announced today that its ever-popular MMORPG World of Warcraft has exceeded 6 million worldwide subscribers; Spanish version on the way.

Just last December, Blizzard had announced that it had reached a 5 million user WoW milestone.

In addition, the game will soon be available in Spanish, bringing the number of WoW-supported languages up to four in Europe. English, German and French editions are currently available. The Spanish version of the game will be complemented by a fully Spanish website, along with a Spanish-speaking support and community staff.

Localization will be performed by Blizzard.

Title: Titan Attacks
Developer: Puppygames
Released: 5th March 2006
Current version: 1.2
Team size: 2 part-time + 2 contracted
Time of development: 6 man-months
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Sales
Price: 9.95 USD
Units sold: 457 as of 27th March 2006 (in 22 days)
Downloads: 9658 as of 27th March 2006 (in 22 days)
Conversion rate: 4.7%

Expenses:
* Sound: 351 USD
* press releases: 99 USD

Revenues:
* Direct sales: 3810 USD
* Affiliate sales: 70 USD

Advertising & Promotion methods:
* Press Release
* Apple.com front page coverage
* Promosoft to PAD download sites
* Free listing on download.com
* PPD on download.com
* Finding review sites and ask for reviews
* Choosing affiliates carefully

March 31, 2006

Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending March 26
The Japanese games market has continued to show clear signs of positive growth in 2006, with another week in which three of the top ten games all sold over 100,000 units. Final Fantasy XII fell off steeply from its opening weekend, though, to register 237,678 units sold.

In the end, FF XII was almost beaten by the latest Pokémon spin-off, Pokémon Rangers: Diamond-Pearl e no Michi which registered 193,337 units sold on its debut. Nintendo has marketed the game in conjunction not only with a new movie in Japan but also as a prelude of sorts to the forthcoming Diamond and Pearl role-playing game sequels, and it is expected to enjoy considerable sales for a number of weeks.

The third placed title was the latest Ace Combat flight simulator from Namco which enjoyed a healthy 109,100 sales in its first week. This was followed by Animal Crossing: Wild World, which again added considerably to its more than 2 million lifetime-to-date Japanese sales with an extra 82,797 units sold. Koei’s latest Dynasty Warriors spin-off fared rather worse at number six, though, with just 54,360 units sold.

In terms of hardware, the Nintendo DS increased its lead over the other formats with 159,293 consoles sold – 119,986 DS Lite and 39,307 of the original hardware. Thanks to Final Fantasy XII, the PlayStation 2 was in second place for the second week with 34,169 unit sold, perhaps affecting sales of the PSP, which sank to a recent low of 31,077 units. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 10,608 units, followed by the GameCube with 1,458 units, and the Xbox 360 in last place as usual with 1,415 units.

TW LW Title Publisher Format Release Date
1 1 Final Fantasy XII Square Enix PS2 2006.03.16
2 NE Pokémon Rangers: Diamond-Pearl e no Michi Nintendo DS 2006.03.23
3 NE Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War Namco PS2 2006.03.23
4 2 Oide yo Doubutsu no Mori Nintendo DS 2005.11.23
5 3 Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju Kanshuu: Motto Nouo Kitaeru Otona DS Nintendo DS 2005.12.29
6
NE Shin Sangoku Musou 4 Empires Koei PS2 2006.03.23
7 4 Eigo ga Nigate na Otona no DS Training: Eigo Duke Nintendo DS 2006.01.26
8 5 Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju no Nouo Kitaeru Otona DS Training Nintendo DS 2005.05.19
9 NE Harukanaru Toki no Uchi de 3: Unmei no Meikyuu Koei PS2 2006.03.23
10 7 Mario Kart DS Nintendo DS 2005.12.08

Sales Stats: Tribal Trouble
Posted in Sales Statistics
April 6th, 2006

Title: Tribal Trouble
Developer: Oddlabs
Released: 1st April 2005
Team size: 4 full-time + 2 freelance
Time of development: 2½ years (includes startup of the company, with many months spent on business
plans and other bureaucracy.)
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Sales
Price US $29.95
Direct online sales: 1500
….. Windows: 460 (31%)
….. Mac OS X: 680 (47%)
….. Linux: 160 (11%)
….. Undefined: 200 (11%)
Portal sales: 400
Danish box sales: 650
German box sales: (sorry, not allowed to say)

Downloads: 100,000 (initiated - from own server)
- Windows: 60,000
- Mac OS X: 25,000
- Linux: 15,000

Conversion rate: 1.5%
- Windows: 0.8%
- Mac OS X: 2.8%
- Linux: 1.1%

Net income: US $60,000 (roughly)

Expenses:
- Music/SFX/GFX: US $6000
- Servers: US $2000
- PR (press releases, gifts for PR competitions): US $600
- GDC (trip for 3 to San Jose + flyers and merchandice): US $4800

Tribal Trouble Developer Sune Nielsen added:

Of course there are a lot of other expenses, but none tied directly to Tribal
Trouble. These include hardware, software, rent and saleries (though they are
low :)), amounting to more than US $40,000. Our first fiscal report isn’t done
yet and I’m not the one working on it, so this is as close as I can get at
the moment.

IGF keeps indie spirit alive in game industry

The video game industry has its own garage-band indie scene where programmers work on labors of love below the radar of the major publishers.

Introversion's Arundel confirms that much of the success of "Darwinia" is due to the decision to sell the game both in retail stores (approximately 10,000 units) and on his company's Web site (approximately 8,000 units). In addition, he signed a deal with Valve Software whose digital distribution system, known as Steam, is available to independent developers. He sold another 17,000 copies through Steam.

"That's about 35,000 copies at about $15 per copy," says Arundel. "When you figure we made half a million dollars with no advertising or marketing whatsoever, that's not too bad."

To date, Lumines has sold more than 700,000 units worldwide, and both it and Meteos are well-rated by critics as some of the top puzzle titles for the PSP and Nintendo DS.

Title: Crystal Cave & Crystal Cave GOLD

Description: Crystal Cave and Crystal Cave Gold are family-fun puzzle games.
Developer: 300AD
Released: 1st March 2004, GOLD August 2004, Mac August 2005
Team size: 2
Time of development (all version together): 2 months (not fulltime, only 3-4 hours/day). 2 weeks programming + graphics, 3 weeks levels design, 1 week testings and one month creating level hints (due to customer requests, because some levels are really hard).
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X

Sales:
Price: US $12.95 (Crystal Cave), US $19.95 (Gold)
Direct sales:
- Crystal Cave: 334 copies
- Crystal Cave Gold: 252 copies
- Crystal Cave Gold MAC: 74 copies
Net sales: (Net sales is the cash received. Gross sales is the sales before payment processing fees.)
- Crystal Cave: US $3328.09 USD (Gross sales: US $4649.84, including sales taxes)
- Crystal Cave Gold: US $3450.78 (Gross: US $5427.36, including sales taxes)
- Crystal Cave Gold MAC: US $1211.72 (Gross: US $1559.54, including sales taxes)
Other sales:
- Portals, distributors: US $4000 - $5000 (Gross: not allowed to say - Gameproducer’s guess: near $15000)
TOTAL: US $11000 - $12000

Conversion rates: (counted from files requests, not from full download files)
- Windows: 1.0%
- Mac: 0.7%

Downloads:
Windows: 55000 (25.000 download.com, 30.000 primary and secondary servers)
Mac: 12100

Expenses:
- press release: US $100
- porting the mac version: US $150
- other (download.com, google adwords, etc.): US $650
TOTAL: US $900

Promotion methods:
- Manually submitted to download sites first year
- PromoSoft
- Press release
- Google adwords
- Download.com (US $99 program for 4 months)
- newsletters to friends
- competitions (that were self made)
- sending infor to several news conferences

Additional comments:
Pavel Tovarys:


Thanks for the sales statistics Pavel, and good luck with the sales.

SPOnG can't decide if it's shocked or not that Japanese gamers bought an estimated 480,000 copies of New Super Mario Bros for their Nintendo DS consoles in the first day the game went on sale. This means that a million units might well be snapped up inside the first week.

