Famitsu reports second redesign of Nintendo's popular portable enjoys strong says in first month on market.

Only a few days out, and it was clear that demand for the Nintendo DSi would be strong in Japan. Launched in the island nation on November 1, the second redesign for Nintendo's current-gen portable gaming device sold 170,779 units in its first 48 hours on the market, according to Famitsu publisher and Japanese stat-tracking organization Enterbrain. As noted by the media company in early November, retailers sold through their initial shipments of the ¥18,900 ($179) device within minutes.

Today, Enterbrain reassessed the DSi's position after one month on the market, and apparently, sales have continued their brisk pace. Enterbrain reports that Nintendo's latest handheld moved 535,379 units in the month following its debut. In all, the Nintendo DS, the DS Lite, and the DSi have combined to sell more than 24.2 million units in Japan, a healthy chunk of the global tally of 84.3 million units Nintendo announced in October.

Officially revealed at the beginning of October, the Nintendo DSi is the third iteration of the hardware maker's popular portable, which was first rolled out in 2004. The new model sports a Web browser, music playback, an SD card multimedia storage, a 3-megapixel camera, a smaller inward-facing camera, and photo editing software, as well as larger and brighter dual screens. The new functionality comes at the expense of the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot, which is absent altogether.

According to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, the DSi won't find its way onto North American store shelves until well into 2009 due to unflagging demand of the DS Lite.

Microsoft touts Lionhead's latest as "fast-selling RPG on the Xbox 360," reveals premium and free download packs coming next month.

Despite Microsoft's best efforts, the $59.99 Fable II didn't outsell the $249 Nintendo Wii last month. Nevertheless, Lionhead's morally ambiguous action role-playing game was the best-selling software title during October, debuting with sales of 790,000 in the US during its first 10 days on the market, according to industry stat trackers The NPD Group.

Today, Microsoft lent those numbers a global perspective, saying that Fable II is now the "fastest-selling RPG on the Xbox 360" thanks to worldwide sales of 1.5 million units. The publisher also revealed that those throngs will be able to expand upon their Fable II experience with the first premium downloadable-content pack, available December 12.

The DLC will open up Knothole Island, a once-tropical region now mysteriously encased in snow. Players will venture forth to "bring back the sunshine" by undergoing the trials presented in three new shrines. The Knothole Island pack will cost 800 Microsoft points ($10).

At the same time as the premium pack, Microsoft will also be updating Fable II with a set of in-game items on the house. The add-on pack includes knight's boots, assassin's gloves, a weight loss potion, and a collectible silver book. The free DLC will also add support for leaderboards in 50 different categories, which can be checked through Lionhead's official Web site.

Sony confirms all new games submitted for certification after January 1 must include award system.

Much as Microsoft is currently grappling with technical snafus associated with the New Xbox Experience, Sony faced its own minor debacle during the implementation of the long-anticipated trophy system for PlayStation 3 games. System lockups aside, confusion abounded over which games would feature the new award system.

At fault for the mystery was that unlike Microsoft's mandatory approach to gamerscore achievements, Sony left the option to implement trophies up to the discretion of both internal and third-party developers. At that time, Sony's director of PlayStation Network Eric Lempel told GameSpot that, eventually, all new PS3 games would include trophies.

[UPDATE] The eventually in question is apparently coming sooner rather than later. A Sony representative confirmed for GameSpot that trophy support will be mandatory in all PS3 games submitted for certification beginning next year. "Trophies will be mandatory for titles submitted after January 1, 2009," said the rep. "Of course, many teams have already started to incorporate trophies and have added support for older titles."

Currently, a number of development houses have revisited their previously released titles to implement the award system, including Naughty Dog (Uncharted: Drake's Fortune), Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto IV), and Criterion (Burnout Paradise). However, these rewards are not awarded retroactively, requiring a fresh play-through to secure the achievements.

Viacom awarding $300 million-plus bonus to Harmonix founders after rhythm franchise hits massive sales milestone; 26 million downloads worldwide to date.

When MIT college chums Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy founded Harmonix in 1995, their goal was to fuse the joys of playing music and playing games. Some 13 years later, they have done so several times over. After developing Frequency, the original Karaoke Revolution, and Guitar Hero, the company shipped Rock Band, which combines both vocals and instruments.

Ten months after the first Rock Band launched on November 20, 2007, Rock Band 2 hit stores on September 14, 2008. Now, multimedia multinational Viacom, owner of Harmonix parent company MTV Games, is reporting that the Rock Band franchise has hit a massive sales milestone. In a conference call with investors last week, Viacom president Philippe Dauman said that all games in the series have sold over 7 million combined units in 13 countries.

"We have a tiger by the tail in Rock Band and our growing games business," he declared.

According to the NPD Group, over 3.51 million units of the original Rock Band were sold in the US as of September 30, along with over 362,000 units of the Xbox 360 Rock Band 2--the only edition available as of that month. (A PlayStation 3 version was released in October, with Wii and PlayStation 2 versions due out by year's end.) There's also the stand-alone Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1 for the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 2, which sold a combined 119,500 units domestically since their July release. (Volume 2 will ship next Tuesday.)

In cash terms, Rock Band and its sequel generated a respective $548.7 million and $21.6 million as of September 30, according to NPD, the game industry's preeminent market-research firm. Throw in the $3.5 million from the Track Packs, and that's just shy of $574 million in revenue from physical US retailers alone.

