GTA IV will easily overcome Halo 3

When Microsoft announced that Halo 3 got $300 million in the first week it was claimed the fastest selling game in history. It is really amazing results, but Mike Hickey from Janco Partners thinks that record will fall under pressure of GTA IV. Newcoming game is cross-platform(Xbox 360 and Playstation 3) and that automatically means bigger auditory for sale. Mike says 5,3 million copies will be sold in the first week. If it happens then new product of Rockstar will become faster selling then fresh Bungie game.

And it's one more argument for developers to think about making their games cross-platform. Expensive projects are now not so profitable if they are released for only one console platform.

Technorati Tags: GTA IV , Halo 3 , Rockstar , Bungie , Xbox 360 , Sony Playstation 3 , Janco Partners , Mike Hickey , Microsoft , Cross-platform

Halo 3 makes record

Microsoft did the biggest launch in entertainment history. This title came from Halo 3's first day of selling. $170 million of 24 hours of selling were enough to overcome Spider-Man 3's opening weekend.

Hopefully such an excellent launch will help Microsoft's Xbox 360  division to start making profit at last. 

There's also problem with scratches over the Halo 3 Limited Edition discs.  There's Microsoft's replacement program, if you got scratched disc, but shipping takes two weeks . So it would be clever to open your copy right after purchasing in the store and exchange it if you find scratches on the disc.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Halo 3 , Xbox 360 , Scratches

New Wii, PS3, & 360 Games

January will be another slow month for new game releases for ALL the next generation gaming consoles. There will only be one game available for the PS3 and two games for each the Wii and 360. If you are waiting for new games to purchase, you might as well go pickup a currently available one unless you find something on the list below interesting. From our perspective, the only games worth purchasing this month are Sonic The Hedgehog for the PS3 and Fuzion Frenzy for the Xbox 360.

PlayStation 3:
Sonic The Hedgehog - Sega

Wii:
Baseball - Nintendo
Urban Champions - Nintendo

Xbox 360:
Fuzion Frenzy 2 - Microsoft
Dance Dance Revolution Universe - Konami

Note: The items mentioned above are games for the PlayStation 3 and Wii that are planned to be launched in December 2006. The list is accurate as of 11/30/06, however game may be added or removed. Therefore check Nintendo’s and/or Sony’s webpage for any changes.

(c) www.skattertech.com

Dead or Alive 5 announced at the series 10-year anniversary

Tomonobu Itagaki of team Ninja officially announced Dead or Alive 5 today. The developer at Team Ninja (of Tecmo) said this at a press meeting in Tokyo (Japan) that celebrated the 10th birthday of the series.

Mr. Itagaki already has the first play concepts in mind, one of which is that the fifth game in the fighting series will probably no longer feature Tag Team Battles. While no platform was mentioned, the Xbox 360 will surely see its (exclusive?) release, because Mr. Itagaki has in the past often expressed his fondness of Microsoft’s console. No release date was mentioned

(c) www.videogamesblogger.com

Gears of War becomes fastest-selling next-gen console game

More than 2 million copies of Xbox 360 title shifted

Microsoft has announced that more than 2 million copies of Xbox 360 title Gears of War have now been sold around the globe, making it the fastest-selling next-gen console game so far.

It's also the most played game on Xbox Live, with more than 1 million GOW players taking part in 10 million online gaming sessions.

According to Microsoft, GOW has also boosted sign-ups for the service - the number of new paid registrations per day has risen by more than 50 per cent since the game launched.

"We've always held high hopes for Gears of War, but we never expected such an overwhelmingly positive response from critics and gamers all over the world," said Michael Capps, president of GOW developer Epic Games.

"I can't describe how stoked our team is right now. Our fans can absolutely count on Epic to keep delivering new gameplay through Xbox Live."

As reported by our sister site, Eurogamer.net, Epic has pledged to deliver free downloadable content for the game in the future.

[original post: http://gamesindustry.biz]