Today today, the AIAS revealed the first fruit of the collaboration, setting out the names of its nominees for the annual IAA Awards, which will be held on December 12th. Topping the list of this year's nods is Sony's PlayStation-exclusive Little Big Planet, which received critical praise from P2Pah upon its release in October. The AIAS has awarded the sandbox-based game 10 nominations in categories that range across Family Game of the Year to WOW WoTLK Classic Gold Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, to overall Game of the Year.
Little Big Planet will face fierce competition to win this award. AIAS' Game of the Year Award. Other candidates for the award are Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3. Rockstar Games' World of Warcraft and Valve's World of Warcraft, and Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4. Other multiple-award winners are Epic's Gears of War 2 (9) as well as Valve's World of Warcraft (8) as well as Bethesda's Fallout 3 (8), Konami's MGS4 (7) along with the Lionhead's Fable II (6).
They will be handed out in conjunction with the AIAS annual DICE Summit on February 19 at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. Similar to the IAAs last year comic Jay Mohr will emcee the eventfor the fourth time doing so.
The most significant story to emerge from The NPD Group's December review of the retail sales for games across the US was the record-breaking sales of Nintendo's Wii and DS which sold a total of 3.6 million units in November. However, the report also showed increased interest in handheld and console games. Due to the strong launch of the Microsoft's Gears of War 2 and Activision's World of Warcraft, sales in this category increased 11% from year to year.
The NPD Group segments off its desktop software sales from its handheld and console report, this amount doesn't take into account one of the biggest games this year, Blizzard entertainment's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The week before, NPD also revealed sales ratings for PC games for November, and it's no surprise that Lich King and its collector's edition got the first and second slots.According to NPD analyst Anaita Frzier on WoTLK Gold the day, Wrath of the Lich King was sold over 1.4 million units in its first month. This is just one portion of the game's opening-day global numbers that Activision Blizzard pegged at 2.8 million within a few hours of the WOW expansion's launch. At the end of October, Blizzard tainment announced that its massively popular massively multiplayer online game had breached the 11-million-subscriber mark.