Here are your console sales digits for June 2008:

Nintendo DS: 783,000
Nintendo Wii: 666,700
PlayStation 3: 405,500
PlayStation Portable: 337,400
Xbox 360: 219,800
PlayStation 2: 188,798

- Wii beats 360 3:1 in the US. PS3 coming on strong (must be Metal Gear Solid 4 influence eh?), DS is minting cash for Nintendo.

Here are your Top 10 games sales for June 2008:

1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) 774,600
2. Guitar Hero On Tour (DS) 422,300
3. Ninja Gaiden II (360) 372,700
3. Wii Fit (Wii) 372,700
5. Wii Play (Wii) 359,100
6. Battlefield Bad Company (360) 346,800
7. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) 322,400
8. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Wii) 294,500
9. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (DS) 267,800
10. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure (PS2) 260,300

- Somewhere out there, people are watching a lot of cut scenes. Also, I bet if you check your local mall @ 2:00 p.m. any day of the week, someone will be playing Guitar Hero On Tour via their DS. And the Wii Fit - you know 300k of those are collecting dust at this very moment - bring on Shaun White Snowboarding!

Props to Kelly Slater for winning the Billabong Pro @ J-Bay! Someone give him another shot at a video game….

I sometimes do this - get a random thought that tends to consume me for a longer period of time then it should. In fact, I do it more then I admit. Right now, that random thought is in-game video capture. Absolutely a feature I would really like to see incorporated into more games in the not too distant future.

In-game video capture to me is a means to address personalization of your game play. How else better to show your friends EXACTLY what you were talking about when trying to describe a certain level/achievement/event or sweet headshot then to capture it on video and share it with the world. Plus, as an added perk, its a direct conduit to a level of personalization that I feel should be made more readily available given the current generation of gaming devices. You can only store so many damn movies, demos and the like on that 60/80/120 GB hard drive. Why not be able to drop some hot video snapshots from ‘in-game’ over to your buddy and pass around some clips in this developing lobbies like Xbox Live and the PSN/Home? You can do all this with services to pull from PC. You can even hack it a bit and ‘pull video’ via recording your console gameply on DVD and then edit it later, but why not have a service application built into a game to pull video while the action is going on? Or even while you are spectating the action like a 5v5, high-paced, COD4 Headquarters match on Shipment.

One of the first games that I played to feature some video loop play-back features was Skate from EA. Not a huge skateboarder myself, but I have respect for the actual mechanics of skateboarding and pulling a manuevor that requires speed, timing and execution. In any event, pulling a sweet move and being able to digitaly record that move while saving it for “later” was a pretty sweet feature. Why couldn’t I  hit a couple of  buttons on my beloved 360 controller and pass my ‘360 switchfoot kickflip over the rail’ on to my Skate-playin’ posse so they could hail my praise? To toot EA’s horn a bit more, consider NCAA Football ‘08: halftime rolls through and you get 5 (I think it was 5, can’t recall…) video highlights of plays from the first half. Well hell, DeShaun Jackson up the middle on a skinny post, hit in stride, shakes two defenders, blows around the corner and up the sideline for a 73 yard touchdown - yeah, that’s video worthy and work a few mb’s on my hard drive. Even better yet, worth me porting out to YouTube so I can broadcast it to world…..and show it off to my friends.

I hope you see my angle here - in-game video capture could be an added layer of extremely cool ‘user generated content’ but unique to only the video game space - specifically the console gamer. Its something that is the translation of your actions into the processing power and mechnisms of the console device, the game code and the artist moves rendered from every synapse inbetween.

A digital Chris Berman and his Top 10 game events of the week streaming out of my Xbox 360 or PS3 would look great running on my 50 inch plasma - not to mention his digital come-over and horrible necktie.

I want more games with in-game video capture utilities and I expect Microsoft and Sony to support my dreams of mobilizing this content on the console and off into the interwebs!

Who’s with me?

Hello folks,

It has been a while since my last post on this blog. And today, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to those who have been playing games with me on XBL. Raz, Princess, Klay, Enz0e, JaFerris and many others, you guys have seriously made my gaming experience much more enjoyable!

Moreover, thank you for being such an active member on GameStrata. Thank you for all the suggestions and comments that you guys have given. Thank you for spreading the word and recruiting more users. Thank you for everything!

In return, I promise the GS team over here will continue to develop more features and make GameStrata the best gaming site out there! That’s all for now, more updates to come later.

