Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?

Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold three million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just four million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same timeframe, a number that’s down by roughly a third from original expectations.

The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales.

(MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday)

You can look at this any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there’s no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: It was the world’s first fully motion-control-driven game system — a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who’d never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history.

The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though even lacking the Wii’s novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony’s imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo’s just mining Apple territory with the Wii U’s tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: With its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn’t be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo’s original dual-screen DS — a handheld that predated Apple’s tablet by six years.

Another explanation for the Wii U’s slow start could be pricing. The Wii U hardly seems a bargain by Nintendo’s own standards. The GameCube sold for $ 200 at rollout in 2001 (no pack-in), while the Wii cost $ 250 at launch and included a game. The Wii U, by comparison, starts at $ 300 for the stripped down model sans game, then jumps $ 50 if you want a decent amount of storage and something to play — a pack-in (Nintendoland) that frankly lacks the distinctive “so that’s what all the hype’s about” flair of Wii Sports.

But let’s cut to the chase: Whither mobile gaming? Isn’t the Wii U’s sluggish start because, well, hello smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The data we have on this is inconclusive and potentially misleading.

According to NPD research, of the roughly 212 million people playing games in the United States last year, mobile gamers only slightly outranked core gamers. The number of core gamers shrank slightly in 2012 (NPD attributes this in part to the extra-long life cycle of the current consoles) while the number of mobile gamers was up a tick, it’s true. But how many people bought a Wii U because they needed a phone? An Xbox 360 to sync with their computer’s day-planner? Conversely, how many people bought a smartphone or tablet because all they wanted was to play games like Angry Birds or Temple Run 2?

(MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens)

How many mobile gamers are buying souped up phones or tablets just to play games, in other words? Anyone? Or is the mobile gaming angle more of a perk, like the Philips head or mini-scissors in a Swiss Army Knife?

I’m not saying mobile gaming isn’t big — because it is. But just as sales of a game like Wii Sports were deceptively high because you couldn’t not buy it when picking up a Wii, talking about the prevalence of mobile gaming in a pre-fab market gets tricky. Is playing games on phones or tablets siphoning gamers from PCs and consoles? It’s impossible to say at this point because we lack the data.

Nintendo can’t be all things to all people any more than Apple’s been to gamers with its iPhone or iPad. If I want to play a game like Ni No Kuni or Guild Wars 2 or Devil May Cry, I wouldn’t look to my smartphone or tablet. Likewise, I have no interest in playing stuff like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja or Cut the Rope – the same old increasingly tiresome mobile top-sellers for years — on a console or PC. I don’t want to sell the mobile/tablet gaming market short, not with titles like Battle of the Bulge and Radiant Defense or others like Space Hulk, Shadowrun Returns and Warhammer Quest on the horizon, but concluding that the Wii U or 3DS’s slightly-lower-than-expected sales can be attributed to a shift in gamer tastes — from core to mobile/tablet gaming — oversimplifies things in my view.

What we may be looking at in these reduced Nintendo sales numbers — and what I’d expect to continue to see with the launch of new systems from Microsoft and Sony — is segmentation of a market that experienced a kind of cross-demographic boom in the mid-to-late 2000s. Before iPhones and iPads, casual gamers had the PC. The Wii was essentially a way to bring that sort of gamer into the living room. But we’d be torturing indulgence to claim the shift that occurred after 2006 was tantamount to a conversion. Casual gamers, if you’ll pardon that label, are by definition uncommitted gamers. And with buyers already spending considerably more for something like the iPad (and considerably less on that platform for games), would it be such a surprise to find a much pickier audience for a system like the Wii U in 2013 than existed in 2006?

I have no idea what sorts of devices the kind of more core-oriented games I like to play are going to live on a decade from now. All it’d take, for instance, is for Apple to flip a few switches and double down on gaming to shake up the market in ways that could make what happened with the Wii seem tame. But that won’t mean the demise of traditional gamers any more than the rise of touchscreens entails the downfall of deterministic interfaces like keyboards, mice and gamepads. Core gamers aren’t this tiny minority on the verge of extinction, after all.

Far from it, in fact: Revenue contributions from core gamers still outpace all others, reports NPD, which calls the core gaming demographic “vital to the future of the industry.” From a financial standpoint, in other words, whatever the reasons for the Wii U’s lower-than-expected sales, the ball remains clearly in core gaming’s court.

