Oh Wait I’m a Week Late, it’s NPD Time of the Month
I’m a week behind here but for good reason, I’m sick. I’ve been battling this awful cold for a week now. Anyways it’s that time of the month where the NPD group releases video game hardware and software sales. So how do December do? I think the industry did quite well and hopefully all of you got what accessories, games and hardware you were looking for.
How many Nintendo DS’s do you all own? seriously over 3 million units last month while the PSP 3000 and PSP GO! did a combined 654 thousand units. What was a little more surprised that the PlayStation 3 barely outsold the Xbox 360.
Hardware sales for the month of December 2009
- Wii – 3,810,000
- Nintendo DS – 3,310,000
- PlayStation 3 – 1,360,000
- Xbox 360 – 1,310,000
- PSP – 654,700
- PlayStation 2 – 333,2000
As I expected New Super Mario Bro’s sold a ton of copies and in some parts of Toronto a copy was hard to find. Modern Warfare 2 still continues to rack up those sales pushing total sales to over $1 billion US.
Software Sales for the month of December 2009
01. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) – 2,820,000
02. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 2,410,000
03. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 1,790,000
04. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) – 1,630,000
05. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3) – 1,120,000
06. Wii Play (Wii) – 1,010,000
07. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) – 936,1000
08. Assassin’s Creed II (Xbox 360) – 783,1000
09. Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360) – 728,500
10. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS) – 656,700
Dual Triggers for PS3
I came across these a few months back while browsing on amazon.com, by snapping onto your PS3 triggers they are suppose to replicate what the Xbox 360 controller triggers feel like. As someone who spends the majority of his time playing on his Xbox 360 the PlayStation 3 controller can feel like a foreign object in my hands. Thanks to the Dual Triggers for the PS3 designed by PDP using the PS3 controller feels more natural and has allowed me to spend more time playing games on my PlayStation 3.
If your interested in buying them check out Amazon.com or PDP’s website
Tehflakes.ca Game of the Year
It’s that time of year, time to discuss my favourite game of the year along with honourable mentions and biggest disappointment. But before I get into that, I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about how I came to decision and what criteria I used.
So to me game of the year represents the overall best complete package that a game has to offer. This includes everything from the menus, the graphics, the sound, the story, the multiplayer, the connection I have to the characters within the game, and I guess the best way to say it is how engrossed I am into the game. I must eat, breathe and think about the game and lastly what replay value does it offer. Things that shouldn’t be considered when tabulating your game of the year is number of copies sold, marketing budget and whether it is a console exclusive title. It shouldn’t matter that the game is on 1 platform or several. It’s all about the best game of 2009.
There truly was only one logical choice for Tehflakes.ca game of the year that is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You can check out my review here. Nathan Drake is the new James Bond and Laura Croft of the video game space. The plot twists alone will have you on the edge of your seat. Uncharted 2 doesn’t do a lot new but it does what it does better than anything out there right now. You can beat it on normal in about 10 hours and don’t worry you can replay the game and be sure to go and hunt for all the treasures. Had enough of the single player? Why not check out the co-operative levels or the new multiplayer. I know what you’re thinking great a new multiplayer but the team at Naughty Dog did a fantastic job with it. In the span of 2 days I played this game for almost 15 hours and if I didn’t have to work I would have probably played more. I still continue to hop on to get some multiplayer action when I can
Well it’s time for some honourable mentions that were under consideration for Game of the Year:
- Batman Arkham Asylum
- Assassins Creed 2
- New Super Mario Brothers
Well I am certainly going to get some heat for this but Forza Motorsport 3 was probably my biggest let down of the year. Don’t get me wrong it was a good game but the difference between Forza and Forza 2 was huge, that made think we would see Forza 3 turn out to be an epic game but it wasn’t. It felt more like Forza 2.5 with a good physics system. The track selection was boring, the menu system was awful, and just in general I found it boring. I really had a hard time staying focused and wanting to play it, it was a very different feeling compared to Forza 2.
Art done by Todd Lawson -Visit Todd’s site at www.toddlawson.com
read moreReview: Astro A40 Audio System
If you’re like me and play a lot of games, your significant other can really get annoyed hearing game chat and game music for hours upon hours while they try and study or do whatever they need to do. This is where a pair of headphones can come into play and really improve life around the house. I checked out all the big players in the console gaming headphone market Astro Gaming, Tritton and Turtle Beach. I decided on a pair of the Astro A40 Audio System: BXR SE Edition in the red colour. I was lucky to get one of the last pairs before they sold out.
