Hasta La Gadget!

We’re now less than a week away from the launch of the Wii U, and you can bet that Nintendo has fingers crossed for a big holiday season. A new report from IHS claims that Nintendo will have the successful holiday season it wants and then some, predicting that the Wii U will have sold 3.5 million units worldwide by the time 2012 comes to a close. That’s 3.5 million sales in just about five weeks, which definitely isn’t anything to stick your nose up at.

If the Wii U can meet IHS Screen Digest’s predictions, Forbes reports that it’ll beat the original Wii’s holiday launch. The Wii, which launched on November 19, 2006, managed to sell 3.1 million units in its opening holiday season, so if the Wii U can get to 3.5 million, it’ll have about 400,000 sales on its predecessor. Better get one quick too, because IHS is predicting that consoles will be in short supply throughout the season.

There isn’t much doubt that Nintendo will be able to sell a healthy amount of consoles over the holidays, but what most are really interested in is whether or not the Wii U will be a steady seller in the long run. IHS says that in its first first four years, Wii U sales numbers will only be 70% of the sales the original Wii experienced in the same period. With the original Wii selling 75.9 million units in its first four years, that would put Wii U sales at 53.2 million units.

We’re not sure anyone is actually expecting the Wii U to sell as many units as the original Wii, and 53 million sales is still a very respectable number, especially if Nintendo can keep people playing with a steady stream of first and third party releases. That will be where the Wii U sinks or swims – we’re already expecting great first party content from Nintendo, but if the company can’t get third parties to support the console, gamers won’t hesitate to jump to the next-generation Xbox or PlayStation when those eventually arrive. Stay tuned.

IHS: Wii U will sell 3.5 million units in 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft has a lot to gloat about today, as it has announced that total Xbox 360 sales around the world have hit 70 million. That definitely isn’t anything to shake a stick at, considering that the original Xbox only managed to sell 25 million units in its lifespan. The Xbox 360 surpassed that number way back in 2008, and since then has been climbing steadily.

We’ve been hearing a lot about Xbox 360 sales lately. It’s been the top-selling console in the United States for many, many months in a row, a factoid that Microsoft isn’t willing to let us forget so easily. Eurogamer points out that these number put Microsoft firmly in second place, behind the Wii‘s 96.56 million sales (as of June 2012), and the PlayStation 3‘s 63.9 million sales (as of March 2012). Of course, both the Wii and the PS3 have sold many more units since those numbers were reported earlier this year, but it seems unlikely that the PS3 has caught up to the Xbox 360 between March and now.

1.7 million of those sales were made in Microsoft’s first quarter of fiscal 2013, the results of which were delivered last night. That’s down quite a bit year-over-year, as Microsoft managed to sell 2.3 million 360s in Q1 of its fiscal 2012. One interesting thing to note is that Microsoft’s research and development efforts were up a whopping 44% year-over-year to $140 million, which is essentially the best confirmation we can get of the Xbox 720′s development without Microsoft just outright saying it exists.

While Microsoft is basking in the glory of its Xbox 360 sales numbers, video game hardware sales have been down overall. Those will undoubtedly pick up a bit during the holiday shopping season, but whether or not they’ll drop off again once the new year arrives remains to be seen. Perhaps we need some new consoles to give the games industry a jump start again? Stay tuned.

Xbox 360 hits 70 million sales worldwide is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We know the folks at iFixit love to perform tear downs on new devices to determine how easy they are to repair, and even the brand new Super Slim PS3 isn’t safe. It’s the subject of iFixit’s latest teardown, so if you’ve ever wanted to see the innards of a PS3 all laid out in front of you, now’s your chance. The big question is: what changes has Sony made to the PS3 in order to not only make it smaller, but also bring down the cost of production?

It seems that a lot of the cuts were made to the disc tray. The disc tray of PS3s past is gone and has been replaced with a top-loader, much the annoyance of PS3 fans everywhere. Sure enough, iFixit says that sliding disc tray door feels cheaply made, and might break after repeated use. The good news is that the new disc tray is modular, which means that it should be relatively easy to repair.

Some more good news for potential owners: the cover on the hard drive bay pops off easily, and after you’ve removed that cover, you’re only one Philips screw away from being able to remove the hard drive entirely. iFixit says it should take only 5 to 10 minutes to remove and replace the hard drive, though with this new PS3 coming in 250GB and 500GB variants, you may never need to do that.

