Ridiculous. Even with pouring rain covering half the United States, people still flocked in droves to the Apple store to pick up the latest iPhone, as we’ve come to expect every summer. Today, Apple announced that the bum rush picked up over a million iPhone 3GS models. And the madness doesn’t stop there. Over six million people downloaded the official iPhone 3.0 OS. Ridiculous.
This has gotta hurt the ego of Take-Two and Rockstar Games. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, the latest iteration of GTA on the Nintendo DS, hasn’t been selling. At all. Since its release in March, it’s sold a mere 88,704 copies. Compare that with over 7 million copies of GTA IV and you have a complete massacre. Business Insider thinks the reason for the lack of sales is due to the fact that most DS owners are children, with which I somewhat agree.
Regardless, Rockstar better start pushing this game hard or its top franchise is in for a hurtin’.
Big in Japan. That’s what the press should be calling the Playstation 3. Seems for the month of March, Nintendo’s fantasy box of magic couldn’t fend off the brute,building strength of Sony’s Playstation 3. According to Reuters, “domestic sales of the PS3 came to 146,948 units in the five weeks through March 29, compared with 99,335 units of the Wii and 43,172 units of Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360.”
So this isn’t even a war of the hundreds or thousands at this point. The PS3 beat out the Wii by almost a third. With games like Killzone 2 and Prototype, perhaps gamers are starting to pick better games over gimmicky control schemes. Just sayin’!
Get ready for some news that will blow your fucking mind. Ready? CD sales are down. I know! Down? How could this be? The execs at Atlantic Records feel the same way. Seems during Q4, Atlantic Records had 51% of all sales come from non-physical sources like iTunes sales and ringtones. The New York Times found it “shocking,” so what does this mean for us? It means more and more people are transitioning to iPods and MP3s over Walkman and CDs.
NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker sums it up nicely, calling the transition “trading analog dollars for digital pennies.” Touche.
As if you expected any less, Nintendo’s new DSi portable gaming console flew off shelves as Japanese consumers braved both Godzilla and a bad economy to get their hands on one. It supposedly took only two days for Nintendo to move 170,000 units of the 200,000 available. If you’re worried about importing one, have no fear; Nintendo is prepping another 100,000 units to be shipped out to retailers, ensuring everyone will be able to get their DSi fix.
Apple has announced that it has sold one million iPhone 3Gs since it launched last Friday. Says CEO Steve Jobs:
“iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
“It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world
At this rate, the iPhone 3G is easily on its way to surpass the original iPhone in sales. The fact that the 3G was launched in 22 counties probably helped too. Thought the one million units was impressive? Over 10 million applications have been downloaded from the App Store already, which is absurd. Apple really has locked itself into the mobile phone market as a top competitor this time around.
Microsoft has made a very smart move with the selling of their new OS Vista. They have make the option available to buy Windows Vista online from their Windows Marketplace. Windows Marketplace is their online store that has recently been released. This is the first major OS to be released for sale online. For sale will be both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista Home, Business, and Ultimate editions on January 30th. Another very nice fact is that Microsoft has said that they will remember the license for any downloaded software so that you can go back and download it again just in case you lose the DVD you burn the image to. Apple should take note here and make it a true written policy for people to be able to re-download the music they download if they happen to accidentally lose the files. In addition to the online sales, Microsoft has announced the family licensing plan for families. The Vista Family Discount will give you the option to buy Ultimate at full price, and then to be able to buy up to two copies of Vista Home Premium for $50 a pop. The more options people have, the better. Microsoft seems to be realizing that their previous licensing policy of only individual licenses isn’t working. It’s nice to see Microsoft taking steps forwar. — Nik Gomez
Microsoft to sell Windows Vista as direct download [Electronista]
