Since week 40 (3rd October), PS3 climbed to nearly 3 million sales in Europe, according to the information. Wii and Xbox 360 sales area almost exactly on 2 million.

“Looking at the cumulative sales transition from the beginning of the year, the sales of PS3 are exceeding those of last year,” noted Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata. “But Wii’s sales showed a year-on-year loss. Xbox 360 is selling well in the US, but the transition is nearly the same as last year in Europe.”

The data was apparently gathered through independent sources, and continue to confirm the belief that Nintendo fills a gap where Xbox dominates America while PS3 dominates Europe.

No doubt he’s morto…

The stink of “we’re too cool for the room” as wave after wave of Kinect announcement was made spoiled what could have been a very decent showing from Microsoft. But then again, that’s wishful thinking for the company that brought us the “paid cheering crowd behind the stage” bit.

So what was announced? Well, first off a mistaken post on the Xbox website announced Halo 4 early (it was soon taken down), which was a huge spoiler for the moment at the end of the conference where Microsoft was hoping to have its “one more thing” moment. The trailer was good, but didn’t show much else other then “Master Chief is back”…

The show opened with a lengthy, and rather impressive on-stage demo of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. As we now know, it’s set in various modern cities that are being torn apart by global conflict. Expect some nuclear sabotage and English men with impressive facial hair.

…then there was Tomb Raider. A new look Lara Croft appears in an all new title and the boys from Eidos came on stage to give a demo.

A moment that would truly excite me, and I’m sure many, many others is that moment when you know Mass Effect is coming. An on-stage demo of the third iteration of the game confirmed that it would support Kinect gestures – a theme that would set the tone for a lot of the conference.

Yves Guillement from Ubisoft came on stage, and continued the trend of talking up Kinect. Tom Clancy games in future will make full use of Kinect, but no word of any games that exclusively use Kinect to control the game.

New features coming to your 360 includes a new dashboard menu that will include Xbox Music, a way to listen to songs from “the cloud”. It will also be interestingly connected to Kinect by making use of voice commands. Furthermore, Bing is coming to the 360 to have search that uses voice commands. They also reckon your Xbox will be the “new way of watching television”, but didn’t really elaborate on that claim too much. Not yet, anyway.

UFC was shown with Dana White, which was followed by more beefy looking characters – Gears of War 3. Ice T came on stage to play a co-op game with Cliffy B.

Ryse is going to be a Kinect game by Crytek, which is an interesting development (and again, they managed to get a ‘y’ into a word). It looks like a hack-and-slash type game set in ye olden times.

It’s hard to follow anything Crytek do because it’s always going to be interesting, big and bold. Here though, Microsoft went with Halo. Not a new one… kind of. It’ll be a remake of the original to celebrate 10 years of the game.

Then came Forza 4, which will be hard game for them to release in the wake of GT5…

Typically Peter Molyneux came on stage to talk about Fable. That’s all I’m willing to write…

Then came the barrage of mainly-douchy demos of Kinect games. Disney ones, dancey ones – each filled with more goosebumps then the last one. Muppet execs with glasses, “cool sexy” people dancing and that awkward moment when a kid plays a game on stage with “Dad”. This was Microsoft pitching their console to kids and mums, but failing to ignite excitement in their core audience for a good 30 minutes. They did exactly the opposite of Apple today, because while they were sending chills down my spine, Steve Jobs and co. were on their own stage, pandering to their crowd – the way it should be.

And then Halo 4. The conference didn’t reveal any new hardware but that was to be expected. Check back for more recaps and conjecture on the other conferences…

DVD.co.uk are offering select titles on all consoles for 2 for £25 and 2 for £30, while handheld games are 2 for £18 and 2 for £30. They are also offering  up to 70% off select titles on all platforms. The gmaes most worth of mention are Left 4 Dead 2 for £12, The Witcher Enhanced Edition for £12 and Bad Company 2 for  £14.

PS3 2 for £25 list can be found here. PS3 2 for £30 can be found here. PS3 deals can befound here.

XBox 2 for £25 can be found here. XBox 2 for £30 can be found here. XBox  deals can be found here.

Wii 2 for £25 can be found here. Wii 2 for £30 can be found here. Wii deals can be found here.

