Call of Duty takes big January hit
For anyone seeking holes in Activision’s seemingly bulletproof Call of Duty franchise, there was a chink in the armour exposed in NPD US January sales figures released late on Thursday.
Sales fell nearly 50 per cent year-on-year for the world’s best-selling video game in 2011 – that’s comparing the performance of the latest in the franchise – Modern Warfare 3 – with its predecessor, Black Ops.
Wii needs U as sales plummet
Nintendo was demonstrating its forthcoming Wii U next-generation console and Sony its PlayStation Vita handheld at CES in Vegas this week and they cannot come soon enough for the video game industry.
Cowen and Company analysts, mulling December’s NPD-collated US sales figures on Friday, described them as a Wii-saster, with a 42 per cent fall in Wii software dollar-sales year-on-year contributing to a 21 per cent overall industry decline in hardware, packaged software and accessory sales.
Tech news from around the web:
Google is profiting from illegal advertisements on its search engine, even though it takes them down, alleged a report published on the BBC website on Tuesday.
Bloggie flips over to new camera models
While Cisco infamously abandoned in April its Flip unit, which popularised value-priced and easy-to-use camcorders for consumers, Sony has stuck it out with the Bloggie brand that tried to imitate the Flip’s success.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, two new models are being introduced, although the Bloggie 3D, which I liked when I reviewed it last year, is being phased out.
Sony, Microsoft report Black Friday boom
The Black Friday glad tidings from consumer electronics makers continued on Tuesday, with Sony announcing a big rise in US sales and Microsoft reporting a record week for its Xbox 360 console and Kinect controller.
The news followed Nintendo’s announcement on Monday of record sales of its Wii and 3DS gaming machines.
Tech news from around the web:
Facebook is close to a settlement with the US government over how it uses its members’ personal information, The Wall Street Journal reports. The settlement would require the social network to obtain users’ permission before sharing data in a way that is different from how they originally agreed the data could be used, people close to the negotiations told the WSJ.
After using Sony’s cameras, consoles, e-readers, televisions and Walkman tape recorders over the years and enjoying its films, music and games, it’s nice to find a little of all of these inside its first tablet.
The Sony Tablet S, just launched, is an all-rounder of a device drawing its strengths from Sony Electronics’ diversity. It also has the trademark Sony style and the quirks that go with it. This is no plain vanilla tablet like many of its Android counterparts and it suffers less in comparison to the more mature iPad 2.
Sony’s Home improvement
Sony has been giving the media a sneak peek of the biggest makeover in the short history of Home – the games platform and online virtual world accessible through the PlayStation 3.
Games are being placed front and centre in the redesign, which was announced last month and will be introduced in the autumn, and the Home environment itself will become a game with the introduction of quests.
Sony gave us the hard facts on the launch of its first tablets at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin on Wednesday, naming the two models and giving details of pricing and availability.
Sir Howard Stringer, Sony chief executive, said the products – arriving far later than any of its rivals – would take the tablet world to a new level and, in a jibe at the iPad, “prove that it’s not who makes it first that counts, but who makes it better”.
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