They also stated that the 3DS has been a faster seller than the Nintendo Wii was in the first 9 months since its launch. I’d call that a success. Even Nintendo’s old stuff is selling well. A total of 3.4 million units of the Nintendo DS were sold in the US in 2011.

But will they be able to increase the sales of the 3DS in 2012? The PS Vita is coming soon, plus there are the gamers using smartphones and tablets to play games. It will be interesting to see what happens now.

That’s not the only bad news. The 3DS, Wii, and PS3 sold more units in the run up to Christmas. The launch weekend saw the PS Vita sell 324,859 units, then there was a surprising drop between December 19-25 where it only sold 72,479.

To give you an idea, the PSP sold 101,121 units for the same period. Some drop is typical after the initial offering, but not like this. The 3DS sold 482,200 units during the PS Vita launch week and then only dropped to 357,691 sales last week. Things are not looking great for Sony so far, but only time will tell if the PS Vita can compete, especially with the impact that smartphones and tablets are having on the handheld gaming market.

[Andriasang via Geek]

Sony made 700,000 devices initially to meet demand in Japan during launch. Selling 321,400 devices isn’t bad at all, but Sony was hoping for sell-outs that would exceed demand.

When you compare the numbers to the original PSP, which had two-day launch sales of 166,000 in 2004, it looks like they are doing just fine. Especially when you consider how the portable gaming market has changed with the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets. Anyway, sales are bound to explode when the portable arrives in the US and Europe in February 2012.

[via Engadget]

Now the company has revealed that the game has sold over 10 million copies. So chances are pretty good that instead of reading this, you are busy playing the game. They aren’t finished yet. In 2012, the company plans to release the Creation Kit, as well as a DLC that will add to the “richness of this epic adventure.”

Skyrim is the third consecutive game from Bethesda Game Studios that has earned ‘Game of the Year’ honors, so they are on quite a roll. Here’s hoping that they continue to offer quality games. (And fix all the bugs.)

And now it’s spread on over to ads for winter clothing. Yes, you read that right: winter clothing. Moosejaw decided that they wanted to boost their sales by showing their models in their underwear. How? By releasing an X-ray app that worked with their Winter Catalog to do just that.

Just fire up the app and hover your device over the print catalog or digital catalog, and you can see the models in all their near-naked splendor.And it worked, too. Moosejaw has seen a 37% increase in sales from the same period in November of last year. At least they didn’t discriminate, and have both women and men in their undies.

Gary Wohlfeill, Creative Director at Moosejaw, explains the move: “Our goal at Moosejaw is to always create a unique and notable customer experience. Something that everyone who shops with us will want to tell ten friends about. The X-Ray catalog and X-Ray App are designed to create an incredibly cool, interactive and fun experience that breaks the barrier between our print and digital brand.”

What do you think?

[via Oh Gizmo!]

The record-setting numbers don’t end there. Modern Warfare 3 also broke records on Xbox Live. Over 3.3 million gamers played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in one day on November 8. That beats 2.6 million unique gamers for Black Ops. I’m sure their next game will continue to smash records and rack up sales.

[via Geeky Gadgets]

The game moved about 6.5 million copies in those two areas alone. The game that MW3 beat out to take the record was Activision title from last year, Black Ops. That game made $360 million in the first 24 hours. The game proved so popular that Xbox Live set a record as well. There was so much launch demand for the game, prior to its release thieves hit a truck with 6,000 copies of the game inside worth more than a half million dollars.

After two days of the game being available, a record was set for simultaneous players on Xbox Live for a new peak concurrency record. “We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. “Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time.”

I can easily see Sony taking the lead thanks to strong titles like Uncharted 3, and free online play alone. They have some great momentum going. I think they have it made as long as they don’t do something to screw it up.

[MCV via Kotaku]

After that they just pressed on, showing more and people were playing the Beta. All the while, we were just waiting for the release. And now it is a phenomenon. Other companies need to pay attention. This is how you market a game. I can’t wait to see where these numbers go from here.

[via Techcrunch]

One thing is for sure, Battlefield 3 will steal a healthy chunk of Activision’s market share and that is great for gamers. Competition means they duke it out and try to outdo each other and we benefit by getting kick-ass games. Battlefield 3 will release on October 25th. Do you think it will beat the competition?

[via TFTS]

It took the 3DS 13 weeks to reach the million sold mark. By comparison, it took the DS only four weeks to sell a million and the DS Lite and DSi took eight weeks. So far, the 3DS has sold 3.61 million units globally. I think we can all agree that the big reason the 3DS isn’t selling is easy to see, there are no really cool games for the console yet.

Once the cool games come that make gamers want, the 3DS it will start selling. Nintendo also launched the console at an odd time, had they waited until the holiday season it would have sold better I would think.

[via Joystiq]

AT&T reports that it added 3.6 million new iPhone users in Q1. Note that AT&T only says iPhone, and doesn’t specify which model. This is a telling little bit considering AT&T is pushing the $49 iPhone 3GS very hard right and still has the exclusive on that device. My gut tells me that a bunch of people wanting the iPhone 4 are going to Verizon.

AT&T also noted that 23% of the new subscribers to its network were iPhone users. The company also said that iPhone subscriber churn rate was the same as the same quarter last year. I’d like to remind AT&T that a lot of iPhone users are still under a contract like I am, so just wait.

Verizon CEO Dan Mead said, “This was an exciting day. In just our first two hours, we had already sold more phones than any first day launch in our history. And, when you consider these initial orders were placed between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., it is an incredible success story. It is gratifying to know that our customers responded so enthusiastically to this exclusive offer – designed to reward them for their loyalty.”

A sales record broken in only a few hours, that is impressive. Apple has already said it expects to ship 21 million iPhones this quarter and it looks like that number is certainly doable. General availability of the iPhone 4 on the Verizon network will be February 10. I would bet they’ll sell out even more quickly as AT&T users jump ship.

According to component supplier sources, Cupertino has upped the estimate for the total number of iPhones shipped for the quarter to 20-21 million from 19 million. Apparently, the sources are claiming that as many as 15 million of those units will be for WCDMA models.

In the U.S., the iPhone is still locked to AT&T, and there are geeks all around the country that are anxiously waiting for the smartphone to land on other networks. The sources say that as many as 6 million of the iPhones that Apple plans to sell will be that long anticipated CDMA model for Verizon, so that wait could finally be over.

Apple is expected to sell 47 million iPhones in all of 2010.

According to this post (UPDATE 1/6/07: this link is no longer active) on The Mercury News, it’s expected that Microsoft will be announcing plans during their upcoming CES keynote speech for the gaming console to act as an IPTV set-top box for high-definition digital television.

So now that Microsoft has 10 million+ Xbox 360′s in living rooms all over the world, they certainly could be the bait for people to adopt upcoming Microsoft IPTV based television services (such as AT&T’s U-Verse service) by offering a single device that can play high quality games, online community, media downloads and storage, and now, stream live television.

[UPDATE 1/6/07: It appears that the original Mercury News story has since been removed, leading me to believe that this information was, in fact an early leak that wasn't supposed to hit the press until after the CES keynote]

In a televised report on CNBC, market research firm NPD, reported the following preliminary numbers for the period between November 1, 2006 and December 25, 2006:

• Xbox 360: 2.0 million units
• Wii: 1.8 million units
• PS3: 750k units

Granted, this doesn’t mean that Microsoft has won the so-called “console war”, just a single battle. The Wii is certainly in the game, and as more games emerge, the PS3 still could be a contender in 2008 and beyond.

[via The Register]