Aug 02

Palm Pre sales go live at Amazon

Posted in: amazon, available, palm, palm pre, PalmPre, pre, retail, sales, Today's Chili

If you love the Pre, but hate Best Buy or Sprint, now you’ve got the option of nabbing one through an online reseller you can live with: Amazon. The device has just popped up on the super-retailer’s site, and like the aforementioned blue and yellow reseller, you don’t have to worry about any pesky mail-in rebates — the phone is $199.99 out the virtual door. Also of note, you can nab the non-contract version for $499.99, which is a $50 savings over the Sprint pricing, and certainly a value compared to Best Buy’s $749.99 price tag. Only bummer note? Amazon says these babies won’t ship for 4 to 6 weeks… which basically sucks.

[Via PhoneNews]

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Palm Pre sales go live at Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 27

Apple, record labels working to spur album sales with interactive goodies, tablet due this September?

Posted in: Apple, itunes, Music, rumor, sales, sony, tablet, tablet pc, TabletPc, Today's Chili

Let’s face it, folks — the CD insert is no longer “the new hotness.” And besides, those wacky PDFs included with iTunes album purchases never did much more than take up valuable hard drive space anyway, right?. In an effort to get consumers to stop buying single tracks and start buying more filler entire albums, Apple has reportedly joined forces with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group in a project that’s being codenamed “Cocktail.” Financial Times is reporting that said initiative is considering adding “interactive booklets, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads,” with one executive familiar with the situation saying that “it’s not just a bunch of PDFs; there’s real engagement with the ancillary stuff.” Of course, all of this should still be taken with a pinch of salt for now, as even the music companies mentioned above refused to comment. And given the tremendous indifference consumers have shown with that other interactive tech that’s being pushed so hard right now, we’re not even sure it’ll have the desired effect.

In related news, another sect of folks “briefed on the project” have stated that these new content deals could be launched alongside a new, full-featured “tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution.” Adding fuel to the already raging fire, the report asserts that the “touch-sensitive device… will have a screen that may be up to ten inches diagonally,” and while it will “connect to the internet like the iPod touch, it’ll probably [do so] without phone capabilities.” You do know that Apple has been good for a music / iPod-related event right around September the past few years, right?

[Via AppleInsider]

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Apple, record labels working to spur album sales with interactive goodies, tablet due this September? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 26

Palm Pre drops to $99 at Best Buy (update: “error is being corrected,” says Best Buy)

Posted in: BestBuy, palm, pre, sale, sales, Sprint, Today's Chili

Interesting — just a couple days after Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told a conference that “it’s too early to tell” if the Pre’s a hit while talking about Android, the latest Best Buy ad shows Palm’s baby on sale for just $99 on a two-year contract. That ought to spike some sales, but we’ll see if its just a one-week special or a permanent drop before we start trying to read any tea leaves here — anyone running out to grab one?

Update: Best Buy marketing manager John Bernier has chimed in via his Twitter account to say that the Pre is $199 and that the “error is being corrected.” It’ll be interesting to see if any lucky customers managed to nab the device for less than a Benjamin.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read – Hesse’s comments
Read – $99 Pre at Best Buy

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Palm Pre drops to $99 at Best Buy (update: “error is being corrected,” says Best Buy) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 19

Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus selling well, and Wii Sports Resort ain’t even out yet

Posted in: gaming, Microsoft, nintendo, playstation 3, Playstation3, ps3, recession, sales, sony, Today's Chili, video games, VideoGames, wii, xbox, xbox 360, Xbox360

For a device that took a solid year to go from “debuting at E3” to “shipping,” we’re pretty surprised to see that Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus held as much steam as it did. With overall video game sales dropping in June for the first time since 2000 (when looking at year-over-year figures, anyway), the Big N still had a few hundred thousand reasons to smile. Aside from the 361,700 Wii consoles and 766,500 DS units that shipped in June, the company also managed to sell 169,000 Wii MotionPlus dongles — and that’s not including the ones that were packaged with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, of which 272,400 units were sold. The real kicker, however, is that the accessory’s real partner in crime (that’d be Wii Sports Resort) has yet to be released. It’s good to be king, ain’t it Mario?

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Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus selling well, and Wii Sports Resort ain’t even out yet originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 16

Blu-ray celebrates 91 percent sales increase for first half of 2009

Posted in: blu-ray, sales, Today's Chili

Remember back in May when Blu-ray sales were reportedly up 72 percent for 2009? Turns out the high definition disc business is doing even better than that. The Digital Entertainment Group is reporting a 91 percent sales increase year-on-year, totaling $407 million, for the first six months of this year — an impressive feat, especially in this recession climate. Blu-ray rentals, too, saw a 61 percent increase, and on the less tangible side of things, digital distribution rose 21 percent. Despite all this, the report noted that overall consumer spending on prerecorded entertainment dropped 3.1 percent, and net profit down 2.2 percent… come on UMD, pick up the slack.

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Blu-ray celebrates 91 percent sales increase for first half of 2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 30

300,000 Palm Pres Sold, Says Analyst

Posted in: palm pre, Phones, sales, Today's Chili

Palm Pre Palm is tightlipped about sales of the Palm Pre smartphone released earlier this month but one analyst claims the device is off to a great start.

