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White Christmas? More like Green Christmas for all the console makers out there. Microsoft had a splendid November, according to the latest NPD numbers with 1.37 million units sold. That makes six months at the top, says Bloomberg. Kinect was probably a big help. The motion sensor also helped push up peripheral sales numbers. They’re up almost 70 percent over last year.

Nintendo’s also doing quite nicely with 1.27 million sold in November, coming back from a couple of slow months this fall. Sony brings up the rear with 530,000 sold. That’s down 25 percent from last year. Of course, the DS outsold them all. The new color bundles and limited edition DSi XL helped. 

As far as games go, Call of Duty: Black Ops was the best selling title. GamesIndustry says that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, or AssBro, came in right behind it at #2 for November. Somehow Wii Flt Plus is still ranking, coming in at #10.

The audio work in Alan Wake is fantastic. It’s probably one of the best aspects of the game. If you set up a good surround system it sounds like you’re actually lost in a real forest. It sounds that way because that’s where they actually recorded the game’s audio. Audio team member Peter Comley had that honor, though he sounds kind of creeped out about it, even now.

Comley, an avid hiker and nature recordist, lives in Washington, where you can find many of the actual locales the game is based on. This crazy guy took his gear and got out into the deep, dark forests at night, alone! 

“Some of the recording was done very late at night in environments very similar to the ones Alan Wake tromps through, far in the woodsy backcountry,” explained Comley in an interview with the Alan Wake sound team. “I had to keep reminding myself that there were no such things as ‘the Taken’ when I heard the sound of elk crackling through the underbrush in the moonlit darkness (or even worse, total darkness).”

He continues: “Making this game scared the daylights out of me more than once since I feel like I live where it takes place.”

The entire interview with the sound team is a great read, and is highly recommended for anyone that enjoyed Alan Wake. It sounds like the team had a blast creating the audio for this game. I’d love to be able to work on a team like this one day.

Irish comedian Dara O Briain has been a favorite of mine for a while, but this video clip of him supporting videogames as an artistic medium may have catapulted him right to the top of my love list.

In this clip, from his recent Live At The Apollo gig, O Briain comes out to the audience as a gamer and points out how silly it is that the largest entertainment medium in the world should be so shameful to enjoy. He then goes on to talk about what videogames do that no other art form does, and is as funny as usual in doing so. 

He even slagged off the Wii. This man’s hardcore!

Seriously, I urge all of you to watch the clip. It’s so rare to see a comedian actually dare to tell jokes about games, despite the fact that they’re big enough now for the jokes to resonate with an audience. Also fantastic to see the audience responding, proving that comedians should tell more game jokes.

Great clip, great comic, and great to hear a mainstream BBC audience cheer at the mention of Metal Gear Solid. This video has made my day.

BioWare have been keeping details about Dragon Age 2 close to the chest, sparking the worst kind of tortured speculation seen this side of arsenic-based life-forms: “Dragon Age 2 is a hack-and-slash” is the new “NASA found aliens on Saturn.”

In a “Making Of” video released yesterday, Mark Darrah and his team at BioWare Edmonton look to assuage some of those fears. “But because it looks faster, because it has a character with a voice, because of this historical story we were going to do, we ran the risk of people saying, ‘Oh my God. Because this is so different, I’m not sure it’s for me,’” explains lead designer Mike Laidlaw. Ye of little faith, you Doubting Thomases, consider yourselves pre-empted: BioWare know you’re anxious, but they think you’ll like it after you play it.

Which is, y’know, reasonable.

Since there are only brief glimpses of the combat in this video, I’m not going to try to parse it’s underlying mechanics. Instead, I’ll note that I really like the style of what art director Matt Goldman calls a “cartoon animatic” that showcases some of Dragon Age 2’s early concepts. (Dragon airstrike!) You might also notice that, at least in terms of marketing, we’re seeing a lot more of Hawke as a mage — it always kind of bugged me that the standard Warden was a warrior in the Origins trailers.

I’ve been around the internet long enough to know — so feel free to keep frothing at the mouth until March 8.

A moron who launched a denial-of-service attack on Call of Duty: Black Ops players has found himself in jail on charges of being a little prick. 

