eBay issued a press release touting the rush of activity on their online auction site last Friday, in which they celebrated the success of consumer electronics auctions. The press release noted the items for which more people searched eBay than any other, and our favorite console topped the list. The Wii was the most-searched item across all of eBay on Black Friday, and 3,171 of those searchers paid too much for it (an average price of $349) by buying on eBay.
The second most-searched item was probably picked up by most of the same people -- Wii Fitsold 1,059 units at an average $140 price. Congratulations to everyone who "won" one of these items, we guess! Although it's kind of sad to think of all those people either getting rid of their Wiis or grabbing them from stores for the express purpose of eBay markup.
We thought we had missed the opportunity to post the full list of Amazon Black Friday Wii deals, but we've checked this morning and every item isn't sold out! In fact, a lot of stuff is still in stock! Bless Amazon for making it possible for people to grab a huge deal without waking up at 2AM or waiting in line in the dang cold.
Not many games become diamond-sellers -- that is, pass one million sales -- in the United Kingdom. According to ELSPA, only nine titles have managed the feat since it started recording sales in 1999. As of today, a further two have joined that elite group, and both are close to our hearts: Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit.
They've taken their sweet time getting there, however. Fellow diamond-seller Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas took just three weeks to break the seven-figure landmark in Britain, while Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit took 32 and 30 weeks, respectively. On the other hand, there's no doubt that both epitomize the "evergreen" appeal of popular Wii titles -- whereas games like San Andreas had a very explosive start and then faded, the Nintendo pair are still in the top five in the latest UK charts.
Hit the break for the full list of titles that broke the magic one meeeellion mark.
If you've been holding off on some of Capcom's games, then this weekend is a good opportunity to grab some. The Capcom store will be holding a special promotion starting tomorrow and running through Sunday where you can get 15% off the purchase of two Wii games and 25% off of your purchase of three or more. On top of that, if your order is over $75, then Capcom will ship your order for free.
What's interesting is that apparently pre-orders work here. In their Capcom blog post, they mention that the soon-to-release Neopets Puzzle Adventure qualifies for this, so we're assuming others do as well, including Dead Rising: Chop 'Til You Drop.
The Black Friday game deals that Amazon has revealed so far are among the most compelling anywhere -- and that's not even taking into account the fact that you don't have to face the teeming masses of retail zombies to get your hands on them. All you need is a finger hovering over the F5 key and a credit card nearby.
Amazon sent a partial list to Kotaku, with the promise that there will be lots more cheap games to buy come Black Friday. The standout among the Wii offers is the Animal Crossing/WiiSpeak bundle for $40, but we'd feel like victorious Black Friday navigators if we managed to score a $26 copy ofde Blob or a $30 Wario Land: Shake It.
Oh, and they'll have Wii systems and copies of Wii Fit starting midnight (we assume PST, since that's when Amazon usually updates their deals).
If you're still deciding where to take your sleeping bag and flask of cocoa for this Black Friday's queues, Target's deal on the Guitar Hero: World Tour Guitar Kit may sway you. The store will be offering the SKU, which includes the game and a wireless guitar, for a mouth-watering $59, a generous saving on the original MSRP of $99.99. It certainly beats paying close to three hundred big ones for the full band experience.
Joystiq has tirelessly compiled a list of some of the great deals you can expect this Black Friday, as most of the U.S. wakes at the crack of dawn to rush out and get all of the deals they possibly can. Joystiq's guide covers all of the major retailers and even includes some good Wii deals. So, stop wasting time and check it out!
But, not all titles are destined to get that touch of Wii magic. And, what if you never had a chance to try some of them? Well, unless you've got a suitcase buried in the back yard, there are a few titles that might be a bit out of reach, according to the list over at Video Game Price Charts.
Of all of them, which would you say is the "must own" title?
The research bods at EEDAR have got their abacuses out and calculated that Wii games are more prone to "price protection" than titles on rival machines.
What's price protection? Price protection occurs when a publisher of a game that isn't selling offers its game to retailers for a lower price, allowing stores to get rid of excess stock quickly. If this happens too soon (EEDAR defines "too soon" as "when a title's third month average selling price has decreased by 20% or more from its original average selling price"), it is known as "early price protection."
Anyway, EEDAR found that 15.1% of all Wii software goes through this process, compared to 7.5% on Xbox 360 and 9.09% on PS3. What does this disparity say about Wii software? EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich thinks it backs up the theory that third-parties struggle on the Wii because they and retailers have "overly aggressive expectations" for Wii games, and that it proves "quality is one of the most impactful features for a video game."
Gamasutra has compiled a bunch of charts showing the best-selling games of 2008 (so far) across all formats. At first glance, the results are thoroughly predictable -- it's yet more Wii dominance in the U.S. -- but there are interesting factoids to be drawn from this.
Wii Play, for example, looks like finishing in the top five games of the year for the second year running. Even more impressively, Gamasutra thinks it could sell more copies in 2008 than in 2007, which is all kinds of crazy. Surely that would be some kind of first?
The top two spots are held by Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii, a pair of titles that we always expected to sell well, but to beat the likes of Wii Fit or other games aimed at Nintendo's broadened audience? Speaking of Wii Fit, it tops the chart for estimated revenue so far this year, thanks to its higher retail price. We'll reproduce the 2008 YTD sales table below, but Gamasutra has other data worth looking at here.
