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Xbox News is a site that brings you the very latest Original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One news, the latest games and releases, Part of the
DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network.
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July 26th, 2011, 22:38 Posted By: wraggster
The "second generation" of Kinect games will show the technical leaps developers have made with Microsoft's motion sensor, according to Rare studio head Scott Henson.
"Kinect 2 is already here," he said at the Develop conference last week, according to Beefjack.
"The great [thing] with Kinect is it's all software," added Rare incubation software director Nick Burton. "Yeah, there's a sensor bar there, but everything is dealt with in software, which means we can continue to push it."
Burton said that improvements to Kinect motion tracking have allowed the studio to tackle sports like golf and darts in Kinect Sports: Season 2, both of which proved problematic when developing the original game.
In addition, he said the studio's "really pushing" voice control for its upcoming sequel. One example is a virtual caddy which recognises over 300 phrases, allowing you to perform actions like changing your club with your voice.
Speaking in March, Henson and Burton said Rare had only taken advantage of "10 to 15 percent" of Kinect's technical potential - and that the studio's going great guns to fully explore the "virtually limitless" possibilities afforded by the device.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ady-here-rare/
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July 26th, 2011, 22:19 Posted By: wraggster
The PS3 could catch or even overtake the global install base of the Xbox 360 in 2011, analysts have predicted.
While Microsoft’s machine remains the firm favourite of the pair in key territories such as the US, it’s a different story in other parts of the world. And it could be enough to swing the battle in Sony’ favour.
“The Xbox 360 does have a five per cent lead over the PS3 worldwide, a minimal difference,” EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich told IndustryGamers.
“The race is neck and neck. Additionally, if one looks at the total amount of sales through the first six months of 2011, the PS3 has sold about ten per cent more than the Xbox 360, worldwide, so the PS3 is definitely gaining ground.
“The PS3 is still incredibly successful and outselling its rivals overseas. In terms of the PS3's performance in North America, it is selling quite well and outperforming last year's sales. The problem is the Xbox 360, which has increased its velocity without the aid of any price cuts or redesigns over the last year.
“The Xbox 360's success is simply incredible. I won't lie, it has consistently beaten my models over the last few months – the folks at Microsoft remind me every month. The only reasoning that seems plausible is the Kinect or the strength of its software library has reached some sort of tipping point making the Xbox 360 an incredible value to consumers at its current price points.”
M2 Research’s Billy Pidgeon also admits to being surprised by the Xbox 360’s endurance in the US, but does have a surprising prediction should Microsoft choose to unveil its Xbox 360 successor in the coming weeks.
“I still think PS3 has potential to ramp up hardware sales performance based on a stronger first party software library and more affordable hardware, but PS3 got off to a very slow start due to high price and fewer first party software hits than the competition,” he said.
“Should Microsoft release a successor to Xbox 360 and shift the pipeline for hardcore games over to the new consoles, that would be a possible scenario by which PS3 could bypass Xbox 360's active installed base. This scenario would give PS3 the opportunity to soak up the hardcore sector.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/analy...box-360/082456
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July 26th, 2011, 22:08 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has revealed two new accessories designed to reinvigorate the designs first debuted with the original console back in 2005.
Firstly, the new Media Remote sports a very modern black styling in keeping with the Xbox 360 S that was released in 2010.
It includes the functions you’d expect of such a device – play/pause, fast forward and rewind as well as a power on and off button and volume controls. A new addition from the last design is the inclusion of a d-pad.
Also on the way is a new black Bluetooth Headset, which replaces the white version currently available alongside the standard wired headset. It’s compatible with all Bluetooth devices and will connect with Xbox 360 straight out of the box.
The Media Remote will retail for $19.99 in the US and the Headset $59.99. Both are due out in November.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/new-x...evealed/082472
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July 26th, 2011, 01:32 Posted By: wraggster
The usual suspects have taken a back seat on this week's UK Xbox 360 sales chart, making way for a few new games.
Leading the pack at No.1 is Call of Juarez: The Cartel, which is followed by Dungeons Siege 3, which moves up four spots to No.2.
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon makes debuts at No.3, ahead of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which climbed from No.10 to No.4.
Nestled in the middle of the pack at No.5 is Call of Duty: Black Ops, along with Dirt 3 at No.6.
Last week's No.1, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, falls to No.7, followed by UFC Personal Trainer, FIFA 11 and Brink.
