Konami delivering the JOINED-UP DIGITAL DREAM - PES 2009 team rotas updating at the end of Feb

It's always been the fantasy. The hazy, distant vision of a possible future - and Konami has finally MADE IT HAPPEN.

It's rolling out new team rotas for Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 at the end of Feb, which will update the game with all the player changes that have happened since the marginally disappointing football game released last Autumn. So whichever team mental TIMEBOMB Craig Bellamy is playing for this month will be accurately represented. See, dad? I do know about football.

Microsoft sending out freebies to "cleaners and hairdressers" to promote Xbox 360 to women

Bloody women. Muscling in on our gaming action. Stopping us from playing Ikaruga so they can do a jigsaw puzzle, and turning gaming into some sort of acceptable social hobby for normal people. It's all been RUINED.

And Microsoft isn't helping - a recent news report says the company's been trying to get more women into gaming by organising Ann Summers-style parties to encourage girls to have a go on an Xbox 360.

Gatherings of "ten or more" women (shudder) are being encouraged by the handing out of free games and hardware, with Heather Snavely, Microsoft's director of interactive entertainment business, saying...

"We've sold 20 million consoles to date globally since we launched three years ago. In order to get to the next 20 million, we need to get a new audience of women and teens. We're going after them in ways that are different than ways we've done before."

Look, girls. You've got the Wii. That's yours. You can have it. We'll even buy you a little 14" portable so you can play it in the bedroom without bothering us. Just leave the Xbox alone. It's meant for men. It's why we bought the 52" TV.

(Via SVA)

Related posts: Meant for girls :( | Girl-friendly VP2

A very BIG LIST of all the Street Fighter IV Achievements

If you used to be able to do a dragon punch, can still remember how to do a dragon punch and think you might be able to do a dragon punch on the GODAWFUL Xbox 360 d-pad, you're no doubt more than a bit interested in Street Fighter IV.

You'll be interested to hear - or have it re-confirmed - that the game arrives on February 20, and here's the full list of Achievements. Big lists of Achievements aren't usually very interesting things to read, but it's nice to know what kind of hoops Capcom's design legends are having us jump through...

10 Years Too Early - Win 50 Xbox LIVE battles

10 Years Too Late - Win 100 Xbox LIVE battles

All Dolled Up - Set your Title and Icon

Arcade Rat - Clear Arcade Mode with one character on medium or higher difficulty

Challenge Expert - Clear all challenges in Challenge Mode

TRAILER: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, coming soon to a £1.99 DVD sale rack near you

Capcom, and whatever sadly misguided production company is throwing its money behind the latest bound-to-suck video game movie, has released a new trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li movie, the latest (third) attempt at capturing the essence of SF in film.

The good news - it's got the lovely and flimsy little Kristin Kreuk out of Smallville in it, and she's wearing the right costume in some of the scenes. That is a good thing, I think we can all agree on. Here she is.

The bad news - it's a film of a video game. It's going to end up averaging between 5 and 10% overall when the final review scores are in and everyone's thought up some clever new ways to slag it off.

(Via Joystiq)

Related posts: SFIV's UK release date | Animated SFII on Video Store

A dull but functional update about Rock Band AND Guitar Hero World Tour DLC

Whenever there's an emergency no-news-day, like today, you can always rely on something to do with Rock Band or Guitar Hero DLC catalogues to fill the void.

And that's what we have - Rock Band has been topped up with a few tracks from The Grateful Dead, with six new (to Rock Band) TGD tracks popping up for 160 MS Points each - or 800 for the lot.

Meanwhile, DEADLY RIVAL game Guitar Hero World Tour has added a few free tracks from Bruce Springsteen, to celebrate the fact that (a) he's still alive, (b) he's still going and (c) he's got a new album.

Don't worry, one of the free Bruce tracks is 'Born to Run' - you don't have to pretend to be interested in his new material.

(Via The Major)

Related posts: |

Resident Evil 5 demo UP NOW!

Jesus, it's finally happened. This "shit" has just "got real" thanks to a demo of Resident Evil 5 appearing today for download via Xbox Live. Resident Evil 5 is coming to Xbox 360. It's already here.