The Astro A40’s come in 3 boxes, 1 for the mixamp, and 1 for the headphones and finally a box for the speaker tags. A word of caution to my Canadian readers the total weight of the package is 7.3 pounds and close to $80.00 dollars Canadian to ship it plus you need to pay import duties on top of that. However if you are like me and have friends in the USA, I recommend you ship it to them and repackage them and then ship them to you.
These are not cheap, plain and simple these are only available online for $249.95 USD and they come with the headphones, mixamp, headphone case, speaker tags, speaker tag competition foam inserts, quick disconnect 4-pole connector cable, quick disconnect to dual-jack connector cable (plus volume control), 3.5mm to ¼ adapter, microphone, USB cable for the mixamp. There is a ton of cables in the box but for a optical cable, if you plan on using an optical cable to set these up, you’ll need to buy one. The mixamp requires for 4 double A batteries or a rechargeable battery sold separately by Astro.
Let’s talk about the headphones there stylish, adjustable, light weight, the sound is out of this world and the feature a detachable microphone. I like this option because I can take these headphones and plug them into my Iphone and listen to my podcasts. My biggest complaint of the headphones is that after 3-4 hours of use your ears and the surrounding area can become very sweaty, maybe that’s just me!. Another cool feature about the headphones are the speakertags as they are customizable. Astro has a service for 24.95 that you can design your own tags. Next up is the mixamp the essential device to you get the 5.1 Dolby Digital sound to your headphones. One of my favourite features of the mixamp is I can control the game/voice audio by turning the dial to dailor to my preferences. So If I’m playing Multiplayer, I can take 90% in game chat and 10% game audio. The mixamp also allows me to hook up my own MP3 player to the device to listen to music or podcasts while playing those games like Fight Night Round 4 were the sound track and audio just bores the hell out of me.
Let’s start with the installation and hook up of the A40 audio system, it’s fairly simple. First of all you’ll need to put the 4 double A batteries or if you purchased the rechargeable battery insert either of those into the mixamp by unscrewing the bottom cover, installing the batteries and then screwing it back up. Next hook up the mixamp to the console by plugging it into a USB slot after that hook up the optical cable by plugging one end into the mixamp and the other into the console. Next up plug in the headphones into the mixamp and the next step is optional for Xbox 360 owners. By plugging in the cable from the controller to the mixamp this allows voice chat on Xbox Live.
First thing I did after hooking them up and panicking cause no one could hear me on the voice messages I sent them, my other option was to join various Xbox live parties to see how I sounded and to ask others how I sounded. The feedback I got was incredible and instantly provided justification for blind buying these. Yes, I had never heard what the Astro’s sounded like before, so I bought them based off reviews. Next up it was time for to kill some zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 and boy zombie killing never sounded so good before. Finally it was time to fire up Uncharted 2 on the Playstation 3. I instantly heard sounds I hadn’t heard before when I played through the game. I was so impressed, I had pass the headphones to my girlfriend and she was stunned on how good they sounded.
Overall if you’re looking for a pair of 5.1 headphones, look no further. Astro provides a premium product at a good price and they also provide premium customer service which is very rare these days.
Pros:
• 5.1 surround sound
• Control the game/voice audio
• Detachable microphone
• Mixamp design
• Custom Speaker Tags
Cons:
• They are a tad on the expensive side
• Shipping to Canada is outrageous
• 4-Pole cable is to short (yes you can buy a longer one for $20!)
• The 3.5mm cable from the mixamp to the controller is too short. Yes I understand the mixamp is designed to be sat next to the player however in my living room I would prefer to keep the mixamp on the television console.
Tehflakes.ca recommends purchasing these headphones
read moreNovember NPD’s
It’s my favorite time of the month, NPD time. As expected Modern Warfare 2 sold a ton of copies, PS3 and 360 combined over 6 million units. I was very surprised to see Dragon Age Origins crack the top ten, congrats Bioware
PlayStation 2 203.1K
PlayStation 3 710.4K
PSP 293.9K
Xbox 360 819.5K
Wii 1.26M
Nintendo DS 1.70M
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 (360) 4.20M units sold
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 (PS3) 1.87M units sold
NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII 1.39M units sold
ASSASSIN’S CREED II (360) 794.7K units sold
LEFT 4 DEAD 2 (360) 744.0K units sold
WII SPORTS RESORT 720.2K units sold
WII FIT PLUS 679.0K units sold
ASSASSIN’S CREED II (PS3) 448.4K units sold
DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS (360) 362.1K units sold
MARIO KART W/ WHEEL 315.0K units sold