OMG Nintendo

It was always thought that the rarest of all of the original NES game cartridges were the gold plated ones made for the 1990 Nintendo World Championships. However, an even rarer one has surfaced and has been sold for an astounding amount.

Having a print run of only 50 cartridges, most of which were destroyed when the event ended, the Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 is a collection of segments from Super Mario Bros 3, Pin-Bot and Dr. Mario. JJGames.com, the group that is the seller of the cart, describe the goal of the game as such:

You have 6 minutes to play through this game and get as many points as possible. Once you get 50 coins on Mario 3 you move onto Pin-Bot. Then when you get 100,000 points on Pin-Bot you move onto Dr. Mario. You play the remaining time on Dr. Mario. After 6 minutes you see a "Total Score" screen with you combined score from all three games.

That may not sound too exciting to most and the appearance of the cart itself is rather sloppy looking. However, its collectors value was enough that someone was willing to buy it for $20,100.

To put this in perspective, the highest that one of the Nintendo World Championships carts sold for was $21,400. While this means it does not dethrone the current champion, this does put Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 into the same category.

Now, if it is worth it is another story entirely.

Starting right about now-ish, the Wii Internet Channel can be acquired at a reasonable price of precisely zero Wii Points. If you paid for the Internet Channel at some point over the course of the last couple of years, you won't be getting a refund. On the other hand, you will be getting a free game:

If you have previously used 500 Wii Points to download the Internet Channel, at the end of October we will be offering you the opportunity to download, at no cost, one NES game of your choice (valued at 500 Wii Points) from the Virtual Console catalog. Details of this download offer will be provided via the Wii Message Board and on Nintendo.com soon.

Fair enough, I suppose.

Looks we can dismiss all of those arguments about why The Conduit would sell better than MadWorld, because it really didn't. Probably the biggest disappointment from a month that was otherwise big news for Nintendo is much-hyped The Conduit pulling only 72,000 copies. Granted, it wasn't on sale for a terribly long time in June, but... well, clearly MadWorld's problem wasn't its M rating. A hardcore game for the 18-35 crowd with a T rating isn't doing much better.

There's good news underlying The Conduit's big disappointment (depending on your personal definition of "good"). Electronic Arts's two big Wii gambles have paid off. EA Sports Active pulled 289,000 copies to come in third place for the month while Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 sold 272,000. The top-selling game for the month, Prototype, sold 419,000 copies to give those numbers some perspective.

For those who have despaired over the lack of Mature-rated games on the Wii, take heart. Sega has not yet given up the fight and claims that they are profitable enough in the long run, to justify making more.

According to the MD of Sega’s European development team, Gary Dunn, the key may be due to the games selling better when their prices drop. When speaking of how the record-setting-for-curse-words House of the Dead: Overkill, was profitable for them, Gary explained:

"Whilst it had a rather sharp tail at full price, they do bubble away at a lower price point for a long time. You get your money back and a bit on full price, but over the years, if we do the final product return on investment, profits come from the lower price point."

Even when Mature-rated titles fail to meet sales expectations at all, such as with MadWorld, Dunn was still happy to take the risk. He also indicated that Sega is willing to take more in the future:

"You have to push boundaries and explore. I think whilst MadWorld commercially didn't sell what we were expecting I wouldn't say it's game over for mature Wii titles from Sega.

So are the keys for the success of Mature games on the Wii the willingness to experiment, combined with the patience to look at long-term sales? A lot of games are written off as failures if they do not sell at full-price in the first few weeks, but price drops exist for a reason. Perhaps, for the Wii audience, they need more time and a more affordable price, to decide giving an M-Rated game a try.

Sega's experiment in publishing hardcore games for Wii is, arguably, not working out. Both MadWorld and The House of the Dead: Overkill have already been price-dropped to $30. The question must be asked: is Sega's upcoming hardcore Wii shooter, The Conduit, heading for the same low-sales fate? 

High Voltage Software says no, and not just because they developed the game. They feel like The Conduit has something special that both Overkill and MadWorld lacked-- namely, mainstream appeal. Here's Chief Creative Officer Eric Nofsinger's take, from an interview with VideoGamer:

They’re great games [HotD and MadWorld] and I love them, however I know that they’re not accessible and they’re not the kind of titles that are going to tap into both core and mainstream [audiences].  When I say that we’re core, I mean that we have a level of detail and depth and customisation and variety that core gamers demand. When I say that we’re accessible and that we’re also aiming for the mainstream, that is why we specifically chose the art style we did, and the setting.

