By Matt Yoder, Awful Announcing
Chris Berman will be rumbling, bumbling, and stumbling his way through your television sets for at least the next few years. The NFL host (and moonlighting play by play man) has signed a new contract with ESPN on the 33rd anniversary of the network’s launch. I can already hear the dancing in the streets. As is custom with the annoucement of previous re-signings, ESPN has not released any details of the new contract, only labeling it a “multi-year extention.” However, ESPN does say the new contract will keep him on Bristol airwaves until near his 40th year with the network. Given that Berman joined ESPN just after its launch in 1979, that means we’ll see his Vaudeville circus until well into the 2010s. Here’s what ESPN President John Skipper had to say:
Amazon has change of heart, will allow opt-out of Kindle Fire HD ads for $15
Posted in: Today's ChiliYou’d be forgiven for wondering just what Amazon was up to with Special Offers ads on the Kindle Fire HD: we were given the hope that we could opt out from them, only to watch that dream dashed moments later. Amazon must have been listening to frustrations over the mixed messages, as it just let Engadget and others in the media know that yes, you’ll have the option to drop the ads after all. Pay $15 after picking up the new tablet and those lock screen promos will disappear forever. There’s no sign that there will be a Kindle Fire shipping with ads missing from the get-go, but you know what they say about gift horses. You can find Amazon’s full statement to us after the break.
Continue reading Amazon has change of heart, will allow opt-out of Kindle Fire HD ads for $15
Filed under: Tablets
Amazon has change of heart, will allow opt-out of Kindle Fire HD ads for $15 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
NPD has released its sales statistics for the US video game market in August, and Darksiders II has taken the software crown. That’s in a month where every category tumbled year-over-year, with total software sales falling by a significant 20% to $515.6 million. The decline in software sales didn’t sting as much, with that number only dropping 11% year-over-year before resting at $252.8 million for the month.
Hardware sales took the biggest hit, tumbling a whopping 39% to come in at $150.6 million. Looking at the software side of things, Darksiders II managed to take the top spot on the chart for the month, but NPD later confirmed to GamesIndustry International that the game only sold 247,000 copies in its first week and a half – Darksiders II was released in the US on August 14, and NPD’s cutoff date for the month was August 25.
That has to be a bittersweet moment for struggling publisher THQ. On the one hand, it must be nice to see Darksiders II take the top spot, but it’s almost certain that THQ was counting on more sales than Darksiders II managed to pull in. It may not be all doom and gloom though, as it’s important to keep in mind that NPD’s numbers don’t figure in Steam or international sales. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter says that worldwide sales of Darksiders II may have climbed as high 1 million by now, but also pointed out that THQ needs to sell in the area of 2 million copies to break even on the game.
“I think that the sales are below what they had hoped for,” Pachter said. “I presume it sold around 500,000 globally in the first two weeks (the NPD cutoff was Aug 25), so it’s probably over 1 million now, but my understanding is that breakeven is greater than 2 million units, so it’s not likely to get much higher than that.” Pacher continued by saying that we should give Darksiders II another month to see if its sales improve. Have a look at the full NPD top 10 software list for the month of August:
1. Darksiders II (360, PS3, PC)
2. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
3. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (3DS)
4. NCAA Football 13 (360, PS3)
5. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (360, PS3, PC, Wii, DS, 3DS, Vita)
6. Sleeping Dogs (360, PS3)
7. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (360, PS3)
8. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, PC, Wii, DS)
10. The Amazing Spider-Man (360, PS3, Wii, DS, 3DS)
Sadly, if Darksiders II sales don’t pick up, we may not see another release in the franchise. THQ has been struggling in a big way lately, and new president Jason Rubin has made it clear that he has no problem whatsoever cutting projects and franchises that aren’t performing in line with company expectations. While it’s great to see Darksiders II rank as the top-selling game for August, that may not be enough for a publisher that has no choice but to cut initiatives that aren’t bringing in cold hard cash. Let’s just hope that Darksiders II is more successful than these NPD numbers (and Pachter’s analysis) lead us to believe.
