Skip to main content

Lego Systems’ sales surpassed $1 billion mark in 2010

legosKids love Legos. Actually, everybody loves Legos. Enjoying the little multi-colored building blocks are just part of what makes us human, we believe. And that means good things for Lego Systems, which announced Monday that it surpassed $1 billion in consumer sales in the United States in 2010, helping the company reach its highest share of the U.S. toy market ever.

Lego Systems reportedly enjoyed a 25 percent jump in consumer sales over 2009, which pushed the company to the No. 3 spot among U.S. toy manufacturers. Lego is, unsurprisingly, also the No. 1 construction toy manufacturer in the U.S. And the company contributed around 50 percent of total toy industry consumer sales growth in 2010.

Part of Lego’s success came from the video game sector, with 5 million games sold in 2010. Lego has been releasing video games since 1997, with the launch of Lego Island for the PC. For 2011, Lego has so far announced the release of two titles: Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, which hits stores March 22; and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game, which comes out later this year.

Lego plans to announce its largest collection of toys ever at the 2011 American International Toy Fair in New York City this week — a total of 170 new products. Continuing down the path of turning everything into a Lego set, the company says it will unveil new building-block lines inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars 2 feature films. Expansion of its highly popular line for preschoolers, Lego Duplo, will be announced as well.

Just recently, we showed you this sweet, custom-built shutter release for the excellent Sony Alpha NEX-5 digital camera, which was made entirely out of Lego parts. So if anyone tells you you’re too old to play with Legos, make sure you remind them that these toys aren’t just for kids — at least they don’t have to be. Oh, who are we kidding? Nobody’s going to tell you Legos are just for kids. Nobody.

Topics
Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
The best Dragon’s Dogma 2 mods
Dragon's Dogma 2 key art featuring a knight with a fiery hole in their chest.

Even before release, there were some red flags about how Dragon's Dogma 2 would perform on a technical level. While console players need to wait and hope for patches to fix things, those on PC can already improve their games through the hard work of modders. Of course, technical improvements are only one area where modders focus. With such a massive world and many systems in place, Dragon's Dogma 2 is brimming with potential for mods of all shapes and sizes. Aside from mods that just improve your performance, most are better saved for after you've reached the true ending, but no one is going to stop you if you'd rather start experimenting from the start. Here are a handful of the best mods you should try in Dragon's Dogma 2.
Dragon's Dogma 2 DLSS3 Enabler 01 - Puredark

For whatever reason, Dragon's Dogma 2 launched with its DLSS3 function disabled. While it is assumed it will be turned on at some point with a patch, modder Puredark went ahead and released the simple Dragon's Dogma 2 DLSS3 Enabler 01 to let you actually play the game with better visuals and framerates. If you have an Nvidia 4000 series GPU, there's no reason not to install this simple enabler.
Crazy's Shop

Read more
V Rising – Legacy of Castlevania crossover will let you fight Simon Belmont
Castlevania's Simon Belmont in V Rising.

Stunlock Studios and Konami have revealed that the survival crafting game V Rising will feature Castlevania crossover content when it leaves early access this May.

V Rising is a survival game where players control a vampire, and this crossover adds Simon Belmont as a hunter who's constantly trying to track down and kill players. If Simon Belmont is defeated, players will be able to equip and use his whip as a weapon. While that content is being added to V Rising free of charge as soon as it hits 1.0, a paid Legacy of Castlevania Premium Pack DLC will also be released. Purchasing it will net players Castlevania-themed decorations and music for their lair. These are all fitting crossover spots for a game that already heavily features vampires and pumps some life back into an unfortunately dormant game series.

Read more
What is dragonsplague in Dragon’s Dogma 2 and how is it cured?
A dragon roars in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Dragon's Dogma 2 likes to keep many of its mechanics and systems a secret until you discover them. You will learn quickly that you can't fast travel around the map freely, but there's one mechanic that is far more detrimental to your game. This is called dragonsplague and it is a disease that can't be cured with a simple tonic. In fact, you may not even realize if you have it in your game because it isn't something that affects your character at all; instead, it affects your Pawns. Failing to recognize you have dragonsplague and deal with it in a timely manner can ruin your entire playthrough if you're not careful. To avoid such a catastrophe, here are all the details about this cruel disease.
What is dragonsplague?

Dragonsplague is a special kind of disease that Pawns can contract seemingly by interacting with either Drakes or Dragons. That part isn't fully clear yet, however, we do know that Pawns with dragonsplague can spread the disease to other Pawns. Since Pawns are able to pass between worlds to join other players, you are never fully safe from being infected if you're playing online. Unlike a real sickness, though, dragonsplague actually transfers between Pawns rather than spreads, meaning it won't fully run rampant through the game.

Read more