DEXSOFT Multimedia je do sada izdala vise od 10 CD-ROM naslova od kojih je svakako najpoznatiji "Kuca za igranje" (Jatszóház), serija od tri dela, od kojih je prvi deo prodat u vise od 10.000 primeraka na madjarskom trzistu.

Its Guitar Hero, an instructional game developed with game publisher RedOctane, carries the MTV brand and has sold more than 340,000 units in just six months—a hit for an original game, says CNET's Larson. And it is currently developing a game tied to forthcoming Vin Diesel vehicle The Wheelman from Paramount and MTV Films.

bkaradzic: Lista od 718 igara koje su prodane u više od milion kopija.

Filip Strugar: Bez veze, izostavili su StarCraft, on je prodat u vise od 10mil, trebao bi biti u prvih 20. Ko zna sta su jos izostavili - npr Civilization je sigurno prodat u vise od milion.

Any comments on these numbers? Come and have your say in the forum

GENERAL:
Title: OceanDive (download :: purchase)
Developer: SCS Software
Description: Combination of a 3D scuba diving screensaver and exploration game
Released: March 3, 2005
Team: 4 full time + 4 part time (2 programmers and 2 artists in the core team, with occasional submissions from a further 2 artists, and occasional support from 2 other programmers.)
Development Time: 4+1 calendar months (4 months main production, extra month for technical post production)
Platform: Windows
Development platforms & tools: Windows & Linux, Visual studio 2003, GCC, Alias Maya, Adobe Photoshop.

Sales to date:

* Price: US $19.99
* Direct Online sales: over 4,000 copies
* Net Revenue: about US $60,000
* Downloads: 280,000 (from Download.com, but way over half those people were driven to download.com from our own site)
* Website: We attract 30,000-40,000 unique visitors per month to www.oceandive.com.
* Retail distribution: a couple of smaller deals in Europe below $10,000
per deal, still waiting for the right offer for US retail distribution.

bkaradzic: Da, piše tamo da su dosta toga izostavli... Ako imaš podatke iz nekog izvora koji možeš da citiraš, skroluj na dno te stranice i klikni na ovaj link: ;)

Top Selling Windows Games for Week Ending 3 June 2006

Guild Wars Exceeds 2 Million Units Sold

The combined sales of Guild Wars and its follow-up, Guild Wars Factions have exceeded two million units sold worldwide to date.

Publisher NCsoft also announced that the NPD Group recorded Guild Wars Factions as May's number one-selling PC game for North America. It also topped the charts in Europe that same month.

“As a top seller for GameStop and EB Games, we watch with high interest how this property continues to make a stronghold for itself in the marketplace," said GameStop's Bob McKenzie, senior VP of merchandising.

The original Guild Wars launched in April 2005, and Guild Wars Factions launched on April 28, 2006. The subscription-free MMO is developed by Bellevue, Washington-based ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCsoft, and is available for play in Korea, North America, Europe, Japan and Taiwan.

By comparison, Blizzard's subscription-based World of Warcraft reached 6 million players worldwide in February.

Spiderman 2 the Movie made $360m in box office receipts during its first month in the US, and 36 million people saw it. In stark contrast, the game made $20m in its first month in the US, and sold a meagre 405,000 copies.

Total direct sales: 3,050 units (in the year since release)

Income:
Asteroid Miner
- February: US $17,97
- March: US $5.99
- April: US $29.95
- May: US $23.96

Starship Tycoon
- February: US $619.62
- March: US $671.58
- April: US $599.63
- May: US $621.64

Democracy (You might also want to check out the previously published Democracy sales stats)
- February: US $5206.76
- March: US $4,253.83
- April: US $3528.38
- May: US $5916.80

Since then, the company has garnered considerable success with the relaunch of the Tomb Raider series in Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider: Legends, which has now sold 2.9 million units worldwide on all formats. The more recent Hitman: Blood Money has also performed well, according to the firm, with 1.5 million units sold in Europe and North America.

The inaugural episode is still a retail bestseller, and while Lombardi declines to give numbers sold via Steam, it’s worth noting that for the original Half-Life 2, which sold four million total units, an estimated 1 in 4 were bought and distributed over Steam. It’s safe to assume a similar ratio will obtain for the episodic version.

The Steam Numbers
Total Steam Users: 8 million total, 5 million active (last 30 days)
Sales: Unknown for Half-Life Two: Episode One
Half-Life 2 sales via Steam: 750,000-1 million @ approx. $49.95 each

20 Million Dollar Failure

The launch window picked was close to perfect: December 17, 2002, just in time for Christmas, virtually assuring millions of sales. In-house predictions called for an ongoing active subscriber base of up to 1 million people, but The Sims Online launched out of the gate and promptly fell flat. Six months after launch, Wired reported 125,000 retail copies sold and 97,000 active subscribers - not bad, but not enough to justify the game's $20 million budget. By April, 2004, their subscription rate peaked at around 55,000, and has now stagnated near 35,000.

All of these small transaction fees add up - Habbo Hotel had $30 million in revenue last year.

53 million Habbo characters have been created and close to 7 million unique users worldwide visit Habbo each month (source: Nielsen Netratings, June 2006). The service is available in 18 countries.

Next-Gen.Biz has ranked the top 100 games of the PlayStation 2 / Xbox / GameCube generation based wholly on unit sales. Analysis includes revenues, average review scores, commentary, spin-offs and more.

Here are some notes on how this list works.

* Stats, ordering and research: thanks to game publishers, retail analysis sources and NPD data.
* Games are ranked purely by units sold. This tends to favor games released earlier, rather than later, and games which have spent a long time at a lower price point have also done well, but we wanted to reward longevity and popularity across all audiences, not just hardcore – a particularly important criterion for the large child-oriented sector of the handheld market.
* For the Pokemon and Super Mario Advance series, only the top selling SKU is represented on the list. This was to prevent these two franchises from choking the upper echelons of the list – apparently, people buy a lot of them.
* This list is for the U.S market only.
* This list only features games released since the introduction of Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS.

Brain Age Sales Top 4 Million Units
Nintendo's Brain Age for the DS has sold four million copies worldwide, exhibiting the widespread appeal of a well-executed "non-game."

So far, 600,000 units have sold in the Americas, 3 million in Japan and 500,000 in Europe, according to Nintendo. The company describes the game as the "cornerstone" for its pick-up-and-play Touch Generations brand of games.

Another smart title in the Touch Generations catalog is Big Brain Academy, which consistently appears in the top 10 DS sellers on Amazon.com's sales charts and has sold over 250,000 copies since its June 5 US launch. Nintendo launched Touch Generations in late May, a brand which also includes titles such as Magnetica and Sudoku Gridmaster.

The success of games like Brain Age bodes well for Nintendo's Wii strategy. The company's upcoming console will cater to the same gamers who are attracted to pick-up-and-play games.

Nintendo of America VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan told BusinessWeek in June, "One of our goals was to target people entering the game world for the first time. It's absolutely about tapping into emerging markets."

Major publisher and developer Electronic Arts announced that it has already sold an estimated 2 million copies of Madden NFL 07 since it was released on August 22, a new all-time record for the veteran sports franchise.

The game is currently available for the Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, PC, Nintendo DS and PSP, with versions for the Wii and PlayStation 3 planned for release later this year alongside each console's respective launch.

If accurate, this would make the latest entry in the 17-year old franchise the best selling version yet, up a full 12 percent from sales of last year's release, which saw sales of 1.8 million units over the same general period.

"We are proud that Call of Duty 2 is the first title to sell over one million units on the Xbox 360 in the U.S."

GENERAL INFORMATION:
Title: Pharaohs’ Curse Gold
Developer: Ancient Soft
Release date: 2002
Team size: 1 developer, 1 artist and 1 musician
Time of development: about 4 month part time
Platform: Windows (Mac, Linux versions planned)

SALES:

* Downloads: 1500 monthly
* Direct Sales: 4-15 units monthly
* Affiliate sales: 1-2 units monthly (not regular)
* Price: USD 19.95

EXPENSES

* Music USD 19
* Graphics USD 350
* Hosting USD 100
* Download.com Ads USD 99 (in 2004)
* Shareware Tracker USD 59

PROMOTION
- Submitting to shareware sites
- Download.com

Marble Blast Ultra sold for 800 MS points and Tunnell noted that the game was close to 120,000.

