Crispy Gamer News

Microsoft announced Monday that Xbox 360 sales have topped 28 million units sold since the system’s launch in 2005. The company also announced that Xbox Live now has 17 million active members. Spending on Xbox Live was also up a massive 84 percent from a period a year ago. All of these numbers come ahead of the tally for December sales from NPD Group.

Microsoft also doubled its market share in Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Finally, Microsoft said that Xbox Live had the busiest week in its history during the period between Christmas and New Year’s Day, with more than 1.4 million members online at one time. Hopefully these internal numbers match up to the official numbers from NPD later this week.

(Contributors: Adam Oldakowski - Managing Director GOG.com, Hal Halpin - ECA President, Tom Ohle - CD Projekt RED, Rich Carlson - Digital Eel, Eric Holmes - Radical Entertainment, and Game Trust members Evan Narcisse, Gus Mastrapa, David Chapman and James Fudge)

Crispy Gamer wraps up its Top 21 News Stories of 2008 with our top 7 news stories. See what stories were the most interesting and had the most impact on the game industry and gamers in 2008. We start with #7 right now.  Also be sure to check out #8 - 14 and #15 - 21, if you haven’t already.

Next: #7 –>

Fallout 3 is doing pretty well on the Xbox 360 and PS3, but the game is doing particularly well on the PC charts where it has managed to land at the number one spot for the month of Oct., according to NPD Group. Fallout 3 managed to beat out Spore and a new Nancy Drew game, as well as Far Cry 2, Warhammer Online and the ever popular World of Warcraft Battle Chest. With the new world of Warcraft expansion hitting retail this month, Fallout 3 better enjoiy its time on the top of the hill..

Coming in at the number 2 spot for Oct. was Spore, followed by Nancy Drew The Haunting of Castle Malloy, Far Cry 2, and Warhammer Online. The Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition also managed to land at the number 8 spot, shoring up Bethesda’s number for the game even more. top ten after the break.

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The Xbox 360 price cut may not be helping Microsoft beat the juggernaut that is the Wii, but it is at least giving the company the power to take Sony’s PS3 to the woodshed. According to NDP sales data for the month of Oct., the Wii remained the top selling console with 803, 000 units, with the DS moving 491, 000 units. The Wii has sold more than 13 million units since its release in November of 2006. But the real story for the month was the Xbox 360 moving 371, 000 units, beating out the PlayStation 3 (190, 000), PlayStation 2 (136, 000) and even the PlayStation Portable (193, 000).

Of course, both Sony and Microsoft cannot seem to catch up with the Wii’s monthly sales, leaving both to fight over the scraps from the master’s table. That could change this holiday season, assuming consumer confidence is there in light of economic uncertainty here and aboard. Despite a down turn in other sectors in our economy, hardware sales were up a modest 5 percent to $494.7 million, from the same period a year ago.

With no real killer app to move hardware in the month for Sept. (last year it was Halo 3 for the Xbox 360), it’s no shock that the NPD hardware numbers are down from last year’s. The game industry enjoyed total sales of $1.27 billion, down from $1.35 billion from a year ago. While the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii continued to kick ass and take names, the Xbox 360 enjoyed a 78 percent increase, mainly due to the dramatic price cut as Microsoft prepares to do battle with Nintendo and Sony.

The Wii sold 687k units, the DS 536.8K, and the Xbox 360 347.2K. Full list - including year to date unit numbers - after the break. One thing to note - the PSP is beating the Xbox 360 and is just a tick away from catching up with the Wii.:

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September’s NPD retail sales numbers for the month of Sept. show that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the most popular software title for the month, raking in a combined 1,158,000 units across three platforms (Xbox 360 – 610K, Wii – 223K and PS3 – 325K). Wii Fit came in at number 2 with sales of 518K, and Rock Band 2 came in third at 363K units. Full list after the jump.

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According to NPD’s retail sales data for the week ending Sept. 13, Spore and Spore related products have taken the top spots in the North America.

Will Wright’s popular game takes three spots this week: Spore landed in the top spot, followed by the Galactic Edition of the game and Spore Creature Creator in the number 4 spot. EA continues to dominate the top ten , with 6 titles in the top ten, while Activision takes up the rest of the spots with World of Warcraft, Warcraft III and the Burning Crusade expansion. The full list after the jump:

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