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EA Disappointed With Titanfall 2 Sales But Remains Committed To The Series


Posted on February 2, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

During Electronic Art’s most recent earnings call executives from the company discussed the company’s view on Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall 2. It turns out that despite large amounts of critical acclaim, especially for its’ single player campaign, and high user satisfaction scores this FPS sequel failed to live up to EA’s expectations.

Even in the face of disappointing sales numbers, EA has recommitted itself to the support not only the already released 2016 sequel but also the franchise as a whole. Titanfall 2 will continue to see new maps, modes and cosmetic DLC released throughout its life, it is not known if the next Titanfall title will be developed internally at Respawn but their deal with EA does provide Respawn with the ownership rights to the franchise.

No particular reason for the less than expected sales figures was provided but could it have something to do with the fact that Titanfall 2 was released one week after EA’s other massively successful shooter Battlefield 1 and a week prior to the launch of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare? With so many shooters releasing in such a short time I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a couple of folks decided to only pick up one of the three excellent FPS titles released back-to-back-to-back last Fall.

Here is a quote from the investor’s call:

“Titanfall 2 delivered the next important step in this new franchise we are building with our partners at Respawn – a highly-rated, action-packed experience that has thrilled players in the year’s biggest category. Player satisfaction scores for Titanfall 2 are among the highest in our portfolio, showing just how much fun players are having with this game. Titanfall 2 will be played for a long time to come, with new maps, modes and content updates continuing to expand the experience and engage our players. We’re excited about our long-term plans for the Titanfall franchise.”

[Source]


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Report: PC Hardware Sales Eclipsed $30 Billion USD In 2016


Posted on January 23, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Industry analyst firm JPR recently released a report estimating that total worldwide hardware sales eclipsed the $30 billion mark. In terms of geography  Asia lead the way with an estimated growth rate of 7% which will continue right through 2019, commanding $11.3 billion USD of the total existing market share. For those of us who are interested in the health of the PC hardware industry JPR’s publically available figures are full of interesting statistics.

2016 saw a number of new pieces of hardware released that made waves in enthusiast news circles. Arguably one of the biggest stories of the year came towards the mid-point with the launch of new Graphics Cards from both Nvidia and AMD. Team Green proved that the Geforce brand is still the place for hardcore enthusiasts looking for the bleeding edge performance with the expensive Geforce 1070 and Geforce 1080 video cards. AMD shot back just a couple of weeks later with the Polaris powered Radeon 480 which brought the performance of Nvidia’s high end last generation 9 Series cards for under $200 USD. AMD and Nvidia might not be fighting tooth and nail for power or performance anymore but their offerings certainly cover a wide variety of products at different price points.

Graphics cards aren’t the only PC hardware segment that saw innovation last year and will continue to see new products. Intel released their new 7000 series processor line, it doesn’t follow the traditional tick-tock pattern that Intel has been known but it does provide additional video encoding performance. AMD is expected to release its Ryzen platform at the Games Developer Conference late next month, the manufacturer’s first large platform update since 2013 – featuring the brand new AM4 motherboard design and enhanced performance versus the previous generation.

John Peddle, president of JPR had this to say about the upcoming launch of the Ryzen platform:

We are also very excited about the prospects for the AMD Ryzen CPU platform and think it will be adopted at all three hardware tiers. Of course Intel CPUs currently offer superior power and value for gamers of every budget level, and their integrated graphics now rival game consoles.”

Despite JPR’s report that the PC hardware industry has eclipsed such a large sales amount reports of PC sales have been declining for several consecutive quarters – according to the Inquirer total sales were down 3.7% leading up to the Christmas season. It is an important distinction to make that JPR’s report about the industry surpassing a huge sales amount includes high end accessories like Ultra HD Monitors, gaming headsets, gaming mice and Curved Displays.

How do you feel about the state of the PC hardware industry? Sound off in the comments and let us know.


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PlayStation 4 Launches With One Million Consoles Sold


Posted on November 18, 2013 by Rae Michelle Richards

Did you pick up a PlayStation 4 this past Friday? Well it seems that a million gamers brought home a new console, as Sony has announced that one million consoles where placed in the hands of gamers within the first 24 hours. The PlayStation 4 launched in North America on Friday November 15th and is scheduled for release in Europe later this month and Japan in early 2014.