Casual game biz poised for growth despite non-paying customers

It's got a business model that's drastically in need of repair, which may be one reason why the casual games audience is spreading like wildfire. Indeed, because the typical casual game comes with a "try before you buy" offer, fewer than 2% of those played are actually purchased. Conversely, that means that 98% of casual gamers are playing for free without a cent going to the games' developers or publishers.

Still, sales of casual games -- small, downloadable video games with simple rules that make it easy for a mass audience to begin playing almost immediately -- have skyrocketed from practically zero in 2002 to over $600 million in the U.S. alone in 2004. They're expected to top $2 billion domestically by 2008, according to a white paper prepared by the International Game Developers Association (click here to download PDF of paper).

While Jason Kapalka didn't invent casual games -- that honor goes to Microsoft with its Microsoft Solitaire which came bundled with Windows as early as 1990 -- he has had a lot to do with its growing popularity. In 2001, he created "Bejeweled" which has sold 10 million copies, spawned countless "match three" clones (so-called because the goal of the game is to create a line of three identical pieces), and is available on nearly every platform, including cell phones, PDAs and in-flight versions, with a slot machine adaptation on the way.

As chief creative officer and a founder of Seattle-based developer and publisher PopCap Games, Kapalka has also designed nearly two dozen of the company's hit titles, including "Zuma," "Bookworm," and "Chuzzle."

Lucas Arts dropped us a line pointing out that their Lego Star Wars II game, out for one week, has already sold more than 1.1 million copies across the eight platforms it was released on.

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With over 500,000 units sold since its launch in 2005, the LUXOR franchise is one of the most successful brands ever in casual gaming. And now, MumboJumbo is pleased to announce the launch of LUXOR 2, the much anticipated sequel to the #1 casual game of 2005.

Sales Statistics: GL Golf, Over $28,000 Total Sales
Title: GL Golf (Download for Mac :: Buy)
Developer: Nuclear Nova Software
Released: March 2004
Time of Development: 5 months part time as a hobby, plus continued improvement since the release, maybe 1-5 hours a week
Platforms : Mac OS X

About development:

I developed GL Golf as a hobby to enter into the uDevGames 2003 contest. It won Editors Choice and received lots of positive feedback. I decided to improve the game and release it as shareware, and I was amazed by the sales. It took about two months to get the sales up to the average rate, but for over two years I have maintained a steady income. This is mostly due to constant updates of the game, at least once a month. I’ve added several new features to every patch, and the version today looks like an entirely different game than the one released in March of 2004.

SALES
GL Golf

* Price: US $15
* Sold 641 units
* Total: US $9615

GL Golf Combo

* Price: US $25
* Sold 645 units
* Total: US $16125

GL Golf Expansion

* Price: US $10
* Sold 263 units
* Sales: US $2630

Total sales
$28360 over two and a half years. Average monthly sales - 43 copies of GL Golf or the Combo pack with a total of $945 a month.

Downloads
Total Downloads - 85,000 + downloads from sites OTHER than Apple.com.

I don’t how many downloads Apple.com sends me, I actually need to setup a simple counter on my website to count the number of downloads the send me. I am estimating it to be a large number, possibly 25,000-50,000

Jake continues:

I mostly used these five sites - apple.com, download.com,
macupdate.com, versiontracker.com, and macgamefiles.com . They
probably send me 90% of my downloads, and are 100% esential to ANY
mac game.

EXPENSES

* Contracted course maker’s commission - $2,640
* Affiliate Sales - $265
* eSellerate and Plimus Commission - $2,836

Tips to other developers.
As told by Jake Leveto:

* The casual game market is perfect for small shareware games. My target audience is adults, most of which aren’t hardcore gamers.
* Update often, adding new features and fixing bugs. Golf is a perfect example of a game that can be improved very easily, and it is much easier to update a game than to make a new game from scratch.
* If possible create an add-on (expansion pack) for an extra cost, the course pack
accounts for around 1/3rd of my revenue.
* Listen to your users, ask for feedback. Most of the features I’ve added to GL Golf have been suggested by owners.

Future Plans

Continue improving GL Golf and my other two games. Due to college I don’t have the time to program a game from scratch, and Its much faster and easier to keep working on GL Golf. I would love to have the game ported to Windows, because all of the sales above are only from Mac users. I may have time to do this in the future but I am considering paying someone to do it for me.

GameProducer.net comments
I think GL Golf is an excellent example of a successful indie game: made part time, continously upgrading it, steady sales. Big congratulations to Jake at Nuclear Nova Software for sharing the numbers and tips. Good luck with the sales!

Sales Statistics: Tropic Ball - Great Indie Game Sales Experiment

Developer: TenGames
Release date: July 2006
Team size: 1 developer and 1 musician
Time of development: about 6 month part time
Platform: Windows

SALES:
Downloads: 1000 monthly
Direct Sales: 4-5 units monthly
Affiliate sales: not regular
Price: USD 19.95

SALES PER MONTH:

* JUN: USD 10.5
* JUL: USD 41.6
* AUG: USD 102
* SEP: USD 229 (2 weeks sales through Russian publisher nevosoft.ru, direct sales through TenGames.net were zero)

EXPENSES:

* Music USD 130
* Hosting USD 70

PROMOTION:

* Submitting to shareware sites
* Download.com
* Publisher nevosoft.ru

GameProducer.net comments
It’s great to see people sharing numbers - and it’s especially nice to get these from Ten Games who said “Tropic Ball was an experiment to test indie game sales”. Abramov was bit hesitant to start another indie game, but I think this is a fine start, and you definitely should continue making games. Either improve this game or make something totally new. You’ve proved yourself that your game can sell - that’s excellent. And perhaps you could use similar approach as GL Golf is using: lower the price for the main product, but offer a full priced combo pack and an expansion pack. Whatever you decide to do, good luck!

And anybody out there with some extra cash and need for a nice game: go to TenGames and purchase Trobic Ball. Purchasing the game supports indie scene where every penny counts.

Prey is a success. We know that within the first two months it passed one million units sold worldwide.

Xmas Bonus got new updated sales stats. The total (as of end of July) is 230 - spread across Big Fish Games, Reflexive and Cloverleaf games.

Monthly breakdown:

December 2005 - 179 units
January 2006 - 39 units
February 2006 - 4 units
March 2006 - 0 units
April 2006 - 2 units
May 2006 - 2 units
June 2006 - 1 unit
July 2006 - 3 units

Total: 230 units

Conversion rate was 0.51% on one portal and less on the others.

As "Gears of War" continues to emerge throughout the world ahead of the holiday sales rush, the Xbox 360 juggernaut has sold an impressive 1 million copies world-wide in just its first two weeks of release—elevating the game to the fastest-selling title of 2006 and fastest-selling original Xbox game of all time.

Nov. Game Industry Sales Up 34%

Research firm NPD Group has reported overall November US videogame sales were up 34 percent year-over-year, with software sales up 15 percent; NPD’s Anita Frazier optimistic about full year.

ImageTotal industry sales for the month were $1.7 billion and $9.4 billion year-to-date. NPD analyst Frazier expressed to Next-Gen, “I don't think any category shows any signs of the growth letting up. … I would not be surprised to see total year sales come in north of $13 billion once December figures are in.”

Videogame console software sales were $804 million versus $702 million in November 2005, topped by Microsoft’s Gears of War, which sold 1 million units and raked in $61.5 million in sales (including the higher-priced Collector’s Edition).

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XII followed at 896,000 units and $49 million in sales, and the third slot was filled by Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess for Wii, which sold 412,000 copies and generated $20.2 million in sales. Activision’s $80 Guitar Hero II with controller came in fourth at 356,000 units and $28 million in sales.

Frazier noted that Gears of War is Microsoft’s first Xbox 360 game that it has released at the $60 price point (the Collector’s Edition was $70), and it still managed big sales. The analyst called the game “a testament to the power of great content,” adding “Price just isn't a barrier when the content delivers.”

The software results fall in line with analysts’ expectations.

