Sony’s teasing something over on its Facebook page. It looks like a red, round thing that pops open. It might reveal a PS4 disc tray or, more likely, the hole you plug your MP3 player into in order to get the party started. Or, even less thrillingly, it might be an Easter egg. A joke. A stupid, rubbish joke, that we’ve just fallen for. What do you think? Thing or no thing? [Facebook] More »
According to NPD Group, video game sales dropped 25-percent in February, with sales declining across the board: games, hardware, and accessories. This is despite two games that were launched last month by Sega and EA, and is representative of consumers’ shift from traditional gaming to mobile gaming via tablets and smartphones.
Hardware suffered the worst blow, decreasing 36-percent over last year, with a total of $244.2 million in sales. Software was next in line, falling 27-percent over last year to $369.9 million in sales; that represents sales for both gaming consoles and portable units. All in all, consumers are making about 50-percent of their overall game purchases via retail.
Overall, NPD Group says February video game sales came in at approximately $1.2 billion. While Sony and Nintendo tend to be tight-lipped over their console sales, Microsoft is more than happy to reveal its numbers. According to the company, it sold 302,000 Xbox 360 units, which represents a fairly significant drop over last year’s sales of 426,000.
Microsoft is responsible for a significant amount of gaming console sales, according to a statement from the company earlier today, representing about 41-percent of all latest-generation consoles being purchased. Meanwhile, Sony’s PlayStation 4 is slated for release this upcoming holiday season.
[via Bloomberg]
Video game sales dropped 25-percent in US last month is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Having produced the graphics chips that powered both the original Xbox and the PlayStation 3, it was a surprise to see NVIDIA‘s name left out of Sony’s big PlayStation 4 reveal event last month. But there was AMD, picking up the empty spot left by NVIDIA, powering the PS4 with its 8-core “Jaguar” CPU and Radeon GPU. So, what happened? While we don’t know the specifics of how AMD won the contract, NVIDIA’s senior VP of content and tech Tony Tamasi tells GameSpot that his company, “Didn’t want to do the business at the price those guys [Sony] were willing to pay.”
In so many words, Tamasi says NVIDIA weighed its options against other potential products the company would be working on — rather than producing discreet tech for a single console manufacturer, thus being unable to use said tech elsewhere — and decided against it. “We had to look at console business as an opportunity cost. If we say, did a console, what other piece of our business would we put on hold to chase after that?” he tells the game site.
NVIDIA is indeed working on a variety of new products, including an Android-powered Tegra 4 gaming handheld called Project Shield. That’s in addition to its bread-and-butter business of PC GPU development — the company recently unveiled its Titan GPU, a $1,000 card with enough power to keep your gaming graphics needs met for years to come (or at least we sure hope so at that price).
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Sony, NVIDIA
Source: GameSpot
When the PlayStation 4 was announced last month, you might have noticed that the console’s processing power was all AMD, with the 8-core Jaguar CPU and Radeon graphics. Since NVIDIA was the chip maker behind the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, what happened with the PS4? It turns out that NVIDIA wasn’t willing to do business with Sony “at the price those guys were willing to pay.”
Senior Vice President of Content and Technology at NVIDIA Tony Tamasi told GameSpot that the company “came to the conclusion” that they “didn’t want to do the business at the price those guys were willing to pay,” referring to Sony and the amount of money they were willing to dish out to NVIDIA to allow the console maker to use their chips.
AMD ended up getting a deal with Sony to use its chips in the PlayStation 4, and it’s rumored that the next-generation Xbox will also be running AMD components, but it seems NVIDIA isn’t phased by all that. Tamasi says that the company is “building a whole bunch of stuff,” including Project SHIELD that we took a look at during CES back in January.
Overall, NVIDIA looks at the console business as an “opportunity cost.” Essentially, NVIDIA had to weigh the pros and cons of developing their own products versus implementing their technology into other products. In the end, the company decided not to pursue the PS4 and instead focus on their own products.
[via GameSpot]
NVIDIA passed on PS4 due to financial disagreement is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
![PS4, Xbox 720 Game Prices Could Reach $70 [Analyst]](https://i0.wp.com/cdnrss.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ps4-xbox-720-next-generation-games-cost-70-analyst.jpg?resize=640%2C344 "PS4, Xbox 720 Game Prices Could Reach $70 [Analyst]")
A few weeks ago, EA executive Blake Jorgensen raised a few eyebrows as he believes the next generation of video games will bring on another rise in costs to make new games cost $69. It seems he isn’t entirely alone in his way of thinking as gaming analyst Michael Pachter also believes a rise in video game prices should also be expected when the next generation of consoles is released.
Pachter spoke at the SXSW gaming conference with GameTrailers’ Geoff Keighley live-tweeting his lecture. During his presentation, Pachter shared a prediction of game prices to occur in the next generation of video game consoles saying “PS4 and next Xbox games will likely cost 70 dollars, 10 dollars more than current gen.”
Considering how Pachter said the next Xbox will outsell the PlayStation 4 and Wii U without even knowing the final specs for the PS4 and next Xbox, we think you should take this news with a grain of salt, especially since he also isn’t an official video games industry source. We just hope video game publishers don’t get the crazy idea of raising the prices for their games as we’re sure many of you already feel $60 for a new game is pretty high.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: StarCraft 2: Heart Of The Swarm Has Gone Live!, Leaked Star Wars Game Might Be Star Wars: Battlefront 3 Predecessor,
Microsoft has led the console wars month in and month out with the current generation hardware. The Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 significantly for a number of months. With both Sony and Microsoft preparing to launch new next-generation consoles, many are wondering if Microsoft will continue to lead the console wars moving into the next generation.
