AfterDawn: News

Game year 2006

The extremely interesting year of 2006 is coming to an end, and the games industry has given us a lot to smile about, but also a lot to frown about. The year was definitely the year of consoles, both home consoles and hand-helds.

2006 started off with bold estimates of 7 million PS3 shipping in the first 90 days and record-breaking DS became the fastest selling video game machine in Japan. Few weeks later the rumors around PS3 launch delays became public, as Sony announced their trouble getting hardware.



In March, the journey of PSOne ended, the production was shut down after over 100 million units sold, and the original PS3 worldwide launch was announced. Revolution changed its name to at first controversial Wii and the E3, or Electronic Entertainment Expo, was held the last time as an expo.

The end of first half of 2006 introduced us to a few innocent lawsuits, that started a boom. The second half however wasn't all about law and order, analysts predicted every single scenario that could ever happen during the next-gen console war during 2006.

"Eyes to Live", Xbox 360 Live Vision launched in September and Sony announced the disappointing European PS3 delay. In October, Nintendo reported a $459.5 million profit for the first half and Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division reported a $96 million loss for the first quarter.

Then came PS3 and Wii, both sold out, then Wii sold a few more. A total of 3,5 million Wiis sold and 1,2 million PS3s sold, and the next-gen war is just beginning.

There were also tons of great game titles released this year so I won't go into detail, but to name a few that deserve to be mentioned, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion , Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Final Fantasy XII, Wii Sports, Pro Evolution Soccer 6, Guitar Hero II, are all worth of the money.

But without further nonsense, Happy New Year 2007!

Written by: Matti Robinson @ 31 Dec 2006 1:32

• Previous article

• Wii past 3 million

• Next article

• Google to invest in Chinese P2P video company

• 13 comments

• tabletpc

  wow
  
  that make basic sense right there i said that covers the years video game hell

  31.12.2006 02:39 #1

• Moomoo2

  Yeah short and concise. What's that a picture of all the way to the right? A hard drive?

  31.12.2006 08:59 #2

• Pop_Smith

  @Moomoo2 - I am not sure if your joking with that statement or not but to answer your question the consoles are whats pictured. Going from left to right is: the 360, the PS3 (oddly white/cream in the picture, although I have only seen a black one) and finally the "hard drive" you speak of is the Wii. Although all the Wii's I have seen are white, I would love to get a black one if they are made. :P

  31.12.2006 09:12 #3

• banshee07

  .

  31.12.2006 09:22 #4

• banshee07

  yeah pop is right at a closer look it is the Wii just in a different color. and i think that when first planned the ps3 was supossed to be silver
  

  
  
  Thanks Hex for the Sig!

  31.12.2006 09:24 #5

• thecraigc

  the "black hard drive" is a wii... look -- http://media.revolutionreport.com/image/revofficial%204.jpg

  31.12.2006 09:54 #6

• CiDaemon

  They are making new wii colors; there will be black, silver, red, and blue (I think that's right).
  
  I think there are some games that should've been mentioned here that weren't, though...

  31.12.2006 14:45 #7

• borhan9

  Interesting article, i still am not convinced with the consoles but that probably because of my geography. I have to wait till ps3 comes out and we will see then :)
  
  What can i say i like my PC's. :)

  31.12.2006 20:48 #8

• sammorris

  Having been fortunate enough to have played on all three, I can honestly say we've had 3 very enjoyable new machines appear over the last year, and I think I can say with relative confidence that they will all be successful. I also agree with the statement "There were also tonnes of great game titles released this year" - but when to get round to play them???

  1.1.2007 01:57 #9

• pspjunior

  i might buy the ps3 when its all not full of bugs and stuff. cuz i heard its really messed

  1.1.2007 20:28 #10

• sammorris

  I haven't heard that, neither did I experience one when I played it briefly. Worst bug I heard was the Wii where the online update system can sometimes render the console unusable...

  2.1.2007 00:31 #11

• pspjunior

  i guess what i meant by 'bugs' was how i heard its hard to make/devolup games for the ps3. i dont kno but thats what i heard and read. i would buy the ps3 once the games are too the ps3's full pottential

  3.1.2007 20:18 #12

• sammorris

  It's true, the cell architecture makes it harder to make games for the PS3. but if games are currently only using one core and aren't very well optimised, they look amazing considering that, once games are fully optimised it will be incredible. While the 360 earnt its success off launching a year early, by the time the PS3 games are getting good, Standard 9GB Dual layer DVDs will seem a bit claustrophobic. Will Sony's Blu-ray gamble pay off? I reckon it will, you just won't see it yet.
  After all, the N64 versus Playstation all those years ago, the 64 was a nightmare to encode a game for on those cartridges, but the developers that did manage it did a fantastic job, and the console was in my book a success. Granted, it wasn't the #1, bit it was still successful.

  4.1.2007 00:28 #13