New consoles PlayStation 3 and Wii launched November 17 and 20, respectively, making blips on a radar which was dominated by sales of the Nintendo DS.

The Wii sold 476,000 units for the month, while the shorter-in-supply PlayStation 3 sold 197,000 units.

The little DS juggernaut sold 918,000 units in November, bringing life-to-date US sales to 8.1 million units. The PS2 followed as the second-best selling piece of hardware for the month with 664,000 units sold. Third place was held by the never-say-die GameBoy Advance with 641,000 units.

Xbox 360 was next, with 511,000 units sold, bringing life-to-date US sales to 3.8 million units. The PSP followed with 412,000 sold during the month.

Frazier said she was “surprised” by the continued strong performance of the PS2 and GBA.

Total hardware sales came to $771 million, up 69 percent compared to last November. The amount was comprised of $519 million in console hardware (a 103 percent increase) and $252 million from portables (a 26 percent increase).

“As for console hardware sales, the biggest contributor in terms of units was clearly the PS2, but the 360 and the Wii contributed the most in dollar sales,” Frazier said. “The 360 accounted for about 26 percent of total hardware dollar sales.”

Year-to-date hardware sales were $3.3 billion.

Accessory sales were up 19 percent year-over-year at $158 million.

Frazier said of the results, "It's just such overall good news that bodes very well for the health of this industry."

Guild Wars Exceeds Three Million Sold

Breakthrough Game Series Hits Major Milestone as ArenaNet Announces Wintersday Festival and Exciting New Game Features

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fuelled by sales of the hit game Guild Wars Nightfall™, the latest release in the award-winning Guild Wars® franchise, sales for one of the world’s leading subscription-free online roleplaying games have surpassed three million units worldwide in a little more than a year and a half. This milestone event was announced today by ArenaNet®, developer of Guild Wars®, Guild Wars Factions™, and Guild Wars Nightfall™, and NCsoft® Corporation, the world’s leading developer and publisher of online computer games.

“Reaching three million units sold in such a short amount of time is absolutely incredible,” says Robert Garriott, CEO, NCsoft North America. “Coupled with the recent news of Guild Wars Factions winning Billboard’s Multiplayer Game of the Year, we couldn’t be prouder of what the team at ArenaNet has accomplished with the Guild Wars games.”

Total Nintendo DS Software Sales (as of 12th November, 2006)

1.) More Brain Training (Nintendo) - 3,417,956
2.) New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo) - 3,351,234
3.) Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo) - 3,335,195
4.) Pokémon Diamond / Pearl (Nintendo) - 3,060,032
5.) Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo) - 2,837,394
6.) Mario Kart DS (Nintendo) - 1,626,242
7.) English Training (Nintendo) - 1,408,243
8.) nintendogs (Nintendo) - 1,335,185
9.) Big Brain Academy (Nintendo) - 1,299,188
10.) Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop (Bandai) - 1,110,046
11.) WarioWare: Touched! (Nintendo) - 1,013,297
12.) Super Mario 64 DS (Nintendo) - 960,718
13.) Tetris DS (Nintendo) - 889,178
14.) Final Fantasy III (Square Enix) - 860,490
15.) Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (Nintendo) - 751,848
16.) Pokémon Ranger (Nintendo) - 629,103
17.) Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi (Nintendo) - 586,211
18.) 42 All-Time Classics (Nintendo) - 572,915
19.) Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 2 (Bandai) - 568,820
20.) Jump! Super Stars (Nintendo) - 549,265
21.) Common Knowledge Training (Nintendo) - 444,812
22.) Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Nintendo) - 416,479
23.) Mario Slam Basketball (Nintendo) - 348,649
24.) Pokémon Dash (Nintendo) - 348,376
25.) Kirby & the Power Paintbrush (Nintendo) - 315,211
26.) Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 (Bandai) - 298,440
27.) Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (Square Enix) - 293,970
28.) Pokémon Link (Nintendo) - 293,807
29.) Children of Mana (Square Enix) - 280,775
30.) Zaidan Houjin Nippon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyoukai Kounin: KanKen DS (Rocket Company) - 222,443
31.) Naruto: Saikyou Ninja Daikesshuu 3 (Tomy) - 220,928
32.) Kirby Squeak Squad (Nintendo) - 219,807
33.) Digimon Story (Bandai) - 213,770
34.) Yoshi Touch & Go (Nintendo) - 197,337
35.) Super Princess Peach (Nintendo) - 196,641
36.) Mushi King (Sega) - 191,388
37.) Mogitate Tingle no Barairo Rupee Land (Nintendo) - 181,000
38.) Densetsu no Stafi 4 (Nintendo) - 164,950
39.) Daigassou! Band Brothers (Nintendo) - 164,166
40.) Sudoku Master (Hudson) - 153,819
41.) Naruto RPG 2: Chidori vs Rasengan (Tomy) - 131,748
42.) Power Pro Kun Pocket 8 (Konami) - 122,788
43.) Naruto: Saikyou Ninja Daikesshuu 4 (Tomy) - 120,154
44.) Tales of the Tempest (Namco) - 117,971
45.) Phoenix Wright - 117,784
46.) Unou no Tatsujin: Soukai! Machigai Museum (Namco) 116,506
47.) Harvest Moon DS for Girls (Marvelous Interactive) - 112,503
48.) Minna no DS Seminar: Kanpeki Kanji Ryoku (TDK) - 111,817
49.) Eyeshield 21: Max Devil Power (Nintendo) - 110,260
50.) Kanji Sonomama DS Rakubiki Jiten (Nintendo) - 109,182
51.) Harvest Moon: Colobocle Station (Marvelous Interactive) - 107,136
52.) Rockman EXE 5 DS Twin Leaders (Capcom) - 106,526
53.) Trace Memory (Nintendo) - 105,452
54.) Rune Factory (Marvelous Interactive) - 104,037
55.) Yu-Gi-Oh Nightmare Troubadour (Konami) - 102,249
56.) Mushiking 2 (Sega) - 102,185
57.) Feel the Magic (Sega) - 100,263
58.) Pac Pix (Bandai Namco Games) - 98,650
59.) Phoenix Wright Best Price (Capcom) - 95,148
60.) BLEACH DS (Sega) - 95,044
61.) Polarium (Nintendo) - 94,947
62.) SD Gundam G Generation DS - 94,317
63.) Rockman ZX (Capcom) - 93,972
64.) Power Pocket Koushien (Konami) - 93,220
65.) Egg Monster Hero (Square Enix) - 92,096
66.) Ochaken no Heya DS (MTO) - 89,800
67.) Kirarin Star Revolution Kira Kira Idol Audition (Konami) - 89,690
68.) Metroid Prime Hunters (Nintendo) - 89,662
69.) Atsumare! Power Pocket no Koushien DS - 88,147
70.) Star Fox Command (Nintendo) - 86,588
71.) Chou-Gekijou-Ban Keroro Gunsou: Enshuu Dayo! Zenin Shuugou (Bandai Namco Games) - 83,771
72.) Gekitou! Custom Robo (Nintendo) - 83,365
73.) Project Hacker (Nintendo) - 83,144
74.) Naruto RPG 3 (Tomy) - 80,974
75.) Kenshuui Tendo Dokuta [ Lifesigns ] (Spike) - 76,786
76.) DS Talking Travel Software Vol. 4 America - 74,853
77.) Puyo Puyo Fever (Sega) - 74,218
78.) Atama Scan (Sega) - 72,343
79.) DS Rakubiki Jiten (Nintendo) - 71,557
80.) World Soccer Winning Eleven DS (Konami) - 68,789
81.) Doraemon: Nobita no Kyouryuu 2006 DS (Sega) - 61,635
82.) Meteos (Bandai Namco Games) - 57,880
83.) Point Blank DS (Bandai Namco Games) - 57,865
84.) Chousoujuu Mecha MG (Nintendo) - 57,815
85.) Gintama DS: Yorozuya Daisoudou (Bandai Namco Games) - 54,249
86.) Cooking Mama (Taito) - 51,712
87.) Tennis no Oujisama 2005 DS (Konami) - 51,658
88.) Choco Inu no Omise (TDK Core) - 50,958
89.) DS Talking Travel Software Vol. 3 Korea - 49,714
90.) Ouendan (Nintendo) - 49,236
91.) Futari wa PuriCure Max Heart DANZEN (Bandai Namco Games) - 47,848
92.) Magical Starsign (Nintendo) - 46,820
93.) Jissen Pachislot Fist of the North Star DS (Sega) - 46,353
94.) Resident Evil Deadly Silence (Capcom) - 46,280
95.) Jissen Pachislot Fist of the North Star SE (Sega) - 45,956
96.) San Ex Land Theme Pack de Asobou (MTO) - 45,301
97.) Bomberman (Hudson) - 44,608
98.) Phoenix Wright Justice for All Best Price (Capcom) - 44,608
99.) Mawashite Tsunageru Touch Panic (Nintendo) - 43,921
100.) Kanpeki Kanji (TDK Core) - 43,664

Why Gears Of War Costs $60

Curious who is reaping the rewards from each $60 game sold? Based on interviews with industry players and experts, we've broken down the dollars and cents of the console gaming industry to see who's getting the most action.

