Hasta La Gadget!

Oh c’mon, just admit it — you rationalized that Wii Fit purchase like so: “Oh, I can’t afford this, but it’s totally something to make me exercise! So, I’ll buy it!” Fast forward two months later, and you’re struggling to find space to hide the case. All kidding aside (sort of…), you can’t deny the facts, and the facts are that the Big N managed to ship 15 million Wii Fits units in just 13 months. For comparison, it took right around 2.5 years to move 50 million Wii units, so it seems this here title is well on its way to hitting the same milestone in around the same amount of time. Unfortunately, you can’t lose weight by simply handing over wads of cash to Satoru Iwata — feel free to try, though.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Nintendo moves 15 million Wii Fit units in a year, 4 remain in use originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See folks, this is the kind of mess you end up with after you gleefully do a deal with the devil. According to a roundup of reports over at Unwired View, three of Russia’s major mobile operators could be looking at massive (we’re talking hundreds of millions of bucks) fines if they can’t sell through their iPhone allotments, and unless a significant market shift happens within the next few months, that situation seems remarkably unlikely. We’re told that Vimpelcom pledged to sell 1.5 million iPhones within two years, while Megafon committed to 1 million and MTS the same. Today, just 900,000 iPhones have been imported to Russia, with over half entering the country via grey market channels; we’ll let you figure out the math there, but it ain’t pretty for Russia’s carriers. Of course, we’re not shocked in the least — after getting burnt by a bootable-but-not-usable iPhone over there, are you seriously going to give Apple another chance to win you over?

Filed under: Cellphones

Sluggish iPhone sales could lead to stiff fines for Russian operators originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d already heard that Vizio has vaulted back into first place among LCD TV manufacturers, but a new series of numbers compiled by the folks at DisplaySearch is now shedding a bit more light onto how much the flat-panel TV market as a whole has surged over the past year. Apparently, about 7.2 million flat-panel sets were moved during the first quarter of 2009 alone, which represents a sizable 23% increase over the numbers from the first quarter of 2008. DisplaySearch also expectedly reconfirms Vizio’s number one status, although its figures are a tad more conservative and peg Vizio’s market share at a still impressive 18.9% (as opposed to the 21.6% found by iSupply), which is well above the 8.5% earned by the likes of rival Funai (producer of TVs for Sylvania, Emerson and other low-cost brands). As you might expect, higher-end brands like Sony and Samsung weren’t as able to buck the economic downturn quite so easily, and they actually saw their sales decrease compared to the same period last year.

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Flat-panel TV sales jump 23% over last year, Vizio leads the way originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 May 2009 17:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Congratulations Blu-ray, you might be ready to step into the zone of mass market acceptance, as NPD’s retail tracking service found Q1 sales of standalone players up 72 percent over last year, moving over 400,000 units with a 14% increase in dollar sales. Last year sure the format survived mad fights but high prices were a setback; fast forward to March when an online survey of 6,994 people found awareness has reached 90 percent in the last six months, with customers fascinated by its updates. Although BD-Live is looking more and more like an unneeded gimmick, the real facts are people care about cost and average player prices dropped from $393 last year to $261 in 2009. The “Blu-ray report” suggests the magic number is $214 for folks like Shawn Marion, so more room might be needed to breeze, and could come as soon as this fall around the time Vizio’s player finally appears. It might be tragic for Vudu, CBHD and others trying to get a foothold, but Blu-ray’s magic wand is word of mouth – so while much talked about, but much lower selling tech like Kindle is happy as hell to get a record deal, right now Blu-ray’s unique skills can’t be compared.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Blu-ray making greenbacks, sales up 72% to start ’09 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 May 2009 20:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After some rather disheartening (albeit unconfirmed) estimates last week that Nokia’s Comes with Music service had snagged only 23,000 subscribers in the United Kingdom, Rob Taylor, vice president of Nokia Music says that the company is pretty “happy” with what its learned there so far. He admitted that the UK launch (the service’s first) devices — the 5310 Xpress Music and the 8GB N95 — were “slightly out of date” at the time pointing out that the service was doing much better in subsequent markets, which all boast the 5800 as their hero device. Taylor said he also recognized that Nokia needed more retail partners to help move units, and that the company is not “giving up” on the UK as a market for CwM, adding that they’ll be bringing the 5800 there in the future. No word on when that might happen yet — but we’re going to keep out eyes peeled for you.

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia Music veep addresses slow Comes with Music sales in the UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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