The PlayStation 3 launched in Japan on 11 November, and the initial response to the system was odd. 81,639 systems were sold in the first two days, with 45,774 being the more expensive 60GB model, but only 66,684 games were sold – meaning almost 15,000 players went home with nothing to play, leading to speculation that many systems were being picked up by scalpers for resale online. Ridge Racer 7 narrowly beat Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight to become the most popular launch game, selling 21,654 copies. The North American launch followed on 17 November, with 197,000 consoles sold by the end of the month – just shy of half the number Sony had promised for the launch.
The Wii launched in North America on 19 November, and also faced supply issues as a million units had initially been expected to be available. Despite this, Nintendo claimed that the first-week hardware sales totalled over 600,000 units, making for its best launch ever, and The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess was unquestionably the most popular game with 454,000 copies sold. As always, import impressions from the UK press would have to wait until later.
This story is from the Issue 248 edition of Retro Gamer.
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This story is from the Issue 248 edition of Retro Gamer.
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PLAYING CO-OP
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THE MAKING OF BURNOUT 3 TAKEDOWN™
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THEY SAY THIRD TIME'S A CHARM, ALTHOUGH STREET FIGHTER III DIDN'T IGNITE FIGHTING GAMES IN THE SAME WAY AS ITS PREDECESSOR UNTIL 3RD STRIKE. MEMBERS OF THE FIGHTING GAME COMMUNITY TELL US HOW THIS COMEBACK CEMENTED ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF 2D FIGHTERS
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A NEW TURTLES BEAT-'EM-UP IS FINALLY HEADING HOME AFTER YEARS OF DELIGHTING ARCADE-GOERS WE TALK TO EUGENE JARVIS AND MARC-ANDRÉ JUTRAS TO LEARN HOW THIS THROWBACK BRAWLER CAME TO BE, AND HOW IT'S BEEN EXPANDED FOR CONSOLES
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If you’re going to adopt a common storage method across a range of computers, it makes sense to make the hardware as widely compatible as possible – and that’s just what Commodore did with the Datasette, known by the model numbers 1530 and C2N.
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AS HE TRAVELS THE HYDRA GALAXY IN HIS SHIP THE ARK, CAPTAIN BLOOD MUST TRACK DOWN AND DISINTEGRATE HIS FIVE REMAINING CLONES. TO DO SO, HE’LL HAVE TO COMMUNICATE WITH SEVERAL ALIEN SPECIES USING THE UPCOM, A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE DEVICE. UNIVERSALITY IS THE KEY CONCEPT BEHIND THIS WIDELY ACCLAIMED FRENCH CLASSIC
SUPER METROID AN ENDURING LEGACY
AS NINTENDO'S SCI-FI CLASSIC TURNS 30 WE REVISIT THE PLANET ZEBES AND SPEAK TO DEVELOPERS OF BOTH METROIDVANIAS AND ACTUAL METROID GAMES TO LEARN WHAT MAKES SAMUS ARAN'S 2D ADVENTURE SO SPECIAL
