""Console market share appears to be less of a priority; price cut less likely," he said. "On its earnings call, Sony management indicated the company is now more focused on achieving profitability in the PlayStation segment and rolling out online services (e.g., PlayStation Home) rather than chasing unit market share vs. Microsoft and Nintendo. Importantly, management comments also suggest that a price cut is less likely on the PS3 this year, at least in the near term.""

The NPD Group recently released their tracked sales numbers for April 2008, for the four week tracking period that ends on May 3rd, 2008. Many thanks to sonycowboy at NeoGAF and the NPD Group for the numbers.

April saw the release of two major games: Grand Theft Auto IV, which shattered industry records, and Mario Kart Wii, the latest installment in Nintendo's Mario Kart franchise. You would think that there would be strong sales all around for the three current generation consoles, but ...

Nintendo have always prided themselves on their originality. Unfortunately in this case the courts do not agree.
Back in 2006 a small Texas based gaming company called Anascape sued Nintendo for patent infringement in the creation of the Wii, Wavebird and Gamecube controllers. After almost two years the courts have ruled in favour of Anascape, and Nintendo must now pay $21 million compensation to Anascape and while Nintendo can certainly spare the cash this is definitely a humiliating blow.

"Rejoice! For many years the zany Nintendo peripheral was a diminishing phenomenon. But no longer. Thanks to the Wii, all manner of weird and wonderful accessories are being released again, while the Virtual Console continues to churn up deep feelings of nostalgia for the games and peripherals of ages past. In honour of this new golden age, we thought we’d root around our collective memories for some of the more bizarre, wonderful and downright useless peripherals we’ve encountered over the ma..."

"GamesRadar: What do you consider to be the star of your 2008 line-up?

Shane Kim: I don't like to pick between my children, but I think Gears Of War has the potential to be one of the biggest releases this Fall. We sold over five million units of the original Gears of War - we now have a much larger install base and that combined with what Epic have been able to do... I'm pretty excited.

Fable 2 I think will be huge also, we have high hopes for what Peter (Molyneux) has achieved.

Thos..."

Today Sony has released there earnings for the fiscal year ending on March 31st 2008 and believe it or not they are in the green. Sony have reported that there operating income has been increased by 491% translating to £1.837 billion. There was a sizeable loss in the gaming segment (most likely due to the selling the PS3's at a loss) but both the PSP and PS2 were still bringing in strong sales.

PlatinumGames is the studio that was formerly named Seeds, which currently houses ex-employees from the now-defunct Clover Studio. In a now-removed report from Videogaming247, Sega has apparently struck a deal with PlatinumGames to publish its first three titles.

Those three titles are the following (some info via Kotaku):

Bayonetta, directed by Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, an action game featuring a "witch battling angels", with guns on her feet.

Infinite Line, a DS Sci-fi RPG ...

According to John Smedley, who is the president of Sony Online Entertainment, MMOs are going to be a real strong selling point of the PS3 in the long term. He also said that the video game industry now has become more mainstream and that MMO games are also benefiting from that as well. He also spoke about the different variety of people who enjoy playing MMOs. He states that the MMO market is mostly male, but he expects that to change soon.

Analysis company Pacific Crest Securities have laid out a way for publishing companies to save their business in the face of rising costs, saying EA is the best example (apparently aspiring to become 'what Disney is to cartoons' wasn't all talk). The advice seems helpful, and this is pretty much it summed up: stop sucking.

Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto feels America is a greater source of unique video game products than his native Japan. In an interview with Wired, he states:

"In Japan, the technology required to create videogames tends to be concentrated in the bigger corporations."

Because of this, companies rarely take risks, which is just one of the reasons Nintendo is excited about turning things around with Wii Ware, which will allow essentially anyone to develop games and get them out in ...

"You see it all the time in eBay game listings. "RARE!!!" Of course, this being the internet, it's usually part of the full listing "GEARS OF WAR FOR XBOX 360 – RARE!!!" but occasionally, it's justified. Here we take a look at the different types of retro games and some of the crazy prices they're going for.

The popular desirables
These are the games that sold by the shedload in their day, so hardly count as 'rare' yet still seem to fetch a high price on eBay. Such as…

Final Fantasy VII..."

"You want a single man's fortunes by which you can gauge the current success of Nintendo? Look no further than former chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi, who in the past three years has gone from being Japan's 11th-richest man, to it's 3rd-richest man, to now it's richest man. That's what happens when you own mountains of Nintendo stock, and said stock goes through the roof. While there's been no reports of Yamauchi smashing any marble tables over the news, he is expected to spend at least some of his ..."

