June NPD: Hardware's way up, Red Dead reloads

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze And also, I really love Just Dance.

There's something that's just endearing about that little fellow.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze Touchy, touchy!

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

I'm sure the price drop for the 360 Phat helped that figure along as well.

@(Unverified) Yeah that is to bad, hopefully it was in the top 20.

@(Unverified) How is that bad? Hopefully they can now stop making pointless Iterations. And this is without insulting the actual band!

@JakePegLeg It sold 50% more consoles than the PS3 – that sounds significant to me.

@JakePegLeg

Math is hard.

@chrisgrant Chris Grant, protector of the 360's virtue!

@chrisgrant

Its actually 33% more sold not 50%

PS3 305k
360 453k

@IREWolfman
It is closer to 50%.

305k (+30%) = 407k

305k (+50%) = 457k

Which is closer to 453k?

@JIREWolfman

I'm pretty sure Chris' math was correct.

@IREWolfman PRO MATHS

@IREWolfman
Was just about to point that out myself

Wow. Stay in school, guys.

@JakePegLeg

There's no reasoning with blind fanboys. They see it the way they want. If I had a genie grant me 3 wishes, one would be to rid the gaming community of them.

@JakePegLeg

I'm just glad Jake doesn't design buildings or bridges.

@SpartacusMagnus PS3 fanboys always have weird math. Out of the 5 years on the market, the 360 has outsold the PS3 for every month except for 7 months. and yet every year is supposed to be the year of the playstation.

but if sales is what drives your boat, the wii has lapped the PS3 and almost lapped the 360...

@onlysublime

You might want to look at the global picture, PS3 has been whipping he 360 for 3 years now.

Wake up.. 2008, 2009, 2010 are all the year of Playstation, not just in sales but in GAMES too...

If Microsoft can only shift 100k more consoles in it's first month, that's bad, that will fall back to like 20k next month and then it's back where they were...

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

What I find funny is it still barely beat the Wii, and had to sell over 250K to get their numbers high enough to do it.

Kudos on the new design though, it does look like a winner. Let's see if they can keep up those numbers or if it was just old systems upgrading to new.

@JakePegLeg

Ok fanboys, here's some more math. The NPD for September of 2009 which is when the new $299 PS3 Slim was released, went like this:

# PS3 - 491,800
# Wii - 462,800
# Xbox 360 - 352,600

This June 2010 NPD, with the 360 slim released went like this:

# 360: 453,000
# Wii: 423,000
# PS3: 305,000

They did the same. As in, no one did better than anyone else, as in, stop acting like 6 year olds.

That is all.

@Deschain

Fail reply.

Well screw you too joystiq! :|

@Deschain How did the replies fail? We've been QA-ing them for awhile and haven't noticed NEARLY as many complaints in the last couple weeks – want to make sure it's user error and not a bug.

@chrisgrant


maybe....just maybe...i perhaps could have hit the refresh hotkey on my mouse. But my comment was still there so idk. But yeah for the most part it seems comments are fine now. Good job on that. I prolly did refresh the page and didn't notice.

@chrisgrant
I actually can't see the post button, not sure if there is some sort of option disabling it with my browser or problem loading from site. I end up hitting tab (three times) then pressing Enter to post.

@chrisgrant

You are doing a hell of a lot better than Engadget, that is for sure.

I think the full screen Sony ad I have no interest in seeing is messing some things up, though.

@Ordeith Full page Sony ad?

Awesome!

@Deschain


I like how I get down voted by people who don't try and make a counter point.

@Deschain

Here's a counter-point: Super Mario Galaxy was so close to perfection, and the sequel was loads more of that same near perfection. If it ain't brkoe, don't fix it. I think the fact that every sinlge level in SMG2 offers something new, innovative, and fun that it just can't avoid being excellent. There is just this magic in it that makes it so damn fun that so many other games don't have.

@ItsameMatt03

That magic you're talking about. It's called nostalgia. As I said, it's a great game. But overrated.

@Deschain

Maybe to you, but not to all the people that rated it. It's your opinion and obviously almost yours exclusively. Don't ram it down other people's throats.

@Kadamon

Excuse me. If anything the Super Mario Galaxy 2 score has been rammed down my throat. Not on this particular site, or in this particular conversation, but in general. And it's a right I have to express my displeasure that I don't think it deserves a perfect score. So I don't need you to tell me not too. If you have a problem with people expressing their opinions I think you should make your own blog and just ban anyone who disagrees with you. Blog by dictatorship anyone? Here it's a Democracy! Thanks to that I can express my opinion even though I am outnumbered as I often am. That is what the heart system is for. Don't like what I say? just press that minus button and it all fades away eventually. Of course I like to debate/argue, so I honestly prefer people to talk before they press that button. Either way, I understand I'm in the minority. But my only complaint was that it got a perfect score. The gaming industry is far too lenient in their ratings. 10's and 9's are given out like candy to anyone with a half decent game. Reviewers need to reevaluate their level of criticism. They are simply too soft, because too many "10's" or "perfect" games come out a year compared to other media types and their scores. That is the real reason I don't think it deserves a perfect score. Few if any games do at all.

@Deschain
10 is not a perfect score. There is no perfect score because there are no perfect games; this is obvious.