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After the crash, Manhattan home prices still sky high

Even after the economic crash, you still can’t afford to buy a home in Manhattan.

The average sale price of apartments of all types soared 66 percent in the past decade, from $850,340 in 2003 to $1,417,080 last year, a new Douglas Elliman study found.

It was actually worse back in 2008 when the economy was tanking — and the average sales price was just under $1.6 million.

The average rose a paltry 0.7 percent last year but get ready for a jump because there’s so little housing on the market.

“Inventory is at or near record lows in most neighborhoods,” said analyst Jonathan Miller, who prepared the report. “It’s a national phenomenon as tight credit continues to keep sellers, who don’t qualify as buyers, from listing their properties.”

Lois Weiss

Condos in Battery Park City went up 10.7 percent per square foot last year.

As a result, the listing inventory plunged 34.2 percent to the lowest level in 12 years.

“The upward pressure on housing prices starts now,” Miller said.

Average prices for condos and co-ops are 12 percent from the 2008 peak. And townhouses are down a stunning 25 percent.

Bust since 2009 the Manjattan real estate market has become much less volatile.

The number of sales increased by a modest 3.4 percent to 10,508 last year, compared with 10,161 in 2011, 10,060 in 2010 — and only 7,430 in 2009.

“For the past three years Manhattan has shown remarkable stability in terms of sales and prices, making it one of the best performing housing markets in the US,” Miller, of Miller Samuel Inc., said/

But there’s a lot of fluctuation from neighborhood to neighborhood in sales prices, the study found.

For example, condos in Battery Park City went up 10.7 percent per square foot last year and co-cops in Greenwich Village soared 9.8 percent.

But co-ops in Lincoln Center fell 10.1 percent per square foot, thanks to an addition of new units. Co-ops on East End Avenue dropped 18 percent.

“We often think of Manhattan as a single market when in fact it is a collection of different neighborhoods and price points that have behaved differently over the decade,” Miller said.

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Cruise industry group announces additional expansion, marketing initiatives

The newly expanded Cruise Lines International Association on Wednesday announced even more global growth as well as fresh promotional tools.

At a press conference in New York City, Christine Duffy, the trade group’s president and CEO, said the number of people who cruised globally last year is estimated at 20.3 million. That number is expected to reach almost 21 million in 2013.

Duffy said CLIA has launched a new YouTube channel called Cruise Industry TV, which focuses on new destinations, ships, tips about cruising and other information about the industry. It is not open for consumers to post videos.

The association has also started a public relations campaign called Cruise Forward, which has a presence on Facebook. The goal is to highlight positive cruise line initiatives, including innovations to help protect the environment, investment in port infrastructures and destinations, charitable activities and the economic impact of cruising.

“We think that this is a very important and exciting way to tell the story of this global industry and its commitment and the work it does in communities that we serve,” Duffy said.

In a separate announcement on Wednesday, CLIA announced the addition of a new cruise group in Europe. In mid-December, the association said it would merge with other industry groups around the world to become one giant organization. The Dutch Cruise Council, with 16 member lines, recently agreed to join and will be called CLIA Netherlands. The association is also developing a German cruise council to be called CLIA Germany and councils in Italy and Spain.

The expanded CLIA now has 55 member cruise lines, more than twice as many as the 26 it represented in 2012. The latest, European operator Tauck River Cruises, joined earlier this month.

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South Miami police supplier hires chief's son

The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics said last week that the South Miami Police Department can continue to purchase equipment from Lou’s Police Distributors, a company that recently hired the police chief’s son.

“The son has no direct or indirect financial ownership in the company and will not be involved in the local contract, or profit from it,” the commission on ethics said in a press release.

Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro had asked for the opinion.

The opinion comes at time when a majority of the commission wants Martinez de Castro out of a job. The chief has a case pending with the commission on ethics, after investigators reported finding evidence there were a few transactions involving the police department and his wife’s business. Also, Mayor Philip Stoddard has been accusing the chief of breaking state rules when he signed off on a $9,998 gun repair expense that used state forfeiture funds to pay for gun repairs at Lou’s Police Distributors.

Stoddard said that the police department broke Florida rules of use, because the purchase was an operating expense and it was not part of an “extraordinary” program.

