Console News For Monday, October 18th

Weekly Sales Update: Microsoft Pulls Ahead of Sony for Year On Sales

Microsoft this week finally pulled ahead of Sony in sales for the year by 1,000 units for the year last week.  This comes after Sony managed to have a commanding 1 million unit lead before the 360S was released last June.  While it’s still anyone’s game with the Christmas season looming, things are looking well in Microsoft’s favor.

By the numbers:

Console	Americas	Japan	EMEAA	Worldwide
	118,030	51,427	92,225	261,682
	92,079	2,700	68,995	163,774
	70,156	18,659	69,405	158,220
	61,067	12,266	57,356	130,689
	21,449	34,747	29,503	85,699

Source: VGChartz

Total monthly sales for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 stand at 269,067, 308,145, and 343,265 respectively for October.  With a few weeks to go, it looks as though console sales are starting to warm up for the Christmas season.  Unfortunately for Nintendo, it doesn’t look like the Wii will be doing well this month, being behind number 2 placeholder Sony at 269,000 sales for the month so far.  This is a shortfall of almost 40,000 units behind Sony and a little over 60,000 units behind Microsoft.  This may turn out to be the first October that Nintendo has failed to sell more than 1 million units since launch.

Konami Dates Kinect for Xbox 360 Titles

Konami recently released a presser announcing the dates of their upcoming Kinect for Xbox 360 titles.  Konami, not to be outdone by upstart Harmonix in the dance ring is releasing Dance Evolution on November 10th along with CROSSBOARD 7, a racing game with animals.

On November 25th, Konami will release Sports Island Freedom under their Hudson Soft brand.  This title will add a few unique sporting events to the already sports packed game line-up including: Archery, Paint Ball, Beach Volleyball, Dodge Ball, Kendo, Mogul Skiing, Snowboard Cross and Figure Skating.

Source: GamersHell

Microsoft Spending $1 Billion on Kinect, Windows Mobile 7 Marketing

Microsoft is shelling out a lofty billion dollars on their marketing campaign for Kinect and Windows Mobile 7 to make sure it stays in the game of…gaming…and…phoning.  Money spent includes Ads on Nickelodeon and Disney (presumably for Kinect.  Unless they’re marketing phones really early nowadays),  product placement ads on Glee and Dancing with the Stars’, a Times Square Event and ads in various magazines.

What really makes me angry about this is that there are plenty of innovative products that Microsoft comes out with that just get thrown at the wall just to see if they stick.  Perhaps if they gave the Zune team a bit more than enough to cover money for lunch, they’d see more ZuneHD sales.

Source: TheNextWeb

Nintendo Wii Getting NetFlix Without A Disc

Following in the footsteps of the Xbox 360 and PS3, Netflix and Nintendo have announced that you will no longer be required to use a disc to stream your multimedia goodness on the Wii without the use of a disc.  Which is great, if you like watching your hi-def shows in 480p.  Good future proofing Nintendo.

Source: Business Wire

Fallout: New Vegas DLC Announced Before The Game Even Releases

Bethesda Softworks recently announced that Xbox Live will be getting the first New Vegas downloadable content before the PS3 will.  Now, call me old fashioned, but shouldn’t we be talking about the game before it launches?  And not its DLC?