If the scoring system was used literally (it isn't), a 10 would just mean that a game is in the top 10% of games being considered. There is absolutely no way that doesn't apply to Mario Galaxy 2.

As for nostalgia - I never had a NES; as a kid I often played a friend's SNES but we didn't play Mario platformers; I had a Game Boy and I did play the mario game on that but it wasn't a life changing experience. Didn't ever play N64 at all. Had a GC, thought Mario Sunshine was great, but is this really long enough ago for nostalgia? On DS, I didn't get the Mario 64 port. Did get NSMB which was quite fun, but I didn't even finish it yet. Didn't get the Wii version. Where's the nostalgia there?

You want to hit nostalgia with me, do a remake of Sopwith or Spacewar (old PC games) and see if those get a 10. Or see if I even buy them (I won't). Not everyone's affected by nostalgia here.

Seriously, Mario Galaxy 2 gets 9s and 10s by virtue of being the best platform game ever made (so far). Because it's fractionally better than Mario Galaxy (1) which was previously the best platform game ever made. What's the concern about this? I mean maybe you just don't like platform games that much, which is fine, I'm not saying everybody has to like it. They give plenty of shooters 9s and 10s; I don't like shooters, but you know, if those are the best shooters available, those review scores are fine.

@Deschain

Ok, here's why you got downvoted on your posts like mad:

"Servers SMG2 right. Not that it's bad but it's a shame it got so many "perfect" reviews. I swear the game is given an easy sheet to high scores. No one expects anything out of a Mario game except creativity, a new gimmick, and some solid platforming."

I'll itemize the problems with your rant for you:

1) *Every* game is expected to be creative. RDR is creative. Assassin's Creed 1 & 2 are creative. Gaming is a creative field, and we expect devs to be creative--not just nintendo.

2) *Every* game is expected to have a new gimmick. RDR would just be GTA: Old West, except for the Dead Eye "gimmick." Games that are well executed, but that don't bring anything new to the table (like Dante's Inferno) don't get rated as well. We want more of the same, plus something new.

3) People expect solid platforming from a 3d mario game because ITS A PLATFORMING GAME! Geez Louise, what do you expect out of it, solid dog-fighting mechanics? Solid RTS mechanics? Ooh, how about solid RPG mechanics?

An imaginative, creative, well designed game within its genre that adds a new and enjoyable mechanic or two is going to get perfect scores because it is, within its own genre, a PERFECT GAME. Seriously, there's nothing to gripe about with SMG2 except maybe the fact that it isn't in HD--but since its a wii title, that just isn't going to happen, and we all know it. Hell, even the motion controls are tight!

Get your head out of the sand, amigo. SMG2 and RDR are both in the same class of excellence. If you don't like platformers, don't get Galaxy 2. But if you do, you can't do better.

@mikesanto
Sorry, this generation of gamers equates fun with the shortest number of hours it takes to beat a game, and whether or not it has multiplayer.

@Yeah TB / No, they don't. What the hell are you talking about? Or is this just some irritational Wake hatred bubbling over? The 2nd play through of Wake is thoroughly worthwhile because you have so much more insight into the story that you didn't the first go round. I'll likely end up with 20 hours + on the game because of it.

Oh, did you notice the game in the top spot? Seems to me that game is pretty damn long. This generation of gamers equates fun with the shortest # of hours it takes to beat??? Do you have any sort of backup to that ridiculous statement?

@MarkezJM

Take a second looks at Yeah TB's comment and you'll see it's not at all a condemnation of Alan Wake. He's making reference to the fact that games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sell incredibly well despite having poor campaign modes and priding themselves on multiplayer.

@Acosta02 / Even if that is what he meant, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Those type of games which you're mentioning are sold and played BECAUSE of the multiplayer component, that's primarily what they're geared towards. People sink sooooooo much time into the multiplayer part of those games it's ridiculous.

@Acosta02
Thank you for actually picking up on that. Although I somewhat mis-typed my point, you got it. What I meant to say was that a lot of gamers today seem to only be concerned with whether or not a game has multiplayer and could care less about the campaign, and if it's strictly a single player, the game must be X amount of hours long to beat, otherwise it's "rental only." I feel like that's what happened to Alan Wake, so certainly not a condemnation at all. It's more of taking a shot at gamers who have this mentality when buying games.

@MarkezJM
Make more sense? RDR has a fantastic single player that will run most people 20+ hours it seems, and has great multiplayer modes. Plus, it's Rockstar. So none of what I meant to say applies to it. That's why it's numero uno.

@Acosta02
Thank you for actually picking up on that. Although I somewhat mis-typed my point, you got it. What I meant to say was that a lot of gamers today seem to only be concerned with whether or not a game has multiplayer and could care less about the campaign, and if it's strictly a single player, the game must be X amount of hours long to beat, otherwise it's "rental only." I feel like that's what happened to Alan Wake, so certainly not a condemnation at all. It's more of taking a shot at gamers who have this mentality when buying games.

@MarkezJM
Make more sense? RDR has a fantastic single player that will run most people 20+ hours it seems, and has great multiplayer modes. Plus, it's Rockstar. So none of what I meant to say applies to it. That's why it's numero uno.

(Sorry if this gets posted twice... I hit submit, it showed up fine, I refreshed my page, and it disappeared)