Meanwhile, the chief’s eldest son, Christopher Martinez de Castro, is the new vice president of international sales at Lou’s Police Distributors, which has been a South Miami supplier for about two years, has contracts with many departments in Miami-Dade County and also sells weapons and tactical equipment in Central and South America.

“It’s an entirely different department. Where the city will piggyback on a bigger contract to get a better deal, I work with clients from around the world,” the chief’s son said. “I have nothing to do with sales to South Miami – absolutely nothing. It is just being brought up because they [commissioners] want to attack him.”

Stoddard and his supporters have been poring over public records related to the chief’s use of public funds. Most recently, Stoddard threatened to file a lawsuit against the city, after Maj. Ana Baixauli refused to release records related to ongoing criminal investigations, which are exempt from the state’s public records law.

Commissioners have accused the chief of abusing his position to target those who oppose him, after two commissioners’ friends were arrested — including Commissioner Bob Welsh’s friend who was a homeless Canadian undocumented migrant with a criminal record.

Commissioner Walter Harris said Martinez de Castro has continued to show a special interest in cases involving politicians’ friends and family. The chief has said that his officers have only been doing their job when the politicians’ friends and family have broken the law, because “any special treatment” would mean breaking the law.

On Jan. 5, Harris’ wife, Eda Sagi Harris, who has been active in South Miami politics for years, damaged a parked silver Honda Odyssey while backing out of a parking space at the Dadeland Station Mall garage in Southeast Miami-Dade. She was driving the commissioner’s blue Toyota Corolla and told police that she “scratched” the car but left the scene, because she didn’t “hit it.”

Several cars from Miami-Dade police and South Miami police showed up at her home, after surveillance video identified her. Miami-Dade police cited her for “leaving the scene of an accident,” which is a misdemeanor. The police reports referred to the incident as a hit-and-run and estimated the “minor” damage at $500.

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RIM faces its day of reckoning with BlackBerry 10 launch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The innovative line of BlackBerry smartphones that Research In Motion Ltd will formally unveil on Wednesday has already succeeded on one crucial count – getting RIM back in the conversation.

The new BlackBerry 10 has created a buzz among technology watchers and financial analysts, thanks to nifty features that may set it apart in an overcrowded smartphone market. RIM stock has almost tripled over the past four months on hopes the devices can restore RIM to sustained prosperity.

Reviewers like the browser speed and the intuitive keyboard on RIM’s new touchscreen. A feature called BlackBerry Balance, which keeps corporate and personal data separate, could help RIM rebuild its traditional base of big business customers.

It’s a welcome start for RIM, the smartphone pioneer that has teetered on the brink of irrelevance. But success will come only if consumer and business customers embrace the new technology in the weeks and months after CEO Thorsten Heins takes the wraps off the phone at a glitzy New York launch.

RIM is gambling its survival on the much-delayed BlackBerry 10, hoping to claw its way back into an industry now dominated by Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s Galaxy.

The timing may be just right. The new phone hits the market just as the iPhone’s remarkable run is showing some signs of slowing.

“I really do believe that the consumer market as a whole is ready for something new,” said Kevin Burden, head of mobility at Strategy Analytics, an industry consulting firm.

“I have to believe that there is some level of user fatigue that plays into the longevity of some of these platforms,” he added, referring to Google Inc’s Android and Apple’s iOS, which are both more than five years old. “RIM is probably timing it right.”

U.S. BATTLEGROUND

To be sure, RIM shares are about 90 percent below a 2008 peak near $ 150 a share and the company still has a tough fight ahead. It may take investors some time to determine whether RIM’s big gamble on an untested technology has paid off.

RIM’s market share collapsed in the three years ahead of the launch. Strategy Analytics data shows RIM’s global share of the smartphone market was about 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter, down from around 20 percent just three years ago.

While RIM has done well in developing markets, it has hemorrhaged customers in the United States, a market that sets technology trends. RIM’s fourth-quarter North American market share fell to 2 percent from more than 40 percent three years ago.

Acknowledging that it is crucial to win back U.S. customers, RIM will hold its main BlackBerry 10 launch in New York, although there are simultaneous events in six cities across the globe.

Underscoring the point, RIM is splurging on a costly Super Bowl ad to tout its new devices and attempt to brighten its faded image in the U.S. market.

BIG QUESTIONS

Over 150 carriers already have tested the new devices and RIM has said the launch will be the largest ever global rollout of a new platform.

