Report: U.S. Video Game Sales Down 26% in April
Port Washington, N.Y. – U.S. video game sales were down 26%
in April, to $766.2 million, marking the worst monthly sales decline since June
2009, according to a report from market research firm NPD Group. "Some of
the decline is explained by the shift of Easter timing," said NPD analyst
Anita Frazier. "In April ’09, consumers attributed $55 million of industry
sales to Easter as a purchase occasion, which would account for about 21% of
the decline from last year since Easter purchasing happened in March this
year."
Hardware sales were down 37%, as the Nintendo Wii sold 277,200
units, compared to 185,400 for Microsoft’s (NASD: MSFT) Xbox 360 and 180,800 for the Sony (NYSE: SNE)
PlayStation 3.
Sony also sold 65,600 PSP portable devices, while Nintendo sold
440,800 DS handhelds — compared to over 1 million units last April.
NPD noted
that declines in portable sales across hardware, software and accessories
accounted for 61% of the total industry decrease in sales last month.
Game
software sales were down 22% in April; NPD saw a larger drop in sales of March
new releases this year (75%) than last year (54%).
The top-selling game in
April was Ubisoft’s "Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction" (486,100
units).
Other titles in the top five included Nintendo’s "New Super Mario
Bros. Wii" (200,300), and two Pokemon titles for the DS that sold a
combined 435,500 units.
Related Links:
http://www.npd.com
MonkeyMedia Sues Apple Over User Interface Patents
Austin
– MonkeyMedia, a studio that designs user interfaces, announced on Friday that it
has filed a patent lawsuit against Apple (NASD: AAPL).
The suit alleges infringement of MonkeyMedia
patents covering user interfaces for document summarization, RSS readers and
video players that can display multiple versions of text and audiovisual
content.
Founded in 1994 by Microsoft and Yahoo alums, Austin-based MonkeyMedia
holds patents on telescopic advertising and other enhanced viewing
technologies.
"We can sit by and watch Apple continue to use our patented
inventions without paying, or we can do something about it," said MonkeyMedia
CEO Eric Bear.
"Synergy between inventors and manufacturers is healthy,
and we love that Apple believes in our technology. We simply prefer open
communications and fair compensation."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w8qsw
TiVo Shares Plunge on Court Decision to Rehear EchoStar Case
Washington
– Shares of TiVo (NASD: TIVO) plummeted as much as 36% on Friday, after the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided to reconsider an earlier patent ruling
in TiVo’s favor in its ongoing dispute with EchoStar (NASD: SATS). The court has vacated its
March 4 ruling, where a panel of judges upheld a lower court’s finding that
EchoStar was in contempt for infringing on TiVo’s digital video recorder
patent.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals will now reconsider the appeal during an
en banc hearing.
The court will consider "whether the judge erred in not
giving DISH a trial to determine if its workaround was still infringing TiVo’s
patent," according to BusinessWeek.
EchoStar recently stated that it was
preparing for the possibility of having to disable millions of its customers’
set-top boxes because of the patent ruling, at an estimated cost running into
the billions.
"We are disappointed that we do not yet have finality in
this case despite years of litigation but we remain confident that the Federal
Circuit’s ruling in our favor will be reaffirmed after all of the judges on the
Federal Circuit have had the opportunity to review the merits of this
case," TiVo said in a statement.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w8qcf
(TiVo statement)
http://snipurl.com/w8q6p
(BusinessWeek)
China's Hurray Sells Stake in Huayi Music for $5 Million
Beijing – Hurray Holding Co. (NASD: HRAY),
a provider of artist development, music production, wireless music distribution
and operator of an online video portal in China, announced on Friday that it
has sold its equity interest in Huayi Music to Huayi Brothers Media Corp. for
about $5 million.
Hurray said the companies intend to continue to cooperate in
the future in the areas of music, movie and TV production.
In addition to
operating the Ku6.com video portal, Hurray operates record labels including
Freeland Music, New Run Entertainment and Seed Music.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w8pl9
Diaspora Gets $100K in Donations for Privacy-Minded Social Net
New York – A group of four
programming students at New York
University have raised
more than $100,000 in donations for Diaspora, their social networking project
aimed directly at the criticisms of Facebook’s privacy policies. The group,
which is raising funds using the Kickstarter online fundraising platform, said
that Diaspora will be "an open source personal web server that will put
individuals in control of their data."
Related Links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20004895-36.html
Comcast Developing TV Remote Application for iPad
Los Angeles
– Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) Labs is developing software that will turn Apple’s iPad into a remote
control that will allow cable TV subscribers to change the channel, and search
for programming on TV and on-demand. A prototype of the Xfinity Remote was
demoed at the NCTA show yesterday. The application also features content
discovery, chat and recommendation features.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w7vhx
Netflix Begins Streaming HD Titles to PC, Mac
Los Angeles
– Netflix (NASD: NFLX) now offers streaming of more than half of its available HD titles to computers,
Hacking Netflix reports. Previously, the company had enabled HD streaming to the
Xbox 360, networked Blu-ray players and other connected consumer electronics devices.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w7vxg
(Hacking Netflix)
Echo Nest, Play.me Offer Music App Developers Free Tunes
Cambridge,
Mass. – The Echo Nest, a
"music intelligence" firm founded by MIT Media Lab alums, on Thursday
announced a deal with Dada Entertainment’s Play.me service, which will allow music
applications using Echo Nest’s technology to utilize Play.me’s music catalog
and avoid having to secure separate licensing deals. Developers may write music
applications using Echo Nest’s APIs, and include streaming content from the
millions of songs in Play.me’s library — which features a weekly five-hour
limit.
Related Links:
http://blog.echonest.com/post/592373596/here-come-the-music-apps
BT Buys 2.6% Stake in OnLive Game Streaming Service
London – U.K. telco BT announced on Thursday that it has acquired
a 2.6% stake in OnLive, a PC-based video game streaming service that it will
launch in the U.K.
The deal comes before the U.S.
launch of San Francisco-based OnLive, scheduled for June 17, during the E3 Expo
in Los Angeles.
For $14.95 per month, OnLive will offer unlimited access to "high-end,
new-release, instant-play game content without the need to purchase expensive
PC gaming or console systems."
"The partnership with OnLive
complements our existing BT Vision service," said Gavin Patterson, CEO of
BT Retail. "It’s great for our customers — they’ll have access to a huge
catalogue of games, available instantly on their TV or PC without expensive
hardware."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w7w3l