GfK/Chart-Track Xbox 360 Top 10 (week ending July 23):
01. Call of Juarez: The Cartel (Ubisoft)
02. Dungeon Siege 3 (Square Enix)
03. Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (Namco Bandai)
04. Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (EA)
05. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision)
06. Dirt 3 (Codemasters)
07. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Activision)
08. UFC Fitness Trainer (EA)
09. FIFA 11 (EA)
10. Brink (Bethesda)
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...cartel-is-no1/
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July 26th, 2011, 00:50 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft's 343 Industries has been working on Halo 4 for two years.
In a panel discussion at Comic-Con reported by GameSpot, Halo franchise boss Frank O'Connor said it was a relief to announce the 2012 Xbox 360 exclusive at E3 last month because the team has been working on it in "relative secrecy for a couple of years".
Halo's Covenant-beating hero will appear "changed" in Halo 4. And there's a story behind his new look – yet to be revealed.
Some time has passed since the events of Halo 3, when the Chief finished the fight. Halo 4 opens with him floating through space towards an alien planet. "A lot of things have changed in that intervening period," O'Connor has teased.
Halo 4, out late 2012, follows 343 Industries' upcoming original Halo re-make - Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - out 15th November.
Anniversary includes a similar mechanic to Halo 3: ODST's terminals and data pads. The mechanic will provide insight into Halo 4 and extra backstory, with nutty AI Guilty Spark the subject.
Meanwhile, the panel discussed the upcoming Halo novels. Halo: Grasslands, due out in October, is set between Halo 3 and Halo 4, a time when Master Chief is adrift in space.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-for-two-years
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July 25th, 2011, 23:52 Posted By: wraggster
We know the US Army has already experimented with vibrating clothing, and soon it could be our turn. The trendy figure-hugger above is rigged with haptic actuators across the arms and torso, which respond when the wearer's body 'touches' virtual objects created via Microsoft's Kinect platform. The outfit's designers at the University of Aachen spent just a few hundred dollars on components, aside from the cost of the Kinect, so this might well have commercial potential. Click the source link if you're really keen to see a concept video -- although it doesn't consist of much beyond a German dude doing the Hey Macarena in his socks.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/25/k...eight-differe/
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July 25th, 2011, 23:42 Posted By: wraggster
Avatar Kinect has been released worldwide today as part of Kinect Fun Labs, a service launched during E3 which enables users to download and play around with Kinect innovations.
The Avatar Kinect software uses Microsoft's motion sensor to recognise your facial expressions and represent them on screen through your avatar, allowing groups of users to sit around chatting in 24 themed virtual environments.
It's a free, 658.59 MB download you can grab now from Xbox.com. Avatar Kinect will normally require an Xbox Live Gold membership, but to celebrate its release it has been unlocked for all Xbox Live members (free or Gold) from now until September 8.
"Express yourself with your Xbox avatar," Microsoft says. "See your facial expressions and gestures on your Xbox avatar as you chat with friends in our 3D stages and produce your own TV shows.
"The Kinect sensor can record your session with a producer's editorial eye, following your performance, zooming and panning, just like a real TV production. Share your video recording with friends by uploading it to KinectShare.com and downloading it to your computer, and from there, posting it to your favorite social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...nect-released/
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July 25th, 2011, 23:33 Posted By: wraggster
After creating quite a stir upon its unveiling last week, the Limited Edition Star Wars Xbox 360 console has been given a £349.99 RRP in the UK.
The highest price Xbox 360 hardware available on the High Street right now is the £299.99 250GB Kinect bundle, though this can typically be found for anything up to £40 cheaper than RRP.
Other SKUs include the vanilla 4GB console (£150), the 250GB standalone (£200) and the 4GB Kinect version (£250).
As reported last week, the Star Wars console itself is styled on charismatic robot RD-D2 with the controller boasting C3PO stylings. The Kinect sensor also boasts an exclusive white finish.
The machine will include a 320GB HDD and includes custom Star Wars SFX for operations like powering on and ejecting discs, plus a copy of both the Star Wars game and Kinect Adventures.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/star-...ost-350/082434
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July 25th, 2011, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster
Nothing is too expensive if enough people are willing to pay the price, and Microsoft says that it may not yet have found the price ceiling for titles released over Xbox Live Arcade.
XBLA portfolio director Chris Charla has admitted that the average price of a title on the service has risen, but that sales have not been negatively affected.
"If you look at Live Arcade, and do the math, and look at the publicly available sales numbers, you can see that average prices on XBLA have crept up over the last few years,” he told Games Industry.
“That has been an interesting trend because on some app markets there's been a race to zero as fast as possible.