Art/Design: 25% (about $15)

The rippling oceans, expressive faces and explosive action sequences gamers want to see don't come cheap. Publishers pay millions for computer-generated graphics, animation and motion-capture talent. "It's just like making a movie," says ABI Research's Michael Wolf.

Programming And Engineering: 20% (about $12)

This expense includes the gaming "engine"--the software equivalent of a game's guts--which can be bought, developed in-house or licensed, such as Epic's Unreal engine. Also included: artificial intelligence programs, online game-play systems, video compression software and "localization" for international markets. Engineering and development costs can quickly escalate when publishers agree to port a game title to an additional platform--and most of them now have to do so, notes ABI Research's Wolf. Some third-party developers secure deals to receive a cut of royalties based on how well a game sells.

Retail: 20% ($12)

Most games wholesale for about $48, giving retailers like EB Games, or Best Buy $12 of markup; at best, a dollar of that may drop to the store's bottom line.

Console Owner Fee: 11.5% (about $7)

This is why Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are laboring so mightily to make their machines to success: Each gamemaker that wants to roll out a new title has to fork over a fee for each unit sold. This may vary per console maker--some publishers say creating games for the PlayStation 3 is more expensive because of fees Sony charges to use its Blu-Ray DVD standard. "But that number can get smaller depending on the publisher's status," says Peer Schneider, vice president of content publishing at IGN, News Corp.'s gaming portal. "The fee can be waived for exclusivity to a platform--that will buy you a kickback."

Marketing: 7% (about $4)

The game marketing budget is smaller if a game belongs to a well-known franchise, such as one of Activision's Tony Hawk titles, or can benefit from the marketing extravaganza tied to a movie budget (like Activision's Spiderman games). But good luck trying to market a brand new game concept. "To say, 'This is our new universe that you've never heard of,' that'll pile on additional marketing costs," says Luke Smith, news editor of Ziff Davis Media's gaming site 1up.com.

Market Development Fund: 5% (about $3)

It's not just enough to end up on a retailer's shelf--if you want good placement, or a spot in a retailer's advertising, you'll have to pay up again. This includes paid placement for print circulars, banner ads and highlights within a retailer's TV spot.

Manufacturing Costs, Packaging: 5% (about $3)

Blu-Ray discs might cost more, and so will collectible "special edition" sets. Otherwise, this amount covers the blank DVD media, the game imprinting, the sturdy plastic case and the included instruction manual.

Licensing: 5% (about $3)

From athletes and sports leagues to Marvel characters and movie studios, if a game title takes its name and plot from a well-known pop culture icon, publishers can expect to pay top dollar for the licensing rights. Headlining voice talent, such as Marlon Brando in Electronic Arts' The Godfather game, may even receive a percentage of retail revenues; unnamed voice actors and musicians get a flat fee. Costs vary widely here. For original-concept games, this cost is zero.

Publisher profit: 1.5% (about $1)

After all other parties--including the in-house or outsourced development teams--have been paid, the publisher collects about a buck toward the bottom line. As these pricey consoles become more mainstream, those dollars will add up.

Distributor: 1.5% (about $1)

If a small publisher wants to reach mass audiences, or a large publisher wants to sell to a small-time retailer, they'll need help from a game distributor, such as Ingram Entertainment.

Corporate Costs (quantitative analysis, management overhead): 0.3% (about 20 cents)

Number crunching is cheap, says Sega of America president Simon Jeffrey. Lawyers are not. But publishers need to pay all of them. And if they find themselves in legal trouble--as Take-Two Interactive did when it had to defend its Grand Theft Auto game's racy content in federal court--this number will shoot way up.

Hardware development costs: 0.05% (less than 3 cents)

Before a game developer can begin its craft, it must have access to the hardware the game will run on. For Xbox 360 and PS3 games, engineering teams pay tens of thousands for access to developers' kits and demo units--some of which get destroyed in the process.

Domaće tržište

Prema rečima Dejana Kravića, generalnog direktora firme Extreme CC d.o.o. koja se od 2003. godine bavi distribucijom zabavnog softvera u Srbiji, prodaja video igara je u prethodnoj godini ostvarila značajan rast, ali glavnu kočnicu i dalje predstavlja visok nivo piraterije. Na prodaju utiče i prosečan standard stanovništva, tako da je najpopularniji takozvani Budget cenovni segment, i u ovom rangu cene originala sa PDVom kreću se od 500-800 dinara. Zavisno od angažovanja lokalnog distributera, ali delom i od politike izdavača prema tržištu, cene naslova koji se prodaju kod nas mogu biti i mnogostruko povoljnije nego što je to u Evropi, a neretko niže i od propisanih za istočnu Evropu. Najprodavanije igre u 2005. godini, po podacima Extreme su: Warcraft III (Vivendi Universal), Warcraft III Frozen Throne (Vivendi Universal), Guild Wars Prophecies ( NCsoft), World Of Warcraft (Vivendi Universal), HalfLife (Vivendi Universal), Heroes Of Might and Magic 3 (Sold Out), Disneys: Donald Duck Quack Attack (Buena Vista Games), Need for speed Underground 2 (Sould Out), Project IGI (Sold Out) i Hitman (Sold Out).

Samo prvih 5 igara prodalo se u više od 1000 primeraka, a naš sagovornik procenjuje da će u ovoj godini ukupan promet porasti za nekih 30-40%, tako da bi svih prvih deset igara sa top liste trebalo da pređu magičnu cifru od 1000 prodatih. Iako u svetu dominira prodaja konzolnih igara, kod nas je raspodela tržišta igara oko 85% za PC, a tek oko 15% za konzole.

The three Mystery Case Files games, including the latest title, Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst, have sold more than 700,000 units.

The Independent in London has published a list of the all-time best-selling game franchises, with U.S originated product making up only six of the top 20.

1. 'Mario': 193 million.
2. 'Pokémon': 155 million
3. 'Final Fantasy': 68 million
4. 'Madden NFL': 56 million
5. 'The Sims': 54 million
6. 'Grand Theft Auto': 50 million
7. 'Donkey Kong': 48 million (centre)
8. 'The Legend of Zelda': 47 million
9. 'Sonic the Hedgehog': 44 million
10. 'Gran Turismo': 44 million
11. 'Lineage': 43 million
12. 'Dragon Quest': 41 million
13. 'Crash Bandicoot': 34 million
14. 'Resident Evil': 31 million
15. 'James Bond': 30 million
16. 'Tomb Raider': 30 million
17. 'Mega Man': 26 million
18. 'Command & Conquer': 25 million
19. 'Street Fighter': 25 million
20. 'Mortal Kombat': 20 million

Dead Rising has sold more than a million copies worldwide.

