Videogame consoles are almost owned as much as computers and tablets/mobiles in U.S. homes!
Half of United States households own either a Wii, an Xbox 360, or a PlayStation 3 according to a new Nielson study! These are phenomenal numbers that prove that videogames have finally reached that threshold where it is bonafide mainstream and absolutely normal to own a videogame console.
It also shows that videogame playing is actually ON THE RISE, and not falling by any stretch of the imagination. The actual number of U.S. homes that own a modern, current-generation videogame console (Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii) actually sits at 56% which is OVER half.
Young girls play videogames more commonly now than ever before. As does the whole U.S. population.
Additionally, multiplatform gaming across several consoles is also on the rise, as the study found that 24% play on two or more gaming systems, compared to 17% last year. Videogame consoles have nearly caught up to Tablets and Computers as far as home penetration!
Mobile gaming is also huge these days, and the study found that the sector has given an explosive rise in videogame playing, and adding to the amount of time that people play games (surely socieal networking games like Facebook games also factor heavily into this). Ironically, the older age group of 23-34 year-olds prefer to play mobile games on the Android platform rather than Apple platforms.
Another interesting tidbit is that 65% of gaming consoles are still located in the living room as opposed to bedrooms (mine are in the bedroom…) and that online shopping for videogames has risen dramatically, causing other retail sectors for videogame sales to decline. Additionally, a huge number of people use their videogame consoles to do something other than play games, with 33% using their gaming machine to almost exclusively stream video on the Wii particularly (15% each for Xbox 360 and PS3).
Family’s playing Wii has likely increased household game playing.
Very, very interesting numbers overall. It’s crazy to think that videogames have finally broken the 50% of households barrier, that is a number higher than the amount of US households that own surround sound… And these numbers will only increase as my generation becomes the parental generation, a process that has already started.
Awesome Clocktower art with the release date for Immortal, the May 29th new album from For Today.
Fearless by For Today is their new song off their upcoming album “Immortal”, which releases on May 29th, 2012 on Razor and Tie Records!
For Today Fearless Lyrics Video:
I am super psyched for this upcoming album. For Today is one of those highly passionate Christian metal bands that speaks the truth with conviction and a word that can’t be mistaken, as they’re faith is strong and impenetrable.
As such, this new album is sure to impress. I have been following For Today in recent times, although the only album I own from them is Portraits, which wasn’t a favorite of mine. Like with “August Burns Red”, its taken a few albums for me to really get into For Today, but I believe that this will be THE album that will be their breakthrough for me and turn me into a major fan.
I definitely plan to pick up their older material as well. Can’t wait! :D
For Today was formed in 2005, and released their Indie EP entitled “Your Moment, Your Life, Your Time” in 2006. They were then signed to Facedown Records, where they released three albums. Their debut major-label album Ekklesia was released in 2008. A year later, their Sophomore effort Portraits dropped in 2010. Finally, the next year saw the release of their previous album, Breaker in 2009. For their new album, “Immortal”, the band signed with secular label “Razor & Tie” and the new album hits stores on May 29th!
Newt Gingrich ends 2012 Republican Presidential Candidacy in this speech.
As many of you already know, Republican Presidential Candidate and “Last Conservative Standing” Newt Gingrich has officially bowed out of the tumultuous Republican race for the Republican Presidential Nomination of 2012.
Along with his departing of the race, he officially endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican Nomination, and pledged to continue working hard and fighting hard for the Conservative and Christian ideals that made this country the great “shining city on a hill” that it is. As well as doing everything he can to elect Mitt Romney as President and secure Republican and Conservative members at all levels of government.
On the Romney issue, he talked about how he is often asked if “Mitt Romney is Conservative enough?” He went on to explain, “Compared to President Obama?!” and stated that the Conservativeness of Romney compared to Obama is WIDER than the gulf between Ronald Reagen and Jimmy Carter during the 1980s before Reagen was elected President in a landslide defeat for the religious Democrat.
As an active citizen, Newt will continue to work on the intellectually sound and challenging ideas that attracted me to his Presidency in the first place. To this day, I still believe that Newt Gringich was the right man we needed for the job… and I believe his losing of the race is a lose for the American people as a whole. For all of his flaws, the man had the big ideas and willingness to challenge and force REAL CHANGE that we needed in today’s stalled political system.
