This Week in the Business_ 'Game Consoles are Fundamentally Doomed'

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | [[link]] “Game consoles are fundamentally doomed.”—Richard Garriott, designer of the Ultima series discussing the state of the game industry.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); QUOTE | “Xbox 360’s a must have holiday item.”—EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich says that people pepper spraying other customers over Xbox 360 shows how hugely in demand Microsoft’s console is right now. QUOTE | “Steam makes piracy a non-issue.”—Valve co-founder Gabe Newell on how Steam’s service is like DRM that customers can love STAT | 2.37 million— Number of Nintendo 3DS units sold in 8 months in the USA surpassing the number of DS units sold in the first 12 months QUOTE | “If you care about games you’re going to want a Vita.”—Michael Denny, Sony Worldwide Studios Senior VP on why the PS Vita is going to be a very important system for Sony and for gamers QUOTE | [[link]] “The Wii U consumer is going to be a different consumer.”— Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, on how Nintendo is targeting a different audience than the current Wii buyer QUOTE | “Assassin’s Creed can be carried on forever.”—Ubisoft’s SVP of Sales and Marketing talks about the advantage of the meta story around Assassin’s Creed, which lends itself to numerous possibilities. QUOTE | “Critics can be jerks, but they’re very much worth listening to.”—Scott Steinberg, CEO of video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, talking about the 5 hard lessons every game developer must learn STAT | 3—Number of key Sony PlayStation executives that have left in the last eight months STAT | 8 million—Number of units of Battlefield 3 sold worldwide since EA shipped 12 million units initially QUOTE | “It would be undesirable [[link]] to launch PS4 significantly later than the competition.”—Jim Ryan, PlayStation Europe head, on why Sony doesn’t want to give Microsoft a head start on the next generation console this time QUOTE | “PS3 sales were very strong during Black Friday weekend.”—Sony spokesperson talking about the demand for PS3 and games during the kickoff weekend for holiday sales This Week in the Business courtesy of IndustryGamers.com (Image from Shutterstock)