Here are the Japanese hardware sales for October 29 - November 4:

System - Weekly sales (Compared to last week) - Lifetime sales

1. NDS - 78,597 (+2,324) - 5,882,215 - 19,887,894
2. PSP - 59,714 (-78) - 2,185,974 - 6,718,103
3. Wii - 37,617 (+10,115) - 2,825,884 - 3,745,527
4. 360 - 17,673 (+13,955) - 182,899 - 447,601
5. PS3 - 17,434 (-1,351) - 788,644 - 1,246,202
6. PS2 - 10,209 (-1,489) - 649,730 - 20,804,589
7. GBA - 319 (+214) - 48,980 - 15,347,059
8. NGC - 155 (+97) - 10,234 - 4,179,702

Portables continue to dominate the charts.
The 360 outsells the PS3!

The 360 has seen sustained sales of over 3000 units for some time now. With 3 games in the top 30 this week and not PS3 games in the top 30, MS has won a small battle here in Japan.

With cross-platform titles being released first (and in many cases - graphically better with superior online functionality) on the 360, the "hardcore" Japanese gamer is starting to notice MS' platform. Granted - the % of harcore vs. casuals in Japan is much lower than in other markets, but you can't help notice that the 360 is "on the map" in Japan now.

I think the Japanese are finally hearing that the 360's RROD issues are pretty much resolved. Their consumers are quite informed. Confidence in the 360 platform seems to be going up.

I'm disappointed to see the SMG only moved an extra 10k units for Nintendo. However I believe that Nintendo short-shipped copies of the game to Japan in order to feed the North American market and that these exta 10k sales will be sustained and increase in December.

The Nintendo World Store in New York is having a SMG release party on Sunday.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Tomas Quote: What does the new firmware do? Better video playback i hope? I'm sorry? Video playback quality was already excellent for me.

In what way? What formats do you play and how?

@BrianK

I'm using Windows XP Pro.

I'm trying to connect them together trough my router (Netgear WGT624).
Not wireless. Both have locked IP addresses.

Starting the service didn't help. Do I need to do something else?

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@jtsiren

Quote:

...hmm, on what console did I see those features before?

I will probably disable in-game messaging like I disabled other notifications, it distracts me from gameplay, especially if someone logs on and logs off multiple times while I'm about to beat a highscore (people can still contact me through PC messengers). I am perfectly satisfied with game specific supported messaging and realtime voice chat.

I won't be making much use of custom in-game music neither, the game music is most often far more suited IMO and of higher quality than my MP3s. Also music can be functional like in Oblivion which changes the music when enemies are nearby, I'm currently at level 30 with the game with maximum strength and intelligence.

IMO Sony was right not to implement this into the PS2 considering the sales figures and timing. These are not must-have features for me, but this is 2007 with always online multimedia consoles and such extras were thus expected long ago and will eventually be implemented on the PS3 for those who want them.

Last edited by MikeB on 09-Nov-2007 at 11:55 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

The XBox 360 sold 200 units more than the PS3 for one week (what about tracking error margins?). If only they could reduce XBox 360 price together with launching an anticipated game each week.

Aww... c'moon Mike. We all know Xbox 360 sells poorly in Japan, let them enjoy this small feat.

Last edited by jtsiren on 09-Nov-2007 at 11:33 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Sony is working on various new additions, they recently polled user priorities such as in-game custom music support and other expanded in-game OS functionalities like messaging.

...hmm, on what console did I see those features before?

@jtsiren

The XBox 360 sold 200 units more than the PS3 for one week (what about tracking error margins?). If only they could reduce XBox 360 price together with launching an anticipated game each week.

@Tomas

Quote:

What does the new firmware do? Better video playback i hope?

I'm sorry? Video playback quality was already excellent for me.

@BrianK

Quote:

Some big names are now on the 360 and were considered Sony PS3 must have games or at one time announced PS3 only. : Ace Combat, Armored Core, GTA IV, Fatal Inertia, Assassin's Creed, DMC4, Virtual Fighter 5, Katamari, Guitar Hero, UT3, Dynasty Warriors, Mercenaries 2

Ace Combat was already released for the Game Boy Advance in 2005. It like Katamari was developed by Namco, a company which released a XBox 360 launch title.
Armored Core, the publishing rights were sold to another publisher and the game hit mobile phones in 2005.
Fatal Inertia (By Koei) is based on the UT engine (cross platform middleware), which until recently ran better on the XBox 360 (no SPE support).
Dynasty Warrior 6 (By Koei), Dynasty Warrior already hit the XBox in 2001.
Assasin's Greed is made by UbiSoft, which AFAIK has always been a multi-platform developer they even supported the Amiga amongst other at a time.
DMC4 is made by Capcom, which AFAIK has always been a multi-platform developer they even supported the Amiga amongst other at a time.
Virtual Fighter 5 is made by SEGA, AFAIK since the end of SEGA console have always been a multiplatform developer.
Guitar Hero III is published by Activision, AFAIK they have always been a mutli-platform company.
Mercenaries 2 is a game from Electronic Arts, AFAIK EA has always been a multi-platform company.

