New York rounds out the top spot for buyer location at 19%, quickly followed by Indiana at 13%, New Jersey at 11%, Massachusetts stands with 9%, Ohio at 6% and the other 45 states combined set at 42%. The average paid parking price for the big game is a bit of a hefty one standing solidly at $156; up 16 dollars from last year.

The Super Bowl will be held at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium this year and upon receiving the news, the town erupted into action preparing for the forthcoming battle. Many of the residents of Indy will be able to direct traffic, monitor parking and even help work security. Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium is home to the Colts football team, who had quite a disappointing season in 2011, losing nearly all their games and a few members of their coaching staff. Regardless of the past, Indy is ready to embrace the 2012 Super Bowl with open arms. The game is expected to bring the city thousands of tourists and visitors, which in turn is expected to give the city millions of dollars in revenue.

The big day is close; February 5th, who do you think will win the Super Bowl? Are you a Giants fan or a Patriots loyalist? Let us know in the comments section

But according to one analyst, the year isn’t just going to be good for Apple – it’s going to be spectacular.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu told All Things D that we should prepare for massive iPad shipments this year:

We believe this significant refresh will likely help drive higher iPad sales and help further differentiate from arguably the only real competitor in the market, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and not to mention the myriad of Android offerings out there. We are currently modeling 48 million iPad shipments for calendar 2012.

He went on to say that 48 million was actually a conservative estimate.

Of course the “significant refresh” that Wu refers to is the release of the much-anticipated iPad 3, which is expected to happen sometime in the early part of this year.

The latest rumors have suggested a possible March release for the device. That rumor was corroborated by different rumors of an official announcement from Apple set for late February.

Other rumors detailing specs of the iPad 3 have emerged as of late. Last week, we heard that the tablet could have graphics that are 20 times more powerful than the iPad 2. The iPad 3 is also expected to have a faster processor and run on next-gen (LTE) wireless networks. It could also be receiving a major camera upgrade.

Considering the success of the iPad 2, one can only imagine how well an iPad 3 with these kinds of specs would perform.

That’s exactly what happened to Icon Games, a London-based developer, when they published their sales numbers across the iOS, WiiWare and PSP Minis/PSN platforms. They received a take-down notice from Nintendo for their WiiWare sales figures.

The company outlines several reasons why this is such a damaging policy. Not only do game publishers rely on sales data to determine the release schedule of titles, they also use this data to determine whether or not a title is worth releasing. If an indie developer isn’t allowed to share this information with potential publishers, they lose out on lucrative publishing deals that provide a lot of capital to these developers.

The company also says that this policy effectively bars them from receiving private investments from banks or other financial firms. No bank or investor is going to want to put money into a product that can’t be proven as a success through prior sales data.

The most damaging of all is of course the actual jobs that are at stake. The company makes a point to say that they can’t accurately forecast the future for their company and their employees without this sales data.

This is on top of the long-standing policy of the WiiWare service that games can’t be put on sale or offer promotions to drum up sales for titles on the service.

This isn’t to say that the WiiWare service is evil and needs to go. WiiWare, like the PSN and Steam, offers a great digital delivery service free of the need for developers to go through publishers to get their product to consumers. PSN and Steam, however, let developers who self-publish show their sales data. Why doesn’t Nintendo afford those who develop for their platform that same luxury? What does Nintendo have to hide?

As more services, including gaming, move to digital delivery services, these kind of issues are going to become more important. Nintendo has traditionally been behind every other major publisher when it comes to digital content, but this is an area that they especially need to improve. It’s not just about sales data, Nintendo’s WiiWare and online service as a whole is too restrictive for developers and the gamers who play their games.

UPDATE: In an email to WebProNews, Richard Hill-Whittall, director at Icon Games, had a few things to say on the matter.

We asked if other developers had run into this problem before and Richard said:

“Yes, I have spoken to several other developers since this began and the story is the same for all – they don’t try to release sales figures because they are worried about Nintendo and the NDA. I don’t know of any specific examples of data being released before and Nintendo asking for it to be removed, but then I have never seen any actual sales numbers ever for any of the Nintendo-Ware services.”

We also asked why they think Nintendo doesn’t let indie developers publish sales data when it’s an obvious win-win for both sides:

“Nintendo themselves killed developer interest in WiiWare – making it as hard as possible for developers every step of the way. If they had been reasonable with the way they operated the service, and treated developers as partners rather than a resource I think the WiiWare service would have been a massive success. I read on a forum today something that I thought summed it up well – ‘the thing that’s hurting Nintendo the most is Nintendo’.”