My only hope is that Newt Gingrich will be given a second chance and a real chance to affect real and sustainable change in a Romney Presidential cabinet, assuming Mitt Romney can defeat President Barack Obama in the November 2012 elections this year (which I am confident he will).
If so, I hope that Romney will consider Newt for a high and powerful position in his new cabinet. Can you imagine how much change we’d see if we had a Secretary of State Newt? Or if Newt was installed to lead this country to full production of domestic energy resources?
Here is Newt Gingrich’s final speech as a 2012 Republican for the Presidential Nomination.
If you have never listened to Newt before or even given the man the slightest of chances, I urge you to watch this video all the way through (just be warned that he gives tons and tons of thank you’s before diving into the substance of his speech). I hope that you will see the brilliance that this man brings and the ideas that we need to act on NOW if we are to save America. And I am confident that Mitt Romney will make the smart choice and adopt many of Newt’s ideas. As well as ones that were abandoned by President Obama, like the President’s own Debt Commission and its recommendations.
Among the many great ideas include a return to prominence in outer space exploration and research (his “moon colony” remark got him in trouble, but as he says, the point was real. And Google founders and billionaires are already drawing up plans to literally mine an asteroid…), fundamentally changing Social Security and economic reform to generate wealth (and give people new-found freedom), he speaks on the importance of regenerative medicine and brain research, the importance of hightech technology and accelerating research and development, reforming unemployment benefits to tie them to learning a trade, reforming how our schools work and how kids are educated and taught work ethics, reforming the way colleges work in America and fundamentally restoring the stalled government bureaucracy that saturates us, and a whole range of other issues.
Now the real work begins…
…… Some MAJOR players endorsed Newt Gingrich, people I respect a whole lot. Including Chuck Norris, Hermain Cain, Rick Perry, Fred Thompson, Michael Reagen, and J.C. Watts among others.
The new survival-based gameplay and story of Tomb Raider 2013 looks absolutely stunning.
Tomb Raider 2012 was one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, although it is now “Tomb Raider 2013” as delays have hit the project hard, pushing it back until a release sometime in the first quarter or early next year. The official name of the game is simply “Tomb Raider”, in keeping with the reimagining of the series.
This is a very sad fact for the Crystal Dynamics-developed, Square Enix published reboot of the franchise, a videogame that promises to rebirth heroine Lara Croft in a very dramatic way; remaking her as a much more realistic, conservatively proportioned, young girl who gets dragged into a hellish situation where she must literally fight, and rely on her reflexes and wit, to survive.
As you can see the gameplay of Tomb Raider 2013 looks fantastic.
As you can see in this trailer from last year’s E3 2011, Tomb Raider 2012 was looking absolutely incredible, and already seemed like a finished product way back then. The delay should definitely allow Crystal Dynamics enough time however to turn it from an amazing game into a super-polished, must-buy, incredible experience befitting of the queen of gaming.
Here is the trailer that blew our socks off and shot the new Lara Croft into the stratosphere of anticipation.
And that anticipation only grew as Lara Croft graced the cover of Game Informer magazine, and then made a huge splash at E3 2011 in playable form. The gameplay, as you will see below, just looks absolutely brilliant.
Here is what the developers had to say about this sad turn of events. Although we’ll be happy campers come next year!
“When Crystal Dynamics first set out to reboot the Tomb Raider franchise, there were two goals that we were extremely passionate about. The first was to create a modern Tomb Raider game that would surprise and excite gamers. The second was to make this the best game of our careers, something we would be really proud to be a part of. We truly believe that we have something very special on our hands and we can’t wait to share it with you.
Our priority now is to make sure we fully deliver the very highest quality game. In order to do this, we have decided to move the game’s release date by a few months, from Fall 2012 to the first quarter of 2013.
We’re doing things that are completely new to Tomb Raider in this game and the additional development time will allow us to put the finishing touches into the game and polish it to a level that you deserve. We believe this is the right choice and I guarantee it will be worth the wait. The game is looking amazing and we can’t wait to show it to everyone at E3 in a few weeks.”
So look forward to seeing much more new footage of the game in a mere month as E3 2012 approaches! (June 5–7)
Expect some horror-like thrills as you fight to survive in early 2013 in the Tomb Raider reboot.
