Gaming by GlossGreen

Earlier this week NPD released it's sales numbers for the videogame market for January. Let's see what it said. Wii had sold 274,000 units for first place. Nothing surprising there. What was surprising though is second place. With 269,000 units sold, the PS3 took the runner-up position from the Xbox 360, which had sold 230,000 units. The DS in January sold 251,000 for third, and in a tie with the 360 for fourth, was the PSP, also with 230,000 units sold. This isn't the only hit that Microsoft has taken this week. Announced just today, Toshiba held a press conference to formally cede the "format war" to it's competitor, The Blu-ray Disc Association. What happens to Microsoft's HD-DVD add-on now? Is there any room left in New Mexico beside E.T.?

OK, I know these events probably won't have a huge impact on the Xbox in the long run. But it's the short term that interests me. First, being outsold by Sony. It's no secret that Microsoft has had trouble keeping some of it's SKUs in stock lately. Try to find an Elite out there. You won't be able to do it. There just aren't any. Now if you search for a Pro or an Arcade, you may have some luck. The store down the street from me has plenty of each in stock. If instead, you're looking at the online retailers for an Xbox, you will apt to be confused. Amazon.com has no Xbox 360s in stock. If you want one, you'll have to order it from another retailer. I'd understand if one or two SKUs were not in stock, but all of them. Why is that?

Here's what Microsoft's David Dennis said during an interview with Next-Gen on the subject: "We saw the sales outpacing our forecasts as far back as November," he explained, "but because we had inventory built up in advance of the holiday, it really didn’t become a shortage issue until the latter half of December. The sales continued to be robust through January, so it just continued to worsen." Demand for the Xbox has been steady for quite some time now, so this could very well be the reason for not being able to find one. Although, that is not the only possible reason. Speculation has it that Microsoft may be selling through it's old stock to make room for new SKUs. What is likely, if the new SKU story is true, is that more reliable hardware has been designed and put into manufacture, thereby displacing production of all the old models. Should this be true, we could be hearing an announcement any day now from the Game Developers Conference.

OK, now the format war crap. It's over. Let's move on people. Seriously.

There has been a lot of conjecture of the possible fallout over Toshiba's move to leave the HD-DVD biz. Would Microsoft take a financial and sales hit from this loss? Would Microsoft immediately make a BD add-on drive for their Xbox 360 console? Would the PS3 benefit from this unfortunate turn of events? Short answer...Possibly. Long answer, I don't think Microsoft had as much invested in HD-DVD as Toshiba did. Sure, they made the add-on drive accessory for it. The reason I don't think Microsoft took a big hit was because of the add-on itself. Imagine what would have happened if Sony had lost. The PS3 has an internal Blu-ray drive. The PS3 would have had to remove the drive in subsequent hardware generations and add an HD-DVD drive to be competitive. Of course, by then the Xbox would have already have installed on in their hardware. I think having the drive external did a lot to insulate the 360. The PS3 with its internal Blu-ray disc drive will, of course, have some sort of an impact, but it's not as bad for Microsoft as it could have been.

Now, it has been a tough week for the Big M, but never count them out. They seem to thrive on challenge up in Redmond. Look for new hardware soon, and with it hopefully, an end to the Red Ring of Death. Microsoft has made some mistakes lately, but it has a rosy outlook. There are some great games are coming up, Live is as strong as ever, and the hardware is getting better by the day. Not to say that they shouldn't be worried, but let's wait and see what the sales numbers for February and March look like.

What has everyone (by everyone I mean the few people that actually care about this sort of thing) been talking about lately? Why the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war of course. What? You don't know what I'm talking about? Where have you been for the last year? Check this out for a refresher. With the announcement from Warner Bros about them exclusively supporting Blu-ray, it seems the war is almost over. Only two big studios are left behind HD-DVD and with reports coming in stating that about 85% of HD sales are going to Blu-ray. Don't expect them to stay that way for much longer. I know, HD-DVD players are cheaper than it's rivals are right now, but I have two things to say about that: 1. No titles, no sales. 2. PS3. Enough on that.

The real reason I bring up the format war (even though I detest even mentioning the thing) is this: Why would people care about a new format if digital downloadable content is the future? Online sales of music is pretty much the norm these days. Heck, I don't even remember the last time I bought a CD. Will movies and games go the same way?

With the advent of music downloads, services like Live and PSN for the game consoles, and Steam for computers, among many others, the case for buying from a brick and mortar store is dwindling. Convenience seems to be one of the biggest reasons for buying online these days. When going into a store you will invariably have to deal with a sales staff. Maybe you go to pick up the latest game for the Wii or PSP. It would be great if it just ends there right? But no, we have to put up with questions about joining a discount a club or about the latest game for pre-order. (Note to all GameStop employees, if I want to pre-order a game I'll tell you. Don't ask.) Situations like those are the reason I buy from retailers online almost exclusively these days, but I still buy the physical game, not a download. I know downloads are the future right? Yes, but I still prefer having an actual game in my hand instead of only having a collection of ones and zeros on my hard drive.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'm used to getting something when I pay for it. Oh, I know I get something when I download a game. My point is, what happens if your hard drive crashes or if it gets too full to add a new game? Both problems are pretty common these days. My take is this: I don't want to go through the hassle of re-downloading something I bought because something went wrong, or having to erase something else to add the game I just paid for. What happens if you have already downloaded that title to the max allowed by the online service? What if you lose your account information? What do you do next? The choices are simple. Either you buy the game again or you don't play it. Having the actual game on my shelf prevents me from ever getting into either of those situations. Don't get me wrong though, I have downloaded games and content from the Internet-with mixed results. I like getting content from PSN and have had no problems with that service yet. Steam, on the other hand, I will never use again.

I bought a physical disc for The Half-Life holiday pack last year for Christmas. A bunch of great games for a great price, how could you go wrong? By having to log into the service every time you want to play the game. What a tease. I buy a game and I can't even play it right away. I first had to set up an account, download the content from the website (because the disc I paid $50 for only had the Steam software on it), and then have everything authenticated with the disc I bought. Good in theory, but there are some problems. What if your Internet connection goes down? Sorry, no game. But it has an off-line mode you say. You still have to authenticate your account on a regular basis. If you can't authenticate, again, no game. I know it's an anti-piracy measure, but it just makes things harder for the consumer. When I buy a game I want to be able to stick it in and play it. I don't want to set up an account. I don't want to run your client software. I just want the game I paid for. If I wanted to download content, I would have download it directly off of the website. I learned by lesson though. Whenever I buy a computer game these days I look for one evil word: Steampowered.

Digital downloads may be the future, but for me, a physical disc (with the actual content on it) is the best option. I know the developers and publishers want to expand their profits -and not having to pay for packaging and all the other costs associated with it- are a great way to do it. But at what cost do they do it? Convenience of the customer has to be the primary focus or these online retailers will get a GameStop-like reputation.