Sony’s latest console launched alongside the following retail games: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA 14, Injustice: Gods Among Us – Ultimate Edition, Just Dance 2013, Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, Lego: Marvel Super Heroes, Madden NFL 25,  Need for Speed: Rivals and Skylander’s Swap Force.

We will have more on the PlayStation 4 in the coming weeks. Some of our staff members have already received their consoles – so reviews are inbound!

Source: Sony Press Release


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PlayStation 3 Surpasses 80 Million Units


Posted on November 6, 2013 by Rae Michelle Richards

Sony has sold a lot of PlayStation 3 consoles, 80 million worldwide as of November 2nd according to a recent press release from the console manufacturer. Pretty impressive considering the console launched in November 2006, on average they sold more than 11 million units a year! While everyone is talking about the PlayStation 4, sometimes it is important to look back and see what came before.

Some major milestones outlined by Sony: The launch of PlayStation Plus – which has been providing discounts to PlayStation Store content for over 3 years. Who of course could forget the Instant Games Collection either, every month Sony releases multiple  games for free to PS Plus subscribers for the past two years, for $60 a year it’s not a bad deal. Lastly, the PlayStation Store launched in November 2006 providing free online game play to every console.

I’m a huge proponent of Sony’s free games imitative and surely players who don’t already own a PS3 or can’t find a PlayStation may consider picking up a PS3 this holiday. With the launch of the PS4, I am a little shocked we haven’t seen a price cut just before the holidays. In Canada the PS3 sells for $249.99 and is available bundled with NHL 14 and a 250GB hard drive.


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Ubisoft Were The Big Winners of Amazon’s Black Friday Weekend


Posted on November 26, 2012 by Broken Joysticks

With Black Friday sales currently being tallied up at the writing of this article, one fact has been confirmed, Ubisoft have been successful this past weekend on arguably the best online store on the Internet. According to data from Cowen & Company, the French video game company pulled away with massive sales this Black Friday weekend, with Just Dance and Assassin’s Creed III in the top 20. On record, the Just Dance franchise have always had a title at the top of the most sold game on Black Friday weekend, and this happenstance is no different.

December might just be 31 days, but it accounts to a quarter of annual video game software sales in the U.S., which are undoubtedly vital for publishers to factor in when capitalizing in on the days after Thanksgiving.

Other factors worth noting is ten Xbox 360 games made the top 20 list, the oldest game on the list is technically Gran Turismo 5 (XL Edition) as it was reduced to ten dollars for the weekend, and even the previous iteration of Just Dance for the Wii even squeezed onto the list.  This list of top sellers from Amazon.com are listed below.

Estimated top-selling video games on Amazon.com, as of November 23-25:

  • Just Dance 4 (Wii)
  • Assassin’s Creed III (Xbox 360)
  • Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
  • Assassin’s Creed III (PS3)
  • Dishonored (Xbox 360)
  • Madden NFL 13 (Xbox 360)
  • FIFA Soccer 13 (PS3)
  • FIFA Soccer 13 (Xbox 360)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360)
  • Just Dance 4 (Xbox 360)
  • Madden NFL 13 (PS3)
  • Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (PS3)
  • Dishonored (PS3)
  • Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
  • Dance Central 3 (Xbox 360)
  • Skylanders Giants (Wii)
  • God of War Saga (PS3)
  • Just Dance 3 (Wii)
  • Lego Lord of the Rings (Xbox 360)

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Diablo III Breaks Sales Record


Posted on May 23, 2012 by Andrew Minott

In a press release earlier today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that the launch of Diablo III has been the most successful of any PC game to date. In the first 24 hours, 3.5 million copies were sold at retail, with an additional 1.2 million copies acquired through Blizzard’s one-year promotional World of Warcraft commitment. Through the first week of availability, the number of sales reached 6.3 million.

Diablo III unthroned previous sales champion, Blizzard’s own World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which reached 3.3 million sales in the first 24 hours at its launch in December 2010.Read More


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