New 12 Stones song Infected is a headbanger that can hang with the best of them, and offers some absolutely fantastic lyrics.
The song also goes well with the whole zombie-apocalypse hysteria that has gripped the entertainment world recently, with many calling for “Infected” to be used in an episode of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” zombie TV show series.
Infected though also returns 12 Stones to a lyrical style that is more intune with their Christian roots, which will come as a pleasant surprise for longtime listeners of the band, who went in a more mainstream direction since their debut self-titled album in 2002.
12 Stones and their new “Beneath the Scars” album will be released on May 22nd, 2012 on the EMG label, and marks the bands 4th full-length album since their 2002 debut. Which is crazy, seems like they had more albums than that. Their debut self-titled album dropped in 2002, with their Sophomore effort, Potter’s Field, hitting in 2004 and their previous album, Anthem for the Underdog, dropping in 2007.
The CG artwork for Diablo 3 is absolutely phenomenal.
Diablo III, the highly anticipated, long-awaited modern entry in the hack-and-slash RPG series, has finally hit store shelves. The release date was May 15, 2012.
Diablo 3 succeeds Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, classic epics that gamers have long known and loved. The first game was released way back in 1996, with the latter hitting in 2000.
Even today the Diablo name is spoken with reverence, and people continue to play and love Blizzard’s genre-defining loot-dropping, dungeon-crawling action RPGs to a degree that few games ever obtain.
That leads us to the first modern entry in the series, and a game that has been in development for a very long four years. What can players expect from Diablo III? Find out in this “What Is Diablo 3?” documentary, which breaks down the game and what it offers.
Here is the debut trailer that enraptured players with the promise of epic gameplay to come, with a stunning cinematic Computer Generated trailer.
Along with this extended version.
Here are several commercials advertising Diablo III’s release.
Diablo III: It’s Not Safe TV Spot
Diablo III: End of Days Commercial
Sadly, I never got around to playing the original two Diablo games. I still plan on doing it, and sometime soon. Either way, Diablo III looks absolutely epic. And I can’t wait to play the game.
Sadly the Diablo 3 launch has been fraught with errors, lots of people having a hard time logging into the game. Hopefully Blizzard will get it all fixed soon.
“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” – Gandhi
This is a powerful quote because it reveals the strength of the human spirit even during the most intense times of despair. Additionally, it reveals the fact that our thoughts and our human spirit are intangibles… no one can take them away from us but by death, and no one but God knows what is truly going on inside of someone’s mind.
Isn’t that infinitely interesting to think about?
Here is a very interesting, actual video of Gandhi actually speaking on video!
Additionally, here is an audio speech given by him; regarding God and Gandhi’s concept of God.
The most successful film of all time, 3D or otherwise, is without a doubt, Avatar by James Cameron.
What are the best-selling highest-grossing 3D movies of all time at the box office? In the vain of the last two posts, I thought I’d answer that question with a list of the highest-grossing 3-D films of all time… this is post-Avatar, which is the movie that really kicked off the 3D revolution as we now know it. (Previously 3D movies appeared as early as the 1950s, and had another spurt in the 1980s.)
During the 3D revolution post-Avatar, studios started pumping out 3D movies like it was going out of style, and even editing 2D movies in post-production to make them into stereoscopic 3D movies. With this came a 40% increase in ticket pricing at box office cinemas and movie theaters, and a flooding stream of subpar 3D movies… just as movie theaters the world over had 3D projectors installed to cash-in on the new phenomenon (which actually led to the branding of “3D” and “2D” versions of films… something that seems surreal coming from a gamers perspective).
Of course, these studios jumped the gun, and over-saturated the 3D market. Combined with high ticket-sales, 3D films have continued to cost a ton of money and ended up bombing at the box office. One of the biggest flops was Disney’s recent “Mars Needs Moms”, which cost upwards of $175 Million Dollars to create… it completely bombed at the box office, making only $7 million during its opening weekend. It was headed up by Robert Zemeckis, who is considered a pioneer in the realm of 3D films along with James Cameron, someone dedicated to the craft.
Sadly his career took a huge backseat due to the flopping of Mars Needs Moms, which caused Disney to close his digital film studio, ImageMovers Digital, as well as cancel his next project, which was to be his planned 3D version of 1968 Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine… sadly, as always, the ones who have their reigns on the money are unable to see beyond the fact that entertainment releases are self-contained, I think a Yellow Submarine remake would’ve fared much better than “Mars Needs Moms”, just because the latter sounds so strange and is unfamiliar to people…
Anyway, to the list!