Analyst Michael Pachter from Wedbush Securities thinks that Microsoft is primed to win the next-generation console wars with the Xbox 720. The analyst made his predictions in Austin last weekend during the SXSW festival. Patchter believes that Microsoft’s TV tuner and Skype applications will be big for the Xbox 720.
He does believe that Sony will thrive with the PlayStation 4, but will be playing catch-up to Microsoft. Patchter does believe that Sony’s Gaikai technology will be an advantage for the company. Patchter also thinks that Nintendo will continue to face major challenges. The analyst says that the choices the company made with the Wii U will pose significant challenges to the company.
He also expects that Nintendo’s portable gaming market will continue to erode as consumers move to portable devices such as tablets and smartphones for mobile gaming. The PlayStation 4 should launch this holiday season and we don’t know just yet when the next-generation Xbox will launch. The console is expected to debut around E3.
[via Attack of the Fanboy]
Analyst thinks Sony will be playing catch-up with the PS4 is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
As far as next-gen consoles are concerned, Nintendo has shown their hand with the Wii U, and Sony theirs with the PlayStation 4, leaving Microsoft who are still holding their cards pretty close to the chest. Assuming the rumors are correct, April could be when Microsoft will take the wraps off the Xbox 720, but once that is over and done with, which next-gen console will be crowned the “winner”? According to gaming analyst, Michael Pachter, he predicts that Microsoft’s Xbox 720 will be the “winner” and beat out both the PlayStation 4 and the Wii U.
He believes the Xbox 720 will sell 90-95 million units, while the PlayStation 4 will sell less around 85-95 million, with the Wii U at the bottom with 30-50 million units sold. At this point in time it is a little too early to tell which console will prevail, especially since it’s not just the hardware that makes it attractive, but exclusive games and features that makes the gamer buy that particular console over the other. As far as the PS4 is concerned, the actual console itself has yet to be revealed, but from what we’ve learn based on Sony’s press event, the PS4 appears to be geared more towards social gaming and social features, so it will be interesting to see what Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox could bring to the table.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Battlefield 4 Unveiled On March 26 (Rumor), PS4, Xbox 720 Game Prices Could Reach $70 [Analyst],
Just because the PlayStation 4 centers around an AMD-based platform doesn’t mean that NVIDIA is out of the picture. The graphics firm is updating the software developer kits for both its Apex dynamics framework and PhysX physics modeling system to address Sony’s new console, even if they won’t have the full hardware acceleration that comes with using NVIDIA’s own chipsets. The introductions will mostly take some of the guesswork out of creating realistic-looking games — theoretically, adding a larger number of collisions, destructible objects and subtler elements like cloth and hair modeling. Most of us won’t see the fruits of the updated SDKs until at least this holiday, but programmers looking for more plausible PS4 game worlds can hit the source links.
Filed under: Gaming, Sony, NVIDIA
Source: NVIDIA (1), (2)
Heads up, folks. NVIDIA will be invading the PS4 as the company has announced PhysX and APEX support for the recently-announced gaming console. Both PhysX and APEX are software development kits from NVIDIA that will allow game developers to design new PS4 games with stunning graphics, similar to what we saw during the PS4 reveal last month.
NVIDIA’s product manager for PhysX, Mike Skolones, says that “great physics technology is essential for delivering a better gaming experience and multiplatform support is critical for developers,” and “with PhysX and APEX support for PlayStation 4, customers can look forward to better games.” Indeed, both PhysX and APEX should make games more realistic with life-like movements and scenery.
PhysX is designed specifically to be used with hardware acceleration in processors and graphics cards, and the technology allows for more complex and detailed worlds in video games, including more-realistic explosions, clothes that react more naturally to the wind and body movements, and of course, better life-like motions of characters.
Both PhysX and APEX are already integrated into a handful of games. NVIDIA boasts that PhysX alone is featured in more than 150 games, and is used by over 10,000 developers. Some games that are taking advantage of NVIDIA’s technologies include Borderlands 2, the Batman Arkham series, Mirror’s Edge, and Metro 2033.
NVIDIA announces PhysX and APEX support for PS4 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The Sony PlayStation 4 will be launched later this year during the holiday season and for some, this is the one of the most anticipated console releases. Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 back in February, although they did not really dive into specifics and mainly revealed some of its social features as well as some demonstrations. Hardware specifics and the actual design of the console itself were not shown off, but it seems that Sony is pretty confident that customers will be biting nonetheless. According to a report from Digitimes, it seems that Sony has high hopes for their latest console and that they supposedly have plans to ship 16 million PlayStation 4 consoles in 2013 alone.
Of course shipping estimates and sales estimates are two different things, but we guess Sony is expecting that demand will be high enough to warrant that many units to be shipped in the first place. Given the success of the PlayStation series of consoles, we wouldn’t be surprised if the PlayStation 4 will turn out to be a hit as well. However with competition from consoles like Ouya and Valve’s Steam Box, as well as Microsoft’s rumored next-gen Xbox and the Nintendo Wii U, it will be interesting to see if Sony will be able to replicate the success of the previous PlayStations.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Dead Space 3 Poor Sales Leads To Dead Space 4 Cancellation [Rumor] [UPDATED], Next-gen Xbox Could Be Shown Off This Week Albeit Behind Closed Doors,
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