Cheers,
~Calvin aka Innocuous

p.s For those of you whom I have not yet played with, my XBL Gamertag is inn0cu0us. Please feel free to add me to your friend list.

p.p.s And for all the PS3 gamers, I just bought a PS3, my PSN id is Suouconni. Please feel free to add me to your friend list too!

with a new build!  If you have some downtime between parades, fireworks, barbecues, and brews, why not try out some of the brand new hotness from your favorite gaming social community:

• Game availability calendars (sweet)
• Improved console and game mapping pages
• GS Chatroom
• Lost Planet Colonies stat support for clans
• Guitar Hero Aerosmith clans
• Delete clan functionality for clan owners
• Decline clan invites from /account/clan_invites

Hope you all have a great 4th of July weekend! More new features in the works…

We all know the question we get most on the site is COD4 vs Halo 3.  The second most popular question is PS3 vs 360.  GameStrata does not prefer one platform over the other, even though it appears we do.  We have a complete 360 Achievement Leaderboard: http://www.gamestrata.com/games/xboxlive  and of course a picture of Master Chief on the home page.  The truth is, the 360 is more advanced in the online space then the PS3, that is just a fact.  Now will the 2.40 update change all this?  It is very possible that it will, and as soon as Sony opens up their trophy data, we will be first in line to bring it to you.   Same thing goes for the Wii, DS, PSP and IPhone. 

GameStrata is going to be the one stop shop for everything post ship of your game on any platform.  Everyone here right now is considered an early adopter, but as you can see the traffic is growing.   To quote my boy Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  With an increase in numbers it gives us more power and leverage with the big guys.  We are out there talking with all the publishers and console makers for you.   Keep up everything you guys are doing by asking questions and spreading the word and we will keep fighting for you, for you all no matter what console you play on.

I want to further reassure the PS3 users that is not a 360 centric site, as I am a PS3 gamer.  My 360 is at the office and my PS3 and Wii are at home.  We play it all around here and on every system.  Props to CDub for suggesting this topic and props to Innocuous who now personally owns all the consoles as well.  Oh and don’t get to used to seeing Master Chief up there, unless we throw a Sony cap on him and a Wii controller in his hand. 

Its been a little while since we’ve chimed in on this here blog. Supposed to be a ‘company’ blog where we send you updates but we spaz on updating everyone via new posts. I guess since we all are reachable via the website, we usually communicate that way.  In any event, just a few things rolling around that spurred this post.

First off, a few game reviews/previews:

Battlefield: Bad Company  - Launched earlier this week and its pretty solid game. I for one was super keen to pick it up and play it. Something about my chemical dependancy to Call of Duty 4 or something that gets the best of me. I saw BF:BC as a means to pull me away from my late night COD4 cravings. Not so sure that plan is working yet but I’ll check back in on that. Anyway, BF:BC’s gameplay is pretty tight. I’ve played a bit of the single player and then jumped into a few online games. One thing I was bummed about with the online component was the limited lobby system where I can only match up with 4 of my friends. I dig jumping into huge games with a bunch of GameStrata users or other friends. Can’t do that here…..bummed. All in all, great game, great gameplay - graphics are solid, blowing up walls is more fun then I thought.

Grade: 8.25 - 8.5

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith: I know - this game isn’t out yet! But, come Sunday, you might here some Walk This Way cranking out of my TV. I have to be honest here, I have been more the skeptical of all the rumored Guitar Hero’s - Aerosmith, Van Halen, The Beatles, Primus (ok, maybe not but that would be dope!), Rolling Stones, etc. As GH: Aerosmith gets closer to launch day, my mouth is beginning to water like it did when I knew GH3 was going to feature a wireless controller (or maybe its watering because I just ate some red licorse and I want more…dunno). So, I am ready to get my Steven Tyler on. Bring on Aerosmith, I can wait for the drums and mic until later in the year - I am ready for the Summer BBQ watching my friends slay some good ole Aerosmith songs…..

Grade: YTD

Randomness:

Check these guys out: Mario Marathon

- These guys are playing 55 straight hours of ‘Mario Games’ to raise $1500 for Child’s Play! Pretty solid. Good luck them, I hope they have plenty of liquids.

Samsung to release a TV w/ built in Xbox 360: Fake or Real?

- I am not creative enough to make that up so you’ll have to decide if Microsoft really plans to allow 3rd party electronics manufacturer to embed 360 machinery into thier products. Seems tangible.

Sony to release PS3 gamercards? See for yourself!

- Can we give the PS3 gamers out there some accomplishments/achievements? Come on now…I think its on its way, at least I hope so. Sony will come through in the end - I expect their online functionality to get a lot better with new features and new products.

Well, I don’t have much more then that right now. Keep an eye on GTA IV, its falling like a rock on the ‘What’s Everyone Playing’ charts. BF:BC has moved up to 3rd, Halo 2 in 2nd and of course COD4 is holding it all down like usual.

What’s up GS Community?  The GS ninjas continue to crank on some projects we are working on but we had some other stuff we needed to roll out in the meantime. New build pushed out last night featuring some cool new functionality and your occasional ‘easter egg’. Highlights below:

- Lost Planet Colonies Leaderboards - WHOOO!

- Lost Planet Colonies Player Profile Pages

- Metal Gear Solid 4 Clan Pages - Get in there…

That is your quick update for now. As usual, more coming soon! Also, be on the lookout for the kick off of our Guitar Hero III promotion next week (win Guitar Hero: Aerosmith) as well as our weekly newsletter.

I’ll see everyone on Live this weekend, shooting up a storm on Call of Duty 4!

