Nintendo sells 7.8 mil Virtual Console downloads, shrugs

The Wii’s Virtual Console has sold 7.8 million downloads so far, totaling 3.5 billion yen, which is about $33 million, according to a post by IGN quoting Nintendo executive Shinji Hatano. With 175 games available, according to that most trusted of sources Wikipedia, that comes out to about $188,500 per game and about 44,500 downloads per game.

Apparently, Nintendo doesn’t know whether that’s good or not.

“We’re currently unsure if this is a lot or low,” Hatano said. “They’re not bad figures.”

The costs for maintaining the Virtual Console service can’t be very high, so I would guess that they’re at least making a tidy amount. Then again, when you’ve sold over 1 million consoles and grossed $172 million in one week, $33 million in about a year can’t be terribly exciting.

Nintendo setting company sales records, but what does that mean?

Nintendo had it’s biggest week ever, selling 653,000 DS Lites, the all-time high for any console from the company, and 350,000 Wiis, second only to the week of launch.

My response is what did you expect? Of course it’s going to be more than they have ever sold for previous consoles. Video games, especially consoles, have only exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry since then, so it’s not like there’s a smaller pool of people to buy the things.

It’s like when movie companies break opening weekend records. Movies break these records because it costs twice as much to go to the movies as it did even 10 years ago, let alone the 50 years since some of the greatest movies have been released. In a similar, though admittedly slightly different way, video games are going to continuously break these records because they’re only going to get more popular. Of course, when they reach a certain point of saturation the record-breakings will come slower, but they will still happen for the same reason.

What’s more interesting are the relative records. What precentage of the population that plays video games bought a DS in this one week? If it’s more than the percentage of gamers that bought a NES when it was 3 years from it’s U.S. launch, then that’s something impressive and would certainly make me say it had broken some records.

Nintendo, Microsoft epic fail, not green enough for Greenpeace

Greenpeace has given Nintendo a zero out of 10, the lowest score the organization has ever given, in it’s recent quarterly survey of top consumer electronics manufacturers. Microsoft also got a failing grade, placing 16th out of 18, while Sony whomped the competition, placing 3rd.

Greenpeace gave Nintendo a zero for not giving consumers various toxicity information and using certain materials.

Nintendo offered consumers no information on the use of harmful chemicals in its consoles, including offering no list of banned or restricted substances. The company also had no policy regarding the use of vinyl plastic (PVC) or brominated flame retardants and scored zero in four categories related to recycling, Greenpeace said.

Microsoft failed because it doesn’t plan to eliminate toxic chemicals from it’s products until 2011. Sony ranked third with its PVC-free products and improved reporting of recycling.

This is the first issue Greenpeace has included video game console and T.V. manufacturers in it’s survey. The highest scorers were mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson and electronics manufacturer Samsun, who both scored 7.7.

Deus Ex 3 confirmed, possible December 2009 release

Eidos has confirmed, through the announcement of their new branch in Montreal, Deus Ex 3 is in the preliminary stages of development. Eidos Montreal’s general manager Stephane D’Astous said the game just passed proof-of-concept.

This game was very highly rated at its release in 2000, and we have this great huge mandate to do the third one, and everybody is very excited.

D’Astous said they expect a team of about 80 to work on Eidos Montreal games for development cycles of 18 to 24 months.

We don’t want to become a huge studio where there’s over 100 people on a title. We want a smaller, multi-discipline group that are tightly knit together.

Based on this information, we should expect to see Deus Ex 3 by December 2009. Of course, we’ve seen companies delay products for years because “it’ll be done when it’s done.” 3D Realms (and to a lesser extent Valve), I’m looking at you here.

This longer development time will hopefully bring the franchise’s status back to greatness. The original Deus Ex was brilliant for it’s time, but the sequel, well, not so much. Let’s just hope the involvement of Warren Specter is a pre-requisite for a great Deus Ex game.

Awesome’s Creed, pretty close to Assassin’s Creed

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Assassin’s Creed certainly has problems, but the area’s where it shines at least makes it a good game, if not the great game that was promised.

Now that the one sentence review is done, this video illustrates some really annoying aspects of Assassin’s Creed. The guards will attack you, swords out and everything, for walking too fast. Those beggars are annoying, too. I’ve never seen such energetic and persistent beggars! Seriously!

I’m just sayin…

DLC available for Rock Band, Rock Band Store open

Rock Band launched today, and downloadable content is already available. As promised, there are three-song packs and singles available from such heavyweights as Metallica, The Police, and Queens of the Stone Age. The packs cost $5.49 (440 Microsoft points) a piece and the individual songs cost $1.99 (160 Microsoft points). All the songs in the packs are master tracks and also offered as singles. Only one of the songs offered only as a single, Wolfmother’s “Joker and the Thief,” is a master track. The others, like Foreigners “Juke Box Hero,” are covers.

Harmonix has also announced the release schedule for up to the week of Dec. 18. Look forward to a David Bowie next week and a Black Sabbath pack the week after that.

Full list of songs after the jump.

Harmonix has also announced that the Rock Band Store is open. From the Rock Band news section:

Would your favorite bands be caught dead without gear and clothing worthy of a rock superstar? Hell no, and neither should you. Visit our newly opened Rock Band store and be the first on the block to sport our spiffy, exclusive clothing and merch.

