Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
Flashbang studios are opening the doors to a public alpha test of their new dino themed play, Jetpack Brontosaurus. The makers of the already highly addictive Off Road Velociraptor Safari want the our eyes, ears, and fingers all over this alpha so that developers can study game play and style, and make modifications, improvements, and/or updated troubled areas of play. Flashbang
provides a platform whereby at the end of play, you can leave any comments, criticisms, feedback, suggestions, or just about anything else you want to pass along to the developers (and while some of these developers are probably pretty good looking, please keep mobile numbers to yourself).
At this point, game play is relatively simple. You can go anywhere you want on the map, picking and choosing missions that you have to traverse the terrain to find (no guides here folks).
Unfortunately your bronto isn’t equipped with a heat seeking multi round laser guided rpg, but please feel free to suggest one. Maybe tail mounted with an independent control from the head mounted gatling guns?
Tags: alpha, alpha test, Brontosaurus, developers, dino, dinosaurs, door, doors, ears and fingers, fee, Flashbang, flashbang studios, fly, game, game play, guns, improvements, independent control, jetpack, King, map, May, missions, mobile numbers, Off Road, point game, safari, troubled areas, US, Velociraptor
Posted in industry news | No Comments »
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Market research firm NPD released April data on Thursday putting Nintendo’sWii on top.
Nintendo also released their own press release using the NPD numbers:
According to NPD, the Wii outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3. The Wii moved 714,000 units in April bringing it’s total US sales since launch to 9.5 Million units.
NPD’s numbers show that Microsoft milked the cash cow for 188,000 units and Sony, 187,100 PS3′s.
Perhaps having a bit of advanced knowledge of the upcoming numbers, Microsoft released a statement of their own on Wednesday that they’d reached the 10 Million units sold mark, making the Xbox 360 the first next-gen console to reach this landmark. Microsoft gave itself a pat on the back, arguing that this is the landmark that that usually indicates the eventual winner of each console generation.
Speaking of April, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV launched on the 29th on Xbox 360 and PS3. Granted, GTA IV had only been out for 2 days last month, and box Microsoft and Sony saw an increase in these sales, and yet Wii still came out on top.
NPD’s data on GTA IV places the game in two of the three top slots of software sales, with the Xbox version cashing in with 1.85M copies, and the PS3 version selling 1M units.
Again, Nintendo backs that ass up with Mario Kart Wii coming in as the second best selling game for the month of April, pushing 1.12M bananas out the door. Overall, 6 out of the top 10 best selling games during April were Wii games.
Let’s not forget about the other white meat: handheld gamers. The Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP outsold both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The DS cranked out 414,800 receipts, with the PSP paling in comparison at only 192,700.
Overall, NPD’s research indicates what we’ve already mentioned, even though the economy sucks, the gaming industry is still partying like it’s 1999, with total sales in April racking up $1.23 billion. Yep, that’s Billion. That’s a 47% increase over the $839 million only one year earlier. Likewise, hardware sales were up 26% from $339 million in April 2007 to $426 million in April 2008.
Tags: April, Auto, best selling games, bit, cash, cash cow, comparison, cow, door, economy, firm, game, gaming, gaming industry, generation, Grand, grand theft auto, grand theft auto iv, GTA, gta iv, industry, knowledge, landmark, launch, Mario Kart, mark, Market, meat, Microsoft, Million, month, month of april, Nintendo, nintendo ds, NPD, pat on the back, playstation 3, press, PSP, release, research, rock, Rockstar, rockstar games, software, software sales, Sony, sony psp, Speaking, statement, Theft, Thursday, top, US, version, Wednesday, white meat, Wii, wii games, winner, Xbox, xbox 360, xbox version
Posted in industry news | No Comments »