Title: Triptych
Developer: Chronic Logic
Released: June 2002
Development time: Two full time developers 3 weeks (plus one artists for a week or so for interface improvements which were added in patches)
Platforms:Windows (OSX and Linux added later)
Expenses: Less than $200 for art and sound

SALES
2002: 462 copies
2003: 147 copies
2004: 159 copies
2005: 143 copies
2006: 60 copies
Total Sales: 972 copies

Price: $14.95 USD

Total sales from chroniclogic.com after fees: $13000 USD
Other sales total: $12000 USD
Approximate total income: $25000 USD

Breaking: U.S. Video Game Industry Totals $12.5 Billion in 2006

As was predicted, the U.S. gaming industry toppled its old record in 2006. December alone was up almost 28% and on an annual basis the industry grew 19%. Tons of data and exclusive in-depth commentary from NPD analyst Anita Frazier inside...

The NPD Group has just released its December and year-end totals for 2006, and it's truly stunning. The U.S. video game industry has reached an all-time high at $12.5 billion, easily eclipsing last year's record $10.5 billion. The final month really put the industry over the top, as December total sales hit a whopping $3.7 billion, an increase of 27.8 percent. Software sales for December totaled $1.7 billion, up just 5.4 percent.

- Following news earlier month that Capcom's zombie-slaying Xbox 360 eclusive Dead Rising had sold more than a million copies worldwide, company officials have now confirmed that the recently released Lost Planet: Extreme Condition has shipped over a million units globally following its December 21 release in Japan and subsequent January 12 release in Europe and North America. Taken together, Capcom notes that the success of both of these titles makes the company the most successful Japanese software publisher producing games for the Xbox 360. Lost Planet, a third-person action title that pits players against both aliens and pirates on a snowy ice-covered world, has been met with generally positive reviews since its release, and boasts both a single player campaign, as well as multiplayer modes with support for up to 16 players via the Xbox Live.

Burning Crusade Sells 2.4M on Day One

Blizzard announced today that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade sold 2.4 million units worldwide in its first day of availability, breaking day-one PC game sales records in North America and Europe.

ImageBlizzard said that around 1.2 million copies of the expansion sold in North America on day one, representing over half of the estimated 2 million-plus North American World of Warcraft players.

The original base World of Warcraft, released in November 2004, had also held the day-one PC game sales record at one point in North America with a relatively skimpy 240,000 units sold in its first 24 hours of availability.

The new release sold 1.1 million units in Europe, where there are over 1.5 million World of Warcraft players.

Blizzard added that by the end of the first day of the game’s availability, 1.7 million players had logged in to play The Burning Crusade.

The title launched in North America, Europe, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia on January 16, and launched in Australia and New Zealand on January 17.

Blizzard said that it had supplied over 4 million copies to retailers worldwide. The game retails for $39.99 in the US.

CEO Mike Morhaime commented, “The Burning Crusade has already exceeded even our most ambitious expectations.”

Who are Casual Gamers?

Well it’s not spotty teenagers who buy Half Life or who download pirated games with BitTorrent - no Siree! In fact you often hear that it’s mainly women over 30 - is this true? Yep, you bet. I was just given a report from Popcap, one of the largest developers and distributors of casual games on the Internet, and it includes details of a recent survey that they did of casual gamers.

Check it out:

* 76% of Players are Female! Yep, so it’s no use making gore filled zombie-fests.
* Average age of 48. Wow, so some younger developers might be making games aimed at someone just like their mum - imagine that!
* 89% Are 30 or Older. So basically only 11% are teenagers and in their 20s.
* 71% are 40 or older and 47% are 50 or older. So nearly half of casual gamers are over 50! You better think about that carefully when designing a casual game.
* 88% of players overall indicated they experienced stress relief from playing casual games. So casual games need to be fun and progressive but not “stressful”.
* 74% of all respondents cited mental exercise as a benefit. Aha, so they can’t be mindless games either. They need to keep the grey cells going.

Popcap claim this was the largest ever survey of casual game players (the survey was done in August 2006). Now, a few things may mean that their statistics are slightly skewed (as with all surveys): a) only a certain type of person takes surveys, perhaps women over 50? b) we don’t know where Popcap did the survey. If it was on their site, perhaps it attracts a certain kind of casual customer that is a bit different from Reflexive customers for example. c) we don’t know how many people took the survey. However, I suspect that the survey is pretty accurate to be honest.

A cool thing about women over 50 is that they probably have a good source of income and some spare time on their hands and aren’t afraid to spend money on games. This is great news for *good* casual game developers. Compare that market to say the market for some kind of Indie First Person Shooter game… Imagine I made a low-budget FPS game (haha); well the teenagers and young men that would maybe buy it mostly spend their money on big budget retail games for PCs and consoles or they pirate games (sad fact but true), and so my FPS game would have to compete with those factors. Therefore it would probably not have much chance. Having said that the casual game market is becoming increasingly competitive with game development budgets rising and many more games entering the marketplace everyday.

Square Enix Ltd and Buena Vista Games have conveyed that the KINGDOM HEARTS series of action role-playing games has shipped in excess of 10 million units worldwide, propelling it into one of the top game series in the world.

The cumulative sales figures for the series at December 2006 are:

- KINGDOM HEARTS (PAL Release: 1st November 2002, PlayStation 2)
Japan: Over 1.5 million
North America: Over 3.0 million
Europe & PAL: Over 1.1 million

- KINGDOM HEARTS: Chain of Memories (PAL Release: 6th May 2005, Game Boy Advance)
Japan: Over 0.4 million
North America: Over 0.9 million
Europe & PAL: Over 0.2 million

- KINGDOM HEARTS II (PAL Release: 29th September 2006, PlayStation 2)
Japan: Over 1.1 million
North America: Over 1.7 million
Europe & PAL: Over 0.7 million

THE GAMES PEOPLE BUY

What were the 100 best selling games in North America last year? Next-Gen has compiled a list, with all platforms aggregated, as well as full analysis on the issues facing publishers and developers as they strive to maximize sales. Click through for more...

Let's welcome in Media Create's record of the past week's game sales in Japan. This is where you'll get big numbers and not-so-big numbers, mixed in with the crucial numbers one through ten -- a mathematician's wet dream. Firstly, here's this week's chart, with combined total sales of titles inside those pouting parentheses:

1) Virtua Fighter 5 - 48,346 units sold last week (new entry / Sega, PS3)
2) Wii Sports - 45,897 (1,004,555 units sold to date / Nintendo, Wii)
3) Wii Play - 36,090 (879,432 / Nintendo, Wii)
4) More Brain Training - 32,800 (3,963,712 / Nintendo, DS)
5) New Super Mario Bros. - 29,026 (4,118,078 / Nintendo DS)
6) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 27,519 (304,113 / Capcom, PS2)
7) Wario: Master of Disguise - 26,815 (185,695 / Nintendo, DS)
8) Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On - 26,804 (106,212 / Marvelous, DS)
9) Luminous Arc - 25,676 (new entry / Marvelous, DS)
10) J-League Pro Soccer 5 - 24,468 (131,541 / Sega, PS2)

The Burning Crusade shifts 3.5 million copies

WoW expansion prepares for launch in China after western success

Blizzard has announced that sales of The Burning Crusade expansion pack for World of Warcraft have topped 3.5 million units - with the pack as yet unlaunched in the enormous Chinese market.

The game has sold some 1.6 million copies in Europe to date, with 1.9 million copies shifted in countries which play on the North American servers - including Australasia (some 100,000 copies), Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

The Japanese top ten follows, with weekly sales figures:

1. Yoshi's Island DS / 303,114 DS
2. Monster Hunter Portable 2 / 93,099 PSP
3. Layton Kyoujo no Fushigi na Machi / 45,344 DS
4. Kenka Banchou 2: Full Throttle / 42,131 PS2
5. Super Robot Taisen W / 36,310 DS
6. Wii Sports / 35,298 Wii
7. Gundam Musou / 31,145 PS3
8. Dragon Quest Monsters – Joker / 26,452 DS
9. Wii Play / 26,340 Wii
10. Motto Nou o Kitaeru Otona DS Training / 20,716 DS

The first Tetris game released in 1985 for the PC. Since then, the game has released across nearly every game system and sold more than 70 million units worldwide. Over a three year span, THQ shipped more than two million units of Tetris Worlds for the Xbox, Game Boy Advance and Windows PC.

On the software front, God of War II climbed its way to the top of the charts with 833K units, taking advantage of the huge PS2 user base. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 for Xbox 360 was a distant second with 394K sold while Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360 sold 291K coming in third.