The bigger issue here, I'd say, is that The Conduit is rated T where Overkill and MadWorld were rated M. More big box stores and chains carry T-rated games, which means a lot more exposure to the average Wii consumer. I do think it will do better, but it'll be much later this summer before we know exactly how much better. 

I said before that the sales lift Rockstar promised alongside the DSi launch didn't happen. That said, Take Two and Rockstar saw fit to release the second month Chinatown Wars sales this week and the results are interesting. Basically, Chinatown Wars moved 74,000 copies in its second month.

That's a low figure, but it's also a figure that's only 17% down from first-month sales. It's going to be really interesting to see figures for the third month on sale, May, because if Chinatown Wars held steady like this over a period of, say, twelve months? That's a million copies right there. 

The question is if Chinatown Wars is going to hold steady or start experiencing the typical heavy drop-offs most game sales experience once they're a few months old. For April Chinatown Wars's numbers got a significant boost from both the DSi launch and a Best Buy sale that knocked the game's price down to $20. Without any lucky sales or big events in May, we could finally see its numbers start to slide into obscurity... but if we don't, then Rockstar may be on to something here.

I promised more NPD when the system-specific charts were out, so here it is! Let's start with a look at how many of those 1.04 million DSes that moved last month were DSi units. According to figures released to Ars Technica, it looks like Nintendo sold 827,000 DSis in April. Impressive performance given what a slow month April was otherwise.

In depressing news, the word from Gamasutra is that Nintendo's Excitebots crashed and burned, moving only 13,000 copies. Admittedly, Excitebots was only on sale for about a week last month, but it's still a game that deserves to do a lot better. Any Excite Truck fans out there reading this should do themselves a favor and go pick it up this weekend.

Finally, those system-specific software charts I promised you! Hit the cut to see the top 10 games for Wii and DS in April. I don't have the actual sales numbers to go with the rankings, but the top 10s still paint a pretty comprehensive picture of what people spent last month playing. The DS chart gives Chinatown Wars some love while the Wii chart is probably going to leave you depressed. 

It's another month, another set of stats, and another 17% slide in overall console sales. Nintendo came out the winner with a ridiculous 1.04 million Nintendo DSes sold, most presumably DSis, and about 340K new Wiis sold.

Wii Fit wins the software charts again with 471K units sold. Pokemon Platinum comes in second with 433K, Mario Kart w/ Wii Wheel is in third with 210K, and Wii Play w/ Wii Remote at 170K in fourth. Fifth and sixth go to other platforms and then seventh is New Super Mario Bros. with 119K. Eighth is Mario Kart DS at 112K.

Probably the biggest disappointment here is that we're not seeing the promised lift in Chinatown Wars sales. Even if that game has a very long tail, it's nothing compared to what ancient games like New Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart DS are doing. After this, don't expect a lot more in the way of M-rated projects on DS.

The system-specific lists aren't out just yet, but when they are you know we'll be posting 'em.

On the heels of its ridiculously successful year in 2008, Nintendo decided to issue lifetime, worldwide sales figures for its top first-party games. Prepare to see some numbers that depressing and others that are really, really surprising.

Wii

• Wii Sports - 45.7 million
• Wii Play - 22.9 million 
• Wii Fit - 18.2 million 
• Mario Kart Wii - 15.4 million 
• Super Smash Bros Brawl - 8.4 million 
• Super Mario Galaxy - 8 million 
• Mario Party 8 - 6.7 million
• Link’s Crossbow Training - 3.76 million
• Animal Crossing: City Folk - 3.76 million
• Wii Music - 2.65 million
• Mario Super Sluggers - 1.2 million

DS

• Nintendogs - 22.2 million units.
• New Super Mario Bros - 18.4 million
• Personal Trainer: Cooking - 18.4 million
• Brain Age - 17.4 million units
• Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - 16.8 million
• Mario Kart DS - 14.6 million
• Brain Age 2 - 13.7 million
• Animal Crossing: Wild World - 10 million
• Super Mario 64 DS - 7.5 million
• Mario Party DS - 5.8 million
• Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - 4.5 million
• Pokemon Platinum - 3.7 million
• Kirby Super Star Ultra - 2.3 million
• Pokemon Ranger - 2 million
• Rhythm Heaven - 1.9 million.
• Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village - 1.6 million

Okay, actually Layton isn't a worldwide figure, it's just for North America and Europe. In Japan the Layton games are published by Level-5.