We finally asked if Icon Games had future plans to work with Nintendo or if they were going to start some kind of petition to change Nintendo’s mind on the subject:

“I like the Nintendo brand, and they have produced some amazing systems over the years, but I wouldn’t want to self-publish on a Nintendo platform again unless they modernise the way they work with developers! I am sure they don’t want to work with us now either.

A petition is a great idea actually, I must admit I hadn’t thought beyond the here and now with this. Yeah, I’m up for that – to see what other developers think.”

According to Nintendo, they have sold more than 4 million 3DS units since its launch in early 2011. What’s even more impressive about this feat is how it matches up with Nintendo’s prior hardware successes. The 3DS wins out when you compare its first 9 months with the first 9 months of the insanely popular Wii.

In 2011, Nintendo sold over 4.5 millions Wiis and 3.4 million more of the DS family. This puts the total 2011 hardware sales at over 12 million, a feat that they have accomplished for five straight years.

“One of the strongest software lineups in our history helped Nintendo have a great holiday season and to close 2011 with a full head of steam,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Not only have the new Mario and Zelda titles already broken records, but with strong reviews and satisfied customers sharing their positive experiences, all three are also shaping up to be the latest long-tail titles from Nintendo. Couple that with a massive first- and third party lineup in the first part of the year and the prospects for 2012 are extremely promising.”

The holiday 3DS sales were bolstered by games like Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, which became the first two 3DS titles to sell over 1 million units in the U.S.

As far as the Wii goes, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword ended up as the 45th Wii game to sell 1 million copies in the U.S.

In 2012, it looks like the PlayStation Vita will attempt to challenge the 3DS for consumers’ dollars. Sony’s new handheld just launched in Japan and is scheduled to debut in the States on February 22nd.

Have you had the chance to try out the Nintendo 3DS? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Over at the Android Market, we’re notified that this is of course a limited time offer, but how limited is yet to be determined.

We’re proud to offer you over half a million albums for $4.99 and over ten million tracks for 49¢. Search around the site for your favorites—we promise you’ll find something you like at a great price! Few things in life are more important than music, and, since we launched the music store in the Android Market a few weeks ago, we’ve sought to connect you with the tunes you love.

* Promotion excludes single albums with original retail price above $15, double-albums, and tracks with original retail price above $1.29. Google Music artist hub and Sony albums and tracks are also not included.

Unlike another recent Google Music promotion that discounted holiday songs, this sale looks to feature music from all over the place. The front page selection of $0.49 tracks features varied artists like Nirvana, Radiohead, Drake, Rihanna, Stevie Wonder, and M83.

The full albums that Google is offering for $4.99 include older classics like The Police’s Synchronicity as well as new hits like Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto and Kanye and Jay-Z’s Watch The Throne.

So head on over and stock up for the winter. If anything will beat back the mid-January blues, it’s got to be a bunch of new music.

According to one market researcher, the Amazon has already sold 850,000 Kindle Fires directly from Amazon.com. When you factor in sales from other retailers like Best Buy, he says that Amazon has likely sold 2 million or more units since its official launch on November 15th. Two million in two weeks is a pretty strong start for the new tablet.

According to that analyst, Carter Nicholas of eDataSource, the swing in sales from the pre-sale period to the post-launch period has been substantial. “Trendwise, sales are picking up if you compare second half of November to second half of October, the rate of sales is up 63%.”

Amazon has been unsurprisingly tight-lipped about the actual Kindle Fire sales figures. The only real information nugget that they’ve given us about the tablet is that it’s a top seller. Actually, the top seller across the whole site. As part of a press release concerning Black
Friday sales, Amazon reported that all members of the Kindle family were off to a great start this holiday season – the Kindle Fire in particular.

“Even before the busy holiday shopping weekend, we’d already sold millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire was the bestselling product across all of Amazon.com,” they said. The Kindle Fire has been the top-selling item on the site since in was introduced way back in September.

So it looks like the Kindle Fire, with its experimental Silk browser and super-affordable $199 price tag, is on its way to becoming a real holiday hit. And if these figures prove accurate, it’s well on its way to grabbing the number #2 tablet spot.

