Nintendo tops video game (2007)

Nintendo tops video game sales in 2007


Fueled by the success of Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Microsoft's "Halo 3," more video games were sold in the U.S. in 2007 than in any other year, with retail sales hitting $17.94 billion, according to the NPD Group.


The market researcher said total video game sales grew 43 percent, up from $12.53 billion in 2006. In December, historically the industry's strongest month, Americans spent $4.82 billion on video games, up 28 percent from a year earlier and up 83 percent from $2.63 billion in November.

Video games sold well during the holidays even as jittery consumers were cutting back spending on clothes and other items.

Hardware sales jumped 54 percent to $7.04 billion in 2007, while software sales climbed 34 percent to $8.64 billion. In December, hardware sales rose 17 percent to $1.83 billion, and software sales grew 36 percent to $2.37 billion.

"I think the industry has become much more generally accepted as a mainstream form of entertainment over the last couple of years, and that sets it up well for future expansion," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in an e-mail.

Much of this growing acceptance has been attributed to the Wii, groundbreaking when it launched in 2006 for its motion-sensitive controller that lets players mimic movements for bowling, tennis or sword-fighting.

Even so, the portable Nintendo DS was by far the year's best-selling gaming system with 8.5 million units sold, 2.5 million of them in December. In short supply all year, the Wii still sold 6.3 million units, 1.4 million of them last month.

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said the company expects to sell more Wiis this year than it did in 2007. To deal with the high demand, Nintendo raised Wii production twice since last April, the last time to 1.8 million units a month. Though the consoles are still selling out soon after they hit store shelves, Nintendo has not said it plans to boost production again.

The year's best-selling game was Microsoft Corp.'s blockbuster first-person shooter "Halo 3," which helped sell 4.6 million Xbox 360s in 2007, about 1.3 million of them in December.

Microsoft spokesman David Dennis said there have been shortages of the Xbox 360 at retailers across the U.S. The company, he added, is working on getting the consoles back on store shelves "as soon as possible."

Sony's PlayStation 3 was the only gaming system that didn't sell more than a million units in December. Nonetheless, sales have jumped since Sony slashed the console's price by $100 and launched a low-end model last fall. There were 797,600 PS3s sold during the month, and 2.6 million in 2007.

Frazier said Activision Inc.'s "Guitar Hero" games remain the industry's best-selling franchise. People spent more than $820 million on "Guitar Hero" games for various consoles in 2007.

Dennis and Fils-Aime said the U.S. economic slowdown had not hurt video games, as the industry has generally been insulated from broader downturns.

"Gaming is about having fun, spending time with friends — you want to do it whether the economy is good or bad," Dennis said.

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Top Gun (video game)
The popularity of the 1986 film Top Gun resulted in a number of licensed video games that have been released since the film's theatrical debut:

Top Gun was released in 1987 for the PC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) (with an equivalent version for Nintendo Vs. Series arcade cabinets). The Commodore and Spectrum versions were developed by Ocean while Thunder Mountain handled the PC version of the game. Konami developed the Nintendo versions.

Gameplay
The NES game
Piloting an F-14 Tomcat fighter, the player, as Top Gun's main character Maverick, has to complete four missions:

Mission 1 - Training for the next mission.
Mission 2 - Destroy an enemy aircraft carrier.
Mission 3 - Destroy an enemy base.
Mission 4 - Destroy an enemy Space Shuttle.
All four missions require the player to land on an aircraft carrier upon completion. Missions 2, 3 and 4 require the player to refuel in the middle of the mission. Mission 4 is the most surreal, involving combat with land, sea, air, and space targets.There are three missile types available to the player:

Hound (quantity: 40);
Wolf (quantity: 20);
Tiger (quantity: 10).
The Hound is the best missile for training, since there are no targets on Mission 1 strong enough to withstand it, but it is a weak choice for the other missions.

A commonly overlooked fact is that during landing sequences and refueling, the A and B buttons are used to control speed. Keeping the speed in the 280-320 knots window while following the other instructions (Left! Left!, etc.) is sufficient to bring the plane to a successful landing; however, one must keep in mind that the direction the plane is pointed in while accelerating will affect altitude. For instance, if the player accelerates while pointing the nose down, it will cause the plane to descend, not the best thing to do when the computer is urging "Up! Up!".

The game is notorious for its difficulty, especially regarding the landing of the plane. This aspect has been made popular by the Angry Video Game Nerd, who found, as shown on one of his videos, that it is virtually impossible to land the plane without crashing. Interestingly, on another video in which he showcased the NES Power Glove peripheral's poor controls on various games, he easily made the landing.


The computer game
The version for computers is a one-on-one dogfighting simulator with wireframe 3D graphics (opposed to more traditional sprite-based graphics and straightforward gameplay of the NES version). The game features a two player mode, in single player mode the other aircraft is maneuvered by the computer.


Top Gun: Fire at Will
Top Gun: Fire at Will was released for PC by MicroProse in 1996. A version for the PlayStation was released later that year by Spectrum Holobyte.

Fire at Will is notable for including full motion video cut scenes featuring James Tolkan, who played Maverick's commanding officer Hondo in the original film. The live video scenes were directed by Eli Noyes and produced by Brian Sullivan. Bill Zarchy served as Director of Photography.

Top Gun: Hornet's Nest
Top Gun: Hornet's Nest was released for PC by Atari and Zipper Interactive in 1998. It was considered to be a complete washout and received bad reviews for its noticeably lackluster design and gameplay.


Top Gun: Combat Zones
Top Gun: Combat Zones was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It was developed by the now-defunct English developer Digital Integration, and published by similarly defunct French publishers Titus Software.

It was later released for PC and Nintendo GameCube the following year.


Gameplay
The game is composed of 36 missions spread over 3 eras (distinct periods in history), intended to illustrate the history of the Top Gun combat school and its near future. In each era, missions are located both at the Top Gun academy at Miramar and in a live combat zone. Upon gaining access to each era the academy missions must be performed before moving to the combat zone itself, but whilst the former do introduce new game concepts, aircraft and weapons they are not simple training missions - players must face tough opponents and live fire to succeed.

Only the first era is accessible from the outset, and is set in South East Asia, towards the end of the Vietnam War (erroneously showing the F-14 engaging in combat with North Vietnamese forces, despite never having fired a shot in anger during that conflict). During the second era, the action is set in the Persian Gulf States circa 1990; although the game story does not make direct reference, parallels can be drawn to the real-world Gulf conflicts of that time (such as hunting for SCUD missiles and protecting oil refineries). The final era is set within the Arctic Circle and depicts a future conflict based around disputed borders and a global fuel crisis.

Top Gun DS
Top Gun for the Nintendo DS was released on February 23, 2006 in Japan and May 3rd, 2006 in North America. The game was developed by Interactive Vision, and published by Mastiff Inc in North America, and Taito on Japan.

The game lets players play through a story-driven campaign (featuring appearances by characters from the film) as well as a set of solo missions and a multiplayer mode that supports up to 4 players.[1] The bottom screen is used as a map and weapons readout. There are two control schemes offered, but there seems to be no difference between them. The game was not well received.[2]

Mobile phone gamesMobile game publisher Hands-On Mobile (formerly knows as Mforma) have published three mobile phone games based around Top Gun. The first two were top-down scrolling arcade shooters. The third game takes a different approach as a third-person perspective game, similar to Sega's After Burner games.