Four of the top 10 games were for Xbox 360, two were for PS2, two were for DS, one was for Wii (Wii Play w/ Remote with 273K) and one for PS3 (MotorStorm, 199K).

In less than one month, God of War II became the best-selling title of the January-March quarter.

PC

1) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi - $3,345,464 grossed
2) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Electronic Arts - $3,262,078 grossed
3) The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
4) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Kane Edition - Electronic Arts
5) The Sims 2 - Electronic Arts
6) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
7) Stalker: Shadow Of Chernobyl - THQ
8) Supreme Commander - THQ
9) Age Of Empires III - Microsoft - 17,936 units sold; $864,335 grossed
10) Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe - Microsoft - 11,959 units sold; $786,820 grossed
11) Battlefield 2142 - Electronic Arts
12) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Shivering Isles Expansion Pack - 2K Games
13) The Sims: Life Stories - Electronic Arts
14) Medieval II: Total War - Sega of America
15) The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
16) Titan Quest: Immortal Throne Expansion Pack - THQ
17) Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi
18) Civilization IV - 2K Games
19) The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts - $542,790 grossed
20) Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes - Sony Online Entertainment - $533,884 grossed

When you rank the top 10 by units sold rather than gross income it all looks rather different:

1) The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts - 104,758 units sold
2) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi - 87,087 units sold
3) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
4) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Electronic Arts
5) The Sims 2 - Electronic Arts
6) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Kane Edition - Electronic Arts
7) Stalker: Shadow Of Chernobyl - THQ
8) Supreme Commander - THQ
9) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Shivering Isles Expansion Pack - 2K Games - 25,201 units sold
10) 3333 XP Games JC - Viva Media - 24,938 units sold

And now the console charts, all of which are ranked by gross income.

Xbox 360

1) Guitar Hero 2 With Guitar - $25,578,100 grossed; 291,434 units sold
2) Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighting Battleperson 2 - $23,343,680 grossed; 394,481 units sold
3) Major League Baseball 2K7
4) Def Jam Icon
5) Crackdown a.k.a. The Halo 3 Beta Game
6) Gears of War
7) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
8) Armored Core 4
9) NBA Street Homecourt - $3,069,938 grossed; 51,368 units sold
10) Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - $2,614,490 grossed; 43,887 units sold

Wii

1) Wii Play With Remote - $13,573,160 grossed; 272,919 units sold
2) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 - $6,048,062 grossed; 121,428 units sold
3) Sonic And The Secret Rings
4) Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
5) Warioware: Smooth Moves
6) Cooking Mama: Cook Off
7) Rayman Raving Rabbids
8) SSX Blur
9) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $1,454,085 grossed; 29,226 units sold
10) Call of Duty 3 - $1,114,600 grossed; 25,347 units sold

Playstation 3

1) MotorStorm - $11,896,100 grossed; 199,075 units sold
2) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - $4,463,276 grossed; 75,138 units sold
3) Def Jam Icon
4) Resistance: Fall of Man
5) NBA Street Homecourt
6) Major League Baseball 2K7
7) Virtua Fighter 5
8) The Godfather: The Don's Edition
9) Formula One Championship Edition - $1,361,988 grossed; 22,792 units sold
10) Armored Core 4 - $1,207,098 grossed; 20,220 units sold

Playstation 2

1) God of War II - $41,531,780 grossed; 833,209 units sold
2) Guitar Hero 2 With Guitar - $11,329,750 grossed; 143,399 units sold
3) Major League Baseball 07: The Show
4) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
5) God of War
6) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
7) Major League Baseball 2K7
8) Guitar Hero
9) WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007 - $1,735,801 grossed; 35,377 units sold
10) DDR Super Nova Bundle - $1,735,405 grossed; 29,039 units sold

GameCube

1) Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - $2,257,489 grossed; 45,212 units sold
2) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $1,046,565 grossed; 26,253 units sold
3) Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2
4) Super Smash Brothers Melee
5) Lego Star Wars
6) Mario Kart: Double Dash
7) Paper Mario: Thousand Doors
8) Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
9) Super Mario Strikers - $403,854 grossed; 13,485 units sold
10) Mario Superstar Baseball - $370,920 grossed; 12,369 units sold

Xbox

1) Halo 2 - $1,463,830 grossed; 49,214 units sold
2) Major League Baseball 2K7 - $827,138 grossed; 27,936 units sold
3) Need For Speed: Carbon
4) Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
5) Call of Duty 3
6) Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
7) Scarface: The World Is Fucking Yours
8) NBA Live 07
9) Lego Star Wars - $264,743 grossed; 14,135 units sold
10) Fable - $254,491 grossed; 12,813 units sold

Overall Top 30

1) God of War II - Playstation 2
2) Guitar Hero 2 With Guitar - Xbox 360
3) Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 - Xbox 360
4) Wii Play With Remote - Wii
5) MotorStorm - Playstation 3
6) Guitar Hero 2 With Guitar - Playstation 2
7) Major League Baseball 2K7 - Xbox 360
8) Def Jam Icon - Xbox 360
9) Crackdown - Xbox 360
10) Major League Baseball 07: The Show - Playstation 2
11) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 - Wii
12) Gears of War - Xbox 360
13) Sonic And The Secret Rings - Wii
14) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Playstation 3
15) Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Wii
16) Warioware: Smooth Moves - Wii
17) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas - Xbox 360
18) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Playstation 2
19) Def Jam Icon - Playstation 2
20) Armored Core 4 - Xbox 360
21) Resistance: Fall of Man - Playstation 3
22) NBA Street Homecourt - Xbox 360
23) NBA Street Homecourt - Playstation 3
24) Major League Baseball 2K7 - Playstation 3
25) Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Xbox 360
26) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Xbox 360
27) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Xbox 360
28) God of War - Playstation 2
29) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories - Playstation 2
30) DDR Universe Bundle - Xbox 360

Sony's aging PS2 also impressed Frazier. "Though I have expected the PS2 to continue to have a long life into the next-gen cycle, March's unit sales of PS2 hardware showed growth versus the same month last year, and in fact it was the best-selling console system for the month. Certainly price point and ample retail inventory play into this, and it's a testament to the size of the more mass market consumer segment. Of course this bodes extremely well for the future of PS2 software sales going forward."

Ubisoft's big game for the quarter was Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 on the Xbox 360, which has sold 1 million units. Titles from late last year have also continued to do well, including Rainbow Six Vegas, which is now up to 1.7 million in sales, as well as the company's two key Wii titles - Red Steel has sold 950,000, with Rayman Raving Rabbids just below it at 850,000 units.

Title:Gish
Developer: Chronic Logic
Released: May 2004
Development time: About 6 months with three developers.
Platforms: Windows, OSX and Linux

Development Expenses:
Sounds and music: $3500
Of the $3500 only $500 was paid up front and the rest was a percent of royalties after Gish was released and selling.

Marketing Expenses:
Independent Games Festival (IGF) entry fees: $200.00
Rough estimate of Affiliate and other fees: $2000.00

Total Expenses: $5700.00

The time of the developers and the cost of office space, computers, etc. is not taken into account here.

Sales from chroniclogic.com per year:
2004: 2587
2005: 1335
2006: 449
2007: 140 (through April)
Misc others sales: 10

Total Sales: 4521

Price: $19.95 USD

SWREG (Credit card orders): $79543.98
PayPal: $1436.86
Manual orders (checks, cash, money orders): $195.48

Approximate net sales from chroniclogic.com: $81176.32

Total income from other sites: $6212.04
(Garage Games, Reflexive Arcade, Linspire, Totalgaming.net and Manifesto games)

IGF Prize winnings: $16000.00

Total Retail publishing: $17539.71
(Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russian, Singapore and Malaysia)

Approximate total income: $121,000 USD

With more than 900,000 units of “Crackdown” sold-through in only two months, Microsoft Game Studios and Realtime Worlds are extending the game’s unparalleled experience, offering gamers several exciting new features, including vehicles, weapons, game modes and seven highly explosive, new Achievements.

