Here are the American console sales for the week ending July 14th, 2007. (I removed handhelds.)

Wii - 76,394
PS2 - 43,406
PS3 - 41,005
360 - 35,084
GC - 1,864
Xbox - 11

Video Game Chartz - American Weekly Chart 14jul07

And just for comparison purposes, here are the American console sales for the week ending July 7th, 2007.

Wii - 69,510
PS2 - 45,066
360 - 34,623
PS3 - 17,770
GC - 2,112
Xbox - 14

Video Game Chartz - American Weekly Chart 07jul07

One of the first things you’ll think is “what, they still sell the Xbox?”. The second thing you’ll note is that the PS3 outsold the 360 last week, more than doubling in sales over the previous week. I guess the double whammy of a PS3 price drop and Sony’s strong E3 showing can do that! As far as I know, this is the first time since launch that the PS3 has outsold its main competitor, so this is good news for those of us hoping for a large installed base of PS3 gamers. Almost everyone can guess that this lead in sales is temporary, but the question is: how long will this lead last? Is this the only week? Is there more coming? Only time will tell.

Ninja Mikey, from Ninja Theory (the studio developing Heavenly Sword), had this to say:

People at home really want to get hands on too. Well, let me just tell you all that the dev team has finished work on the demo.. that’s it… it’s in the bag… so now it’s a case of Sony deciding when they feel is the best time to release it to PlayStation Network.

Wow, I can’t wait. This will be one of the biggest (very possibly the biggest) demo to hit the PSN.

The graphics and artwork are clearly excellent. Will this be similar to other action/adventure titles such as Ninja Gaiden, God of War, and DMC? Better? Different? I am very excited to find out!

Ninja Theory Forum Post

Ah rumours. Ya gotta love ‘em, because it gives us something to talk about. The latest talking point is the fall introduction of a 40GB PS3 for $399. And depending on where you hear this rumour, the machine either will or will not have backwards compatibility totally removed.

Hmmm. BC totally removed? I just can’t swallow that one. While surely it must be true that a lot of people don’t care a whit about BC, it would be too confusing to the consumer to have two SKU’s out there, only one of which had BC. Imagine finally being able to afford a PS3, but then it doesn’t play some of your PS2 games. Man, that would suck. I just don’t think that Sony would bifurcate the market like this. It doesn’t make sense.

What about the 40GB aspect? Hm. I have to say that I don’t like that idea any better. Sony’s been talking up downloadable content, and about how we need the 80GB PS3’s extra space soon for all the stuff we’ll be downloading. And now they want to give us a smaller hard disk? Hardly the kind of message they should be sending.

So I’m really hoping that this rumour proves to be false. I’ll even give Sony a hint as to what they should be doing. This fall, Sony should drop the price of the 80GB PS3 to $399 and introduce a 160GB PS3 for $499. Or maybe keep the 60GB PS3 but drop it to $399, and introduce a 120GB PS3 at $499, skipping the 80GB SKU altogther. I doubt they’d do that, though, considering that they’re just introducing the 80GB PS3 next month. Ah well.

Rumors - $399 40gig PS3 Coming Soon, FFXIII Could be Delayed Until Late 08, PS3 Achievements

The creator of Katamari Damacy is working on a new game announced for the PS3, “Nobi Nobi Boy”.

I’m very happy that we get a new game from the same creator, rather than merely a Katamari sequel. As much as I loved Katamari, it wasn’t a good fit for a long-running franchise with lots of sequels. I’d much rather see the same quirky creativity applied to a completely new concept.

On the downside, that picture looks kind of lame. Obviously, it’s merely a single asset shot taken out of context of the overall forthcoming game. However, I still would have preferred if they left that to the imagination.

Just for fun, scroll down, look at the picture in the GT5 Prologue post and scroll back to this post: not pretty. Regardless, I’m still looking forward to this..

IGN Article

I know that Gary just posted about UT3, but I thought I’d start another post to talk about what UT3 says about the PS3. In particular, there’s this UT3 article and this rundown of UT3 mods over at Kotaku says the following:

I’ve always felt that user-created content has long been a sort of holy grail for console shooters. It is mods, I think, that help extend the life of shooters on the PC and it’s the last thing, well one of the major last things, you can’t do on a console shooter.

Not anymore.

When Unreal Tournament III makes its way to the PS3 it will bring with it the ability to import user-created content including maps, weapons and, yes, mods.

Personally, I don’t care for most mods except for one: maps! What are the most anticipated downloads on PSN (besides new games)? Maps! When two new maps were announced for RFoM, everyone went nuts in anticipation. And now that gamers have those maps, Resistance gameplay is extended that much further. Of course, everyone is also waiting for that new MotorStorm level, which will also give that game a boost of new life.

Playing Call of Duty 2 at work on PC’s, it’s always an interesting day when Alex (a co-worker) brings in a bunch of new maps to try. Of course, lots of them are junk. That’s what happens in the real world. But we find some good ones in there too, and they get added to our gaming roster of maps to play.

Now comes Unreal Tournament III on the PS3 - a console exclusive for at least 2007. Just imagine buying UT3 and enjoying the heck out of it for a while. But then it starts to get a bit old, so you download or create a couple new maps (or whatever kind of mod you care about) and voila! The game is new again. That’s the power of mods, and maps specifically. They take something good but old, and reinvigorate it with new life.

