Via MacRumours, I got this data from Apple’s quarterly financial conference call:

– Macs shipped: 1,254,000 (20% growth over 2005 Q1)
— 587,000 iBooks and Powerbooks shipped
— 667,000 desktop systems shipped
– iPods shipped: 14,043,000 (207% growth over 2005 Q1)
– Revenue: $5.75 billion, 40% from international sales ($3.49 billion in 2005 Q1)
– Music: 59% of total revenue
– Net quarterly profit: $565 million ($295 million in 2005 Q1)
– Retail profits were $90 million.
– Gross margin: 27.2% (28.5% in 2005 Q1)

Note that music is 59% of Apple’s revenue, and tripled year over year, whereas their Mac computer sales grew a mere 20%. Apple would have loved the latter figure 3 years ago – now it’s just ‘meh’.

So Apple’s music revenues are about one and a half times their computer revenues.

Apple is no longer a niche computer company with an interesting sideline music play.

They’re a dominant music industry titan with an interesting sideline in computers.

From IGN

Top 10 games on XBox 360 Live Arcade (Microsoft’s downloadable, sorta casual, on-line game service for XBox 360)

1. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
2. Gauntlet
3. Smash TV
4. Bejeweled II
5. Zuma
6. Bankshot Billiards
7. Outpost Kaloki
8. Mutant Storm Reloaded
9. Joust
10. Wik: Fable of Souls

Thanks to PJay for passing on the link.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between designing on paper and just trying to code up quick proto-designs.

Last Friday, I was excited about a game idea that was sort of a WordSlinger/Scrabble variant, but where the emphasis was trying to connect point A to point B.

On Monday, I decided it worked better with colored squares rather than words, and I coded up a quick prototype.

By Tuesday morning, I wasn’t happy with it – seemed boring, but seeing the color matched tiles gave me a different idea, which seemed brilliant at the time.

By Wednesday morning, I had that idea working – it seemed promising, if rough around the edges.

By last night, I had the edges smoothed a bit, and suddenly, seeing the game really ‘work’, it didn’t seem so fun or cool anymore.

But it did spark an idea for a different game mechanic, which in turn, may or may not work.

It’s a lot easier when you start with a proven game mechanic, and tweak it, rather than try to find an altogether new mechanic that’s fun. Bonnie’s Bookstore started as a fundamentally new word game mechanic, but when that proved boring, I switched it to being an improved twist on the proven Bookworm paradigm.

Still, I’d like to find a new, fun mechanic if possible. We’ll see where I end up.

[Edit – There is a newer post on this same topic here, with data through 2007]

Not really surprising, but retail PC game sales had another terrible year – off 14% in 2005.

It’s actually more bleak than that – the 14% fall is on top of big falls almost every year since the peak year in 1999. In absolute dollars, the decline has been 44%. When you adjust for inflation, the decline is at 57%.

This data only reflects traditional, brick and mortar PC game sales in the U.S. Of course, console game sales have been much better, and the two strongest segments of PC gaming – MMORPGs and casual game downloads, are omitted from this data. But if you’re looking for traditional shrink-wrap PC games like The Sims, Age of Empires and the like, you’ll still find the heavy-hitters, but almost all the games outside the top 10 have had disastrous sales, and you’ll see very few AAA PC-only games in the years ahead.

Note, sales data in the charts are compiled from a variety of IDSA and related press-releases, and compiled (except for the 2005 figure) by Rob Merritt here.

The web version of Bonnie’s Bookstore has just been released. Now you can play it directly in your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox), no download necessary.

Play it here.

Or try the downloadable version.

The web version has smaller graphics and less levels, but it loads fast and you can play it as long as you want.

The downloadable version has 50 levels, rich graphics and music, a bigger dictionary, more types of tiles, and various other goodies. And you can try it for 60 minutes, but then you’ve got to cough up $19.95 if you want to keep playing.