[via GamesIndustry International]
NPD: Darksiders II sold 247k copies in August, takes top software spot is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson Turn Back Clock At BMW Championship
Posted in: Today's ChiliBy Jim McCabe, Golfweek
CARMEL, Ind. –- Chased to the tornado shelters by spectacular storms Friday night, when we exited Saturday we discovered the golf clocks had been turned back.
Read More…
More on Tiger Woods
Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, AT&T revealed grand plans for LTE expansion that’ll continue through the end of the year and the Galaxy Reverb for Virgin Mobile officially went up for preorder. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of September 3rd, 2012.
Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of September 3rd, 2012
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Mobile Miscellany: week of September 3rd, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
You probably haven’t seen La jetée. It’s a weird, but interesting French short film from the 60s, composed mostly of photographs. It’s almost a slideshow. I actually saw it during an English class (weird, right?) in college, and while it was interesting—intellectually stimulating even—I didn’t enjoy watching it. I’m glad to have watched it, but that’s not quite the same thing. More »
If you’ve been put off by the (arguably obtrusive) Special Offers on the Kindle Fire HD, Amazon has just announced that they will allow users to pay $15 to opt-out of the ads for the life of the device.
An Amazon spokesperson wrote:
The $15 is a one-time payment for owners of the Kindle Fire HD. This will remove ads from the lock screen and from the bottom of the screen in certain instances. Amazon first announced special offers with the e-ink Kindle and owners could opt out for $30 on the original model.
There was a minor consumer and pundit outcry when users learned they couldn’t remove the special offers.
It isn’t exactly a secret by now that Bethesda is having some major issues with the PS3 version of Skyrim: Dawnguard. PS3 players are being left out in the cold thanks to a number of technical problems Bethesda is facing with the console, and the studio said a few weeks back that it may not be able to release the DLC if it can’t figure out a fix for these issues. At the time, Bethesda said that it had been working closely with Sony to solve the issue, a statement that SCEA VP of publisher relations Adam Boyes echoed when recently speaking to Kotaku.
Boyes says that Sony has been working with Bethesda to get Dawnguard in a playable state, but warned that he couldn’t guarantee that Dawnguard will eventually see the light of day on PS3. “We work with all of our partners to try and solve their problems,” he said at the New York Gaming Conference. “We have a big, broad dev support team that works closely with Bethesda—and with all of our partners — to work with them to solve any sort of issues they have along the way.”
“Of course, I always want everything to work always for everyone. I can’t promise any kind of resolution or timeline but can say that everyone involved is trying their best to get this stuff working.”
Sadly, it seems that Dawnguard missing PS3 entirely is still a possibility. Bethesda first told us about its PS3 issues last week, and since that update was delivered, the studio hasn’t made another official statement on the matter. Bethesda did take some time to assure PS3 users that Dawnguard wasn’t delayed on PS3 because of Hearthfire‘s development on Xbox 360, but other than that, updates on Dawnguard have mostly come from Bethesda’s Pete Hines replying to angry players on Twitter.
Hopefully that isn’t the case, as PS3 players have already experienced a number of headaches with Skyrim. The game was particularly buggy on PS3 after launch, leaving some very unfortunate gamers with unplayable saves. That problem seems to have been fixed for the most part, but this new set of DLC obstacles might prove to be too much for Bethesda to overcome. Stay tuned.
Dawnguard PS3 development woes have Sony giving Bethesda a helping hand is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
A President Sidelined
Posted in: Today's ChiliPresident Obama summoned the top four congressional leaders to the White House on Saturday morning, July 23, 2011. The night before, House Speaker John A. Boehner had withdrawn from negotiations to raise the $14 trillion federal debt limit and save the government from a catastrophic default. “Nobody wanted to be there,” Boehner later recalled. “The president’s still pissed.”
Read More…
More on Barack Obama
Work was set to begin Monday on the damage caused when the June 29 Derecho affected Randy and Nina Sands’ home on South Shore Road in Reston. That work may have to be rescheduled, though, because another tree fell on their home on Saturday during a strong storm that blew through Reston.