So no major shockers for me at all here.

My initial impression, BTW, of playing with HDMI enabled Xbox 360 is that the colours have improved a bit - perhaps also sharpness ever so slightly. I wasn't really looking for any difference, but there is a bit more punch in the image unless I'm imagining things.

Actually the colours in the dashboard were so vivid that it actually made the ever-so-elegant PS3 bar look bland in comparison (I happened to compare them because I updated the PS3 firmware right after). I used to think the PS3 desktop looked better, but with this punch in the image I no longer do.

I wonder if there was something amiss with the colour levels with component previously or if this has something to do with the reference level settings... Hey, maybe it is placebo effect, but I wasn't looking for a difference and suddenly it just struck me that this looks better.

The best thing, though, is no longer having to run optical from the Xbox 360. How I hate optical cables, always having to worry about breaking them...

Is it just me or did it suddenly get very cold down there?

Quote:

Japenese Hardware Sales 10/29 - 11/4: 360 over PS3 >> With the November 1st 13% price drop of the Xbox360 in Japan (to 34800yen) and the release of Ace Combat 6 (that reached the #2 spot in the weekly softwares sales in Japan with 76708 units sold) and the 'platinum collection' edition of TheIdolM@ster and EDF3 reaching place 21 and 29, Microsoft managed to jump over the PS2 and PS3 in weekly hardware sales. However it might be important to note the cheaper PS3 40GB version will only launch on November 11th in Japan, that will probably put the PS3 back over the Xbox360.

@Samwel
Use tversity. http://tversity.com/home
It also transcodes fileformats that is not supported by the ps3 on the fly. But like i said, it is currently broken due to that firmware update.. supported formats should still work fine though.

@Samwel

Quote:

Btw do you know how I should set up my PC to be DNLA compatible so my PS3 finds it?

Windows or Linux?

In VISTA go to Windows Media Player and select Media Sharing, under library. Make sure Share my Media To is clicked and in the bar you should see icons for the different players, PS3 is a player only. Click on the PS3 and say allow. If the device doesn't show up likely you have blocked DLNA at a firewall.

In XP, I haven't tried it yet, there should be an option for Univeral Plug n Play Host under services. Set it to automatic and start the service.

As I haven't tried making Linux a Host I'll let someone else do that. Likely it's download the package, compile, it bombs, read the instructions, download another half dozen packages, they bomb, patch and recompile the kernel, recompile programs, recompile DLNA, bombs again, read more, change config files, recompile then try to connect. But after that smooth sailing.

@Samwel
The problem is only with non supported media files like xvid, mkv and similar. I highly doubt Sony cares much about these formats and it might not even surprise me if they did this on purpose.

Basically the problem seems to be that the ps3 now expect the streamed file to be the exact filesize reported by media centre software.. This is not possible, since it is transcoded on the fly, and will in most cases be of a larger filesize than the original xvid file. So lets say you are going to watch a 350MB xvid video... Then the ps3 will stop playback after 350meg, even though the streamed file is infact the double of that size.

Last edited by Tomas on 09-Nov-2007 at 12:02 AM.

@Tomas

Hmm I don't use my PS3 for streaming yet. I have not had any problems that I
can think of. But I haven't used it that much since getting the update though.

If there's a streaming problem (seems so) I guess we'll get a 2.01 quite soon
because that would be a BIG problem in a media station.

Btw I have not noticed any freezes yet. I'll test some more this weekend though.

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Well, now my ps3 froze when quitting ridge racer 7 as well... I have feeling this is due to the firmware "upgrade" as well..

During the year i owned my xbox 360 i have not experienced a single lockup.

@MikeB

What about nice 3D rendered icons for the menu? Anyone done anything like that?

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@MikeB

Well.. Playing lists are good. Theme's are nice. Sorting the network menu and user
menu is good. But are these what you call MAJOR 2.00 features? IMO they could
have called this version 1.95 instead.
I really hope they have more stuff for us before the end of the year.

Btw do you know how I should set up my PC to be DNLA compatible so my PS3 finds
it?

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@BrianK

But if the developers don't use the PS3 unique features we won't see the "uber
game machine"..
I think PS3 games will only become more and more advanced when the developers
start using the Cell more.

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@Lou

NPD US Sales Jan-Sept

US sales 8th gen summary 2007:
Wii: 3.4M
360: 2.2M
PS3: 1.2M

EA July-SeptSales Report 2007:
Xbox 360 - $218 million
PlayStation 2 - $73 million
Nintendo Wii - $59 million
PlayStation 3 - $17 million

Last edited by BrianK on 08-Nov-2007 at 09:41 PM.
Last edited by BrianK on 08-Nov-2007 at 09:40 PM.