Game Company News

I never post industry news here because I find it mind numbing but a few bits today caught my eye:

--Square Enix is trying to buy out Eidos. That is significant to me because Square has a great PR team, and Eidos does not.

--Midway filed Chapter 11. This is significant because I want This is Vegas to get released just so you can see the Sinatra impersonator.

--Namco is trying to buy out D3 Publisher. Go economy go.

--Oh, and Rock Band 2 sold over 2 million units (all platforms combined) but the execs at Viacom thought that was shitty. (My words). Viacom's words say, "While we remain enthusiastic about the future franchise potential for Rock Band, the impact of a slowing economy dampened consumer purchases of videogames in the quarter, resulting in lower sales of Rock Band than we had originally hoped."

When you bank on a game selling well over 2 million units, you're a dope. The original RB sold about 2.5 million units and the sequel, as awesome as it is, was released a mere 13 months later. This ain't Madden. And it still doesn't have the Guitar Hero name -- GH: World Tour outsold Rock Band 2 (by a lot) and if that fact surprises you..then that surprises me.

The WII version of World Tour outsold ALL versions of RB2 combined. (or damn near)

But check this out -- think the shoddy gameplay in NCAA 09 didn't matter? That game on the Xbox 360 sold about approx. 600,000 units. In EA Sports World -- that's not ideal.

NCAA 06 (ps2) - 1.32 Million
NCAA 07 Xbox 360 - 820,000
NCAA 08 Xbox 360 - 810,000
NCAA 09 Xbox 360 - 600,000

That trend isn't lying.

Oh, and if you are curious:

Madden 06 - 3.93 MILLION on the PS2. (The numbers also say the PS2 was THE platform for sports games. Since the Next Gen boom sports game sales have tailed off)
07 Xbox 360 - 1.89 mil
08 Xbox 360 2.48 mil
09 Xbox 360 2.23 mi

The sad part?
MLB 08 The Show on the PS3 moved 620,000 units.
MLB 2K8 on the 360 sold 630,000

Still think reviews matter?