As part of its "Touch! Generations" range, Nintendo will hope Wii Music can rack up some dizzying sales figures. Sadly, the maligned music title hasn't made the best of starts in North America, falling a long way short of the launch window sales for other first-party titles, such as Wii Fit. Cammie Dunaway has revealed that the game did "somewhere [like] 65 or 66,000" in its first two weeks on sale, whereas the more expensive Wii Fit shifted 687,000 copies in its opening eleven days.
Nintendo isn't about to panic, however. Rather, Dunaway thinks it could have the same long-term appeal already displayed by Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Mario Kart Wii, all of which regularly show up in the monthly NPD charts. "We're predicting that it's going to be an evergreen title, she told MTV Multiplayer. "And if you look at titles like Brain Age, it's about the same as what Brain Age did during it's first few weeks and went on to sell 2.5 million copies. Wii Fit certainly had a larger launch than that. But I think that people are starting to understand Wii Music."
For those of you who're thinking about snagging Rock Band 2, now that it actually has features, know this: the original Rock Band bundle will be sold for a special price starting this holiday. You can get the full band kit and a copy of the first game for $99. Along with a copy of Rock Band 2, and all of those free downloads, you can make this holiday a very special one for that wannabe rocker in your life. Unless you already picked up Guitar Hero: World Tour.
It's that time again, readers -- time to roll our sleeves up and get elbow-deep in some graphs. Woo! These examples are from the graph experts at Gamasutra, and smash a myth that has hung around the Wii too long for our liking: that the console has a rubbish tie ratio (the number of games sold per console). Indeed, the PS3 is marginally behind Nintendo's platform in this respect. Not bad for a console that, unlike the PS3, comes with a free game to get started! A second graph at Gamasutra confirms that the Wii's tie ratio has very slightly improved during 2008.
One Wii myth this data does reinforce is that Nintendo totally dominates the Wii software scene; again, it's a familiarcomplaint, but there's obviously some credibility to it.
A promise made by Reggie Fils-Aime means that North American Disaster: Day of Crisis fans have an active interest in how the game fares in Europe. If it sells enough copies on the other side of the Atlantic, Reggie has suggested a U.S. release will be considered. Sounds fair to us. The only problem? It's selling really badly in Europe.
According to the latest European sales charts, the game failed to reach the UK top forty, the Irish or Norwegian top twenty, or the Dutch, German, or Spanish top ten. More worryingly still, Monolith's title wasn't even amongst the top fifty Wii releases in the UK last week. Oo-er. Such a meek performance in Disaster's opening week doesn't exactly convince us we'll be seeing a Stateside release. We'd love nothing more than to be proved wrong and see Nintendo of America take a gamble.
Source: Brits prefer their Wii Fits Source: Ireland isn't biting Source: Holland bought more copies of Mario Party 8 last week Source: Norway says "nor way" to Disaster Source: Monolith's game knows only pain in Germany and Spain
Looking for more songs to complement that Guitar Hero: World Tour purchase you just made? Probably not for several months, but maybe you can do some shopping in anticipation of that -- especially (only) if you really like Aerosmith. Amazon's Deal of the Day knocks half the price off of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, to a perfectly reasonable twenty bucks. The Xbox 360 version is also on sale, if you would prefer (though obviously we can't endorse such a decision!)
This is the game only, and doesn't come with any guitars or anything, but provided the song list meets with your approval, 41 new Guitar Hero tracks for $20 isn't bad at all.
We thought we had missed the opportunity to post the full list of Amazon Black Friday Wii deals, but we've checked this morning and every item isn't sold out! In fact, a lot of stuff is still in stock! Bless Amazon for making it possible for people to grab a huge deal without waking up at 2AM or waiting in line in the dang cold. 
If you've been holding off on some of Capcom's games, then this weekend is a good opportunity to grab some. The Capcom store will be holding a special promotion starting tomorrow and running through Sunday where you can get 15% off the purchase of two Wii games and 25% off of your purchase of three or more. On top of that, if your order is over $75, then Capcom will ship your order for free.
The Black Friday game deals that Amazon has revealed so far are among the most compelling anywhere -- and that's not even taking into account the fact that you don't have to face the teeming masses of retail zombies to get your hands on them. All you need is a finger hovering over the F5 key and a credit card nearby.
We love a lot of GameCube games. In fact, when Play on Wii was announced, it felt like a dream come true. See, we imagine many GameCube games being retooled for Wii. Now, we're glad its actually happening for some of those games.
The research bods at EEDAR have got their abacuses out and calculated that Wii games are more prone to "price protection" than titles on rival machines.
Gamasutra has compiled a bunch of charts showing the best-selling games of 2008 (so far) across all formats. At first glance, the results are thoroughly predictable -- it's yet more Wii dominance in the U.S. -- but there are interesting factoids to be drawn from this.
Looking for more songs to complement that Guitar Hero: World Tour purchase you just made? Probably not for several months, but maybe you can do some shopping in anticipation of that -- especially (only) if you really like Aerosmith. Amazon's Deal of the Day knocks half the price off of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, to a perfectly reasonable twenty bucks. The Xbox 360 version is also on sale, if you would prefer (though obviously we can't endorse such a decision!)
