What's In The News

As many of you have no doubt been seeing, regular PS3 sales seem to be slowing down and the purchase prices on Ebay have been steadily declining. Perhaps due to the initial scarcity, there was a perceived demand for the PS3 that is not being borne out in current sales. Based on this perceived demand retailers took the opportunity to force consumers looking for the PS3 to buy fabulously expensive bundles and Ebayers gouged the rich for all they were worth. Maybe out of general frustration from these practices, or maybe because $600 is just too damn much to pay for a videogame system, consumers are walking. Where are they going? To the checkout line with their brand new Wiis.

Now, I think the Wii costs too much for the technology it uses, but I feel like it's almost a foregone conclusion that the DS effect is going to strike again. That's where Nintendo makes a simple system from matured technologies and the system is basically compelling to pretty much everybody. It isn't ridiculously cheap, but it's easily within most peoples' price ranges, even the somewhat thrifty, and it just plain looks fun. So it ends up being almost an impulse buy for millions of people that may not have been willing to purchase a traditional, complicated-looking system in the first place. The videogame market eluded Nintendo for the past two console generations so Nintendo just brings everybody back down to their level. Whether or not this will result in better games or mass-marketed crap aimed at old little kids and old people remains to be seen.

Reports are coming in that Blue Dragon sales in Japan have rapidly dropped as well. Last week over 80,000 units were sold according to Media Create, but this week Blue Dragon isn't even in the charts anymore. My theory is that every Japanese person that owns a 360 bought a copy, and now it's pretty much done. 80,000 is far less than what's needed to break even on development costs, especially a title with so many top class developers working on it. After localization, the sales in western markets will most likely be awesome though, so it could still turn out to be a hit overall.

In other news, I'm heading to America next month, so all readers in all major American cities prepare yourself for the coming onslaught!