"General consensus around the industry recently has tipped the imminent arrival of a new DS, whether it's a new model of the existing machine in a GBA SP sort of way, or an entirely new 'DS 2'.

We contacted Nintendo for a comment and they gave us more than the usual 'rumour and speculation' answer. Which was...

"No announcement has been made by Nintendo and everything reported online is pure speculation and rumour. Our hardware development team always work on the next product after we la..."

"Developer-publisher Midway has taken another loss for the fiscal first quarter of 2008, the company announced today. The company saw $29.9 million in sales, more than twice its performance for the same period last year, but nonetheless, Midway's first quarter net losses were $34 million, while it lost much less - $19.8 million - in 2007's first quarter.

The sluggish performance can be credited to the fact Midway had only one U.S. release during the quarter - an expansion pack for Strangleh..."

THQ has been as successful last year with its Nickelodeon titles (Spongebob, Avatar, etc) as Nintendo was with its DS, taking in over one billion in sales. Obviously happy about it, executive VP of digital media for Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Steve Youngwood left a comment for the press:

"THQ's interactive video games based on our hit shows have continued to help Nickelodeon maintain its position as a leader in gaming entertainment for the family, and we look forward to the addition ...

"TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp's (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld game gear outsold Nintendo Co Ltd's (7974.OS: Quote, Profile, Research) DS portable player more than 2-to-1 in Japan in April, game magazine publisher Enterbrain said.

But in the console market, Nintendo sold five times as many Wii machines as Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) in the four weeks through April 27, an Enterbrain report dated Thursday showed.

PSP sales came to 380,867 units, beatin..."

"We're a bit disappointed by this week's ELSPA piracy raid. We went in expecting the pirate-chinning ELSPA Anti-Piracy Unit, wicked raid names like 'operation buzzard' and a dirty pirate who ends up getting 20 years in prison, and an appointment with a bag of pool balls for MESSING with the APU.

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All we've got this week though is the West Yorkshire police, who's boasting about nicking two blokes selling copied games in the Richard Dunn Sports Centre in Bradford. Badass.

I..."

""While the Entertainment Software Association remains the preeminent voice for U.S. computer and video game publishers, we can confirm that Activision and Vivendi Games opted to discontinue their membership. The ESA remains dedicated to advancing our industry's objectives such as protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights, and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire industry. Our high level of service and value to members and the larger industry remains unch..."

Today VGChartz have released updates on the worldwide sales for each console. This info reveals the Wii on roughly 24.7 million sales, the 360 on 18.4 million and finally the PS3 on 12 million. Which is massive boost of two million since last reported

""I am also aware of the [Microsoft Wiimote] rumour and have seen a fake image made by a fan on the web which looks like a Wii Remote with the rumour that such a controller may be launched, However there is no way for us to comment on such speculations."

“All I can say today is, it is not that easy to develop software which leverages the characteristics of the Wii Remote. We are not concerned about what other companies may do but rather more concerned with presenting them with new ideas to ..."

"BLOCKBUSTER also plans on increasing the variety of game titles available to rent, and will be introducing Nintendo DS game rentals at BLOCKBUSTER locations nation-wide. You will also be able to purchase Nintendo DS games, hardware and accessories later this year."

"A NEW futuristic line of poker machines with Xbox-style graphics will rake in a younger generation of gamblers according to experts.

The hi-tech machines will use better graphics and interactive technology to appeal to junior punters and will be designed to be as versatile as a home computer.

The plan for more sophisticated, hi-tech pokies was canvassed at a recent Future Trends in Gaming conference in Queensland, where major industry organisations outlined their vision to attract you..."

"Satoru Iwata has confirmed that there are no plans to cut the price of either the DS or Wii in the considerable future.

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"Our earnings projection for the year is not based on hardware price cuts, and I don't think we are going to need them," he said at analyst meeting (according to Reuters).

It's hardly surprising, considering that Nintendo has recently had to increase its production and is still finding it hard to meet demand in America."

So the rumours of of an official Slim or Lite PS3 are still unknown. But there is lighter and more efficient PS3 coming. In this edition the heat will sink in different parts. The graphics card and CPU will be cooled by different heat sinks, which differs from the original versions only having one big heat sink. This results in the heat sink weighing 350g, whereas the two previous PS3 versions weighed 700g and 500g.

Go!View was the video service unveiled for the PSP. The program will work in with Sky and allow PSP users to download and watch programs and films on your PSP. It's to be launched in the Summer and will be the first PSP download service in Europe. The content will also be able to be arranged into your TV content according to the company. There has be no content, prices or release dates yet. Though i wonder if it will be released outside of Europe to work in with other countries.