Xbox 360 beats up Wii

THIS WEEK, we've mainly been playing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the DS, which is a must buy for any discerning gamer.

Also of note is the Unreal Tournament 3 beta which leached on to the Net - you can see our original story, with download links, here.

Xbox 360
Spurred by the release of Halo 3, the Xbox 360 led all console sales in the U.S. during September with 527,000 units sold.

The Wii sold 501,000 units, while the DS handheld sold 495,800 - helped further by the aforementioned Zelda.

The three Halo 3 SKUs combined, have sold an amazing 3.3 million copies since launch.

This helped raise the industry sales figures 74% for the month of September year on year. Total sales hit (USD) $1.36 Billion.

More at GameDaily.biz.

Microsoft belatedly announced the Xbox 360 Arcade this week, but not before members of the public had their hands on the consoles.

The new SKU will include a wireless controller, 256mb memory card, and will retail for the current Core price of $279.99 USD.

Oddly, though the SKU comes bundled with five Xbox Live Arcade games, they are only demos.

Microsoft Entertainment and Devices head Robbie Bach commented to the Financial Times on the system's chances to challenge the family-priced Wii. "Arcade becomes the ability to bring in a new set of audiences," he said. "They're probably a little more casually focused, they're looking for a new family experience or they're more price focused."<P>

SmartHouse is reporting that Microsoft and Toshiba are working on an updated Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD drive.

The new Xbox device, while allowing for extensive gaming capability, will be positioned as an entertainment hub that includes gaming and extensive wireless networking capability as well as 1080p playback. There is also talk of it including a dual HD TV tuner and EPG capability and a docking port for an MP3 player. For Toshiba, the device is critical if it is to be successful in beating Sony and the Blu-ray promoters.

If you fancy a HD-DVD drive prior to this fancy Toshiba-backed device, then you could get yourself a pretty deal.

Microsoft has popped its Santa hat on and revealed a new deal to get people buying its HD-DVD player, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Now, when you buy the Xbox 360 add-on, you will be given five free films to go with it.

You will get to choose from: Serenity, The Chronicles of Riddick, Hulk, Children of Men, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Troy, Full Metal Jacket, Corpse Bride, The Prestige, Swordfish, Black Rain, Dreamgirls and World Trade Centre.

PS3/PSP
With large numbers of Xboxes sold in September due to Halo 3, it's interesting to note sales of the Playstation series.

The Playstation 2 sold 215,000 consoles, still beating the Playstation 3 which moved only 119,400 units. The PSP led the way with 284,500 sold.

In his write-up of last week's NPD numbers, Dean Takahashi for The San Jose Mercury News (via Joystiq) wrote, "One piece of news that came out this week was that Sony pleaded with third-party developers not to abandon its struggling platform. That change in attitude is a marked difference compared to the arrogance of past years."

Sony has cut the price of the US 80GB Playstation 3 to $499, soon before the launch of the 40GB version, which has already announced in Europe and Japan.

The 40GB model will cost $399 and will go on sale on the 2nd November. The console came out in the UK on the 19th October, but won't arrive in Japan until the 11th November.

In an interview with Newsweek (again, via Joystiq) Sony America CEO Jack Tretton explains why the 40GB PS3's lack of backwards compatibility with such simple maths. He points out that the old 60GB PS3 with full backwards compatibility was $600. The new 40GB PS3 with no PS2 backwards compatibility is $400. By adding the cost of a PS2 at $129, the total for the two consoles is $529 ($70 less than the original 60GB price).

Tretton says, "I've got two machines that do everything the same machine did a year ago at $599. So it's hard for me to see that as a negative for the consumer."

In an effort to focus more intently on core operations, Sony has announced it will sell its production facilities for making microprocessors and graphics chips used in its Playstation 3 game console to Toshiba.

The price and other details have yet to be set, Sony said on Thursday, but sources familiar with the transaction say the price is likely to be in excess of $858 million.

Wii/DS
Joystiq has a hands-on preview of Link's Crossbow Training which is coming coupled with the Wii Zapper, and the reviewer seemed impressed.<P>

If music's more your thing - a group of four students got a few Wiimotes and transformed them into a musical instrument. Read more at Gizmodo. <P>

Eurogamer has a review of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - and agree with us, that it's pretty damn good.

Commentators agree that shortages won't affect Nintendo's market position this year. That Nintendo may have trouble meeting hardware demand this Christmas is something that the company has publicly admitted, but in the eyes of analysts this won't deal too much damage to the Wii's dominant market position.

That's according to Screen Digest's Ed Barton and The simExchange's Jesse Divnich, who both spoke to GamesIndustry.biz on the subject.

"In material terms this won't affect Nintendo's market position this Christmas save for the possibility of a little unfulfilled potential - given sales rates in all major territories through 2007 it is natural to be bullish on Wii hardware this Christmas," commented Barton.

Divnich added his voice to the argument: "The shortage will play a minimal role in hindering sales this season given empirical data coupled with the expected high sales figure. The Wii has been outselling its competitors by large margins all year despite these shortages."

Eurogamer has the usual Wii Virtual Console round-up here. µ