Games Cheats and Reviews

With E3 just about a month away, it seems like the obvious venue for Nintendo to finally explain just what the hell their mysterious Wii Vitality Sensor will actually be used for. But could that explanation be coming much sooner than expected?

Nintendo has announced they’re planning a press conference in New York in conjunction with the American Heart Association this Monday, May 17, where they will make “a special joint announcement.” While the press release makes no mention of what this announcement will be, the natural speculation is it will revolve around the Vitality Sensor, considering the device is used to read a player’s pulse — something that could lead to the sort of games the American Heart Association might approve of.

Very little has been explained about the Vitality Sensor since its reveal at E3 2009, with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata saying at the time that games “have been used for stimulation, but maybe it won’t be long until games are used for relaxation and even to fall asleep.” Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has previously stated the Vitality Sensor and its first compatible games will be shown at E3 2010, but then, that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t make any announcements about it leading into E3, either. And if Nintendo would rather have much of their E3 focus fall on the Nintendo 3DS, it would make sense to get the Vitality Sensor reveal out of the way a month in advance.

Nintendo of America issued a surge of new information today about what consumers can expect from the company in the coming months. Let’s get right to it…

With another month, comes another set of industry sales numbers from the NPD reporting group. Although the January sales numbers are no where near as impressive as the November and December figures, I think that they are important to include because of the residual spending from the holiday season by including ‘the gift card factor.’

While there is a lot of information to be gleaned from the sales data across the holiday season, in short, Modern Warfare 2 and New Super Mario Brothers Wii were the big winners. Both games put up huge (And I mean HUGE) numbers from November to January, but going into the Holiday season, Reggie Fils-Aime (President of Nintendo of America) ‘Put the Stake in the Ground,’ on a Gametrailers TV interview with host Geoff Keighley, by stating that New Super Mario Brothers Wii would sell more units then Modern Warfare 2 on the 360. So, far be it from me to call Reggie a liar, and despite stellar sales, New Super Mario Brothers Wii came up just short by selling 4,866,700 units in the US, sandwiched between the 360 and PS3 versions of Modern Warfare 2, which sold 6,156,700 and 3,249,000 units respectively. Note: Click on Images to Enlarge Graphs.

No matter which way you slice it, New Super Mario Brother Wii came up just short of beating the 360 version of Modern Warfare 2 in the United States. The key to the previous sentence was the ‘in the United States’ bit, because despite listening to the Gametrailers TV interview many times, it is unclear whether this bet was simply about the US totals or if it included worldwide sales as well. For the sake of argument, lets take a look at how both titles did across each territory* (Japan, PAL, US).

*Note: Japanese totals for NSMB Wii taken from Mediacrate, while the rest had to be taken from VGChartz.com.

Now that we have a better picture of sales totals across the world for both titles, and accounting for Modern Warfare 2’s poor performance in Mario’s homeland, things have gotten a bit more interesting. So is Reggie a Liar? Did New Super Mario Brothers Wii manage to sell more copies then Modern Warfare 2 on the 360 across all territories? The numbers don’t lie: Take a look.

Ok, so I have managed to post 5 graphs which besides showing that I know my way around an Excel spreadsheet, also show that if you account for world wide sales, Reggie is a liar no more! Although, as you can see, Modern Warfare 2 did beat out New Super Mario Brothers Wii by over 4.5 million units worldwide (Without accounting for the PC version of the game).

Ultimately, the real story concerning both of these titles in the long run could be their ability (or lack there of) to continue strong sales through 2010. Nintendo games (Especially First Party Nintendo Wii and DS Games) traditionally have longer legs then most other titles (Mario Kart Wii sold 1.5 million copies over the November-January 2010 Sales period despite having come out in April of 08), but Modern Warfare 2’s online integration could garner consistent numbers.