Hardware Sales For April

* Nintendo DS - 471K
* Wii - 360K
* PlayStation 2 - 194K
* PlayStation Portable - 183K
* Xbox 360 - 174K
* Game Boy Advance - 84K
* PLAYSTATION 3 - 82K
* GameCube - 13K

Top 10 Software Sales For April

01. Pokemon Diamond (DS) - 1.045M
02. Pokemon Pearl (DS) - 712K
03. Super Paper Mario (Wii) - 352K
04. Wii Play (Wii) - 249K
05. Guitar Hero II (Xbox 360) - 197K
06. Guitar Hero II (PS2) - 142K
07. Spider-Man 3 (Xbox 360) - 117K
08. Spider-Man 3 (PS2) - 105K
09. God of War II (PS2) - 101K
10. MLB '07: The Show (PS2) - 79K

Desktop Tower of Money: 3 tips to profit from casual games

So here’s a couple ways to a create successful game online:

a), Find an investor who’s crazy enough to give you millions of dollars, or b), Put it on a distribution network and hope you get enough customers willing to buy it as a download.

Then there’s c), Make a Flash mini-game, let people play it for free, and watch the ad revenue pour in when the site gets 20 million pageviews a month.

As announced in April, Ubisoft's sales hit EUR 680 million during 2007 - an increase of almost 25 per cent. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shifted more than 1 million copies, as did Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, while other good performers included Rainbow Six Vegas (1.7 million) and Wii exclusive Red Steel (950,000).

AZADA SALES ESTIMATION:
Estimated sold copies: average 500 per day (from Big Fish Games portal)
Price: $20 (or $7 with game pass).
Estimated average price: about $17 (assuming 25% of buyers use game pass)
Total estimated income: $250,000 (in the first month after the release)
Downloads: 600 000 in first two weeks, estimated 1 000 000 downloads in the first month
Estimated conversion rate:1.5%

The company also noted that its subscriber base has continued to grow from the 9 million mark it celebrated in July to more than 9.3 million, which it says is up more than one million subscribers since December 31 of last year.

Microsoft has confirmed to GameDaily BIZ that BioWare's critically acclaimed RPG is off to a red hot start with one million copies sold in less than three weeks.

Research firm NPD Group said that EA and Crytek's critically lauded FPS Crysis sold just 86,633 units last month, following its release on November 13.

Midway and Epic Games’ Unreal Tournament 3 for PC fared even worse, selling just 33,995. However, sales will be supplemented by PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. The game launched for PC on November 19, also receiving strong reviews.

The annual top 10 is as follows:

1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) - 4.82 million
2. Wii Play w/remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.12 million
3. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, Activision) - 3.04 million
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock w/guitar (PlayStation 2, Neversoft/Budcat/Activision) 2.72 million
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 2.52 million
6. Pokemon Diamond (DS, Nintendo) - 2.48 million
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2, Electronic Arts) - 1.90 million
8. Guitar Hero II w/guitar (PS2, Activision) - 1.89 million
9. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) - 1.87 million
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii, Nintendo) - 1.82 million

World Of Warcraft Hits 10 Million Subscribers

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft has recently passed 10 million subscribers worldwide since its launch on November 23, 2004. According to Blizzard, WoW now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia.

Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ Ranks #1 Title in Units Worldwide for Calendar 2007

Game Sells in Excess of Seven Million Units According to The NPD Group, Chart Track and The GFK Group

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Call of Duty 4®: Modern Warfare™ was the #1 title in units worldwide for calendar 2007, according to The NPD Group, Chart Track and The GFK Group. Developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty 4®: Modern Warfare™ has sold in excess of seven million units worldwide since its launch in November.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has garnered critical acclaim, securing more than 18 perfect score reviews and over 40 combined Editors’ Choice and Game of the Year awards in the U.S. alone. The game has been nominated for 10 prestigious Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences awards, including Game of the Year. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also currently is the #1 Xbox 360™ title on Xbox Live, based on unique users, according to www.majornelson.com.

“We’re very excited about this achievement especially given so many competitive titles this year,” said Will Kassoy, senior vice president, global brand management, Activision Publishing, Inc. “Consumer and critics agree that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the best games ever created and further establishes Call of Duty as one of the premier brands in the industry. This ground-breaking game and franchise continue to establish new standards by which all other action games will be judged.”

Top 10 PC Games of 2007

1. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade – (Vivendi) – 2.25 million
2. World of Warcraft– (Vivendi) – 914K
3. The Sims 2 – (Electronic Arts) – 534K
4. The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack – (Electronic Arts) – 433K
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – (Activision) – 383K
6. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars – (Electronic Arts) – 350K
7. MS Age of Empires III – (Microsoft) – 313K
8. Sim City 4 - (Electronic Arts) – 294K
9. MS Flight Simulator X - (Microsoft) - 280K
10.The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack – (Electronic Arts) – 272K

Wii

* Wii Sports - 17,850,000
* Wii Play - 9,230,000
* Super Mario Galaxy - 5,190,000
* Mario Party 8 - 4,350,000
* The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 4,300,000
* Super Paper Mario - 2,160,000
* Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree - 2,000,000
* Mario Strikers Charged - 1,650,000
* Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 1,140,000
* Link's Crossbow Training - 1,070,000
* Wii Fit - 1,050,000

Nintendo DS

* Nintendogs - 17,790,000
* Pokemon Diamond & Pearl - 14,170,000
* New Super Mario Bros. - 13,140,000
* Brain Age - 11,710,000
* Brain Age 2 - 9,840,000
* Mario Kart DS - 9,670,000
* Animal Crossing Wild World - 9,200,000
* Super Mario 64 DS - 5,780,000
* Big Brain Academy - 4,610,000
* The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - 3,820,000
* Pokemon Ranger - 2,610,000
* Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Explorers of Darkness - 1,540,000

'Grand Theft Auto' sales top $500 mln in 1st week

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ) scored over $500 million in global sales of its criminal action game "Grand Theft Auto 4" in its first week, making it one of the most lucrative entertainment launches in history.

Steve Demeter wrote "Trism", a sliding-block, color-matching puzzle game, in his spare time, and put it on Apple's App Store for $4.99. Just two months later, the game had earned Demeter over $250,000, and prompted him to quit his day job at a bank and start a development studio.

Steve Demeter wrote "Trism", a sliding-block, color-matching puzzle game, in his spare time, and put it on Apple's App Store for $4.99. Just two months later, the game had earned Demeter over $250,000, and prompted him to quit his day job at a bank and start a development studio.

The Mystery Case Files franchise has sold more than 2.5 million units thus far.

Sales of one man indie game hit, Minecraft, have surpassed $250,000 per day.

According to stats provided by developer, Mojang, one copy of the $10 game is currently being purchased every 3 seconds, representing sales of more than $12,000 per hour.

The world-building game has been in development for more than one year. It is largely a one man project of experienced Swedish game maker, Markus Persson (full credits here).

Minecraft drops the player into a vast, pristine, and hostile world in which they must build tools and find resources in order to survive. The focus is on gameplay, and graphics are deliberately crude. Both single player and multiplayer versions exist. In the multiplayer version, players are free to either collaborate or compete.

Minecraft had been selling more than 4,000 copies a day for several weeks, but sales spiked to new highs after a server meltdown prompted Mojang to offer the game for free over the weekend. Many of those who tried the game, which has been dubbed 'Minecrack' for its addictive quality, obviously liked it so much that they purchased it as soon as the servers came back online on Wednesday.

Indeed, Mojang has quite a habit of finding triumph in adversity: an earlier bump in sales was apparently triggered by publicity surrounding Paypal's decision to temporarily lock Persson's account because the amount of money flooding in was deemed 'suspicious'. Sales grew to over 6,000 a day during this period.

bkaradzic: Minecraft igra zarađuje oko ~$250K dnevno.

Ovde možete da gledate statistiku prodaje:
http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp


http://texyt.com/minecraft+persson+notch+indie+game+success+00127

Angry Birds is a puzzle video game developed by Rovio, a developer based in Finland. Since its release for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices, over 6.5 million copies of the game have been purchased,[1] and versions have appeared for other touchscreen-based smartphones.