DS 2 for £18 can be found here. DS 2 for £30 can be found here. DS deals can be found here.

PSP 2 for £18 can be found here. PSP deals can be found here.

PC deals can be found here.

Gamestop.ie are offering the Multi-Threat armour and a Halo Reach hoodie when you purchase the Halo Reach Standard Edition, online only. Get a free Mario Wii Skin with any Wii Mario game you purchase or you can get a free Gamestop NDS bundle pack if you purchase any Mario game for the DS. Get a free copy of Sports Champions when you purchase the Playstation Move, online only. Preorder FIFA 11 for €25 if you buy a 3PAY mobile phone.

CD WOW currently have a sale of up to 85% off select titles. List can be found here. They also have games for sale on clearance, list can be found here.

GAME.co.uk’s weekly sale can be found here.

Smyths.ie are having a weekly sale. Sale can be found here. Enter this competition while on their site to win a voucher for €250 to spend on your gaming goodies. (ROI only)

Argos.ie are having a clearance sale on some games and older models of current gen consoles. List available here.

Xtravision are offering a free copy of Scarface on dvd and the Vegas DLC when you purchase Mafia II (PS3 & 360 only). Also if you preorder Halo: Reach, you get 800 MS Points, downloadable Spartan Recon Helment, Variant and UA Multi-Threat Mjolnir Mark VI Armour. Deals only available instores and not online.

Game.ie are offering free one month dvd rental with any purchase.

Mighty Ape’s New Zealand store are having a large sale on 336 games. List of games can be found here.

Mighty Ape Australia are also having a large sale on 500 games. List can be found here.

Play.com are offering up to 20% off all console bundles and up to 15% off of all preorders. Up to 50% off their Hot Picks of the week.

Gamesnash.ie are currently having a sale on select titles. List can be found here.

HMV are having a sale on over 200 games. List can be found here.

Rollercoaster Tycoon  3 Deluxe is currently 30% off at gamesload.ie.

Direct 2 Drive are offering 75% off 2 different games every day until the end of the month.

Steams mid-week sale can be found here.

Youda Safari is currently 50% off at Boonty.

Impulse are having a sale of up to 50% off  select titles. List of available games can be found here.

GamersGate are having a sale of up to 60% off  select titles. List of games available can be found here.

Purchase an Intel Solid-State Drive and get a free Ubisoft PC game worth up to $49.99.

Mighty Ape are having a large sale on over 300 games. List of games can be found here. Loki for $19.99 is an absolute bargain. The New Zealand $ is worth roughly half that of the €, so you’ll get some good bargains there.

Mighty Ape Australia are also having a large sale on over 400 games. List can be found here.

CD WOW currently have a sale of up to 85% off select titles. List can be found here. They also have games for sale on clearance, list can be found here.

GAME.co.uk’s weekly sale can be found here. Some excellent deals to be found on all platforms.

Smyths.ie are having a weekly sale. Sale can be found here. A Nintendo DS Lite + Nintendogs for €99.99.

Argos.ie are having a clearance sale on some games and older models of current gen consoles. List available here.

Xtravision are offering a free copy of Scarface on dvd and the Vegas DLC when you purchase Mafia II (PS3 & 360 only). Also if you preorder Halo: Reach, you get 800 MS Points, downloadable Spartan Recon Helment, Variant and UA Multi-Threat Mjolnir Mark VI Armour. Deals only available instores and not online.

GamersGate are having a sale of up to 75% off of 22 select titles. List of games available can be found here.

Impulse are having a 50% off sale on select titles. List of available games can be found here.

Go-Go Gourmet is currently 50% off at Boonty.

Steams mid-week sale can be found here.

Preorder RUSE at Direct2Drive US Store and you get 2 free Challenge Maps and 10% off your next Ubisoft purchase (at D2D).

Preorder Civilization V at Direct2Drive UK Store and you get the 1st DLC for free and a free copy of Civilization III.

Preorder Red Faction Armageddon to get a free glow in the dark Red Faction Armageddon t-shirt. Preorder WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 to get a free Smackdown vs RAW t-shirt. Applies only to the Xbox 360 versions of the game. Available through THQ’s online store. (North America only I believe)

Game.ie are offering free one month dvd rental with any purchase.