As well as the big holiday releases there are a few things to note from the January sales data, so here’s the complete numbers from the first month of 2010 for your statistic pleasure:

01. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) – 656,700
02. Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) – 572,100
03. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 555,700
04. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) – 326,700
05. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) – 310,900
06. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 297,600
07. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3) – 259,000
08. Army of Two: The 40th Day (Xbox 360) – 246,500
09. Just Dance (Wii) – 191,900
10. Darksiders (Xbox 360) – 171,200

There are a couple things to note when you look at these numbers.

-No Wii Play in the Top Ten? Did Nintendo finally succeed in selling it to every Wii-Owner in America?

-I wish there was some way to distinguish the $20 Wii Fit Plus software from the $99 bundle with the balance board included. 555,000 copies of a 20 dollar game doesn’t quite bring in the dough like a 99 dollar bundle, although the development cost for Wii Fit Plus had to have been miniscule, so it is probably a money maker at any price.

-It’s good to see Darksiders crack the top ten, but where is Bayonetta? According to VGChartz.com over the first three weeks of sales the PS3 version sold a respectable 103,660 copies with the 360 version racking up another 176,994 copies, which when combined are still less then Mario Kart Wii. Over the same period VGChartz.com has Darksiders selling 486,000 copies between the 360 and PS3 versions, so there are some discrepancies between the VG Chartz numbers and the official NPD numbers.

-Hooray for advertising, it looks like EA, with only half a month to sell, put up solid numbers for Army of Two: The 40th Day based purely on a CG trailer that showed no actual gameplay! If that game looked or played anything like it’s trailer I would have been lined up for a Day 1 Purchase!

-Also can any British readers care to enlighten me about the joys of Ubisoft’s Just Dance, which as well as cracking the top ten in the US, is selling extremely well in the UK. Will a game sell a million copies in the UK just for including two Damon Albarn Songs?

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, downplayed the Wii’s lack of support for HD content on its upcoming Netflix streaming service, set to launch this Spring. Fils-Aime believes Wii owners aren’t missing much, due to the fact that the majority of Netflix content is not available in HD.

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime insists the Wii is far from dead, downplaying industry speculation that a Wii successor is soon to be announced.

Last week, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata seemingly dropped hints about the successor to the Nintendo DS, suggesting that it would contain a motion sensor, among other things. Now Nintendo is saying Iwata didn’t make those comments after all.

“Mr. Iwata did not make any comments regarding the functions of Nintendo’s future hardware systems,” said Nintendo of America senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta (via Kotaku).

“The answer to the reporter’s question was misinterpreted.”

So it’s been 8 months since "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" released on the Nintendo DS, and, despite critical acclaim, the sales still haven’t picked up. MTV multiplayer spoke with Cammie Dunaway, the EVP of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America, about why she thought the game didn’t come close to the numbers you’d expect from a "GTA" title. For her it’s a simple case of marketing, and that not enough long-term marketing support was placed on the title.

dailygamesnews.com – Nintendo of America’s Denise Kaigler has stepped down from her position as vice president of corporate affairs at Nintendo America in order to spend more time with her family.

GamePolitics.com writes:Erik Estavillo, the Resistance: Fall of Man gamer who sued Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) over being banned from the PlayStation Network has targeted the remaining two major console makers in a new lawsuit.

Microsoft Corporation and Nintendo of America are defendants in a federal complaint, which was filed November 18 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

Microsoft is being sued for a "red ring of death" affecting the plaintiff’s Xbox 360 console. Estavillo notes that as he is disabled, he cannot afford to pay the "well over $100" fee to fix the console, nor can he afford to purchase a new one. He feels "that Microsoft should have to bear the burden that is now put on the shoulders of this disabled plaintiff."

PS University writes "It’s not too shocking to see one company discuss its competitor in an unhealthy light, so it doesn’t come too much of a surprise to see Nintendo of America’s President, Reggie Fils-Aime, discussing the PSPgo has a handheld that carries very little benefit to the consumer. In a recent discussion with the Washington Post, Fils-Aime touched base on the PSPgo and discussed one of the fundamental issues plaguing the handheld from day one and that is, "What’s the benefit?""