The two big questions the market expects RIM to answer on Wednesday are when the phones – a full touch-screen device and one with a traditional physical keyboard – will hit store shelves, and how much they will cost.

The company is expected to unveil specifics on pricing and availability in different regions at the launch.

“The Street is expecting mid-February for a launch. Anything earlier than that is a positive, anything later will be viewed as negative,” said RBC Dominion Securities analyst Paul Treiber.

That said, there are few mysteries to be cleared up on Wednesday. Leaked photos and specifications of the devices have been splashed across the tech world.

“We’ve had the beta devices for a few weeks and in terms of the devices, they are right up there with the competition,” said Andy Ambrozic, head of IT Infrastructure at Ricoh Canada. “The Balance feature is crucial for corporations that are becoming increasingly concerned about data security.”

Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou feels RIM has a good chance of a comeback. He says the new BB10 operating system outpaces Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s market-leading Android system in every category except app selection and content.

“There is, we believe, huge potential for the platform and devices to bring people back to BlackBerry or draw entirely new users into the platform,” said Papageorgiou, who has a “sector outperform” rating on the stock.

BlackBerry 10 will not be able to compete on the number of apps, but RIM says its operating system will have the largest application library for any new platform at launch, with more than 70,000 apps available.

It has already gathered big-name music and video partners for its BlackBerry 10 storefront, including Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, Universal Music and Warner Music Group.

Wireless carriers already report strong demand for the new devices. Rogers Communications Inc, Canada’s top wireless carrier and the first globally to take pre-orders for the new devices, said orders are already in the thousands.

“Our customers are excited,” said John Boynton, Rogers’ head of marketing, adding that some users are holding off on upgrades in anticipation of the BB10 launch.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty, Janet Guttsman and Andre Grenon)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Phil on the Manti Hoax Perpetrator

ET sat down exclusively with Dr. Phil to discuss his interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the mastermind behind the Manti Te'o dating hoax.

RELATED: Te'o Breaks His Silence About 'Fake' Girlfriend

Dr. Phil believes that for Tuiasosopo, "This was a deep, romantic connection that was two-way between Ronaiah and Manti and between Manti and Ronaiah with the understanding that Manti did not know this was a man."

For more, tune in to ET tonight. Check your local listings.

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Long Island huband and wife in murder-suicide; man was upset about her social life & killed her

A Long Island man upset about his lawyer wife’s new social life after she lost weight fatally shot her in their bedroom yesterday — then turned the gun on himself, family members said.

Police identified the Elmont couple as Karen Rodgers Dennis, 46 – a mother of three grown children -- and her husband, Audley Dennis, 58, who worked in shipping.

“Basically, she was really enjoying her life at the time and it didn’t sit too pretty with him,” said Karen’s brother, Ken Rodgers. “She was going out with the girls and friends.”

Neighbors said the pair was often heard arguing -- and suspected the reason was Karen’s stunning new figure.

“Maybe there was jealousy. She looked great. She was going out a lot,” said neighbor Simone Dolabaille, 35.

She did not have words as kind for Audley, whom she called “generally unpleasant.”

“He would kick stuff into my driveway. He would never say good morning or goodnight,” Dolabaille said.

Ken Rogers said his sister wasn’t cheating on her husband.

“It was mostly girls nights out,” he said. “Maybe he saw his world just breaking up in front of him and he couldn’t take it.”

Nassau County Det. Sgt. James Skopek said Karen was found shot several times in the upper torso in her bedroom. Audley was found dead of a shotgun blast to the chest.

“They had their altercations. They would argue and yell, have outbursts. They would just be cursing. They argued about money. It would turn into something stupid about stuff for the house, groceries,” said 19-yr-old Dejon Nemorin, who is pals with Aidan – one of the couple’s sons.

They have three children: Aidan, 16, Aaron, 19 and Maya, 21. The 19-year-old son attends Villanova on a soccer scholarship an the 21-year-old goes to Williams College.

Police said they had been called to the home for domestic violence issues over the years, but said the most recent call was five years ago.

“We don’t know what provoked it,” Skopek said of the shooting.

On her Facebook page, Karen, an attorney, can be seen flaunting her new figure and received several encouraging compliments about her recent weight loss.

"You go girl!!" posted Sonya Rogers-Blyden.

"You look great. Keep up the good work. I am working myself also. I lost 49 lbs in in months, dropped 4 dress size, working on 5. God Bless, elaine," wrote Elaine A Johnson.

