The PlayStation 3 hardware has sold over 12.85 million units worldwide since its 2006 debut, Sony has revealed. The figures were included within its results for the 2007 fiscal year, which concluded on March 31, 2008.

As both Nintendo and Microsoft have already chimed in with their worldwide sales figures as of March 31, 2008, the worldwide install bases of the three major home consoles are:

1. Wii - 24.45 million
2. Xbox 360 - 19 million
3. PlayStation 3 - 12.85 million

In its 2007 fiscal year, Sony's Game division had an operating revenue of $12.83 billion and posted a $1.24 billion loss.

Across that time, Sony sold 13.73 million PlayStation 2 units, 13.89 millions PSP units, and 9.24 million PlaySation 3 units. Lifetime sales were not available for PS2 and PSP, as this is the first year Sony reported sales figures instead of shipment... Read more

Speculation is flying over a possible announcement of Netflix on the Xbox 360 at this week's GDC, MSNBC reports.

Suspicions of a partnership arose last week when a survey, distributed by Netflix, asked clients if they would make use of streaming movies and television shows on their Xbox 360s if such a service was provided. Microsoft's history of making big announcements at the Game Developers Conference—like the Xbox and the Xbox 360—leads some to believe that the partnership will be officially announced this week.

The most compelling evidence for such a team-up is that it makes good sense for both parties involved; Netflix wants to be in every internet-capable device imaginable, and Microsoft wants the Xbox 360 to be the one-stop media machine in every household.

"A partnership with Netflix gives Microsoft a partner that already streams movies to over 7 million subscribers through their PCs, and encourages these subscribers to sign up for the Xbox Live service in order to stream movies to their TVs," says Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. Meanwhile, Netflix would have direct access to over 10 million Xbox Live subscribers—many potential new customers.

Microsoft would not comment on the rumor, telling MSNBC to simply "stay tuned". If the rumors turn out to be true, an announcement will likely come later this week, in the latter half of GDC.

D3Publisher announced today that Vicious Cycle Software's Dead Head Fred (PSP) took top honors for game writing at the 2008 Writers Guild Awards.

Penned by Vicious Cycle staffers David Ellis and Adam Cogan, Dead Head Fred tells the story of Fred Neuman, a private eye who finds that his head has been replaced with a brain in a jar following a scientific experiment. Fred, voiced by Scrubs actor John C. McGinley (pictured left), sets out to reclaim his memories and exact his revenge.

Dead Head Fred beat out a somewhat dubious list of nominees for the Writer's Guild of America's inaugural award for outstanding achievement in video game writing, including EA Redwood Shores' The Simpsons Game and Radical Entertainment's Crash of the Titans. Only members of the WGA's New Media Caucus were eligible for the award.

New figures released in Activision's fiscal third quarter report reveals just how much cash the publisher raked in during the holiday season, as well as new details on its upcoming merger with Vivendi Games.

Activision's report states that net revenue for the third quarter clocked in at a record $1.48 billion, up 80% over figures of $824 million in 2007's holiday season. The company also raised its 2008 fiscal year net revenue outlook from $2.45 billion to $2.65 billion, driven by the industry-wide surge in sales figures and the success of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

The company also noted that its merger with Vivendi is proceeding as planned, and is currently waiting on clearance from several regulatory commissions and other protocol before the deal can be sealed. Activision anticipates the transaction to be closed in the first half of 2008.

In a conference call earlier today, Activision confirmed that it is planning on new entries in the Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance series, as well as a reworking of the long-running Tony Hawk series.

San Francisco-based publisher Mastiff has announced a partnership with Major League Eating to create competitive eating games.

The first product to come out of the partnership is Major League Eating: The Game, a competitive eating title built like a fighting game. Players must master offensive and defensive skills and weapons like burps and belches to conquer their competitors, all while keeping mountains of grub securely in their stomachs.

"Major League Eaters aren't just elite athletes, they are the people who built America. Or at least the competitive eating part of America," said Mastiff CEO Bill Swartz. "I am deeply honored that the International Federation of Competitive Eating and Major League Eating choose Mastiff as their exclusive videogame partner."

Competitive eating—much like eating in general—has become quite popular in America, with MLE producing six hours of programming for networks ESPN and Spike TV in 2007. Though no platforms or release dates for MLE: The Game were specified in Mastiff's pun-laden press release, it's likely that further details will be announced soon.

Speaking on the recently cancelled Wii edition of Civilization Revolution, developer Firaxis has explained that the title was postponed due to issues with controller mapping and assets.

Elaborating on publisher 2K Games' terse statement issued last week, Firaxis programmer Scott Lewis said that the Wii version of the title required a complete overhaul of the game's interface and art assets created from the ground up.

Translating Civilization Revolution's control schemes to the waggle-centric Wii Remote was another sticking point. "The Wii version came online very late and we think that the audience would not be happy with a simple mapping of the 360/PS3 controls," Lewis told MTV Multiplayer. "We'd have to throw out all of our interface ... Read more

Electronics Arts is projecting that the PlayStation 3 will outperform the Xbox 360 in North American and European sales in 2008, according to a PDF detailing estimated hardware sales for the year.

