Sony’s PlayStation Vita portable gaming console launched in Japan with wind in its sails, but the device’s success appears to have been short lived. A recent report from 4Gamer suggests Sony sold just 72,479 units during the week ended December 25th, down from the estimated 324,859 units 4Gamer said Sony sold during the Vita’s first week of availability. Nintendo sold 482,200 3DS units during the same time period and Sony also sold 101,121 units of its older PSP console. Perhaps Sony wil...

Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console trounced the competition in November, nearly doubling PlayStation 3 sales and sales of Nintendo’s Wii console. According to November sales data from leading market research firm The NPD Group, Microsoft sold 1.7 million Xbox 360 consoles in November. While Sony managed unit sales growth of about 70% year-over-year, the company only sold about 900,000 PlayStation 3 consoles last month. Nintendo sold 860,000 Wii consoles, 795,000 portable Nintendo 3...

Microsoft just sold nearly one million Xbox 360 consoles last week alone, but we’re nearing the end of the road for video game consoles according to one industry visionary. Richard Garriott, known for having created the fantasy role-playing franchise Ultima and the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Tabula Rasa, says converged devices such as computers, smartphones and tablets will soon render dedicated game consoles obsolete. Read on for more. (more…)

Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has become the fastest-selling video game in history, crushing previous records set by earlier titles in the Call of Duty franchise. The game lab on Tuesday announced that week-one sales of Modern Warfare 3 totaled 12.3 million units, making it the biggest launch of all time and pulling in an estimated $738 million in revenue. The Xbox 360 version of the game lead sales with more than 7 million copies, a record for game sales on a single console that was previ...

Sales of video games and video game hardware remained lackluster in October according to market research giant The NPD Group. Overall industry sales in the U.S. grew just 1% to $1.08 billion last month compared to October 2010. Total hardware sales were up 6% year-over-year to $295.6 million in October, and software sales were up 3% to $621.3 million. Sales of video game accessories in the U.S. dipped 5% to $135.9 million last month. Microsoft’s Xbox showed the most impressive growth among home consoles...

Following a period of peace after weeks of cyberattacks launched against various Sony-run online networks, Sony has confirmed that hackers are once again targeting the company’s digital properties. The electronics giant said on Wednesday that it discovered a “large number” of sign-in attempts on its PlayStation Network, Sony Online Entertainment and Sony Entertainment Network between October 7th and the 10th. According to Sony, approximately 93,000 accounts were compromised when valid log...

Sony’ next-generation portable video game console will not launch in the U.S. until early 2012, Sony Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai told The Associated Press on Thursday. Sony’s PlayStation Vita will become available later this year in Japan, but it will miss the all-important holiday shopping season here in the U.S. and in Europe as well. Some, such as Daiwa Securities Capital Markets analyst Koki Shiraishi, believe Sony’s sales will take a huge hit as a result. “That’s ...

Redbox on Thursday announced that it will add video game rentals to an additional 5,000 kiosks beginning August 1st. The company announced last month that game titles for the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Wii would be added to 16,000 more redbox kiosks by the end of June, and the total after this coming round of additions will approach 27,000. Redbox owns and operated approximately 33,000 rental kiosks around the country, and the company did not indicate if or when video games might be add...

Notebook Italia recently posted a hands-on video showing off several features of Sony’s S1 Android Honeycomb tablet. The S1 was announced in April — alongside the S2 — and is set for a fall release, but Sony hasn’t provided many chances for press to check out the device first-hand. As the video shows, the S1 will be the first tablet to run Sony’s PlayStation Suite software, an application that provides access to Sony PlayStaton certified games and content, such as the Green Hornet traile...

Sony’s manufacturing partners will begin building the consumer electronics giant’s next-generation video game console toward the end of this year, with a launch scheduled for 2012, DigiTimes reports. Details surrounding Sony’s PlayStation 4 are very limited for the time being, but the report states that the new console will feature integrated movement-based controls similar to the Microsoft Kinect controller. Foxconn and Pegatron, the two manufacturing firms charged with assembling Sony̵...

In an effort to fuel growth across the company, Sony’s CEO — Howard Stringer — has taken a 16% cut in his annual pay according to The Wall Street Journal. Stringer will take home $4.27 million for the fiscal year that ended March 30th, down from the $5.25 million he made last year. During Sony’s shareholder meeting on Tuesday, PlayStation head Kazuo Hirai said that the firm’s “most important task” was turning around its television business — an arm of Sony that has seen sev...

Will Microsoft enter the portable gaming market to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Apple? According to its chief operating officer, Dennis Durkin, not yet. In an interview with Industry Gamers, Durkin explained that the portable gaming market is too crowded right now and that there’s too much change happening. “I’m not sure I would want to be launching a dedicated portable device right now into that market,” Durkin said. “I think the DS – if you look at the 3DS, certainly vers...

Redbox on Friday added game rentals to its arsenal at rental kiosks across the country. Video game rentals had previously been available for some time at approximately 5,000 Redbox kiosks spread throughout the U.S. in a beta phase. Now, Redbox is adding video games to another 16,000 kiosks this month, though it is not clear if or when Redbox plans to add games to the remaining 6,000 kiosks it owns and operates. Popular video game titles for Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation and NintendoR...

BGR has provided extensive coverage of an ongoing saga that has seen numerous digital properties belonging to Sony fall under attack. To date, personal information belonging to well over 100 million Sony customers has been compromised, and nearly 13 million credit card numbers have been stolen. For IT professionals or other tech enthusiasts with weak stomachs, we can understand if reading one story after another about Sony’s security woes might make you a bit queasy. As such, a new site launched recentl...