MY sales are better than YOUR sales!

If you’re into entertainment, the United States is a great place to be. Finding it is simple enough: drive into a city, walk into any media emporium, and find movies and music from all over the world. If that’s not enough, there are thousands of games to choose from too, created by developers from numerous countries and released across a bevy of platforms. These booming industries are a shining example of our materialistic, consumer-oriented world, which means a lot of money is involved, and no one will make peaceful concessions about who’s making the most.

Take the recently released annual report from the EMA group, which states that the total sales of games, consoles, and accessories were higher than the sales for DVD movies. If you take away the hardware portion of things, DVDs take the top spot with a lead of around $7 billion. However, these numbers don’t include used game sales. 49% of GameStop’s first quarter profits came from pre-owned titles, derived from a $415 million gross. That’s only one quarter’s sales, and it doesn’t include what people picked up on eBay or at their local Blockbuster.

The industry tends to ignore used sales because that doesn’t put any money in the pockets of developers and publishers. Nonetheless, millions of consumers buy pre-owned product, both in game and movie form, although GameStop is forever broadening its used sales scope while retail movie chains are narrowing theirs. To compensate for this cutthroat competition, more new games are being released at bargain prices, and both markets are pushing to increase digital distribution sales. Despite their best efforts, a meager $5 savings is enough to persuade people into purchasing used.

We’ve all heard people say that games would have already won this war if they cost $19.99 when first released. That doesn’t account for movie theater ticket sales, but DVDs have been outselling those for years anyway. It’s taking the biggest share of the market — the home spender — into consideration, and it’s easy to believe games would’ve sold to the tune of billions more if they were that cheap. To get them there, however, developers and publishers would have to function with smaller budgets and less manpower, and their costs are only rising. They work hard only to be stabbed in the back by dipping retail prices and rising pre-owned sales.

Undoubtedly, more developers will collapse under the pressure. Budgeting challenges won’t go away, and the cheaper and unstoppable “casual industry” could overwhelm the entire market to become the true rival for DVDs. The fight for the biggest numbers overall could prove exciting for price-conscious consumers, and may be rougher on the creators of their beloved products. No one can predict what will result, and everyone hopes it isn’t going to be an endless stream of EA-branded clone games, but surely, this battle between the two entertainment industries will rage on for a long, long while.

Take Two announces a film based on last year’s trippy masterpiece.

The Internet has been abuzz with news that a BioShock film is very much in the works. Further adding to the gaming community’s collective hard-on is speculation by a Take Two exec that the movie could conceivably “be released along BioShock 3.” So for the dozen of you that didn’t get the memo, we have a newborn franchise in our midst.

Word on the street is that the project is in very capable hands, with Gore Verbinski, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, taking charge. No, the stench of Uwe Boll will not taint our beloved baby.

Be that as it may, I am not without my reservations.

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The old school MST3K crew return to ripping bad movies a new one.

Being a longtime fan of the geek humor of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and having seen every episode except their UHF trial run, I never thought these talented people could be lured back to the world of making fun of bad movies.  Yet in recent years, Mike J. Nelson started up Rifftrax, often joined by the newer voices of Tom and Crow, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, where they fill a downloadable track full of strange quips to be synced up with well known movies, both good and terrible (the movies, not the jokes).  They've also done a series of DVD releases under the Film Crew, that returns mostly to the MST3K format with host segments and truly terrible movies to poke fun of.

Now the original crew of the Satellite of Love have gotten back into the action under the optimistic label of Cinematic Titanic.  You've got your Joel "Robinson" Hodgson, "TV's" Frank Conniff, Trace "Crow with a dash of Forrester" Beaulieu, and the original smarmy voice of Tom Servo, Josh Weinstien.  Joining these originators is the always radiant Mary Jo Pehl.  Their first release has hit my mailbox in the form of the Oozing Skull, which is neither oozing nor particularly keen on skulls, aside from a few obviously fake skeletons in the closet.  It's the sort of movie that Ed Wood Jr. would have been embarrassed being associated with, even when decked out in a matching dress.  Seeing as this is a videogame related site, I wasn't going to comment on it, at least until the silhouette of Stephen Hawking rolled out during a typical mad scientist body switching scene, and delivered the following line:

"If this brain transplant works, I've got next."

If that doesn't rate a mention, I don't know what does.  So what's it like?  Well, imagine if you will one of the rock super groups like the Police or Led Zeppelin suddenly reunited long after their breakup and just started jamming together again.  None have lost their talent for off hand remarks and crazy quips, but the timing and the delivery has gotten a bit rusty, especially for those that hadn't done much of this sort of thing before.  There are no host segments.  No puppets on strings.  Instead, after a jazzy theme song they launch right into the movie, but there are occasional breaks where they pause the film for a few bizarre segments, taking advantage of their silhouette setup to throw in a few sight gags.  I still find myself wanting some bits at the beginning and the end to make it a little more than shadows razzing a bad movie, but it still brought a truckload of laughs.

So if you're curious, give a peek at their site, read a few blogs, watch the trailer, and even comment in their forum.  I hope their next release oozes along soon enough. 

In their continuing quest to dominate the HD download movie market, Microsoft has partnered with Walt Disney Studios to bring a selection of new and classic feature films to the LIVE Marketplace. The official announcement was part of Microsoft's E3 2007 Press Conference tonight. It's not just for the kiddies though. The catalog will feature titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax Films. The content is available for immediate download on LIVE. 

If your television service provider is Cablevision or Dish TV, then you might want to cancel your plans for this evening (or at least set your DVR). For the first time, the Hip Hop Gaming League Finals will be broadcast in hi-def on GAMEPLAY HD (part of the VOOM suite of channels).

Airing tonight at 8 PM EST, the Finals pit the infamous Pacman Jones (of Tennessee Titans and courtroom fame), Eric V of "The Baka Boyz", Han Cholo, and Murs battling each other in EA's NCAA Football 07 for the rights to claim the championship.

The original hi-def documentary shows the on-stage and behind-the-scenes antics of the players, including what's sure to be some pretty intense trash-talking.

Check it out!