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Nintendo: the company that cares

A Nintendo DS owner recently wrote into the Consumerist about his experiences with Nintendo’s customer service.

After being on hold for all of 20 seconds a very nice gentleman answered, and asked why I was calling. I explained that my son’s DS would not power on and before I could go any further he asked me to provide me with the serial number and after looking up my information (I register all my Nintendo products online) he told me that they would be sending me a replacement DS and all I had to do was ship the old one back to them, they even provided a shipping label. Already happy beyond belief I was even more surprised when they sent it 2 day UPS air!!!! GO NINTENDO!

This is in stark contrast to last weeks dusty PS3 affair when Sony gave another gamer the run around. What’s even more shocking are the other stories flooding the comments sections of various Web sites about the quality of Nintendo’s customer service. One user on the DS Fanboy site said:

We bought a used DS from family-in-law, they said nothing was wrong with it, but you know how it goes, they’re liars. The top screens color was off, only noticeable in game, and the touch screens sensitivity was screwed. Unplayable. We called up nintendo, explained what happened and they said they’d repair it. We get it back, the top screens fixed, but the the sensitivity issue was unsolved. One more call, they apologize and send us a brand new one.

Greatest customer service ever.

Even though Nintendo’s customer service is being highlighted right now, apparently this is nothing new, according to one comment left at the Consumerist.

Whatever your thoughts are regarding the ethics of the consumer mentioned in this article, Nintendo has a very long track record of superb customer service. In the last two years I have come across at least two dozen or so articles praising Nintendo’s treatment of their customers and I have no doubt that reports like these go back even further as I once had to return my old SNES for repairs way back in the day (they ended up sending me a new one instead of replacing a few minor parts that would have been much cheaper).

Now it is possible that the CSR in this article was “lazy” or “new” as some people have suggested, but if you had walked into one of their branch headquarters with the same problem and told the front desk (as many have), you would have probably received the same treatment–if not better, so I’m inclined to say that this is just how their customer service works.

Of course, I take everything I see on the Internet with a grain of salt, but what’s really amazing is that similar incidents were claimed by nearly every poster on both of these sites. Of course, there are a lot of posters arguing that it’s abuses like the original story that cause companies to start strictly enforcing their policies, but it seems to me that Nintendo not only knows about the abuses but is deliberately very flexible and accommodating with them. It seems as though good customer service, the kind which gives the customer the benefit of the doubt, is quickly disappearing, especially now that it’s easier to simply assign complaints a number, and make it easier to ignore those complaints, than ever before. It’s refreshing to hear at least one company knows how to work with it’s public and earn their loyalty instead of just expecting blind obedience.

Sony drops price for PS3 dev kits

Sony has dropped the price of Playstation 3 dev kits to $10,250 a piece, according to Gamespot. The drop in price will help smaller developers get in on that sweet, sweet cell processor action. In addition to the cheaper price, Sony is also adding features that will make it easier to develop for the PS3, Gamespot said.

Sony is also rolling out new software-development features, debugging tools, and support for applications such as ProDG and its SN tool suite.

Sony is following the PS2 formula, reducing the prices of dev kits for both systems about a year after their release, Gamespot said.

Hopefully this is the right direction for Sony. My biggest problem with the PS3, and why I’ve gotten a Wii and Xbox 360 first, is the lack of games that I absolutely must have. Heavenly Sword looked like it would be kinda cool, I really want to try Folklore, but there’s nothing that absolutely screams buy me now. Perhaps some more indie studios will be able to pump some life into the system.

5 Exclusive Clive Barker’s Jericho ringtones

Codemaster’s has given us five free, exclusive ringtones just for our readers from Clive Barker’s Jericho. Each one features a different character’s dialogue. While I haven’t gotten to the game yet, three of them sound like taunts, one each from Delgado, Jones and Rawlings. The fourth is from squad leader Ross, voiced by the ever-present Steven Jay Blum, saying, “I have no idea what you just said.” Finally, we have the narrator simply saying “Jericho” in a creepy voice.

My personal favorite is Ross, just because I can’t help but scan through all the different characters Blum has used the exact same voice for.

Here is the audio preview of all the ringtones in the pack.

Here is the full download:

  5 Exclusive Clive Barker's Jericho Ringtones (87.1 KiB, 261 hits)

WoW cheat protection update concerns expert

According to a post on blog On Warden, new updates to a World of Warcraft cheat detection software, Warden, could, in theory, be used by Blizzard to install malicious software on the users computer. The post says several times, “Blizzard has not, in my opinion and to the extent of my knowledge, broken laws with Warden’s use in World of Warcraft. Nor do I believe they would knowingly and willingly do so.”

The writer claims to be one of the foremost experts on Warden outside of Blizzard employees and has “first-hand knowledge of Warden through reverse engineering nearly every minute detail of the software since its inception.”

Full Disclosure: the On Warden blog’s about me only has a link to Lavish Software, which develops WinEQ2, a program that allows “forcing the game into windowed mode, session-switching hotkeys (two-way cycling and global activation), custom window titles, custom eqclient.ini and eqlsPlayerdata.ini for EQ1, automatic CPU Affinity setting and more.”

Warning: technical language after the jump.

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