The aforementioned figure doesn't include revenue from Rock Band games' online music store, which offers single songs and track packs for digital download each week. Dauman also announced that, to date, some 26 million Rock Band and Rock Band 2 songs have been downloaded worldwide. Though he didn't break out exactly how much money the Harmonix franchise has pumped into Viacom's coffers, he did say that "worldwide [quarterly] ancillary revenues in Viacom's Media Networks grew 36 percent on the continuing strength of Rock Band." For the July-September quarter, Viacom ancillary revenues totaled $313 million, meaning Rock Band was the main factor behind a $112.7 million earnings increase.

As a result, Viacom is handsomely rewarding Rigopulos and Egozy for their efforts. In a SEC filing, the company revealed that during the July-September quarter, it had paid "$150 million...under an earn-out agreement related to the 2006 acquisition of Harmonix Music Systems Inc." Viacom is also planning a final earn-out payment next year which "is expected to exceed this year's payment." (Emphasis added.) Add in Harmonix's original $175 million purchase price, and the Boston-based developer stands to earn a minimum of $475 million in just three years--and just three years after showing its wares in Kentia Hall at E3 2005.

Ubisoft's open-world African shooter shores up million-unit marker three weeks after launching on Xbox 360, PS3, PC.

The global economic crisis isn't treating all companies equally. Ubisoft, for one, is weathering the storm quite well, posting better-than-expected third-quarter results last month and raising its full-year guidance to €1,050 million ($1.35 billion).

One title already having an impact on those goals is Far Cry 2, which soothed critics like a warm breeze blowing across the savanna on October 21. Ubisoft said today that in the three weeks since since it launched, the Africa-set open-world shooter has sold through more than 1 million units worldwide across the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

An ambitious open-world shooter, Far Cry 2 is a sequel of sorts to the Crytek-developed original released for PCs in 2004. With Ubisoft Montreal now at the helm, the game trades in the original's tropical locale for wide-open African plains, replete with megalomaniacal warlords, destructible environments, and dynamic weather effects. Of note, the game boasts 50 square kilometers of open, roamable environments.

Despite 40% jump in quarterly revenue, losses lead megapublisher to pink-slip more than 500 employees; Madden sells 4.5 million, Spore 2 million; Warhammer subscribers hit 800,000.

It's been a rough year for Electronic Arts. Last Halloween, the Redwood City, California-based publisher had a share price of $61.12 and was riding high on the acquisition of superdeveloper BioWare/Pandemic. Today, the company's stock ended at $27.73, after a steady decline accelerated by the past month's economic bloodbath on Wall Street.

Unfortunately for many EA employees, 2008 is about to get a whole lot rougher. Today, Electronic Arts announced that it is laying off six percent of its global workforce as part of a company-wide cost-reduction plan. With a payroll of about 9,000 worldwide, the layoffs will affect approximately 540 people. In a conference call this afternoon, executives said the layoffs will come from EA's publishing and corporate divisions, as well as from its various studios and labels.

Today's battery of pink slips may not be the last. Executives also said that EA "will manage head-count decisions aggressively going forward." The company plans to reduce hiring in high-cost territories, and will expand operations in "lower-cost locations."

By EA's own estimates, the layoffs announced today will save it more than $50 million annually--money the company sorely needs. Today, EA announced a greater-than-expected $310 million loss, or 97 cents per share, during the July-September quarter. During the same period last year, the company lost $195 million, or 62 cents a share.

The loss is doubly harsh because it comes in the face of a 40 percent surge in quarterly revenue for EA. For the quarter, the second in the company's fiscal year, earnings totaled $894 million, up $254 million from the same quarter in the prior year. Best-sellers for the period include Madden NFL 09, with 4.5 million copies sold worldwide, and Spore, with 2 million units sold worldwide. Another high point was the launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which now boasts 800,000 players on 1.2 million units sold. NCAA Football 09 sold 1.8 million copies, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 sold 1.9 million--the same number as Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Combined, Rock Band and Rock Band 2 moved 1.5 million units during the quarter.

In a statement, EA CEO John Riccitiello put a brave face on things. "Considering the slow down at retail we've seen in October, we are cautious in the short term," he said. "Longer term, we are very bullish on the game sector overall and on EA in particular. The industry is growing double-digits on the strength of three new game consoles and increases in the number of homes with broadband Internet connections. EA is well-positioned to benefit from these technology drivers due to the strength of our creative studios and our broad collection of game properties."

Unfortunately, the markets were not as upbeat as Riccitiello. As of press time, EA stock was down nearly 14 percent in after-hours trading.

In the conference call, Riccitiello and other executives laid out the reasons for the major shortfall. One major factor was the postponement of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was slated for a late summer release to lead up to its film tie-in's November debut. When that film was suddenly delayed until summer 2009, EA was forced to sit on a nearly finished game it had already spent million marketing. As a result, EA had to move $120 million of revenue into its next fiscal year. Of that, roughly $48 million was expected in the July-September quarter, when the game was slated for release.

Besides international exchange rate issues, which cost EA 12 cents a share, the other big reason for the shortfall is EA's lavish investment in future ventures. The company spent over $100 million in expanded development costs, and invested a further $150 million in building a direct-to-consumer download business. The company also spent $35 million in upfront expenses for its EA Partners deals. Those include the recent publishing agreements with Epic Games, id Software, and Grasshopper Manufacture, as well as the just-announced agreement to distribute MTV and Harmonix's rhythm game based on the music of The Beatles.

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