About 300,00o Pres have been sold since the launch on June 6, says Edward Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research. That’s the same number of phones sold in one month than Palm did in its entire previous quarter. Palm may have gathered about 70,000 Pre pre-orders in May, estimates Snyder.

An earlier estimate from analyst Mike Abramsky at RBC Capital Research pegged Pre sales at 150,000.

Palm is counting on the Pre to turn the tide for the company. Palm has been plagued by financial woes and in the fourth quarter, which ended before the launch of the Pre, Palm posted a net loss of $105 million, compared to $43.4 million the year before.

The company is now likely to capitalize on the success of the Pre, says Snyder in his report.  Palm is likely producing about 15,000 Pre phones a day and will ship one million phones to Sprint, its exclusive carrier partner,  in the first full quarter of production,  he says.

Still Palm has a long way to go before it can catch up with the Apple iPhone. The Pre has been often mentioned as one of the strongest rivals to the iPhone. Apple sold more than one million iPhone 3G S models in just three days after its release on June 19.

See Also:

Photo: Palm Pre (Patrick Moorhead/Flickr)


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Jun 29

Windows 7 pre-orders sell-out in Japan

Posted in: Japan, Microsoft, pre-order, PreOrder, sales, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7, Windows7

Often companies will claim a “sellout” in order to hype incredible demand for its product. However, these claims are pointless without any firm numbers — after all, there’s a big difference between moving 100 and 100,000 units. Now we’re getting word from Japan that the heavily discounted Windows 7 upgrades that went up for pre-order on Friday are sold-out. While no numbers are given, the 17 retailers involved in the pre-order sales, who presumably have no vested interest in trying to inflate perceptions on behalf of Microsoft, report sales as “considerable” and taking only 1.5 days (of the 10 days planned) to burn though the alloted inventory. A quick check on Amazon US and Canada shows the same pre-order prices we saw Friday. Still, it might be wise to take notice of the “while supplies last” disclaimer if you haven’t already.

Update: Engadget Japanese tells us that the 30,000 copies were sold according to Microsoft.

Windows 7 pre-orders sell-out in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 28

Acer poised to beat Dell, become number two PC maker

Posted in: hewlett-packard, HewlettPackard, HP, laptop, Laptops, netbook, netbooks, sales, smartphone, Today's Chili

Interesting piece in the New York Times today about Acer — the company is about to ride the tidal wave of netbooks and other el-cheapo computers straight to the number two spot on the PC sales chart. That’s a big deal — no non-US company has ever made it so high — and it’s interesting that the strategies Acer took to get there are the same things Dell’s been trying to do lately: it’s heavy on low-cost, stylish laptops and netbooks, it keeps inventory extremely lean, and it relies on an extensive set of retail partnerships in Europe. What’s more, the Aspire One has been the best-selling netbook for a while now, and we’d say Acer’s way out in front of the CULV thin-and-light race with the Timeline — in fact, we’d say the only open question here is whether the company can take all this computing success and translate it to something worthwhile in the smartphone space. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we’ve got our doubts, but we’ll see what those super-secret Android sets look like before we place our bets.

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Acer poised to beat Dell, become number two PC maker originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 26

Lack of PSPgo pre-orders bemoaned by UK retailers

Posted in: psp, sales, Today's Chili, uk, united kingdom, UnitedKingdom

So that “certain premium” for the UMD-less PSPgo? We may gripe about the $230 price tag here, but our friends across the pond might actually have it worse. Right now, while UK gamers are shelling out on average £100 (about $165 US) for a new PSP, the “guide price” for Go is currently set at around £230 ($370 US). Egregious? We think so, and it looks like British consumers might agree, as two independent retailers have reported zero pre-orders so far. Ouch. Of course, it’s not indicative of the entire region, especially given there’s no data here from the big chains, but as a “canary in a cage” indicator, it still doesn’t sound good — but hey, there’s still plenty of time before its October 1 launch, and anything can happen.

[Via Joystiq]

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Lack of PSPgo pre-orders bemoaned by UK retailers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 22

Apple moves one million iPhone 3G S units in a weekend — just in time for Steve’s return

Posted in: Apple, iPhone, iphone 3g, Iphone3g, launch, sales, Today's Chili

Worried that Apple might not be doing so well? Concerned the company will have to start breaking open the collective piggy banks to keep the lights on? Well rest easy, friends, as the folks in Cupertino have just issued a compelling piece of PR that will surely put your mind at ease — one stating it managed to move a million iPhone 3G S units over the weekend. That’s right, in a fashion not completely dissimilar to last year’s iPhone 3G launch (though with far less hiccups), bucketloads of happy buyers flooded Apple’s coffers with sweet, delicious cash money for the new smartphone. The buying frenzy was apparently even exciting enough to rouse recovering CEO Steve Jobs from his convalescent state. The seemingly-now-returned honcho is quoted (for the first time in months) in the press release as saying “Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning.” Winning indeed Steve… and welcome back.

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Apple moves one million iPhone 3G S units in a weekend — just in time for Steve’s return originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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