What Are the Most Successful 3D Movies of All Time?
1. Avatar (2009) Cost: $500 Million; Gross: $2.8 Billion
James Cameron’s epic burst onto the 3D scene and blew the doors off the joint, proving how successful 3D could be and pioneering the art. Avatar is an epic not likely to ever be topped. It sits on the throne as the highest-grossing film of all time, 3D or 2D. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Avatar 2 or Avatar 3 will top it…
2. Alice in Wonderland (2010) Cost: $200 Million; Gross: $1.02 Billion
Tim Burton’s remake of Disney’s classic tale. This film ranks #10 in the highest grossing films of all time, 3D or otherwise.
3. Despicable Me (2010) Cost: $69 Million; Gross: $528 Million
Chris Renaud’s animated film became a huge hit.
4. Toy Story 3 (2010) Cost: $200 Million; Gross: $1.06 Billion
Pixar’s Oscar-winning animated film and the third in the award-winning, critically acclaimed, beloved Toy Story franchise starring voice actors Tom Hanks (as gun-slinging puppet Woody) and Tim Allen (as space-fighting action-figure Buzz Lightyear), directed by Lee Unkrich. Making Toy Story 3 the highest-grossing Animated Film of all time, and #7 on the list of the highest-grossing movies of all time (2D or 3D).
5. Up (2009)
Cost: 175$ Million; Gross: $731 Million
Another Pixar/Disney animated favorite directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson.
6. Shrek Forever After (2010) Cost: $165 Million; Gross: $750 Million
The final movie in the Shrek franchise starring voice actors Mike Myers (as the green-skinned ogre Shrek), Eddie Murphy (as Donkey), Antonio Banderas (as Puss-In-Boots) and Cameron Diaz (as Princess Fiona). Directed by Mike Mitchell.
7. How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Cost: $165 Million. Gross: $495 Million
A critically-acclaimed, Oscar-nominated hit-smash Animated film directed by Dean DuBlois & Chris Sanders.
8. Monsters vs Aliens (2010) Cost: $175 Million; Gross: $382 Million
Rob Letterman-directed animated feature about the war between monsters and aliens.
It’s very interesting to note the obvious, the vast majority of 3D film successes have been animated… I wonder why that is?
I guess it these movies have to appeal to kids or a wide, wide, WIDE audience to find success as a 3D film. I think adults are much more hesitant to go see a 3D film because of the high-cost, a cost parents are willing to pay for their kids, but not for themselves. And kids themselves are more willing to pay money to see a 3D film since they don’t have to work for their hard-earned for the most part. Thus cost is less of an issue with animated, kid-friendly films.
Why DO YOU think most of the successful 3D films (with only two acceptations) are animated?
Do you agree that the reason live-action 3D films are less successful is due to the high cost?
So I thought I’d put together two Top 10 lists that will answer your burning questions that are frequently asked and wondered about. Enjoy!
What Are the Highest-Grossing Movies Ever Worldwide? (aka “The Billion Dollar Club Top 10”)
#1. Avatar ($2,782.3 Billion)
#2. Titanic ($2183.4 Billion)
#3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($1,328.1 Billion)
#4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1,123.7 Billion)
#5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1,119.9 Billion)
#6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($1,066.2 Billion)
#7. Toy Story 3 ($1,063.2 Billion)
#8. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($1,043.9 Billion)
#9. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace ($1,026.3 Billion)
#10. 2010’s Alice In Wonderland ($1,024.3 Billion)
#11 The Dark Knight ($1001.9 Billion)
What Are the Highest Grossing U.S. Movies of All Time? (Adjusted for Inflation):
1. Gone With the Wind ($1,600.2 Million)
2. Star Wars ($1,410.7 Million)
3. The Sound of Music ($1,127.9 Million)
4. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial ($1,123.4 Million)
5. Titanic ($1,074.1 Million)
6. The Ten Commandments ($1,037.5 Million)
7. Jaws ($1,014.3 Million)
8. Doctor Zhivago ($983.1 Million)
9. The Exorcist ($875.9 Million)
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ($863.3 Million)
Watch Us Play Games 