There is one tiny, minuscule piece of bad news, though - you have to be an Xbox Live GOLD subscriber in order to download the demo right now, thanks to Microsoft's odd system of making free-loading Silver members wait a week for most big-name demos.

If you are a special-special GOLD member, the demo lets you play on your own, offline, or with a friend on co-op mode in split-screen mode. And via Xbox Live. And it looks absolutely fantastic. And it's on Xbox 360. It exists. Everything is good today. It's even stopped raining in celebration.

The actual finished, entire game will arrive in our few remaining high street shops on March 13.

(Via The Major)

Related posts: Japan had it in December | It's not racialist

GTA IV "Lost and the Damned" expansion priced, played and thoroughly bullet-pointed

The world's gaming media has been trudging back and forth between their offices and the local Rockstar Games office, getting hands-on time with upcoming GTA IV expansion pack The Lost and the Damned.

Everyone says they like it so far, which, to be honest, is what you have to say when Rockstar invites you round to its place to see its new GTA property. You can't turn up, drink their tea, eat their biscuits, play their game then slag if off on the internet the next day, can you? It'd be rude.

Tomb Raider Underworld "Beneath the Ashes" DLC dated for next month

Despite the fact that no one really bought Tomb Raider Underworld - and publisher Eidos even publicly admitted it was a sales flop - everyone's being very brave and pushing ahead with the as-promised Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable expansions.

The first of which is Beneath the Ashes, which will be ready for download on February 10. Beneath the Ashes sees Lara exploring the ruins of Croft Manor - and the hidden crypts found beneath it - with a bonus 125 Achievement points on offer should you "win" at it. Here's a whopping great screenshot of it that took AGES to upload.

The second of the promised updates - Lara's Shadow - will arrive on March 10. If you bought/liked Tomb Raider Underworld you probably should buy both, as poor old Eidos hasn't got very much money and your MS Points would really help. Plus it's all Xbox 360 exclusive, so buying it helps fund the market share war on PS3.

(Via Eidos)

Related posts: "Interactive... experience" | Xbox wins exclusivity WAR

GREENBERG ATTACKS: Sony has a "complacent attitude" and is "out of touch"

Yeah, Aaron! But next time try telling us something we don't know.

These latest anti-Sony words from Microsoft's angry man came after Sony boss Kaz Hirai claimed Sony would eventually overhaul Xbox 360 sales (mathematically quite hard when you're only selling half the amount, Kaz) and win this console generation. Here's how the ANGRY Greenberg responded...

"This sounds like an old hardware company that's comfortable with its market position. That complacent attitude is out of touch with where the industry and consumer is today. This generation won't be won over just hardware specs, but who can out-innovate when it comes to online and software. This is the kind of stuff that's in our DNA, and frankly moves the console war onto our home court."

More CRAZY FIGHTING TALK from Aaron after the jump...

Brutal Kane & Lynch/Hitman developer's next project is... cute little puppy Mini Ninjas

Famed Danish developer Io Interactive has decided it's bored of doing games about angry bald men with guns - its next project will be called Mini Ninjas, and will follow the missions of pretty little ninja Hiro.

Mini Ninjas is going to be cute. Sweet. Girls and old people might even like it. There won't be any swearing or head-shots or levels set in lap-dancing clubs. It's going to be as far away from the company's previous work as you can imagine. It's so lovely and innocent the game's even going to come out on Nintendo's Wii.

Mini Ninjas will be out in the Autumn. It's got to be better than Kane & Lynch. Io Interactive is so serious about it it's even gone to the expense of registering a domain name and setting up a web site about it - although it currently links to information about Battlestations Pacific.

(Via CG)

Related posts: Whatever happened to the Hitman movie? | Kane & Lynch porn hunt PR

US SALES: Xbox 360 hammers PS3 in December - outsells it by 2:1

Almost 2:1. Microsoft sold 1.44 million Xbox 360s in America during December, while poor old Sony only managed to get rid of 726,000 PS3s.

Twice 726,000 is actually 1.45 million, so, if you're a Sony fan looking for something to be brave about today, you can say Xbox 360 didn't quite sell twice the amount PS3 sold last month when people say it did.

Here's something depressing about the future of gaming, though - Nintendo sold 2.15 million Wiis. How is that even possible? I've been trying to work out how it's possible since Wednesday, and still just don't get it. It's just too many of one thing.