Play.com are offering up to 15% off of all preorders. Up to 50% off their Hot Picks of the week. List can be found here.

Napoleon Total War is currently 20% off at gamesload.ie.

DVD.co.uk are offering select titles on all platforms for 2 for £25 and 2 for £30. They are also offering  up to 70% off select titles on all platforms.

PS3 2 for £25 list can be found here. PS3 2 for £30 can be found here. PS3 deals can befound here.

XBox 2 for £25 can be found here. XBox 2 for £30 can be found here. XBox  deals can be found here.

Wii 2 for £25 can be found here. Wii 2 for £30 can be found here. Wii deals can be found here.

DS 2 for £18 can be found here. DS 2 for £30 can be found here. DS deals can be found here.

PSP 2 for £18 can be found here. PSP deals can be found here.

PC deals can be found here.

HMV are having a sale on over 200 games. List can be found here.

Gamesnash.ie are currently having a sale on select titles. List can be found here.

“With both Mass Effect titles launching first on Xbox 360 combined with the wealth of available paid downloadable content on Xbox Live today, Xbox 360 remains the best place to experience the Mass Effect franchise, and the original Mass Effect is absolutely an Xbox 360 exclusive, making Xbox 360 the only place to get the full Mass Effect experience”

In total, counting the number exclusives lost by each platform, the 360 is the platform that has gained most out of this generation. However part of those numbers are simply down to the sheer number of exclusives Sony had in the last generation with the PS2. Rumours of MGS being on the 360 have been around for years, and in fact MGS2 went to the Xbox – but failed at the tills. Mass Effect, arguably as important to Microsoft as MGS is to Sony, is known as a 360 game – so it going to the the rival platform is a big enough deal.

With Bungie now a third party with Activision, undoubtedly working on multi-platform titles regardless of what press fodder employees might “sneak” out, Microsoft is now vying for attention of developers. Their tactic of buying developers (an old MS trick) isn’t working if their biggest purchase ends up leaving. Sony’s tactic is to develop long term relationships with development studios, which gives studios money to develop titles while giving them freedom to go off and work on new IP, or even work on other consoles if they see fit. A tactic that has, in the past worked.

Valve, a company run by former Microsoft employees, has said Portal 2 on PS3 will be the “best console version” which is a huge blow to the behemoth that is Microsoft. Even the Behemoth are bringing Castle Crashers to PSN – and that was a staple for XBLA multiplayer titles. A shining example of how much fun can be gotten from XBL.

Is the 360 in trouble? Probably not. It means that people who own one console will probably stick to it as the generation gets more flattened by big publishers forcing developers to publish on multiple platforms. The key is who’s slim pickings for exclusives are better? Halo versus Killzone, Forza versus GT will always be there, but now the spurious exclusives like Ratchet, Resistance and so on are more important then ever. Mass Effect was the same idea for Microsoft – a AAA title not made by MS, owned by MS but still as important as first party content.

Momentum certainly is with the PS3, with price drops and more interesting games coming its way it’s the platform with all of the focus right now – but that’s not to say Microsoft have nothing up their sleeves. They do, of course, have Halo.

It came out on 360 in the states last week and is due out for the PS3/360 in Japan on the 11th March. No indication of whether there will be a Europe release or not.

Compare the trailers and see what you think, I’m leaning a bit towards the first one, it would have also not looked as technically bad if they released it 3 years ago!

TGS 2007 Trailer 

Well someone has got in early and tried to do a comparison using some string and an abacus and the results seem to indicate that the 360 version is only running at 576i.

We have all heard that the game comes on 3 discs and that the CG will be compressed and the audio will be compressed but Square have always been adamant that the game will be near identical, no suprise really as fans of the series will not want to be playing the latest edition via the inferior choice.

Here are the 2 comparison shots see what you think? (probably too small to see on here so hit the jump to see full size)

PS3 version

X360 version

See larger versions here.

For me the 360 version doesn’t seem to look far off a decent PS2 game! but perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised there are a few 360 games that aren’t true 720p, e.g. Halo 3, PGR and Tomb Raider

GTA 3 brought in third person, 3D graphics

First up is the seminal Grand Theft Auto series. A series that popped its ugly head in the 90′s with a top-down 2D graphics style crime simulation gameplay mechanic. In 1999 GTA2 was released in the same style, leaving many pining after a full 3D experience within the living, breathing world that featured radio stations and gang loyalties.

