What do you know, people actually did pay for Spore. EA recently announced that its DRM-riffic title Spore has sold one million copies worldwide across PC, Mac and DS platforms. The publisher also stated that 25 million creatures, vehicles and buildings have evolved in the Sporepedia.

Not that there was any doubt that Spore would ever reach the million sold mark, but whether its "mile wide, inch deep" gameplay brings it The Sims level of success remains to be revealed.

"Self-defence!" it'll claim, noting how people simply wouldn't "stop pressing my buttons." Also, the European Xbox 360 can talk. No wonder it's managed to "hit" 6 million people, a figure which Microsoft's Chris Lewis, Vice President of Interactive Entertainment Business EMEA and apparent violence fetishist, is "very excited" by.

"We're very excited that more consumers in Europe are joining the ever-growing Xbox 360 community," Lewis said. "We're now the best-value next-gen console on the market with an entry-level ERP of €179/£129.99, and consumers have clearly responded to that offering." He went on to promise that a "launch-level" advertising campaign would, uh, launch in the region next week, promoting titles like "Lips, Scene It?; You're In The Movies and Fable 2."

Yes, he really did put Fable 2 at the very end of the list.

See, the game has sold 967,675 copies in its first two days on Japanese store shelves, which is close to a million, which means that, if Pokémon Platinum were an American music album, it would almost be a platinum record. Once we realized that, the headline just wrote itself. As did this explanatory paragraph ...

Look, Pokémon games are still popular in Japan, all right? That's all we're trying to say here! Sheesh! We need a drink.

[Via DS Fanboy]

It wasn't so frightening when the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 for a week back when Tales of Vesperia came out, but now that it's sold more than the Wii during the week ending Sept. 14 ... well, now we're stricken with panic. According to Enterbrain, the Xbox 360 sold 28,861 units during the week, while the Wii sold 27,057 (the PS3 managed 8,050).

Xbox 360 sales were more than likely spurred by the one-two punch of a Japanese price cut and the release of console-exclusive Infinite Undiscovery, which sold 86,708 units in its first week. MCV points out that the 360 has now sold 717,275 units in Japan -- the very foundations of our world would be shaken if it actually went on to sell a million units.

In addition to yet another "Double XP" weekend (Hey, who's complaining? Bring 'em on!) in the wings for Call of Duty 4, Activision and Infinity Ward are performing even more community service by offering Xbox 360 owners the four-level Variety Map Pack for 50% off. Normally 800, the pack will be reduced to 400 for the duration of the weekend (Sept. 12-14 for the calendar-conscious). Really, if you play COD4 online, you need this.

Infinity Ward's Robert "Fourzerotwo" Bowling also brings word that the dev has poked and prodded Microsoft into putting the Prestige Gamer Pics back on the Xbox Live Marketplace, just in case you missed them during the last Live Fire weekend. We know what we'll be playing as soon as the whistle blows tomorrow night at Joystiq HQ. Go!-Go!-Go!

Update: "This is all going down exclusively on Xbox Live this weekend, but don't worry PS3 players, because we'll be doing the same for you guys; but due to schedule conflicts we couldn't do them back to back so the PS3 weekend will be closer to Sept the 18th (I'll have a dedicated post for our PS3 users on that event), but you can expect some of the same benefits and festivities," Bowling clarifies.

UK retailer HMV's chief executive, Simon Fox, says game sales may surpass music at the company within 18 months. Video games now account for 19% of sales at the music store, with an increase of 4.1% occurring in the last three months, Fox tells The Sun.

Earlier this year, the UK's Entertainment Retailers' Association noted that game sales overtook music at retail and were on the way to catching DVD revenues. Considering HMV's iconic symbol is that of a dog with a phonograph, we've gone ahead and updated the image for the new generation.

[Via GI.biz]

OK, fanboys, before you hit that spittle-flecked "post comment" button after just reading that inflammatory headline question, hear us out. We're not just idly speculating here -- we're basing our query on an unusually frank quote from Microsoft Senior Vice President of Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick. In an interview with BusinessWeek, Mattrick said that he's "not at a point where I can say we're going to beat Nintendo." Coming from a guy whose job it is to promote Microsoft's position in the market, that's a pretty big admission of doubt. It's not just Mattrick that's doubtful-- analyst Billy Pidgeon told the magazine, "I expect the 360 to remain in second place this generation. But it's going to be close."

The question, then, becomes how much this sales position really matters. Microsoft's sales might fall just shy of Nintendo's, but that doesn't seem to be hurting the company's ability to attract big-name games or roll out new features for the system. In fact, with Nintendo's decidedly less powerful system catering to a decidedly different audience, Microsoft's position relative to Nintendo might not matter nearly as much as their position relative to Sony. And on that score Mattrick has no doubt: "We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony," he told BusinessWeek.

As part of its recent quarterly earnings announcement, Take-Two announced that Grand Theft Auto IV has sold ten million copies through Aug. 16. These sales helped lead the company to a staggering $433.8 million in revenue in the third quarter, over twice as much as the same quarter last fiscal year.

For comparison, the PS2 version of GTA: San Andreas sold 12 million copies worldwide. During a conference call, the company said it would continue to promote GTA IV through the holiday season, and that it expected lifetime sales for the game to "track well ahead of any previous GTA title."