The 17-year-old from Manchester, England used a “Phenom Booter” program to stop other people from playing the game, which allowed him to rake in ill-gotten points at their expense. Unfortunately for him, nobody screws with Activision, and detectives soon traced the script kiddie’s IP address and systematically tracked him down.

“Online gaming is a major retail sector with millions of titles being sold in the run-up to Christmas worldwide,” says detective inspector Paul Hoare. “Programs marketed in order to disrupt the online infrastructure not only affect individual players but have commercial and reputational consequences for the companies concerned.”

The boy is currently held in custody under the Computer Misuse Act. His identity is unknown but I am going to guess he has curly hair. They always do. 

Call of Duty cyber attack prompts arrest of boy, 17 [BBC] [Image]

Yet again, Sony has boasted about the sales success of PlayStation Move while refusing to give out any appreciable sales figures. Reacting to the latest NPD figures, which detailed a 5% increase in PS3 sales and a 112% month-over-month boost, corporate communications chief Patrick Seybold is gloating, yet still remaining coy. 

The early blockbuster success of PlayStation Move has undoubtedly helped to pave the way for us as we head into 2011.  The library of hard core and social gamer titles currently on the store shelves (EyePet, Get Fit with Mel B, Gran Turismo 5, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, SingStar Dance) as well those to come (Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, LittleBigPlanet 2, Twisted Metal, Killzone 3) will only continue to solidify our place in the living room.

“In fact, the strength of Move’s technology infrastructure in allowing our developers to make already released titles Move compatible, will help broaden the net of their existing PS3 titles, bringing them to life even further with PlayStation Move. We’re pleased that consumers continue to look to PlayStation for innovative and unique entertainment experiences. As we head into the new year, with almost every PlayStation Move sku in short supply and on allocation, I think we will continue to see a steady surge of positive growth for our home entertainment offerings simply because customers looking for strong product value, quality entertainment offerings, depth in gaming and content (original programming, NetFlix, Hulu Plus, NHL, MLB), will choose PlayStation.”

Cute but I’m still not buying this hype until Sony can back it up with evidence. Microsoft can tell us how many Kinects it sold. Why can’t Sony do the same with Move? 

PlayStation Move Sees ‘Blockbuster Success,’ Will Remain in Short Supply, says Sony [Industry Gamers]

thatgamecompany’s latest endeavor is a weird little game called Journey that, like Flower, intends to bring something a little different to the PS3. The first trailer has been revealed, so check it out!

As you can expect from thatgamecompany, it all looks rather strange and pretty, with absolutely no indication as to what the gameplay is like. I happened to love Flower, however, so I’m fairly certain this is going to be another good game from a studio that manages to just about get away with being artsy fartsy. 

You can see even more on the PlayStation Blog. Looking forward to seeing more. How about you?

Looks like Electronic Arts and Criterion are looking to muck up your Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Autolog later this month with the “Super Sports” downloadable content pack.

The DLC will feature 13 all-new race and pursuit events, along with three new cars: the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, the GUMPERT Apollo S, and the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport. In case you’re not following along, these cars are crazy fast; they’ll be available as both cop and racer vehicles.

That’s the good news, and here’s the bad, depending on how you look at it: it’s not free. The content will be available on December 21 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and will run you $6.99 or 560 MS Points.

Would it be poor form for me to say “finally” again? Because it felt like this day took an eternity in coming. After months of hype over its mature themes and salacious marketing, we finally have information on how one actually plays the action portion of Persona Team’s first HD game, Catherine.

So, what will Vincent be doing in the monstrous nightmares he has? A lot of climbing, from the sounds of it. Each night, Vincent must reach the top of a stairway while being chased by horrible creatures. He can push and pull blocks to make a path upwards and certain blocks have special properties like spikes or explosives.

I’m having a hard time imagining this in a way that sounds exciting. There’s nothing wrong with the idea, far as I can tell, it just doesn’t sound terribly interesting. Maybe that will be different when I am staring at a baby with chainsaws protruding from its eye sockets as it crawls up from a pit to kill me, but I’m suddenly far less psyched for Catherine.

Catherine’s Action Part Detailed [andriasang]