Well, in 2001, exclusively on the PS2 (remember that?) GTA III was released. A fully 3D realisation of Liberty City, a faux NYC style city. You starred as a mute character running around the city doing errands based around crime, corruption and the trendy new drug, Spunk. For the first time the game was in a 3rd-person perspective, featuring an array of cars, characters, weapons and even radio stations, produced by the now famous Lazlow…

Based on the same engine, a year later Rockstar released probably the most loved in the franchise, Vice City. Based in a Miami style city, the game featured beaches, sun and a disco. What set it apart from every game since is the fact that it was set in the 80s, making Flock of Seagulls cool… again. Not only that, but for the first time in a GTA game, your character spoke. Instead of playing a mute that simply annotates and gestures when someone shouts abuse at you, your character spoke back. Usually foul-mouthed, it added a huge amount of eh, spunk, to the dialog. Not only that, but the voice actor they hired for the job was none other then Ray Liotta. The story was basically Scarface, but with far more humour.

The colourful streets of Vice City were a fan fave

In 2004 GTA moved forward again, to the setting of 1992. It also moved to California. Not one city in California though. No, a huge open world with no loading times featuring 3 unique cities based on San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In between each city featured amazing dusty desert terrain and back-wood forrestry, all with fun things to find inside. Controversy follows GTA wherever it goes, but this time the issues turned up to eleven, as R* decided to go all trendy and feature a black lead character and a lot of rap music. It also introduced a new system much like an RPG game would, where you need to go eat, drink and work out at the gym as well as dress appropriately based on missions.

On the PSP, Liberty City and Vice City both returned in the “..stories” series of games, featuring a lot of the cast we already knew and loved, but in handheld formats. They didn’t necessarily bring anything new to the party, but the fact that you can drive around Vice City on a device no bigger then most phones .

GTA IV was ultra realistic

For the first time ever, a GTA game launched simultaneously on both the Playstation and Xbox, bringing in the new generation of games consoles with GTA IV. A return to Liberty City which looked a lot more like NYC then GTA3 did brought about a new style and engine to the game. While radio stations were still funny, the story line wasn’t nearly as comedic and the city was far more realistic – a fact that has been bemoaned by fans widely. The story follows an eastern European immigrant and is more true to life then fiction. This time the game didn’t innovate too much, rather it ties up concepts from the previous games nicely. On top of that, three expansions are to be released exclusively for the Xbox following release. The first two releases were Lost & The Damned, which follows a biker gang, and The Ballad of Gay Tony, which rejuvenates some of that old GTA comic strip style humour. GTA IV also featured drunk driving and more realistic sense of violence, which drew attention to disbarred US attorney and gaming hater Jack Thompson. Of course the attention was more likely to spur on more sales then actually hurt the title…

Copy-cat titles have cropped up this decade too. Some of these include The Getaway, True Crime and Saints Row. None of which have come anywhere close to creating the same sense of a real city environment.

So in a decade of decadence and riches in Ireland, we can look back and know that the gaming world was with us, giving us comic and violent crimes to commit from the comfort of our armchairs. Undoubtedly Rockstar are working on the next iteration of the franchise. Let’s hope we go back to the 80s, eh?

On top of all of this madness, people found ways to pirate games for the Wii and 360. Sony executives are likely to be looking more smug then ever upon reading this list.

PC games chart:

1 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
2 The Sims 3
3 Prototype
4 Need For Speed Shift
5 Street Fighter IV

Wii chart:

1 New Super Mario Bros.
2 Punch-Out!!
3 Wii Sports Resort
4 The House of the Dead: Overkill
5 Mario Power Tennis

360 Chart:
1 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
2 Street Fighter IV
3 Prototype
4 Dirt 2
5 UFC 2009 Undisputed

Probably not all that surprisingly, the PC clocked in far more downloads then the console platforms, with MW2 alone getting around 4 million downloads compared to the 1 million on the 360. That 4 million downloads figure doubles 2008′s most download title, which was Spore.

[Source]