Hey, grab a Molson and pull up a comfortable ice block and listen up. The AP is reporting that the Wii has become the first system to reach a million units sold in Canada. That's like one system for every two people or so you've got up there, eh? We're guessing it's because the pearly white exterior of the system matches the decor of your igloos (not to mention the polar bears roaming around outside).

According to NPD statistics, the Wii has sold 1,060,000 Candian units through July, meaning the upcoming Wii version of NHL 2K9 can count on at least 1.5 million sales up there in the frozen North (some Canadians will buy an extra copy for their pet moose, you see). Microsoft and Sony are rumored to be planning competing lumberjack simulations and marketing tie-ins with popular maple syrup makers to increase their systems' appeal to the Canadian market, but as the Quebecois say, this might be "trop peu, trop tard."

(Apologies to all Canadians, who we're sure are too polite and respectful to get mad about this, right?)

Nothing goes together like drinking brewskis and the PlayStation Portable, right? Apparently, that goes doubly so if you're a sales representative in the land down under. Stella Artois is the number one international draught beer, but they haven't cracked the Australian market. So, instead of sending boring brochures and glossy guides down to the land of Oz, they sent 50 custom-made Stella-branded PSPs to the sales teams.

Not only were they in hand-stitched black velvet Stella bags, but they also had Stella themes loaded on them, and were packed with information about the beer. Plus, since they have wi-fi built-in, they can download updated beer data when they aren't playing God of War: Chains of Olympus or listening to Kylie Minogue MP3s. Now that's a marketing tool we can get behind. We wonder how long it'll be before one of these babies is up on eBay.

[Thanks, Dan]

We're not thinking it's another sign of the Apocolypse because we've seen it happen before, but we're always a little unnerved whenever the Xbox 360 outsells the PS3 in Japan. Thanks to the release of Namco Bandai's Tales of Vesperia, the Xbox 360 moved 25,000 units the week of August 10, up from 5,359 units the week prior. The PS3 sold 9,673 and, of course, the Wii beat both with 38,506 -- but that's not really news.

Tales of Vesperia debuted at fourth place on the Japanese sales charts with 108,000 copies sold. The game will be available in North America starting August 26. We doubt the game will help rally mundane Xbox 360 sales in the US.

It's a race that won't be finished until 2011, according to Chris Deering (former head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe), but he's already calling it a tie between Sony and Nintendo. Keep in mind, this was after week ending numbers came out showing over 40,000 Wii units sold in Japan, with the PS3 a distant 9,500 units sold. So, clearly there's a lot to do in three years.

Deering arrived at these figures "by triangulating Screen Digest and IDG data. He also took into account factors such as the growth of hi-def and the grey gamer market, the emergence of new game engines and increasing ubiquity of wi-fi access" and we imagine he probably tried out runestones, tarot cards, and a ouija board just to be safe.

What's impressive are the sheer numbers alone. He predicts that by 2011 both Sony and Nintendo will have sold 230 million total machines each (Sony: PS3 + PS2 + PSP; Nintendo: Wii + DS), and that the Xbox 360 will have reached a user base of 40 million. The only thing is, the 360 has already reached the 20 million mark, so he thinks it'll continue on that track for the next three years at exactly the same pace, due to the "set-top box hi-def phenomenon."

He also concludes that the number of potential gamers will reach 2.5 billion due to the amounts of consoles, computers, and mobile phones sold, to which we say... isn't everyone a potential gamer?

"No matter how you slice it, the Wii third party game story is not a pretty one," says David Dennis, group manager of corporate peeyarr at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business. The fighting talk comes in response to a recent claim by Nintendo that the Wii was besting its competitors (reminder: Sony and Microsoft) in terms of third-party game sales, a claim Microsoft has told GamesIndustry.biz is incorrect.

According to NPD third-party software figures, Microsoft's system has sold 67,929,999 units, followed by the Wii at 33,394,311 units and the PlayStation 3 at 19,976,325. Looking at sales occurring since the launch of the Wii, the Xbox 360 has managed 54,065,728 units (compared to Wii's 33,394,211), though it obviously benefited from having a larger install base to feed off at the time.

This particular third-party tussle has been going on since last week, when the NPD delved into sales numbers and revealed the Wii to be ahead when compared to its competitors' initial 19 months. It's all a matter of perspective, you see, albeit one that publishers (releasing games for the market as it exists right now) might not necessarily adopt. Still, with the hardware battle being won by Wii, it isn't surprising to see Microsoft putting up a fight on a more even battleground.

After teasing its financial fortitude earlier this month, Activision continued to fill its already fat wallet during the most recent fiscal quarter, today announcing that the company more than doubled its profits to $59 million on record sales of $654 million, a 32 percent jump over the same time last year.

Unsurprisingly, both Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and On Tour played a key role in Activision's economic well-being, as did the tie-in with Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda. Looking ahead, with Activision finally sewing up its mash-up with PC powerhouse Blizzard just weeks ago, the conglomerate now expects to report revenue of $636 million for the current quarter, and if we listen closely we can almost hear the coffers at Actilizzard bursting at the seams.