Madden 08 First Week Sales Numbers

The first week sales number for Madden 08 is out. Given how insanely popular football is in US, and how the brand continue to yield record breaking revenue for EA, it's a good general "pulse" for the US video game marketplace.

• Madden NFL 08 for X360 sold 889,072 in Week 1.
• Madden NFL 08 for PS2 sold 546,403 in Week 1.
• Madden NFL 08 for PS3 sold 204,025 in Week 1.
• Madden NFL 08 for Wii sold 57,247 in Week 1.
• Madden NFL 08 for the Xbox sold in 56,841 in Week 1.
• Madden NFL 08 for the PSP sold 39,170 in Week 1.

With the 360 version beating PS2 the previous gen champion by a fairly wide gap, I think it's obvious the new heir apparent, at least from developer's POV.

For NCAA football 08, so far the 360 version sold 558,000 copies, then PS2 version with 290,000 copies, and PS3 version at 115,000 copies.

What does this tell us? Well, 1 Xbox 360 buyer != 1 Wii Owner != 1 PS3 owner. 360 owners love to buy games. and 3rd party developers love to sell games to them.

Bored In Plane Ride? Try Linux

The following is from Network World.

To make flying more enjoyable for its passengers, Singapore Airlines Ltd. is adding bigger screens, more in-flight movies and a PC, running Red Hat Inc.'s distribution of the Linux operating system, in every seat on its newest planes.

The system consists of a central Linux server that connects to a network of PCs installed in every seat on the aircraft. The KrisWorld software offers an improved user interface and each economy-class seat is fitted with a 10.6-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen that offers resolution of 1,280 pixels by 768 pixels. They are larger in business and first class, where each seat comes with a 15.4-inch and 23-inch screen, respectively.

The amount of content that's available on the latest KrisWorld system for passengers to choose from is staggering: 100 movies, 150 television shows, 700 music CDs, 22 radio stations, and 65 games. Movies and television shows are refreshed on a monthly basis, meaning frequent fliers will always find fresh content. In addition, the system offers Berlitz language lessons, travel guides from Rough Guides, and live text news, among other choices.
KrisWorld can also be used as a PC and includes Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice application suite, which offers a word processor, spreadsheet, and a presentation program. Every seat is fitted with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port that lets passengers access documents carried on a thumb drive or portable hard disk. The port can also be used to connect a USB keyboard or mouse, making it easier for business travellers to create and edit documents without having to dig out their laptops and power cords.

Apple New Latop Sales Up

According to this, in terms of new laptop sales market share, in the past 90 days, Apple has gained another 5% to 17%.

PS3 Sold 2000 More Than 360 In Canada For July

Thanks to the price cut, PS3 sold 15,000 units in Cananda for the month of July. Xbox 360 sold 13,000 units for the month of July.

Paramount/Dreamworks SKG Ditches Blu-Ray

The following is from AP Wire.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. will offer next-generation DVDs in the HD DVD format and drop support for Blu-ray, further complicating the race between the competing technologies.

Monday's announcement affects the upcoming DVD releases of the blockbusters "Shrek the Third" and "Transformers," along with movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films.

This makes me happy, because of the two, I prefer HD-DVD. Due to less draconian DRM and no region code.

D&D 4th Edition Announced

D&D 4th edition has been announced at GenCon. The 3 core books will show up in summer 2008. This will also be the first version of the game that has online stuff tied to it. Starting with these books, each book you have a digital code which you can use to get to part of the dndinsider.com after you pay a monthly fee. I'm thinking they are trying to turn this into a MMORPG model. The site apparently will also have play tabletop game over the web tools. Ah I remember the days of using BBS/IRC to run Traveller and ShadowRun.

The OGL license will continue. Meaning a 4th edition SRD will available when the time comes.

First reaction? I'd have to say, it's a negative one. I mean, come on, you are going to nickel and dime my paper RPG too? I suppose there is always the use the books and forget the digital stuff.

More Out Of Box Thinking On DS

G recommended I check this out. Also Y played with the beta and can't put it down. With two strong recommendations, P and I decided to check this out. It does NOT disappoint.

The idea is to add fast motion tracking for DS in a simple to use way. So how was it done? Basically, Nintendo came up with a way to mount a optical mouse on the bottom of the DS. So now you have the illusion of "moving" the DS. Sure, you are moving it by holding the DS and slide it around, technically. But the motion is translated by the optical mouse on the bottom of the DS. Basically, they turned your DS into a optical mouse. It's a very clever $5 hack.

For example of how well this works, check this TV Ad out.

The name of the game in question is translated to "Magkid: Slide Adventure". Already have at least 3 ideas on how to use the mouse.

Big Brother Visits China

The reality where the government watch and tag everything you do in life has arrived in China.

According to this, in Shenzhen, China, at least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen's name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord's phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China's controversial "one child" policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

People Don't Know What They Buy?

NBD did a survey, and found that most console buyers don't know what they got. Only 40% of PlayStation 3 owners polled were aware the machine had a Blu-ray player and about 50% of that number had popped in a Blu-ray movie during the last 10 times they turned on the machine -- the other half didn't use the feature.
So apparently, for the 1.5 million PS3 owners in US. Only 600k owners know that it's even a Blu-ray player. And out of them, only 300k actually used it recently.