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Jackson Health System board approves union deal by 4-2 vote

After a testy discussion, the board of the Jackson Health System approved by a vote of 4-2 a global agreement intended to resolve several major tensions between management and SEIU Local 1991.

The deal now goes to the Miami-Dade Board of County of Commissioners for final approval.

The agreement, reached earlier this month, means management will stop exploring outsourcing physician and some other services in the Jackson Memorial adult ER., but might still explore getting outsiders to provide pediatric services at Jackson Memorial as well as all ER services at Jackson North and South.

Other parts of the agreement involved Jackson nurses’ shift schedules and leave time. Some nurses who had been reduced to part-time will get their full-time status back.

At its Monday board meeting, Chair Marcos Lapciuc called the deal “fair and balanced” that resolved many problems, including formal union grievances and a federal lawsuit filed by SEIU.

“I’m really troubled,” said board member Michael Bileca, a healthcare executive and a Republican legislator. He said he wished that concessions to the union were based on Jackson’s performance. He’s troubled that the system still has only 12 days of cash on hand and “pent-up capital demands.”

Bileca feared that a feeling is “starting to creep in ... [that] we have arrived, we can revisit things, we can take our foot off the gas.”

Stephen Nuell, a board member and attorney, said he was concerned about some legal aspects of the settlement. He and Bileca voted no.

Lapciuc, Joaquin del Cueto, Darryl Sharpton and Mojdeh L. Khaghan voted yes.

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Fleeing purse-snatching suspect crashes, dies in Hollywood intersection

A suspect in a purse-snatching died Monday when he crashed his getaway car into several vehicles as he fled from police.

The suspect, whose name has not been released, died on the scene, his car mangled in the violent crash.

“At the time of the accident, the suspect was fleeing police,’’ said Hollywood Sgt. Lester “Gene” Cochenour. It’s unclear how fast the suspect or the officers were traveling at the time.

The four-vehicle accident occurred at around 4 p.m. at the intersection of Taft Street and Park Road, police said.

The fleeing suspect apparently blew a red light and slammed into several cars in the intersection, flipping over a white van and sparking a vehicle fire.

The incident began on Johnson Street where police said the suspect allegedly snatched a woman’s purse, jumped in the Impala and fled with his female passenger. The purse-snatching victim was not seriously injured.

A be-on-the-look out for the Impala was issued and a police cruiser spotted the car near Interstate 95 and began following the suspect, who threw the purse and then its contents out of the window as he sped away from the police unit, Cochenour said.

At the intersection, the driver apparently took the red light and caused the violent crash.

The driver of the van became trapped and a female office had to break a rear window to pull the trapped driver out as vehicles began to smoke.

The officer suffered an arm injury and was treated at the scene.

The van driver and the suspect’s female passenger were both transported to local hospitals.

This article will be updated as more information is available.

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What the ‘Bqhatevwr’ Did Scott Brown Tweet?

What do politicians do after losing their re-election bids? Take to Twitter, of course. Former Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts has been doing just that.

Brown has been tweeting about his everyday life post-politics, posting blurbs about house chores, football, and his family, but Brown’s tweets are somewhat less refined than those tweeted by his skilled staffers when he was serving in Congress.

On his verified Twitter account on Friday morning, the former senator tweeted about seeing his daughter, Ayla perform at Pejamajo Café in Holliston.

“Yes. Get ready.” The tweet read, but without the finesse of Brown’s tweeting staff, one of his followers misunderstood the message.

“Oh we are. You have no idea how ready #MaPoli is to vote to keep you in the private sector & out of #MASen” @MattinSomerville tweeted back.

Brown responded with a series of three tweets delivered after midnight.

“Your brilliant Matt,” he first tweeted.

“Whatever,” followed.

And finally Brown tweeted, “Bqhatevwr.”

Though he deleted his tweets, “Bqhatevwr” trended on Twitter nearly as quickly as #eastwooding.

The trending typo drew both bipartisan support and mockery. Some taunted the former senator for his late night slip-up, creating Internet memes and “Bqhatevwr” quips, while others defended Brown, saying that he is just an average Joe who committed a typical Twitter faux pas.

But what most Twitter enthusiast failed to recognize what that Brown’s first “Your brilliant” tweet was grammatically incorrect, too.

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