This new life and extra playability is what I appreciate about Sony’s stance on mods. You’ll be able to download a mod, stick it on a MemoryStick (or CompactFlash etc) and hoof it over to your PS3 and give your PS3’s UT3 new life. Epic is even trying to figure out ways to eliminate the whole “hoof it over” part by doing it all online.

This is exciting stuff. It really exemplifies the fact that Sony is committed to this nebulous “Gaming 3.0″ concept that is a little less cloudy with every example we see. While LittleBigPlanet is the biggest, first, and most obvious effort in this arena on the PS3, it looks like UT3 will beat LBP to the store shelves.

Gaming 3.0 is part of Sony’s continuing effort to open up the PS3. First they started with the hardware by using industry standard components: Bluetooth, SATA, support for 3 memory card formats, HDMI. These choices have already paid dividends for us, the gamer. For example, when we want a bigger cheaper harddrive, a large selection of headsets, or cheaper peripherals (if the GHIII and Rock Band rumours end up being true). Then Sony extended their openness to operating systems by allowing several flavours of Linux to flourish on the PS3. Now it’s coming with Gaming 3.0 and games like LittleBigPlanet and UT3. The hardest part about promoting Gaming 3.0 for Sony is that they can’t do it themselves. They need developers like Epic to support the concept. Sony can show the way with games like LBP, but ultimately 3rd party developers need to take it up as well. At first it’ll be by bringing such openness from the PC world and port it over to the PS3. That’s what’s happening with UT3. Then developers should embrace and extend so that we get to see ever more cool stuff, like LBP. I hope more games follow the same Gaming 3.0 path, because gamers are going to love it, I guarantee it.

Other Soapbox Rants

Time for a new poll! Vote in the sidebar as always. This time it’s E3 related, of course. Who had the best press conference this week at E3 2007?

• Sony
• Microsoft
• Nintendo

?

Previous Poll Results

What 2007 PS3 exclusive are you anticipating the most?

* Heavenly Sword: 26% (86)
* Drake’s Fortune: 21% (68)
* Haze: 14% (45)
* Warhawk: 12% (41)
* Lair: 12% (38)
* R&C Future TOD: 6% (20)
* Ninja Gaiden Sigma: 4% (14)
* Eye of Judgement: 2% (8)
* Folklore: 2% (7)
* Time Crisis 4: 1% (2)

Total Votes : 329

With all the press Lair’s been getting, I would have expected better performance. Ditto for R&C.

It looks like Sony’s having a fire sale to get rid of excess inventory. The recently announced, and much appreciated, price cut from $599 to $499 in the US of the 60GB PS3 will last only as long as console supplies last. Kaz Hirai, in the interview linked below, says that Sony is no longer producing this 60GB PS3 model, and therefore the two-SKU approach will only last as long as supplies of the 60GB model last.

We know that the 60GB PS3 model sold in Europe is the one without the Emotion Engine chip. As is the new 80GB PS3 soon to be released in NA. So if you were planning on getting a PS3 with better PS2 backwards compatibility, time is running out!

So Sony seems to be doing a bit of sleight of hand here. They proudly proclaim a $100 price cut, but don’t tell us that it will only last until supplies run out. Not exactly being forthright with the consumer there, are we Sony? On the other hand, we don’t know the whole story. Maybe, once supplies run out, Sony will drop the price of the 80GB PS3 in order to keep the PS3 price at $499? It would be nice, but it would also tick off all those 60GB purchasers who could have waited a month for an 80GB version.

So I have to say that, once again, Sony have done themselves a disservice by not revealing the whole truth. When are they going to learn?

VG TV [around the 1:50 mark]

Thanks to Brian Hoyt who gave us this video link in this PS3 price cut discussion.

David Reeves, president of SCEE, had some surprising things to say about the price cuts in America:

All they’re doing is taking their stock in trade that they’ve got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July.

To summarize (full interview link at the bottom):

• SCEA is clearing out stock of the 60GB SKU at a lower price.
• There will only be an 80GB model after the 60GB model sells out.
• The 80GB SKU does indeed have reduced backward compatibility: 88% vs. the current 100% according to Reeves. As stated before, this provides Sony with substantial manufacturing savings.
• The cost difference between the 60GB drive and 80GB drive is very small: merely cents in Europe. That is being used to balance out the loss in backward compatibility from the user’s perspective.

Way to put a stop to that positive buzz that Sony has going in America, Mr. Reeves.

It’s worth noting that this guy is president of the European division, SCEE. These statements also conflict heavily with those from the president of the American division, SCEA, Jack Tretton. Mr. Tretton’s statements were much more positive and mundane.

The obvious questions:

• Since the manufacturing savings of the software backward compatibility are likely much larger than the “cents” cost of going from 60GB to 80GB, why does the 80GB model cost more money? Right now, it seems like the 80GB model costs more and offers less.
• Will they drop the 80GB price once the 60GB model sells out?
• What the heck is Mr. Reeves doing? Why didn’t he just keep quiet?

I can believe that they will phase out the 60GB model and only sell the 80GB.

However, I simply don’t believe that they will only sell the 80GB unit at $599. I’m sure they will provide more attractive, consumer friendly options and this is just a PR gaffe.

Interview with David Reeves