There's a full list of the US sales after the jump, should you be interested in how PS2 and PSP are fitting into things these days...

Celebrity analyst Michael Pachter predicts Xbox 360 will CRUSH PS3 in December US hardware sales

According to estimates from everyone's favourite video game analyst, Xbox 360 sold nearly TWICE the number of Playstation3s during the critical and insane December shopping period.

Mike reckons Microsoft safely installed 1.35 million Xbox 360s into American homes during December, while he expects Sony to have shifted about 750,000 PS3s. That's not quite double, but is near enough to be able to get away with saying double to people who won't pressure you to go into more depth.

GREENBERG ATTACKS: Xbox 360 "pulling away" from PS3 in Europe

Microsoft's RABID ROTTWEILER Aaron Greenberg has struck again!

The latest BRUTAL SAVAGING to be dished out by the world's most aggressive marketing man is this verbal assault on Sony, where he says that Xbox 360 and PS3 were level in Europe at the start of the year, but, thanks to MS's price cuts, Xbox 360 now has that famed one million console lead.

Only Wii and Xbox 360 "count" in Europe now, according to Aaron 'G-Unit' Greenberg. Here's the sweetest cherry from his tirade...

"Both the Wii and the Xbox 360 are really the two big winners. Actually, the only two winners right now if you look at holiday sales year over year."

Which mean, by a process of elimination, that PlayStation3 is a LOSER. By losers. For losers. Isn't that right, Aaron? That's what you mean, reading between the lines, yeah? Innit?

Related posts: GREENBERG: "Wii still sucks" | GREENBERG: "PS3 doomed"

Xbox "720" is years away - Microsoft "not even thinking" about new hardware at the moment

Yeah, right. Our favourite Microsoft man Aaron 'Tell it like it is' Greenberg has revealed that Microsoft isn't working on any sort of Xbox 360 sequel or new console technology.

In an interview at CES 2009, Greenberg said that "We're delivering high-definition experiences. We have storage. We have high-speed connectivity. So you know we're not limited by the hardware at all. We see a very, very long future ahead of us as we think about the platform and we're not even thinking about the next generation at this point..."

Microsoft on Blu-ray-packing Xbox 360: "No, No, No"

Microsoft's ultimate gaming boss Robbie Bach has, once again, spelled out exactly why all those Blu-ray Xbox 360 rumours are and always will be total horseshit - users don't want it.

Not only do users not want a Blu-ray player in their Xbox 360s, but it'd make the console more expensive to build - and the 28 million existing Xbox 360s in players' homes would not be able to play any future games that came on Blu-discs. So it'd be a bit stupid all round, really. Here's how Robbie put it in a slightly more polite fashion...

"... it costs a lot of money. And so the scenario is, OK, let me get this straight: I'm going to add something to the product that's going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren't asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can't use it."

So there. When the next, inevitable round of "Blu-ray Xbox 360" rumours being to circulate - and it's been nearly three months since the last one so we're due another very soon - you can tell people Robbie Bach said it was bollocks, so SHUT UP with your anonymous Korean manufacturer sources.

(Via VG247)

Related posts: Blu-ray bollocks #234 | Handheld Xbox bollocks #563

Microsoft gets in on the user-generated thing again with Kodu Game Creator

Kodu was revealed by Microsoft fat-man Steve Ballmer during the company's keynote speech at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show last night, with MS hoping it'll become the next big thing in home game development.

Massively simpler than the company's professional development tool XNA, Kodu is being described as a "playground" for people to create extremely simple little games to play and swap. A bit like a certain high-profile recent PlayStation3 game, to be honest. Here's what Microsoft's Matt MacLaurin, the game's lead Kodu designer, had to say about it...

STATS: UK game sales rocketed in 2008 - Xbox 360 gained 51% over 2007

ELSPA, the official people that count stuff, have said that 2008 was an all time best year for video game sales in the UK.

We all managed to buy 82.8m individual games last year at a total cost of £4.02 billion, if you include the money spent on buying hardware to play them on as well. £1.9 billion was the amount spent on games alone - a 23% increase over what we threw away on sofa-based entertainment last year.