If you ever need to get at the fans or the heat sink, be prepared for some work, as iFixit says that you’ll need to remove the entire motherboard assembly in order to get at them. Likewise, the internals of the power supply are secured behind four screws and a number of clips, but thankfully you probably won’t need to make repairs to the power supply all that often. At the end of everything, iFixit gives the new Super Slim PS3 a repairability rating of 7 out of 10, so if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you should have a relatively easy time making any necessary repairs on your own. Be sure to read through iFixit’s full tear down if you’ve got a few minutes to spare, as it gives a very in-depth look at the inside of Sony’s newest PS3!

Super Slim PS3 torn apart by iFixit is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A lot of people were expecting Sony to announce a PS3 price cut when it took the stage at the Tokyo Game Show a few days back, but that isn’t the announcement we were given. Instead, Sony announced a brand new, super-slim PS3 model, upping the internal memory (at least in the United States) but keeping prices the same. In a new interview with Engadget, SCEA VP of marketing, handhelds and home consoles John Koller explained why we didn’t see a price cut on the older PS3 models despite the fact that a new one is on the scene.

Kollar says that the reason the company didn’t announce a price cut is because consumers care more about quality content than they care about pricing. “There’s no price drop formally, but the thing that’s been happening in the market over the last year or so is that there’s been so many retail price promotions, and so many different gift card offers and all those things, being done by all of us (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony), that we’ve heard from our consumers, ‘Enough with all these weird price moves. What we really want is content and games and value,’” Kollar said.

While Kollar’s response leaves us scratching our heads, there’s another reason why we aren’t seeing a price cut on the older PS3 models: they won’t be around much longer. This new PS3 is now Sony’s standard model, meaning that the company will soon stop producing the other models. Of course, there’s also the question of why Europe is getting a 12GB flash memory model that the United States is missing out on, and Kollar says that’s because US consumers are more likely to buy games digitally than those playing in Europe.

Therefore, Sony wanted to make sure that it offered US consumers a PS3 with a ton of internal storage out of the box. Naturally, the PS3 allows users to expand its memory by attaching USB external hard drives or opening the console up and replacing the internal hard drive altogether, but Kollar says that in his experience, consumers typically just buy another console instead of opting for either of those memory solutions. So, those in the US will have quite a bit of internal storage from the get-go, whereas those in Europe can purchase the 12GB flash model and either expand the memory later or live a disc-based existence. Sony’s new PS3 launches here in the US on September 25, just a few days from now – are you picking one up?

Sony discusses lack of PS3 price cut at TGS is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yesterday, we found out that BioWare co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka will be leaving the video games industry (possibly for good), which left fans with some burning questions about the future of the studio. In an effort to reassure us that things will be business as usual at the studio from here on out, BioWare Montreal and Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn has published a BioWare Blog post of his own, giving us details on some upcoming projects BioWare is currently working on.

One of these is a brand new IP for next generation consoles. Details on this new IP are understandably light, but Flynn says that Casey Hudson and the other leads at BioWare are currently hard at work coming up with a new fictional universe for us to romp around in. Regardless of your feelings on the current state of BioWare, that’s some exciting news, because the studio has always been great at creating engaging and exciting in-game universes.

In addition to this new IP, there’s more Mass Effect in store. Flynn says that BioWare will continue to release multiplayer and single player story DLC for Mass Effect 3 over the course of the next six months, and he mentions the incoming Omega DLC specifically, which will be releasing later this fall. BioWare is also moving forward for plans for an entirely new Mass Effect game, which is news that will come as a shock to absolutely no one. This new Mass Effect title is apparently still in the very early planning stages, as Flynn says that the dev team is currently trying to tackle the question of “where to go next?” and telling readers that the studio is open to fan suggestions.

Finally, Flynn touched on Dragon Age III: Inquisition, but didn’t give any new details. He just said that the Dragon Age development team has been working with fans of the first two games to find out what they’d like to see in Dragon Age III, and discussed the excitement and difficulty that comes along with making a game with a new engine. In the end, Flynn thanked the BioWare Doctors for all of their hard work over the years, and promised that the company will always honor their legacy. It’s been a bittersweet couple of days for BioWare fans – the company’s two co-founders have left the studio, but BioWare has some exciting projects in the works. What do you think?

BioWare working on new next-gen IP, more Mass Effect on the way is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.