Month: December 2017

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With days to go before his repeal of net neutrality rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai issued a press release about five small ISPs that he says were harmed by the rules. Pai "held a series of telephone calls with small Internet service providers across the country—from Oklahoma to Ohio, from Montana to Minnesota," his press release said.

On these calls, "one constant theme I heard was how Title II had slowed investment," Pai said.

But Pai's announcement offered no data to support this assertion. So advocacy group Free Press looked at the FCC's broadband deployment data for these companies and found that four of them had expanded into new territory. The fifth didn't expand into new areas but it did start offering gigabit Internet service.

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If you've been following video game news at all this year, you're probably tired of hearing stories about how the Switch is the hottest selling console since the Sliced Bread 64. With Nintendo announcing this morning that its console has sold 10 million units in under nine months—before its first holiday season is even complete, to boot—we thought we'd skip the wordy analysis and just give you some relevant numbers that put the Switch's current sales in context. As far as recent consoles go, the Switch's sales so far put it in some pretty rarified company.

(Note that for most of these comparisons with other consoles, the time period includes an entire holiday season following a mid-November launch).

• 2.74 million: Nintendo Switch units sold in its first month on store shelves (March 2017)
• 3.91 million: Worldwide shipments for the Wii U approximately 10.5 months after launch.
• 5.63 million: Worldwide shipments for the PS3 in approximately 10.5 months of availability.
• 5.9 million: Worldwide shipments for the Xbox 360 in approximately 10.5 months of availability.
• 7 million: Approximate worldwide sales for the Xbox One in its first 10.5 months of availability.
• 8 million: Nintendo's reported initial plans for Switch production for its first full fiscal year (April 2017 through March 2018)
• 8.83 million: Worldwide shipments for the Nintendo DS in approximately 10.5 months of availability.
• 10 million: Worldwide Switch sales in just under 9 months, reported today.
• 10 million: Reported lifetime sales for the TurboGrafx-16.
• 10 million: Nintendo's expectation for Switch shipments in the entire April to May fiscal year, as announced in April (about 7.75 million sales have come in that time period so far).
• 13.17 million: Worldwide shipments of the Wii in approximately 10.5 months of availability.
• 13.5 million: Worldwide sales of the PS4 in approximately 10.5 months of availability.
• 13.56 million: Total sales of the Wii U in its four-year lifespan.
• 16.7 million: Number of Switch consoles Nintendo expects to sell worldwide by the end of March, as of October.
• 14.95 million: Worldwide shipments for the PS2 approximately 8 months after its North American release (includes about 3.52 million sales from six prior months of Japanese release)
• 25 to 30 million: Reported production plans for the Nintendo Switch's next fiscal year (April 2018 through March 2019).

Enlarge / Look into the eye of the incredible Gorogoa. (credit: Jason Roberts)

After my last click of the mouse, the screen went to black, with only the word "Gorogoa" flashing. Those seven all-caps letters exploded out of the emptiness I'd just exposed by solving the final puzzle.

I nearly doubled over in my chair, overwhelmed with the emotion I felt trying to make sense of what had transpired. The game gave me some breathing room to do so, with a solemn song playing while credits rolled. After those, a single panel appeared. The game had begun again. Flipped to page one.

I describe this "ending" moment because it answers a critical concern about the puzzle game Gorogoa, which has been in development for an astonishing six years and was made almost entirely by one man, Jason Roberts. Gorogoa is, quite frankly, short. At the end of six years of development, Roberts has produced a little over two hours of gameplay.