The document details EA's expectation that the PS3 will sell five to six million units in Europe in the 2008 calendar year, while settling the Xbox 360 at 1.5 to 2.5 million units in the region. Both consoles are projected to sell evenly in North America, moving five to six million units each.

Total sales among both territories put the PS3 from 3 to 3.5 million units ahead of the Xbox 360 in EA's projections. Perhaps not surprisingly, the document lists Nintendo's Wii at the top of the heap, estimating total sales from 12 to 14 million units in 2008.

In today's press and analyst financial conference call, Electronic Arts executives weighed in on the matter of PlayStation 3's development difficulties as they relate to multiplatform releases.

Likely in reference to games such as EA and Pandemic's own Mercenaries 2, EA executives were asked whether the challenges in development multiplatform games on PS3 have cleared up. "Not quite," responded EA CEO John Riccitiello.

"There's no doubt that Electronic Arts along with many publishers had some challenges...on the PS3," Riccitiello went on, referring mainly to the early generation of multiplatform games released on both PS3 and Xbox 360. Still, the situation is improving greatly as developers become more acquainted with the hardware. The CEO estimates the issues is only about a third the problem it once was.

He pointed out that parallel development on both systems is when difficulties are most present. Games developed primarily for PS3 tend to go much more smoothly in development, he said. For example, Criterion Games, a studio which prides itself on its strong familiarity with the PlayStation family, had few issues development Burnout Paradise (PS3, X360), whose lead platform was PS3.

Recently, PS3 development issues were named as a contributing factor in the delay of Rockstar North's highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 4 (PS3, X360).

Buzztime Entertainment has filed suit against Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for an alleged trademark infringement by Relentless Software's trivia series Buzz! (PS2), GameSpot reports.

The suit filed by Carlsbad, California-based Buzztime Entertainment alleges that the Buzz! series violates several trademarks established for their own products, including electronic trivia games for bars and restaurants and quiz services for mobile phones and cable and satellite services.

Buzztime claims that SCEE's filing for trademark of "Buzz!" is a "malicious, fraudulent, knowing, willful, and deliberate" violation of its trademarks, which include "Buzztime," "Buzzhead," "Share the Buzz" and "Buzzkids." SCEE's filing of the Buzz! mark is not yet officially registered.

Police in Huddersfield, England are using Miis to find the owners of a stolen Wii recovered during an arrest earlier this month, the Huddersfield Daily Examiner reports.

Sixteen Miis stored on the console have given authorities clues as to who the console may belong to. The report included the names Seb, Pheebes, Nicks, Ellie and Evie among the roster. Police are hoping that by revealing the names as well as the system's unique Wii code, the victim will step forward to reclaim his or her property.

"The Nintendo Wii looks new and is thought to have been stolen before January 1. It may have been a Christmas present," they said. "If anyone has devised these characters listed and the Wii has gone missing, then please contact us urgently."

The alleged thief, a 32-year-old man, faces several charges and will appear in court near the end of January.

A High Court judge in London upheld the ban of Rockstar's Manhunt 2 (PS2, PSP, Wii) in the UK, overturning Rockstar's appeal granted last month, according to ITN.

Last June, Manhunt 2 was denied rating by the British Board of Film Classification, barring it from sale in the UK; a modified version of the game was also rejected in August. A month ago, Rockstar successfully appealed to the Video Appeals Committee, forcing the BBFC to assign a rating to the game.

But the decision passed down by the High Court rules that the VAC's decision was flawed by a "clear error of law," questioning the committee's criteria for what constitutes public harm. The judgment reinstates Manhunt 2's ban, and the VAC has stated that it will reconsider its decision in light of the High Court's ruling.

Manhunt 2 was also denied a North American release following an Adults Only rating issued by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. A modified version of the game was later assigned a Mature rating, and successfully released on October 30, 2007.

Continuing the recent barrage of sales numbers and their numerous interpretations, the sales-tracking firm NPD Group informed IGN that the Wii had the highest software to hardware sales ratio across the past holiday season.

During December, North American consumers bought an average of 8.11 Wii titles for every Wii console sold in that timeframe. The Xbox 360 ratio was just a bit lower, coming in at 7.76 games for every unit, while the PlayStation 3 moved 5.04 games for every piece of hardware.

The Xbox 360, meanwhile, has dominated the lifetime ratio with an impressive 7.0 attach rate since launch.

Despite the Wii's impressive holiday figure, its overall lifetime ratio is substantially lower. Since launch, Wii software has only sold an average of 4.64 pieces for every unit. The PlayStation 3's holiday numbers more closely match its overall figure, which is 4.26.

Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, the portion of the company responsible for the Xbox line of video game consoles, has brought in profits of over $500 million across the past six months.

Financial documents from Microsoft reveal that, during the first six months of the company's 2008 fiscal year, the entertainment division brought in $4.98 billion in revenue, marking an operating profit of $524 million. During the same time period in the 2007 fiscal year, the division amassed $3.98 billion in revenue but reported a loss of $423 million.

