Wii Gaming News

Yep, that’s a 1 followed by six 0s and two – count ‘em, two – commas. Minecraft on Xbox 360 has sold 1 million copies since its launch on May 9, Microsoft announced today. Minecraft runs $20 a pop on XBLA, making its initial revenue bump against $20 million, supposedly split between Mojang, port developer 4J Studios and Microsoft.

Players have so far spent more than 5.2 million hours mining on XBLA, played 4 million multiplayer sessions and clocked more than 2.4 million multiplayer hours, Microsoft reported. Original Minecraft developer Markus “Notch” Persson reacted to the news in what we think is an appropriate manner: “Wow.”Minecraft XBLA sold 1 million copies in five days originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 14 May 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Square Enix’s financial results for fiscal 2012 have been posted, and thanks to the releases of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Final Fantasy XIII-2, the developer has ended the year in the black, to the tune of a ¥6.06 billion (or $75.9 million) profit.

Total income from sales for the fiscal year, which for Square Enix ran from April 2011 through March 2012, totaled up to ¥127.89 billion ($1.6 billion) – a 2.1 percent year-over-year increase. After subtracting taxes and operating costs, the company was left with over ¥6 billion in profit, which must be welcome news for stockholders still feeling the sting from Square Enix’s ¥12.04 billion ($150.86 million) loss in fiscal 2011.

“In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012, we continued our efforts aimed at increasing profitability, including establishing best practices for the content in said growth areas, improving quality of our major online game, and strengthening our global structure,” said Square Enix president Yoichi Wada in a statement accompanying the financial report. “We are accelerating the reformation to generate a substantial earnings improvement in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 and beyond.”Square Enix sees 6 billion yen profit in fiscal 2012 thanks to Deus Ex, FFXIII-2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 14 May 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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According to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pacther, a conversation between he and SCEA CEO Jack Tretton revealed that the Sony boss was highly against blocking used games on the PlayStation 4. Click to continue reading Sony’s Jack Tretton: Blocking Used Games is ‘Anti-Consumer’

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Wednesday, May 16th, brings us some awesome PlayStation Home content: Midway 3 arrives with the Ca$h Carnival event where you can win up to $25,000 worth of prizes (click here for official rules), the Men in Black HQ opens its doors, new developer Bigyama launches Forthstar, Lockwood brightens up May with new additions to their Drey Line, and much more! The long-awaited Midway 3 is coming this week. As if that wasn’t enough on its own, it’s bringing sweet, sweet prizes with it. No, not virtual prizes (it has over 100 of those, too) but real prizes. Sony prizes. Awesome prizes. Oh, and cash prizes too!

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With the much anticipated release of Diablo III, it’s the ideal time to catch up on the storyline that’s led us to this grand finale of the memorable trilogy. …

Continue reading The Story So Far… Everything You Need To Know About Diablo

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Mojang and 4J Studios’ Xbox 360 edition of indie hit Minecraft has already sold more than one million units globally on Xbox Live Arcade since its release five days ago, according to Microsoft. The game sold for 1600 MS Points, or $20, which means the title generated somewhere north of $20 million in less than a week. Minecraft creator and Mojang founder Markus ‘Notch’ Persson has noted that the XBLA game was “profitable in an …

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Diablo 3′s Starter Edition gives hesitant players a free trial of the game, available for a limited audience for 30 days following its launch tomorrow. The Starter Edition will first be accessible with a Guest Pass key, which can be found in all boxed versions of Diablo 3, and without a Guest Pass after one month. It includes the same contents as the beta: Play up to the Skeleton King in Act 1, and to character level 13. Starter Edition players won’t be able to access the real-money auction house and will be able to use Matchmaking only with other Starter Edition players.

The Starter Edition was leaked during the beta in April, but the hole was patched before we discovered if it was a demo, trial or nuclear launch code.

Blizzard has also detailed the Character Profiles feature, which will populate the official Diablo 3 website and allow players to read character stats and track their progress.Diablo 3 ‘Starter Edition’ is a quickfire demo originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 14 May 2012 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Retailer GAME’s Australian arm has entered voluntary administration (i.e. “bankruptcy”), with stores continuing to operate as normal for the time being.

The company wrote on its Facebook page: “We are still trading in all stores and will operate in a business as usual mode while the Administrators obtain a clearer understanding of the current state of the business and actively pursue options to secure its future.”

According to VG247, GAME has approximately 500 employees in Australia. GAME’s immediate troubles in the UK concluded last month when the company was bought, but that was after it shut nearly 300 stores and cut thousands of jobs.GAME Australia enters voluntary administration originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 14 May 2012 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Recently, IGN posted an article saying that electronics company Flextronics, is currently manufacturing Microsoft’s next generation game console. The article goes even further and says that testing on the next gen Xbox is complete and that the console is in full production. Of course, Microsoft has issued its standard response to all the speculation saying “We do not comment on rumors or speculation.”

In fact, it seems Microsoft never misses an opportunity to say that they are firmly committed to extending the already lengthy lifespan of the 360 with new content and third party partnerships. Microsoft has even stated that they will not be announcing a new console at E3 this year.

While all of that is good news for 360 owners not yet ready to shell out the big bucks for its replacement, some recent announcements by Microsoft and EA seem to indicate that a next gen console might not be that far off. And it’s not like we havent talked about the future of consoles before…

“Trying To Squash A Rumor Is Like Trying To Unring A Bell”

Lets go back to April of last year. A rumor began to make the rounds on the internet that Nintendo was developing their next generation console. This rumor seemed to be set off by another rumor that Nintendo was going to announce a substantial price drop for the Wii. The timing of the price drop rumor and the fact that E3 was only a couple of months away seemed to go hand in hand and almost confirm without Nintendo’s official say so that a new console was, in fact, on the way.

Only a few days had passed after the initial rumors had started on the web when Nintendo went ahead and announced the WiiU at an investors meeting. The announcement proved all the rumors to be true and Nintendo took the opportunity at E3 to officially unveil the WiiU for the whole world to see.

History Repeating Itself?

Fast-forward to the other day. Microsoft announced a $99 Xbox 360 and Kinect Bundle on their website. This is the lowest price point for the 360 since its release back in 2005. Lets also throw in EA’s latest financial filing released the other day that says the company is investing $80 million into next gen game development. While there’s nothing new about a game company looking to the future, the timing of these announcements and the IGN article are a little fishy.

We all know that eventually Microsoft is going to officially announce the successor to the 360, but when? This years E3 seems like the perfect time to at least hint at something to stir the pot a little. I think it would be a big mistake to show up to the convention this year with nothing more than the same old third party partnership announcements and maybe an unveiling of a revamped Last.fm app.

For some reason, this wouldn't surprise me.

Time To Move On

I love the Xbox 360, but it pains me to look at it now with its games that span multiple discs and its DLC content to simply add textures that the game developers couldn’t squeeze onto those additional discs ala Crysis.

Amazon.com Widgets

All the new Xbox Live content is great but at some point Microsoft you need to move on. Gamers are ready and have never shied away from a new video game system in the past. Unless of course, the next Xbox is simply an add-on to the existing 360 like the Sega CD, and if that’s the case Microsoft, why don’t you have a seat… because we need to talk.

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After Bethesda’s open-world fantasy RPG Skyrim sold 10 million units, no one could blame Capcom for hoping there’s room for more than just one fantasy RPG title about slaying dragons and saving the world. Dragon’s Dogma represents a three year development cycle for the Japanese studio, with more than 150 developers plugging away at its design. With the game representing such a large investment, a lot is riding on how well Dragon’s Dogma will fare at retail.