Category Archives: Oblivion

Oblivion Still in the Top 10

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I love MajorNelson’s top Xbox Live activity top ten lists. They do a great job illustrating Oblivion’s viagra-like staying power.

Here are the current top 10 played Xbox 360 games from the week of 7/30. The additional release dates in italics were added by me; bolded dates from 2006 also my emphasis.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles
1 Gears of War – 11/07/2006
2 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas – 11/21/2006
3 Guitar Hero II – 4/3/2007
4 Forza Motorsport 2 – 5/24/2007
5 Call Of Duty 3 – 11/07/2006
6 Bomberman LIVE – 07/18/2007
7 Oblivion – 03/20/2006
8 NCAA 08 – 07/17/2007
9 GRAW 2 – 03/06/2007
10 Saints Row – 8/29/2006

Oblivion is the only game on the list that has been out longer than a year and is a single player only game. That just blows my mind. To this day, tens of thousands of people play Oblivion. And these are just the ones who are logged onto Xbox Live while they play. We could conservatively add an extra 30-50% to include everyone who is not logged onto Live.

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OXM Podcast Featuring Todd Howard

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On Friday, the latest Official Xbox Magazine podcast went up featuring an interview with Todd. During the podcast Todd discusses Fallout 3, Oblivion Game of the Year and more.

To listen to the podcast, visit here or download it on iTunes…

UPDATE: In other podcasting news, PSM 3 Blog talks about Fallout 3 in their most recent podcast. You can hear what they have to say about the game about 15 minutes into the podcast. It’s a good show though, so don’t skip ahead :)

Oblivion Japan makes top 10 sales charts

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Per Media Create, here are the top 10 games sold in Japan from last week. Oblivion JP debuted at #7 on the charts – the top (and only) Xbox 360 game on the charts. Not bad for only being on sale for 3 days or so.

01. Mario Party 8 (Wii) – 265,000 / NEW
02. Everybody’s Golf 5 (PS3) – 152,000 / NEW
03. Taiko Drum Master DS (DS) – 94,000 / NEW
04. It’s A Wonderful World (DS) – 77,000 / NEW
05. Mobile Suit Gundam MS Front 0079 (Wii) – 46,000 / NEW
06. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP) – 45,000 / NEW
07. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) – 40,000 / NEW
08. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS) – 37,000 / 668,000
09. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 14 (PS2) – 34,000 / 187,000
10. Wii Sports (Wii) – 32,000 / 1,943,000

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Direct2Drive Arrives in UK

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Yesterday IGN announced that their download service for PC games, Direct2Drive, has expanded its reach to the UK. What does this mean? Well, if you’re not one for getting out to a local game shop, you can now download Oblivion and The Shivering Isles from the convenience of your home.

Visit here to start downloading if you’re across the pond from us. For those that are stateside, you’ll want to visit the original Direct2Drive site here.

Keep in mind that if you’re downloading Oblivion and/or Shivering Isles from Direct2Drive, there’s a patch available with each download that is specific to the D2D version.

Golden Joystick Nominations

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For those that don’t know, the Golden Joystick Awards is an award show out of the UK that honors the best games of the year — as voted by gamers. Last year Oblivion took home three Golden Joysticks: Best PC Game, Best Xbox Game, and Ultimate Game of the Year. Even though none of us were able to attend, it’s still very cool to win and we were all excited.

We got a five nominations this year. Fallout 3 received a nomination for the “Ones To Watch” category, Shivering Isles received two nominations (Best Xbox Game and Best PC Game), and the PS3 release of Oblivion received two nods as well (Best Playstation Game and Soundtrack of the Year).

Want your favorite game to take home a Golden Joystick on October 26? Visit here to vote.

Oblivion Fan Faction — ‘Oblivion Tales’

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Spotted some new fan fiction last night that I thought I’d point out. Over on his (and Ruzena’s) blog, Jeremy has put up what looks like the first of several works of fiction where he takes his in-game experiences in Oblivion and turns them into stories he calls ‘Oblivion Tales.’

The first entry recounts his efforts to assassinate the Countess of Anvil, Millona Umbranox (pic above grabbed from UESP). Here’s a snippit:

The birds chirping outside the window awaken me and I leave the warmth of my bed, slowly descending the stairs of the Inn. A slight nod is given to the owner of the Inn, before I step back outside. Short conversation is exchanged with the man outside, before I notice the Imperial Legion Guard coming across the bridge on horseback. Luck could not be any more on my side, this day. After saying my goodbyes to the man, I pull my shield and dart off into the woods.

Read the full entry here and check back to see what happens next in ‘Oblivion Tales.’

Inside the Vault: Christopher Krietz

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This edition of Inside the Vault features Christopher Krietz. Chris was one of our best testers on Oblivion, and is currently our QA Lead for Oblivion Game of the Year. After GOTY ships, Chris will be focusing his ninja testing powers onto Fallout 3.

Chris once won a pie for winning a three way race against Todd Howard and Jeff Browne to finish Oblivion’s main quest (during beta testing). His winning time as of the end of the final cutscene and movie: 02:12:29 (difficulty slider allowed, no console cheats).

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Interview with Akatosh Mount mod creator – Saiden Storm

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The modding community is an important part of The Elder Scrolls, especially for Morrowind and Oblivion. I am in awe of modders who are able to build amazing things on their own. Some of the talent out there is just phenomenal, and the members of the team who we’ve hired from the fan community continually exceed our expectations.

One of our designers emailed around this incredible video of the Akatosh Mount mod that lets you summon a dragon that falls from the sky. And, as if that wasn’t cool enough, it lets you get on the dragon and fly around. Very impressive. The creator of this amazing mod – Saiden Storm (AKA Kevin Tolbert) – agreed to answer some questions for us so we could find out a bit more about the mod and the modder. The way he created this mod illustrates how strong and collaborative the Elder Scrolls modding community is. You can see videos of all his mods on YouTube.

UPDATE: Updated post with a picture of Saiden. Cheers!

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Strong Sales Worldwide

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Looking at Amazon sales for Europe, the US, and Japan for last week, it looks like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion continues to be a favorite among gamers world wide. In Japan during its first week, it was the top selling Xbox 36o game.

Over in the Europe, Oblivion comes in at #5 on the Amazon’s UK sales Charts for 360 games, over a year after release.

And stateside, Oblivion on PS3 ranked #5 as well.

For all of Amazon’s sales rankings last week, check here…

Lead Level Designer Interview

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Sliver Rose Studios, a community devoted to modding for Oblivion, put up an interview with Lead Level Designer Joel Burgess. For the interview, community members on the site compiled questions for Joel to field. In the interview, among other things, Joel discusses modding, downloadable content and Bethesda office culture. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading full article ›