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In today's gloomy and doomy Speak-Up on Kotaku, commenter MtlAngelus wonders how Nintendo's next console can possibly stay competitive in today's gaming market. More »
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Is PC gaming giving way to today's more versatile and powerful consoles? Not according to a market study recently conducted by research group JPR, which claims that more gaming PC's have been sold over the past three years than Xbox 360s, PlayStation 3s, and Wiis combined. The study, which tracks the sales of three different classes of gaming PCs over since Q3 2005, found that 196 million units have been sold between then and Q3 2008, compared to a worldwide total of 74.7 million consoles. As Edge points out, this of course doesn't take into effect handheld gaming systems like the DS and PSP, which sold a combined 125 million units during the same period. More »
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Now hang on a minute. It doesn't seem like five minutes since some gaggle of market pundits were proclaiming that the iPhone had turned the mobile games market inside out and pointing at developers rolling around in pits of cash like Scrooge McDuck. More »
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In totally unsurprising news, China's game market continues to climb — numbers just posted for the second quarter of 2008 show an 11.2% increase over first quarter, and a nearly 66% increase from the same quarter last year (!). In terms of market share, Shanda leads the pack with a 17.9% share, with other big companies hovering below that. More »
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A number of Chinese companies are nothing if not shrewd — in a smart business move, FerryGame has hired former EA executive producer and Heavy Iron founder Steve Gray to oversee their product lineup and future forays into the MMO/'advanced casual' market. Ranging from typical MMOs to a music/dance/'catwalk' game, FerryGame looks like they're ready to take on some of the big dogs of the domestic Chinese market, and Gray will surely be an asset: More »
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I've read a number of thought-provoking pieces over at Only a Game, and this week Chris Bateman has a meditation up on Nintendo, the 'mass market,' moving away from games, and what this could spell for the industry at large. Is it really all it's cracked up to be? Unlike most of my favorite essays from Bateman, this one is pretty short and digestible — he points out that aggressively pursuing the 'mass market' (casual market) is working out splendidly for Nintendo, but he wonders if aggressively targeting that market inherently means moving away from games. And what about the industry at large? Well, that's not so clear: More »
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Korean games (non-Japanese games in general, actually) tend to get a lot of flack — 'They're all the same!' 'They're so badly made!' 'Just look at them!' — but Brandon Sheffield cautions that we ought to be keeping a closer on eye on the Korean market. With different development strategies, different working environments, and different players, there is stuff to be learned from Korean companies taking steps to expand westward: More »
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While some people argue that what games need is more monotony, at least in terms of black and white games, plenty of people are dissatisfied with the current trend of drabness in developers' color palettes. Of course, there are plenty of brightly colored games that are and will continue to be released, but plenty of people miss color. Bright color. I myself am rather fond of candy-colored palettes, preferring them to drab medieval "realism." One blogger thinks he has the answer to who stole the color from games: More »
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On Friday, shares of Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) were trading for $17.36 a share as of market closing. Then over the weekend EA made its bid for Take-Two public, releasing details of a proposed buyout at $26 a share to various news outlets including Kotaku, even going as far as to open a website dedicated to their proposal. Well surprise, surprise, this morning TTWO opened at $25.75 a share - 47% above the last closing. Shares are going fast too, with massive chunks being sold off at a time. Over the past 3 months the average trade volume for the stock has been around 1.8 million a day. As of this writing, 12.5 million shares have already changed hands. So what does this mean? Stockholders believe this buyout will happen. So do arbitrageurs - companies that buy up huge amounts of stock for the chance at making small yet high volume profits. In other words, these companies believe so strongly that the $26 a share offer will go through that they are willing to buy up huge amounts for the chance at making $.25 profit a share. I dunno folks, this looks like it could very well happen. Hold me. More »
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We don't consider Mexico a tech-obsessed country, but according to a recent report by Americas News Intelligence, Mexico's video game industry will inflate to $1 billion by 2010. Because so many Mexican young adults live with their parents until marriage, they develop disposable incomes. That money, when not being spent on [fill in American-nationalistic Mexican food stereotype fully based upon Americanized Mexican food] young men and women enjoy buying video games. Don't believe us? Then why did Nintendo spaz out on the country for piracy? More »
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Gamasutra has a great Q & A up with Lisa Cosmas Hanson, director of Niko Partners - who just released a study a study entitled "2007 Chinese Video Game Market Annual Review & Forecast Report." 2006 saw huge leaps in the revenue and market share of online games, but Hanson talks mostly about where China's going, not where it's been. Will China produce a WoW like hit in the next decade? What companies are benefitting from the huge growth of the industry? And what about that pesky pirating problem? More »
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Leading new media research firm Interpret has released a study that shows judging the value of a game solely by sales figures severely sells said game short. At a time when in-game advertising is spreading like wild fire, reporting the actual reach of a game is key in determining the value of the title. Interpret demonstrates with findings from their latest Gameasure report. More »
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