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

DirecTV Genie HD DVR records up to five shows at once

Definitely a great idea for large families with differing tastes in programming, DirecTV's five-tuner Genie will record a ton of content.

Detailed on DirecTV today, the company announced the addition of the DirecTV Genie HD DVR as a competitor to Dish Network’s Hopper DVR system. The DirecTV Genie set-top box offers the consumer the ability to record up to five different shows in high definition at the same time. According to DirecTV management, the Genie should be able to store up to 200 hours of high definition content on the one terabyte drive within the device. In addition, the Genie can play up to four different live or recorded shows on other televisions within the home.

In order to connect to the other televisions in the home, the DirecTV subscriber must have a RVU-enabled television or connect a small receiver called the Genie Mini to the television set. Currently, only a handful of Samsung LED televisions are RVU certified.

For those unfamiliar with RVU, it’s a communications protocol that facilitates access to high-definition programming, media and other applications between two devices. Besides DirecTV and Samsung, other members of the RVU alliance include Verizon, Cisco and Broadcom. It’s possible that more television manufacturers will roll out RVU-enabled televisions during CES 2013.

In addition to allowing subscribers to record a large amount of content, the Genie also has a recommendations engine similar to a TiVo. Called “Genie Recommends” within the user interface, the software will suggest television shows and movies based on your viewing habits. However, this is an opt-in feature that has to be turned on and will authorize DirecTV to analyze the type of shows that are being watched on the Genie.

The user interface allows the subscriber to record shows up to two weeks in advance in addition to catching up on shows that are no more than five weeks old. The Genie also comes with standard applications within the user interface such as Facebook, Twitter, ScoreGuide and Pandora. 

According to DirecTV’s site, the Genie has a MSRP of $299 and the Genie Mini clients are priced at $99. However, new customers will be able to acquire the Genie and up to three Genie Mini’s for free assuming they sign up for an extended service contract. Two additional Genie Mini clients can be purchased at a discounted price of $49 each. In addition to the new hardware, the subscriber will have to pay an additional $20 monthly fee for “Advanced Receiver Service.” However, that fee can be cut in half  by signing up for automatic bill pay.

Different from Dish Network’s Hopper system, the DirecTV Genie set-top box does not allow the user to automatically skip past annoying commercials. Identical to other DVR systems, the user has to fast forward to get past the commercials during a typical television show. However, the Hopper has three tuners compared to DirecTV’s Genie. When it comes to tuners, TiVo also lags behind the Genie with the recently released TiVo Premiere 4 DVR. The standard TiVo Premiere 4 utilizes four tuners and can record up to 75 hours of high definition programming. However, the TiVo Premiere XL4 can record up to 300 hours of high definition programming compared to the Genie’s 200 hour limit.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com