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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 03:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Price cuts work. In September, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 outsold the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii for the first time in recent memory.
Industry research firm NPD said that the video game industry, which includes both consoles and games, had sales of $1.28 billion in September, up 1% from a year ago.
Sony shipped 491,800 PS3 units in September, moving ahead of Nintendo’s Wii which shipped 462,800 units, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 which dropped to third place with 352,600 units shipped.
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Posted
Sep 04 2008, 04:36 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Microsoft has decided that it would rather be the video game market share leader than make a buck at the business. (Microsoft is the publisher of MSN Money.)
Redmond cut the price of its Xbox 360 to $199. That drops it from its previous sticker of $279. The action may take some business away from the Sony PS3, but it is more clearly aimed at market leader Nintendo which has remained in the front spot for months with its $250 Wii.
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 04:06 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Investors may not be happy with the performance of bank executives and their top employees these days, but, apparently, compensation committees are satisfied.
The New York Times kicks off its business coverage today with some numbers that are hard to swallow. New York's financial institutions paid out a gaudy $18.4 billion in bonuses in 2008, "the sixth-largest haul on record," it reports.
Citing figures released by the New York State comptroller, the NYT calculates, "Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high."
Meanwhile, the bonus largesse Merrill Lynch bosses distributed in the firm's dying days continues to dog former CEO John Thain.
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Posted
Dec 03 2007, 05:13 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I was shopping at a Best Buy in San Jose yesterday and here's what I found: 
Stacks of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. When I asked where the Wiis were, a saleswoman gave a small snort and shook her head. The store was out.
It's a common scenario across the country, and in other parts of the world. A year after its release, the console that many expected would be in third place has become a hit of such proportions that people still line up overnight to buy one. I've had a Wii since its launch, and spent a good chunk of the weekend playing "Super Mario Galaxy." This console definitely holds up over time.
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Posted
Nov 12 2008, 03:35 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Apple's iPhone does everything. It is a phone, a multimedia player, a Web browser, and a washing machine.
Now, Apple wants the iPhone to be a gaming platform and it is going to take on the remarkably successful Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation Portable, which currently rule the mobile video game market.
According to The Wall Street Journal, "Developers are being lured by Apple's online method for delivering games, which has lowered distribution costs and made it possible to profit on games that sell for just a few dollars or are given away with advertising."
Just because there are games available does not mean that consumers will play
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 10:01 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Alas, gone are the heady days of 2007, when Nintendo (NTDOF) raised its profit forecast twice, delighting investors who never imagined that the Wii system would be such a hit. "With a lineup of killer games on the way, the business will be smooth sailing," a Tokyo asset manager said at the time. Err, right. Fast forward a year or so, and Nintendo finds itself in the unfortunate position of cutting its forecast -- by a stunning 33%. That would be the first yearly profit dip in quite some time. And it's going to sell 1 million fewer Wiis than it thought. The news shocked
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Posted
Jul 15 2008, 03:44 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Microsoft has had its Xbox 360 in the market for over two years. The product is hardly mature. The current round of video game consoles which includes the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii are just getting a number of the big new games designed to play on them.
But, progress is ever hungry and Microsoft wants to add features to its console which will give it a broadening appeal. The cornerstone of the new add-ons are avatars, odd little people and characters that users can create to personalize the game experience. According to the FT, "Both Microsoft and Sony will use avatars to make online gameplay and socialising more appealing on their consoles."
In addition, Xbox users will be able to share photos and watch movies at the same time even though they are at different locations.
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Posted
Dec 14 2007, 11:01 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Give Nintendo credit for at least trying to address the Wii shortage frustrating many parents this month. The company said today that you'll be able to buy a raincheck that will guarantee a Wii gets into your hands....by the end of January.
Here are the rules: You can only buy the raincheck at a GameStop store on Dec. 20 or 21. And you have to pay full-price ($250) for the system at the time you buy the raincheck. Here's the funny thing: Nintendo is guaranteeing the Wiis but then saying the rainchecks are only available as supplies last. And we've seen how long anything related to the Wii lasts in stores.
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Posted
Oct 18 2007, 10:31 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Sony makes some historic blunders. One of the biggest was making digital music players that wouldn't play MP3s, the most popular digital music format. Those devices played Sony's own ATRAC format, which the company killed a few months ago.
Sony hasn't learned from its mistakes. Consider the PlayStation 3, the too-expensive game console that hasn't become the hit the company wanted. Sony's finally selling a cheaper PS3 in the U.S., just in time for the holidays. It'll cost $400, but will have only 40 gigabytes of storage -- half that of the standard version, which is getting a price cut to $500 from $600.
That's fine. Some people don't need more than 40 gigs anyway in a video game system. But get this: the cheap PS3 won't play games made for the PlayStation 2. That feature is called backward compatibility, and it's a dealbreaker. A typical PlayStation 2 owner probably has a nice library of video games. The new PS3 won't play any of them.
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Posted
Jun 12 2009, 07:07 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Video game and game console systems sales plunged in the US in May. According to industry research group NPD, software sales were down 17% to $449 million and sales of players dropped 30% to $303 million compared with the same month last year.
While the Nintendo Wii is still the market leader, it is losing share and losing it rapidly. Sales of the Wii dropped 15% from April to 290,000 units. Sales of the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 were flat at 175,000. Sony (SNE) PS3 sales moved up a bit to 131,000.
The drop in console spending is not a good indicator for consumer spending. Game platforms cost between $200 and $500 and are often used for hundreds of hours a month, making them cheap entertainment. The fact that consumers are shunning the purchase of moderately priced electronics is a sign that people still have serious concerns about the prospects for the economy and employment.
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