Of course, it would still be behind the king – the iPad. Is it possible that the Kindle Fire could significantly cut into the iPad’s market this holiday season? That depends on your definition of the word significant.

J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz is slightly reducing his iPad sales estimate this quarter. He is shaving them down to 13 million, from 13.3 million. This relatively small decrease is being attributed to not only production slowdowns – but the impact of the Kindle Fire. Apparently, the $199 price tag is the leading factor in people’s decision to go with the Amazon tablet.

But price tag isn’t everything, and the Kindle Fire can’t fully compete with the the iPad on a lot of fronts – speed and features mainly. But there’s no doubt that the Kindle Fire is off to a hot start. Have you had the chance to try out Amazon’s new tablet? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Over the course of the outage, I have asked readers this very question.  The rough split, from what I can discern, is about 75 / 25 – favoring PlayStation.  Most people who have commented on WebProNews have stated that they will stick with their PS3.  Many of them are definitely a little less than pleased, but few have stated outright that they have or plan to abandon Sony for Microsoft.

Across the pond, gamers might have lost their patience, or at least they are beginning to lose it.  EDGE magazine online has spoken with “major UK retailers” and what was said isn’t pretty for Sony.

The first anonymous source said that the second week of the outage is when people began to take action:

“In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades.  However from the second week onwards we have seen an increase of over 200 per cent on PS3 consoles being traded in, split almost 50/50 between those trading for cash and those taking a 360 instead.”

A second anonymous source echoed this news, saying that there has been a “massive increase” in PS3 trade-ins.  Most of those, he said, were for Xbox’s instead of cash.

He also said that from what he could tell, the ones trading-in were from the “hardcore online shooter crowd.”  Another retailer echoes that point:

“People that need money [to pay bills]. What’s different this time around is that that they are bringing in PS3s together with all their games and they don’t want money, they want an Xbox 360. In every case it is because of Black Ops and or Modern Warfare 2.”

And what about games? Lets take Black Ops, for instance.  EDGE sources say that mid march, sales of the game were split 52/40 in favor of the PS3.  Last week’s sales were split 66/24 in favor of Xbox.  So the inability to play online is definitely affecting people’s choices.  Even for people with both systems, why buy a version of the game that only allows you to do half of what it is meant for?

It will be interesting to see how this whole ordeal has changed the gaming landscape in the States once it is all said and done.

Sources have said that the matchmaking service for the PSN may be up and running soon, before the scheduled full system reboot planned for the end of the month.

Today, eBay released its sales statistics regarding the iPad 2.  The numbers that they report represent the 2 weeks between the launch in the States and the launch in 25 additional countries.

What we find is that out of the nearly 12,000 iPad 2′s sold in that 2 week span,  around 65% of them were sold to buyers in the U.S. – 7919 to be exact.  Compared to last year’s statistics, that is in incredible increase.  Last year only 35% of 1st gen iPads went to customers in the U.S.  This figure could signal any number of things.  It is plausible that Americans cared more about having a tablet this time around, or that this year Americans are more economically suited to afford prices well above the ticket value.  Americans could also be more impatient, as shortages were reported all around the globe.  Either way, the United States dominated the demand.

eBay also calculated the average amount above retail that customers paid for certain iPad 2 models.  For the platinum device, the 64 GB with 3G, customers were willing to pay $406 above retail.  For the regular 64 GB sans 3G, just $264 above retail.  For the basic 16 GB with no 3G, only $198 above retail.  It seems as though customers who wanted the more luxurious models were more willing to spend a little extra.

It then comes as no surprise that the most commonly purchased model was the basic 16 GB iPad 2, making up 30% of total sold.  The least sold was the 16 GB model with 3G capabilities, making up only 7% of total sold.  It also seems as though buyers willing to pay extra fro 3G decided to go ahead and upgrade space as well.

What other countries imported the rest of the 12,000 units?  Second and third place were Russia and Canada, importing 500 and 430, respectively.  Last year’s lead importer the UK imported 341 units this year, putting it in a near tie for fourth place with Hong Kong and Japan.

Although this data is strong, especially the statistics regarding sales in the U.S., it is probably unable to prove or disprove any long term predictions of the iPad’s demise.  Just yesterday, a Dell exec said the iPad 2′s popularity was unsustainable.

To see eBay’s charts,  go here for this year’s and here for last year’s.