During 2008, Xbox 360 managed to increase its software sales by 51% over what it shifted in 2007. ELSPA didn't give out actual units for Xbox 360 sales, but did say Nintendo and its minted friends managed to sell over 20m Wii games. ELSPA also said something about PS3 doing a bit better than last year, but we won't go into that.

(Via BBC)

Related posts: Microsoft told us so | 2009 - the party really starts

MICROSOFT: 2008 was our best-ever year - and we're 8 million ahead of PlayStation3

SALES WAR update!

Microsoft's just sent out a fact-filled press release, claiming that 2008 was the best-ever year for sales in the history of the Xbox "brand." The total global userbase of Xbox 360 now stands at 28 million consoles, which MS says is 8 million ahead of Sony's figure for PlayStation3.

Xbox Live sales are also UP, connections are UP and media download sales are UP - everything is UP. Here's how Microsoft brayed about its successes...

OutRun Online Arcade - coming to Xbox Live Arcade in "early 2009"

If you don't own a copy of OutRun2 or OutRun2006 you ought to be ashamed. Deeply ashamed. Blushing right now, in fact. They were both superb racers, arcade to the very core and packed with amazing little mini games to make them well worth purchase for prolonged use in the home.

Now, thanks to the hard work of diligent developer Sumo Digital, the game's being remade for an appearance on Xbox Live Arcade, under the name OutRun Online Arcade - a name that was leaked by the Australians last month. Here's a look at it.

Beautiful. It'll feature six-player online racing, just like the original Xbox version of OutRun2. Only hopefully there'll be a few more people playing it on Xbox 360. The Xbox lobbies were desolate wastelands.

(Via A Very Reliable News Source)

Related posts: OutRun Online Arcade announced by accident

Eight new screenshots from GTA IV expansion pack "The Lost and the Damned"

We don't often do updates that are just "Here's a load of screenshots to look at" as, frankly, the "back end" of this site is a bit of a pain and everything has to be uploaded individually. And it often crashes. I'll go quite far for you lot, but not that far.

But this is important. This is the new GTA IV missions. The stuff that isn't appearing on PlayStation3 due, in part, to PlayStation3 being rubbish that's only fit for tramps to use to rest their beer cans on. This is why I MUST suffer the pain of uploading eight screenshots one-by-one today. So here they are.

The Lost and the Damned expansion is arriving for download on February 17, should you still be into GTA IV. No price has been announced just yet, although we'd expect it to be LOTS of points. At least 1600. This is GTA IV, remember.

(Via Rockstar)

Related posts: L&TD first batch of pics | L&TD launch date revealed

FINANCIAL HAPPINESS: Xbox 360 slashed to £100 on the high street by Zavvi

Zavvi, which is the ludicrously stupid new name for the retail chain that was once Virgin, has AXED the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade to £100 in order to get YOUR MONEY, or your MUM'S MONEY or the MONEY OF WHOEVER it is that's buying you an Xbox 360 for Christmas.

The Xbox 360 Arcade can be had in-store for £99.99, the regular Pro Xbox 360 with its new 60GB hard drive has also been hacked down to £149, with the Elite getting a chop to £199. The deals aren't available on Zavvi's web site, sadly, so it's off to the shameless, dehumanising scrum of the high street for you if you want a cheap Xbox 360.

The discount lasts right up until Christmas, with the retailer also chopping £30 off the price of that horrible thing Sony makes - taking it down to a still-way-too-expensive £269.

Wii remains at full price due to being the biggest cultural phenomenon since the Rubik's Cube.

(Via MCV)

Related posts: Deal of the Week discount | Sainsbury's struck first

US SALES DATA: Xbox 360 doubles PS3 sales once again, as Wii ascends to higher plane of existence

The American sales figures for November were released overnight and, well, the news is sort of good for Xbox 360.

The sort of good part is Microsoft sold 836,000 Xbox 360s out there during November, while Sony only "moved" 378,000 "units" of its shamefully under performing PS3 monstrosity. That's over twice the sales of PS3 for Xbox 360 again, just like it managed in October. Feel free to say "more than double" when referring to how well Xbox 360 is selling compared to Sony's box of shite. It's official. The full list of last month's US hardware sales is safely hidden from the eyes of depressed PS3 fans after the jump...

