Co-op, Not Competition: Nintendo reveals list of worldwide best-selling games of 2012

Nintendo revealed comprehensive lists of the best-selling video games of 2012 to date, shedding significant light on player tastes around the world. What games will publishers be investing in based on current trends?

Regional sales tracking firms like the NPD Group, Media Creates and others are often the only regular source for getting a picture of what people are paying to play in the video game market. As the balance between digital distribution and traditional brick and mortar retail even out, it’s become more difficult to accurately portray just what people like to play besides Call of Duty. It’s surprising then that Nintendo, one of gaming’s most secretive companies, revealed the top twenty bestselling video games from around the world during its recent earnings report. Nintendo compiled data from those previously listed research firms as well as Gfk International.

With breakdowns for the US, Europe, and Japan, the lists show not just what’s performed well this year, but helps gauge what types of games console publishers will invest in over the next few years as the transition to next-gen consoles begins in earnest.

The tops of the charts aren’t surprising based on how the industry’s past half decade. The top two best-selling video games in the United States between January and September 2012 were Madden NFL 13 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Electronic Arts also dominated Europe (Gfk tracks fourteen countries in the region), taking the top three spots with FIFA 13 on PS3 and Xbox 360 in first and second respectively with FIFA 12 on PS3 taking third. Nintendo dominated Japan, with Pokémon Black 2/White 2 taking the top two slots.

It’s deeper in the list that more revealing statistics emerge. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, was only the sixth best-selling game across 2012, beaten out by competitors like Mass Effect 3 and even Borderlands 2 (fifth and third respectively.) This means that while the sales tail on Call of Duty remains strong, it’s diminished from highs in 2010 with Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which dominated for months after their respective releases. The competitive shooting games was not as favored over the first nine months of the year as co-operative, campaign-centric shooters like Mass Effect and Borderlands. The rest of the list bears this out as well. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier came in at eleventh, where EA’s Battlefield 3 came in at fourteenth. Future Soldier was a May release, and it does sport competitive modes, but even that example supports the POV that multiplayer tastes in the US are shifting.

What of Europe? Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, Uncharted 3, and Mass Effect 3 were on the European list, but that was it for shooters. Nintendo published titles like Super Mario 3D Land, Wii Party and others were far more common in the region, boding well for the Wii U. Gran Turismo 5 also took eighth in Europe, reaffirming the strength of that brand for Sony abroad.

Japan was, again unsurprisingly, dominated by Nintendo and Square-Enix published games for handhelds, with three Capcom titles and two Namco Bandai titles sneaking in as well.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Publishers agree to $69 million settlement over e-Book pricing

Three of the five largest publishers in America have agreed to a $69 million settlement with US authorities over accusations of attempts to fix the prices of their digital releases.

If you purchased an e-Book from Hachette, Harper Collins or Simon & Schuster between April 2010 and May of this year, you can pretty much count on seeing some money back from your purchase, as the three publishers have finally reached an agreement on a settlement amount to be paid to customers after settling with authorities over charges of price-fixing electronic releases earlier this year.

While the US Department of Justice is still pursuing legal action against Apple, Penguin and Macmillan over accusations of the publishers coming to an illegal agreement with Apple over the price of releases offered on iBooks – Attorneys representing the two publishers and Apple are due in court in June next year to contest the charges – Hachette, Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster quickly moved to settle after charges were filed against all parties last April. As a result of that settlement, it was announced today that the three publishers have agreed to contribute a collective $69,000,000 to a fund for customers affected by the alleged price-fixing.

The announcement was made by Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper today. In a statement, his office said that “Attorney General Cooper and 54 attorneys general in other states, districts and U.S. territories have reached an antitrust settlement with three of the largest book publishers in the United States,” with the settlement the end result of a two-year investigation by the states and the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “That investigation developed evidence that the five largest American publishers… conspired to end e-Book retailers’ freedom to compete on price by taking control of pricing from e-Book retailers and substantially increasing the prices that consumers paid for e-Books,” the statement continued, suggesting that such actions “prevented retail price competition resulting in consumers paying millions of dollars more for their e-books.”

“This collective action should send a strong message that competitors cannot get away with price-fixing,” Attorney General Cooper is quoted as saying in the announcement, adding “We will do everything within our power to stop competitors from colluding to artificially raise the costs the prices by millions of dollars more for some of the most popular e-Book titles.”

In addition to the $69 million fund, the three publishers have agreed to cover the legal expenses of the states bringing the charges against them, estimated to be somewhere in the region of $7.5 million, and also to terminate existing agreements with specific retailers including Amazon and Barnes & Noble, a move that will allow retailers the ability to reduce e-Book pricing at their own discretion. Additionally, the agreement prohibits the sharing of “competitively sensitive information” regarding e-Book pricing with competitors for a five year period, as well as making forbidden any kind of Most Favored Nation clause that “could undermine the effectiveness of the settlement agreement.”

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com