In all, the division is known to have lost over $7.17 billion--$1.89b in the 2007 fiscal year, $1.28b in the 2006 fiscal year, and upwards of $4b before that. The company had long expected the division's first profit to materialize in ... Read more

Nintendo has announced that sales for the first nine months of its current fiscal year topped $12.3 billion and that its profit exceeds $2.4 billion--nearly double those of the same period from last year.

The company attributed the jump to extremely strong sales of its Wii and Nintendo DS hardware and software. Over 24.5 million Nintendo DS units have been sold across the past nine months, with the Wii selling in excess of 14.29 million during the same time frame.

Based on these figures, the company now expects the fiscal year's sales to total $15.2 billion, with $2.5 billion of that being profit. In all, the company has sold... Read more

Former Star Trek Online developer Perpetual Entertainment has filed a response to PR firm Kohnke Communications' lawsuit against the studio, dismissing the suit as "vague, uncertain, ambiguous and unintelligible", according to Kotaku.

Filed in December, Kohnke's lawsuit alleges that the firm is owed nearly $300,000 for its work promoting Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising (PC), which was cancelled last November.

Perpetual's response outlines and refutes Kohnke's 13 claims against them, and asks the judge to dismiss the original suit and force Kohnke to pay their legal fees. Kotaku did not expand upon the full breadth of Perpetual's filing, but suggested that the response was a rejection of the suit and little else.

A representative of Kohnke Communications was reached for comment, but has not yet responded.

A recent US study found that surgeons performed better after playing the Nintendo Wii prior to surgery, the Telegraph reports.

Dr. Kanav Kohel and Dr. Marshall Smith of the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Centre in Phoenix, Arizona asked eight surgical residents to put in an hour playing games on the Wii before performing surgery with a training tool that simulates a patient's body in 3D. Scores of those residents that warmed up with the Wii were 48% better than those who didn't.

Some games were more useful than others. Hudson Soft's Kororinpa Marble Mania (Wii), which requires more precise movements of the Wii remote, was noted by researchers as having a greater impact than games that prompt faster, broader movements like Nintendo's Wii Sports.

Researchers are developing specially designed software for the Wii to better meet the needs of doctors looking to tune their skills at home—Atlus' Trauma Center series apparently doesn't fit the bill.

Nintendo announced today that Denise Kaigler will serve as Nintendo's new marketing VP, replacing Perrin Kaplan after her departure in late December.

Kaigler, who most recently served a 16-year gig as head of global corporate communications at Reebok, will be setting up shop at Nintendo's new Bay Area offices in Redwood City on February 18.

Additionally, Bill van Zyll, formerly a director of finance for the Whirlpool Corporation (yeah, that Whirlpool) will be heading up Nintendo of America's Latin America division as director and general manager.

During last night's Technological & Engineering Emmy Awards in Las Vegas, Nintendo received its second Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

This time around, the company was honored for its motion-sensitive Wii Remote and the Nintendo DS's touch screen.

Last year, Nintendo was recognized with an Emmy for the introduction of the now-standard directional pad, an award that was shared with Sony for its design of the DualShock controller. At the time, many questioned why the Wii Remote was not recognized as well.

"The pioneering interfaces for Wii and Nintendo DS reflect our long tradition of seeking new ways to enhance the gaming experience for users at every level," said NoA executive VP Don James. "We're grateful for this award and thank the academy for honoring us a second time."

SCEI announced official details today concerning the integration of Skype with the slim PSP.

As part of a firmware update scheduled for late January, Skype's introduction on the handheld will come equipped with many of the features available in Skype's standard PC setup, including free Skype-to-Skype calls, SkypeOut and SkypeIn for calls to and from landlines and mobile phones, and the ability to create and maintain account information via the PSP.

As previously mentioned, this latest addition to the PSP's built-in functionality is only available on the redesigned PSP. Skype on PSP will also require a Memory Stick Duo and a compatible audio input device—the most likely candidate being the recently revealed PSP USB Microphone peripheral.

GameSpot has issued a lengthy response to the week-long scandal regarding the termination of editorial director Jeff Gerstmann, claiming that the editor was let go "purely for internal reasons" that were "unrelated to any publisher or advertiser." Meanwhile, Gerstmann spoke with MTV's Stephen Totilo about the nature of advertising relationships, though not about his termination itself.

Gerstmann was relieved of his position at GameSpot last Wednesday. Rumors immediately began swirling that he was fired in part because of his negative review of IO Interactive's Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PC, PS3, X360).

At the time, publisher Eidos was heavily advertising the title on GameSpot. It was speculated that Eidos had pressured GameSpot parent company CNET into axing Gerstmann, a theory apparently backed by the removal of Gerstmann's harsh video review and an edit of his text.

Though GameSpot admits Eidos was upset by Gerstmann's negative review, the site states that its displeasure was "absolutely not" the cause of Gerstmann's termination, the removal of his video review, or the editing of his review text, citing GameSpot policy to "never let any [expressed publisher disappointment] result in a review score to be altered or a video review to be pulled." As before, GameSpot continues to decline to comment on the particular reasons for Gerstmann's termination.

"Realistic or not, I think readers should demand [a church and state separation between editorial and sales] from a publication," Gerstmann told MTV in... Read more