GREENBERG WATCH: Microsoft man returns to claim Sony is stuffed

Aaron Greenberg, the awesome Microsoft man who bought us such classic soundbites as "Wii Fit is a Gimmick" and the fantastic "Where are your games, Sony?", has returned!

RAMPANT Greenberg's attacking Sony once again, this time claiming it's entrenched in third place this generation, and faces ending up with a "single digit" sales share a few years down the road. Here are a few of his his best lines...

"The PS3 is a third player, they are at risk of reaching a single digit market share. They are a premium priced product in a tough economic time. They have a tough position to try and sell a product. The window of time when they were the cheapest Blu-ray player, those days have passed now."

He has also been taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and typing like MAD in internet forums across the world. That man leaving anonymous comments on your blog about Sony sucking? Aaron Greenberg. The man in GAME telling customers not to bother with a PS3? Aaron Greenberg.

The future of aggressive corporate communications? Aaron Greenberg!

(Via Kotaku)

Related posts: GREENBERG ATTACKS! | GREENBERG ATTACKS II: THE REVENGE

INTERNET BATTLESTATIONS: Konami site features Xbox 360 power button AND Metal Gear Solid teaser

Konami could well about to make the LARGEST and MOST SHAMEFUL about turn in video game history by revealing Metal Gear Solid 4 for Xbox 360, if the evidence spotted on this bit of its web site is anything to go on.

The animating teaser images say "A NEXT METAL GEAR IS" and shows us a version of the green Xbox 360 power button logo and the trademark MGS exclamation marks. That's as much evidence as we need to declare that the official announcement of Metal Gear Solid 4 for Xbox 360 is but hours away.

It could just be something staggeringly disappointing like the original Metal Gear coming to Xbox Live Arcade, in which case the internet may consider itself well and truly "pwned" by Konami today. But, with millions of Xbox 360s whirring away out there desperate for games, we'd say it's pretty much a guarantee of the persistent MGS4 on Xbox 360 rumour coming true.

It's the sensible thing for Konami to do, even if Sony fans will mass execute themselves when it's announced.

(Via CVG)

Related posts: Konami "looking into" Xbox 360 MGS4 | "We might have to take steps..."

MICROSOFT: November was biggest month EVER for sales - including the original Xbox years

Microsoft's sent out yet another deliriously happy press release about how well it's all been going recently, this time claiming that November was the best-ever month for European sales across the entire six-year history of the Xbox brand.

Sales of Xbox 360 were up by 124% compared to November of 2007, with Microsoft claiming that "PlayStation family" sales rose by just 3% over the same period. Gloating MS also pointed out that Xbox 360 is now outselling PS3 in Spain, France and Italy thanks to Microsoft's aggressive recent price cuts.

But as ever, my words cannot be trusted as I have a history of lying on the internet to get attention - so the full official press release can be read by clicking the green button...

FEELGOOD FIGURES: Xbox 360 outsold PS3 by "three to one" in the US - Euro sales "up 400%"

The Black Friday discount sales bonanza, which struck last week and triggered the American sales spree that is the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, saw Xbox 360 literally RUIN AND DESTROY Sony's PS3 - thanks to selling over THREE TIMES as many consoles.

Microsoft said Xbox 360 sales were 25% up on last year's Thanksgiving weekend figures, helping the company humanely smother away what little life Sony's console has left in it. Here's how Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, put it. He should've used some smiley faces.

"Record Black Friday sales in the U.S., coupled with our existing global install base of 25 million and an online community of more than 14 million Xbox LIVE members, have laid the groundwork for continued global sales momentum in 2009."

Don went on to say that Xbox 360 has sold nearly DOUBLE the amount of units in Europe in 2008 as it did in 2007, adding, once more, that the console is currently beating PS3 in Europe too. Sadly, Don neglected to mention how many Wiis Nintendo has sold. It was probably at least 200 more.

(Via Microsoft)

Related posts: Sales double in Japan | THREE TIMES ahead in Europe, too

MICROSOFT: Xbox 360 recently had its "best week ever" for European sales

As well as boasting about nearly tripling PS3's sales recently, Microsoft's just issued some more GOOD NEWS about how sales are going following the recent Europe-wide price cuts.