I always think of Star Trek TNG when I hear the word engage, and Picard saying “Number One, Engage.”  I can hear the British accent highlighting”Engage”.  Now I can’t use the word without trying to duplicate the accent.  But I digress…

When you first pick up a game; what kind of engagement are you looking for?  What are the factors that lead to the type of engagement you expect?  I equate it to a meal.  Your expectations at Taco Bell differ then the ones at Morton’s Steak House.  It goes beyond dollars.  Just like the engagement expectations are different when you buy COD4 then when you are playing solitairre. 

Let’s discuss those engagement factors around XBLA games, mainly because this came to me as I was about to buy some of them.  I bought one of those Atari Joysticks a few years ago that you plug into your TV and has like 10 old Atari 2600 games.  My expectations were not very big, but after about 10 minutes my engagement was over and I was let down.  I put a quarter in a Galaga machine and I know what I am getting.  Here is my problem, I don’t know what kind of engagement to expect with the XBLA games.  Some are deep, some are basic and some are just bad.  I know I can read reviews and ask the GameStrata users, but I do not know what you all expect.  Maybe Bigbird wants to be engaged with a game for 3 minutes but Irishbrewed wants a 30 minute one.  Since the games have such a large range, users engagement expectations also will have a wide range.  Microsoft points also factor in right?  A 400, 800, and 1600 point game all have different expectations.  How about Multiplayer vs Non Multiplayer?  So now you have game length, points, and game modes as factors to factor into your expectations.  See how I am confused? 

Give me your engagement expectations!  Help a Team GameStrata member out!

We here at GameStrata decided it was time to freshen up the site a little and roll out some changes to the community after the long Memorial Day holiday. We’ve been cranking behind the scenes for the last couple weeks to make GameStrata a little bit easier to use and find out what your friends are doing. To that end we have split out your friend activity feed onto a separate page and added some interesting featured content. Now when you are logged in and visit the homepage at http://www.gamestrata.com/ you will see this:

Notice the expanded friend feed and the new ‘Top Games Playing’ graph. Do you think GTA IV has enough legs to stay head of the top game of 2007 CoD4?  Stay tuned…  We also added featured content sections for videos, clans, and questions:

Just in case you happen to not be logged in and you see a page looking like this below, don’t drop kick your Wii - we merely updated the regular home page to streamline some stuff. Just login like normal on the top right navigation:

Since we are at it, hell, how about some more goodness? We updated your Friend Feed on the home page so it made sense to make YOUR ACTIVITY feed present on your MyStrata page. So, from now on, your MyStrata Feed will feature all of your activity on the site (might this be a precursor to more stuff? We’ll see….):

Ok, one more screenshot and we will let you find the rest of the updates on your own. If you are a member of an Xbox 360 clan, we dropped in the Xbox Live gamerscores on your clan pages. Sexy? A bit. Hell, its almost Summer and we wanted to look hot at the beach….

Well, thats the update for now! Check your inbox for the GameStrata Weekly Newsletter this week - you never know what else might be coming around the corner soon….

The GS Ninjas
(Benimal, CDub, Innocuous + The Office Monkeys)

Bless me GameStrata for I have sinned.  It has been, hmmm, okay this is my first confession.  When I first heard about what Nintendo was up to with the Wii, I totally bashed them.  Thinking, boy they are not only desperate they are going to fail miserably.  This was a good 5 or 6 years ago and I had only heard rumors.  The 360 and PS3 were the next gen consoles that made the most sense.  The Wii was the butt of all jokes for a long time.  But then it all changed.

It was E3 2006 and I had gotten my dad a ticket for the first time.  E3 for those of you who do not know is like Disneyland for gamers, well Disneyland on speed and steroids.  We walked over to the Nintendo booth to see this so called Wii demo.  Some exec was demo’ing how you could conduct an orchestra.  It was a full virtual orchestra and he was conducting.  Not very exciting huh?  So my mind was still made up that this idea was crap.  Then I turned the corner and saw the light. 

The first thing I saw was a guy lining up a putt with the controller.  At that my dad was sold, he is a golfer.  I like golf, but don’t love it.  The next thing I saw had me hook line and sinker.  It was baseball, some guy pitching with a full wind up and one guy hitting.  I never wanted to try something so bad in my life.  The first thing I got to play was the tennis game, and it is still my favorite thing, but the baseball was fun as hell. 

dragonwarrior17 asked a question last night:  http://www.gamestrata.com/answer/show/9189-Do-you-consider-the-Wii-a-trend-or-a-real-here-to-stay-console-system  It made me think about the Wii, not the current Wii but what the Wii will look like in 10 years.  The Wii fit is really just the start.  I can see collapsible extensions like pods you sit in and drive, or fly.  I can see more sports equipment, and weapons.  I see endless possibilities, but I also see a lot of this coming for the Wii 2.  There will be a sequel to the console, it is how these console makers earn their cash.  So the Wii itself has some legs, but the Wii as a concept and a console has a wingspanthe size a million Bigbirds!