Japanese gaming publisher Enterbrain is out today with July sales estimates:

• Wii - 396,752 units moved
• PS3 - 91,987
• Xbox 360 - 17,970

No surprises… The Wii’s on a worldwide tear. I plan on picking one up in another month or so once some of these upcoming games drop.

And speaking of upcoming games, the BIG news is that Grand Theft Auto IV has been delayed from Fall ‘07 until Spring ‘08. Ouch. Though not a console exclusive, the setback probably hurts the PS3 more than the 360 with (the exclusive) Halo 3 still tracking for a fall launch.

Word out of Sony’s (New Zealand) office is that they’re “hoping” to offer a digital tuner bringing DVR functionality to the PS3 next year. The blog coverage has gotten way ahead of itself… First off, a “digital tuner” in the South Pacific or Europe is not the same as an ATSC or CableCARD tuner needed for the US. Second, while Sony did produce TiVo hardware at one point - that relationship is dead even if the contract is not. Can we stop the silliness now?

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs.

• Wii - Gaming Genius or Fitness Fad: TechLore
• Mark Cuban Kills The Internet: Connected Home 2 Go
• Belaboring the CableCARD Issue: Connected Home 2 Go
• Terayon and Targeted Advertising: Connected Home 2 Go

Sony and satellite television provider Sky have announced the formation of a company to bring video-on-demand to the 2 million UK and Ireland PSPs early next year. No details were given on the technologies or conditions (file format, download and/or transfer methods, expiry, etc), though more info will supposedly be revealed August 22 at the Games Convention. GameSpot UK has more:

Sony also claimed that discussions were ongoing across Europe to roll out similar services in continental markets, but made no mention of American or Australian plans.

I still haven’t ebayed my PSP… Bring us some video download love here in the US. Or at the very least - a POP mail client and keyboard accessory.

There is no doubt that Sony dominated the second generation of the console wars. Their PS2 platform had an early jump on the Xbox and Sony never looked back. Since it’s launch, the console has sold over 105 million units and has made Sony a video game powerhouse.

Given their footprint, Sony should have had an easy time convincing their customer base to upgrade, but as the latest generation of consoles have launched, Sony has lost their control over the market, after trying to force users to buy a Blu-Ray drive, along with the console. The inclusion of the drive has resulted in high prices, product delays, and limited supply during the launch. Even after Sony has agreed to sell the console at a loss, they still have not been able to get the device down to an acceptable price level for consumers.

As the latest generation of consoles have been hitting the market, Sony’s PS3 sales reflect some pretty troubling numbers. They may have recently celebrated their 1 millionth sale in Japan, but overall they’ve actually performed pretty miserably. According to the latest data from the NPD group, Sony sold a pitiful 98,500 PS3 consoles for the month of June.

Sony is quick to point out that these figures represent a 21% increase over their May sales, but even with the gain, if they continue at this pace, it will take them 83 years to hit 100 million console sales. If Sony was hoping to sell 100 million consoles over the next 5 and a half years, they would need to increase their sales from 98,000 units a month to 1.625 million.

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The Apple earnings webcast is later today, and bloggers are waiting everywhere with fingers over keyboards to see if Apple has something better than AT&T to say about iPhone sales in the last quarter. While we’re waiting, it’s worth looking at some of the other recent earnings announcements and what trends they suggest. As a non-econ specialist, I’m struck by one thing: people a lot younger than I am are having a huge impact on tech financials.

Three companies stand out in this trend:

• Nintendo had a great quarter, but not only because of the Wii as you might expect. Nintendo DS has two broadly successful new software titles out called “Pokemon Diamond” and “Pokemon Pearl”. I heard about Pokemon Pearl for the first time yesterday from a 5-year-old. In other words, she’s more clued in to one of the top technologies than I am.

• Amazon’s profit tripled because of Harry Potter sales. No, it’s not only kids reading Harry Potter, but they make up a large portion of the audience. Interestingly, the other thing Amazon credited for its strong financials was its Amazon Prime service: pay a flat annual fee and you get free 2-day shipping.

• MySpace is expected to do $1 billion in revenue this year. I may be completely off, but I don’t know anyone above the age of 25 who uses MySpace.

This weekend I was driving through the East Bay, when I noticed a Gamestop store nearby. Normally, I would have kept driving, but I wasn’t in a hurry and having canceled my Gamefly membership, it’s been a while since I’ve checked out any new games, so I decided to stop in and see what they had.

I usually buy my video games from whatever store is closest to me, but Gamespot is one of those rare stores, where I actually enjoy shopping. Normally, when I go shopping, I just want the employees to leave me alone and let me get in and out with the product I’m interested in, but at Gamespot, the employees are the best part of the store. I don’t go there to buy things, I go there to graze. Unlike the employees at Best Buy or CompUSA, Gamespot employees are usually working there because they love video games.

I’m not sure if they get free rentals or discounts or if it’s just that Gamespot attracts employees who like playing every game that comes out, but every time I go in their store, the employees give me customized game reviews on any title that I’m interested in.

Because these employees tend to be hardcore gamers, I have to be careful to not always pick the games that they are fanatical about, but I still listen to what they have to say and more than once, they’ve saved me from buying a bad game.

When I dropped into Gamespot this weekend, I wasn’t planning on buying anything. I just wanted to know if there were any new games coming out. Once I started to talk with the clerks though, one of them pulled me off to one side and in hushed tones, told me that they had one more Wii tucked away in the back of the store.

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It’s that time of year again. We’re more than halfway to the holiday shopping season and CES 2008, which means CE companies are starting to panic about what they can get on to store shelves or at least out of production in time to take advantage of the year’s biggest buying season and biggest PR event respectively. Without doing any in-depth research yet, here’s my list of what we might see around Black Friday time:

Retail Moxi DVR – Dave’s already covered this extensively, and I can’t wait to see how Digeo brings its two models to market. What are the price points? Who will sell them? Has Digeo had any problems with CableCARD certification?

Touchscreen iPod/Nano iPhone – The rumor is some iPod/Nano mash-up will come out later this year. I don’t think it will make my X’mas wish list. A touchscreen on a device smaller than the existing iPhone? I’d need tinier thumbs.

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