Sales are going WELL since the recent Europe-wide price cuts, with Neil Thompson, Microsoft's European Senior Regional Director, pointing out that Xbox 360's just managed its best-yet week of sales, even eclipsing the 2005 Christmas launch fever. Here are his unedited words...

"To date, we have sold 7 million consoles in Europe and recently enjoyed our biggest sales week ever. Our trend research shows that families are looking for gifts that keep on giving throughout the year."

The bit on the end about "trend research" is something about people saying they're not going to stop buying games consoles just because the world seems to be running out of money. It's not relevant, but I left it in so I wouldn't have to write so much down here.

(Via VG.com)

Related posts: THREE TIMES PS3 in the UK | TWO TIMES PS3 in the USA

MICROSOFT: "We sold nearly THREE TIMES as many consoles as PS3 last week"

Chris Lewis, Microsoft's UK vice-president of Interactive Entertainment, has just revealed the true DEPTHS of MISERY that Sony is currently experiencing in the UK, telling Edge that Xbox 360 outsold PS3 by "almost three times" last week.

To put that into some sort of context, almost three times as many is well over twice as many, and nearly six times as many as 50% more. Here's the full quote from Chris, so you know this isn't just internet lies...

"We've seen this huge uptick in our velocity, which has taken us considerably ahead, certainly of PlayStation 3, right across the region. In some geographies, the U.K. specifically, we were almost three times Sony's volume last week, for instance."

Thanks, Chris. We know full well you only slipped that one in knowing that "the internet" would leap on it and blow it out of all proportion - and we're more than happy to oblige.

(Via Edge)

Related posts: Crushing PS3 by 2:1 in the USA | Also winning game sales

GTA IV DLC revealed - out on Feb 17, starring "Johnny Klebitz"

Finally, we have concrete FACT on the Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable update of GTA IV.

The New York Times has just told the world that GTA IV star Niko Bellic is being dumped - in favour of a biker called Johnny Klebitz who belongs to Liberty City gang and occasional GTA IV mission stars The Lost.

Named "The Lost and Damned", the downloadable extra stuff is, according to Rockstar boss Dan Houser, "Not directly impacted by decisions you took in the main game," although "tons of details and mysteries from the main story get explained, so it will add a lot of color to the main story."

The Lost and Damned will be out on Feb 17, presumably in exchange for more Gamerpoints than you've previously imagined possible. And not on PlayStation3.

(Via NeoGAF)

Related posts: We were right about a thing! | GTA blamed for bad stuff happening in world

STATISTICAL WAR: Xbox 360 ahead of Wii in US software sales, still twice as popular as PS3

Some hardcore statistical data has come out via GameDaily, showing that Xbox 360's installed base in the USA is still TWICE that of PS3's. Plus, as we found out last week, it's still selling twice as fast as Sony's abysmal console. 11.6 million Americans own Xbox 360s, with only 5.7 million having adopted Sony's Blu-ray player demo.

That confirms PS3 will finish this generation LAST in America. Such a shame. Here's a graph about it. The red line is Wii. It overtook Xbox 360 this year. The embarrassing bottom line is PS3. It won't be overtaking anything, apart from, perhaps, the TurboGrafx-16.

On the software side, this graph shows that Xbox 360 is miles ahead of both PS3 and Wii, flogging games like no other machine in history.

(Via VG247 & GameDaily)

Related posts: 360 miles ahead in October... | ...and September

Fable II hammers LittleBigPlanet into the ground - outsells it by a ratio of over 3:1

Poor old Sony's rubbish platform game could only manage 8th place in the US game sales charts for October, landing behind such old favourites as Mario Kart, Wii Play and, er, Saints Row 2.

Xbox 360 exclusive Fable II was the best-selling game in the US during October, shifting 790,000 copies. Nintendo was some distance behind, for once, with Wii Fit taking second place thanks to selling 487,000 units. Here's the full list to save me having to write any more and think of new ways of saying "copies" and "units."

