Sports video games are a huge business -- and for many years, it was an extremely competitive space. I remember a few years back trying to wade through half a dozen different baseball video game titles to figure out which one was worth buying. However, a few years back, video game giant EA started signing "exclusive" deals with a variety of sporting leagues, including the NFL. These "exclusive" deals supposedly meant that only EA could produce games with the names and stats of real players -- a huge selling point among most fans. And, of course, in gaining exclusivity, EA has completely cashed in. However, a bunch of angry video gamers are now suing the company for anticompetitive conduct, noting that these exclusive deals killed off all the competition, allowing EA to drastically raise its prices.
Next-Gen.Biz writes: "The NPD Group has revealed the top 10 selling games of all time in the U.S. market.
Ripten's Chad Lakkis writes:
The Hollywood Reporter, by Kimberly Nordyke on Jan 16, 2008:
Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey picks what he believes will be the biggest sellers of 2008.
Jan. 2, 2008 -- MSNBC tallied in their Game of the Year readers' votes between December 19 and 27. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" garnered 33 percent of the over 17,000 votes and is MSNBC Readers' Game of the Year. The runner-up was "Bioshock" at 22 percent of the votes. The second runner-up was "Mass Effect" at 10 percent.
MSNBC video game section has been polling gamers about their favorite games in a number of categories, trying to narrow down the search for the Game of the Year.
Kotaku's Brian Crecente has a leaked copy of the National Institute on Media and the Family's annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, set to be officially released tomorrow. This year's report card is broken into five parts:
The best selling games in units sold, across all platforms, for the year are as follows, with more year-to-date sales data available at the source.
Analysts said Tuesday that Electronic Arts is cutting prices on sports games such as "NBA Live 08," "Madden NFL 08" and "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08," which the analysts said is a bad sign going into the holiday season.
EA's latest version of Madden is severly p***ing off gamers with a few deeming it as unplayable due to the bugs involved. The Xbox 360 and PS3 version suffer from similar bugs and even the Wii suffers from quite a long list. On the list include system freezes, online play trouble, players disappearing from the free agent pool and quarterbacks automatically throwing the ball as soon as it is hiked. Consumers are filing reports everyhere possible not to mention to the Better Business Bureau in California where EA is headquarted in which the Bureau has received 443 complaints regarding EA in the past 36 months resulting in an unsatisfactory rating.
Following the thoroughly impressive August results from The NPD Group, Microsoft was the first of the big three console manufacturers to chime in on its performance for the month.
With a 400k debut, Bioshock has a pretty legitimate shot at 1,000,000 units long term. For a sense of scale though - even in week two Madden (across all platforms) - outsold the game.
The Wii, Xbox, GC and PSP versions of Madden 08 ¿ combined - accounted for fewer than 10% of the 1.6 million units sold while 360 version sold them most and 4 times the PS3 version.
New York City, and more specifically Times Square, is the center for hundreds of launches, parties, and events a year. Tonight however, EA Sports delivered the largest video game launch that we've ever been a part of by buying up giant billboards, holding an Ozzy Osbourne concert above the Hard Rock Cafe, and essentially shutting down a piece of the busiest city in America for a bit of the night, all for the launch of the heralded Madden 08.
EA released word this afternoon that it is already planning a patch for the newly released Madden '08 on the Wii. The news came from their official website.
Happy Maddenoliday!
August 14, 2007...
What's on offer this week for those slumbering gamers now waking from their self-imposed summertime hibernation periods? Well, although GamerSquad would suggest that you've perhaps set your quality alarm a week too early, there are obviously vast sways of American Football fans who'll be wiping the sleep from their eyes and pulling on their favourite team jersey right about now. And why? Because EA's sporting granddaddy Madden NFL 08 hits the stores tomorrow.
For many sports gamers, a yearly purchase of Madden '08 is a given. Saving $10 on any $60 game is nice (PS3 and Xbox 360), but this discount even works on the PSP and Wii/PS2 versions, bringing them down to $29.99 and $39.99 respectively. Nice.