- 1. Fable II (360): 790,000
- 2. Wii Fit (Wii): 487,000
- 3. Fallout 3 (360): 375,000
- 4. Mario Kart Wii (Wii): 290,000
- 5. Wii Play (Wii): 282,000
- 6. Saints Row 2 (360): 270,000
- 7. SOCOM: Confrontation (PS3): 231,000
- 8. LittleBigPlanet (PS3): 215,000
- 9. NBA 2K9 (360): 202,000
- 10. Dead Space (360): 193,000

SOCOM and Saints Row 2 outselling LittleBigPlanet? Doctor, please, some bandages to hold our sides together. We're in danger of spilling guts on the carpet.

(Via GI.biz)

Related posts: US hardware sales WIN | Japan hardware WIN

AMERICAN HEROES: Xbox 360 shifts TWICE AS MANY consoles as PS3 in the US during October

America. Land of the free. Land of people who can tell the difference between a good video game console and a shit video game console.

Because during October, official data from the NPD showed that Microsoft sold 371,000 Xbox 360s in America, while Sony continued to "trend into oblivion" by only flogging a miserable 190,000 PlayStation3s. Which means Sony sold 40,000 fewer consoles in America during October than it did in September, while Xbox 360 shifted 25,000 more. That's divergence. That's good news.

Wii was miles ahead of them both as usual, selling an incomprehensible 803,000 consoles, but that doesn't matter here as this blog is green not baby blue and white so we don't have to pretend Wii is a proper console that counts for anything.

(Via PC Advisor)

Related posts: Japan TURNS GREEN | Same as September

UK CHARTS: Men with guns obliterate user- generated teddies - Gears 2 CRUSHES LittleBigPlanet

Oh dear. Sony's one decent game of the year first cost it a bomb thanks to the famous botched launch and global recall, then suffered from embarrassing content deletion - and it's only scraped fourth place in the latest UK games charts. Whoops.

The news for Cliffy B's homo-erotic buddy movie Gears of War 2 is much better - it took the #1 spot on the UK all-formats games chart. This means it's okay to FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF and your decision to buy an Xbox 360. We are REINFORCING your self-confidence! You are COOL!

Chart-Track said Gears 2 recorded Xbox 360's third-best day-one sales total of all, behind Halo 3 and GTA IV, and had the eight best-selling launch day in history. Second place went to FIFA 09, with Bethesda's Fallout 3 taking third spot. LittleBigPlanet did rubbish and was fourth, because it IS rubbish and nobody with any sense owns PlayStation3s.

(Via Chart-Track)

Related posts: LAST WEEK: Fallout 3 wins | Some other week it was FIFA 09

Fallout 3 tops the chart, winning on Xbox 360 by a wide margin

That is the sound of JUSTICE being DONE. Not that sound, that's the fan in your PC. The other sound. That's justice being done.

Fallout 3 topped the UK sales charts last week, selling vastly better on Xbox 360 than it did on PlayStation3. This is no doubt due to developer Bethesda's fantastic piece of underground viral marketing aimed at telling the world the PS3 version was shite and that no one should bother getting it.

Fallout 3 sold 55% of its copies on Xbox 360 last week, with 28% of simpletons failing to do their research and buying the inferior PS3 version. 17% of people bought it hoping the game would run on their PCs. Chart Track said Fallout 3 sold 57% more copies than Bethesda's previous chart topper Oblivion. That must be enough facts by now.

The rest of the chart makes for depressing reading. FIFA 09 and Wii Fit are at numbers 2 & 3, with Fable II dropping to fourth. Not much else has happened.

Full UK Top 10 after the jump...

JAPAN FALLS AGAIN: Xbox 360 outsells PS3 for SEVENTH consecutive week

We told you we were keeping count. Pretty soon, Xbox 360 outselling PS3 in Japan is going to become the norm, rather than some freakish statistical anomaly.

One day it might be considered BIG NEWS that PS3 manages to outsell Xbox 360 for once, as, last week in Japan, Microsoft sold 7,844 Xbox 360s - and Sony only blew the dust off a pathetic 3,931 PS3s. Obviously there's the usual disclaimer about Wii and PSP and DS being the only consoles that really matter in Japan any more, but still. It's PlayStation3 doing embarrassingly bad, and for that we must be grateful.

This also means Xbox 360 has managed a second monthly victory as well, thanks to the stunning October sales run helping the console equal September's success in the region.

(Via NeoGAF)

Related posts: September WIN | America WIN