"We've seen a little bit of the opposite happening. I don't really know where prices are going to go – ultimately, that's set by the market – but it has been really gratifying to see that people are willing to a premium price for digital content."
In 2009 just 21 games out of the 86-strong XBLA release schedule were priced at 1200 Microsoft Points, Last year that rose to 27 out of 85 titles, and already in 2010 we’ve had 20 games charging that top tier price, the site reports.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbla-...d-sales/082439
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July 24th, 2011, 22:07 Posted By: wraggster
From team-xecuter.com:
[QUOTE]
A busy week !
* We have collected all of the bug reports surrounding the last release of Jungle Flasher and they have all now been fixed and are in testing as we speak.
* New versions of the 0272 firmware have also been found and this will address the issues some of you are having with Open DVD / Play DVD errors. be patient.
* The new AP2.5 challenges have been captured and there are differences which we can work with. Expect news soon.
SPUTNIK360
Thanks to some Russian guys, there has been a trace cut / solder backdoor hack discovered for unlocking the SPI status of DG-16D4S MXIC chipsets – kudos to those guys and thanks for opening some previously unseen doors. Unfortunatley most of the drives are Winbond, but this is a great platform to start from.
Naturally we will move this to the next level and have branded this the SPUTNIK360 hack in honor of our Russian colleagues. We are currently working on the more “in the wild” Winbond version with a number of well known associates.
The latest Jungle Flasher (with the bug fixes) also includes full support for SPUTNIK360 SPI LOCK / UNLOCK hack together with the X360USB PRO, so there will be no need for extra 3rd party software and you can be assured of full compatibility with the quality that you have come to expect from Team Xecuter and Team Jungle.
We will keep you updated…..
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...kEvEnJZtaH.php
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July 24th, 2011, 22:04 Posted By: wraggster
Sneakypeanut released a new version of his Easy freeBOOT - an application which will automate the creation of a freeBOOT image for JTAG-able consoles based on the original NAND image.
What's new/fixed:
* added in 13599
* gui rearange (****ing gomson and his drop box)
* fixed xellous images
* fixed smc shizz
* added nand compair
* fixed standard smc error
Things todo:
* Save to usb (not really needed but would be interesting to try)
* Auto updater
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...kEbboPdHmV.php
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July 23rd, 2011, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster
As always with a new C4E iXtreme release, Team Jungle also comes with a new version of JungleFlasher to add full support for the new firmwares.
What's new/fixed:
* Support for LT Plus 1.9 Liteon(slim):
-0272
-0225
-0225u (factory updated 9504 to 0225)
-0401
* Support for set Spi Lock status register on:
- XECUTER DG-16D4S UNLOCKED PCB
- XECUTER DG-16D4S PRO INSTALL KIT
* Support to extract and patch calibration data at 0x1FF80.
* In some cases 0225 may give "Play DVD" error randomly, without this data.
Official Site: http://www.jungleflasher.net
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...VFLOkmxknz.php
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July 23rd, 2011, 13:18 Posted By: wraggster
Zouzzz released a new version of UpdateSPY, this programs allows you to download each Microsoft update and will give detailed information about each kernel/dash update (release date, burns fuses, size, files details, ...)
What's new/fixed:
* added detected for 2 Betas
* added donwload and detection of 2.0.13599.0 with avatars
* added some thanks
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...EEkyolFRyl.php
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July 23rd, 2011, 13:17 Posted By: wraggster
fbBuild v0.32 has been released, which will allow to create a freeBOOT-style NAND image and reboot JTAG-able 360s into the latest 13599 dashboard!
What's new/fixed:
* fixed yet another bug in the ini parser (affected lhelper.xex integration)
- corrected bad block detection bug on large block dumps (nandmu)
* correct mobile dat extraction on small block dumps for big block controllers
* corrected wording (oops!) of ECD option in ini sample file
* added option to ini file to try to retain NAND MU data on big block machines
* added option to ini file to set which power-on reason starts xell when not using oldvd/nodvd
* -v messages are now automatically logged to a file regardless of specifying -v on command line
* core and ini updated to allow specifying a power reason to cause dual NAND !SWITCH command
* add 13599
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...lyPBdPUwfs.php
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July 23rd, 2011, 13:04 Posted By: wraggster
Kinect will not encroach upon the core FIFA football-match gameplay, EA Sports vice president Andrew Wilson has told Eurogamer
"The core FIFA gameplay is very, very strong based on the control mechanism we currently have," Wilson said.
"I'm not sure that we want to screw around with that if you will.
"What we're looking for," he added, "is how can a Kinect experience be additive to that without de-focusing or de-prioritising that core 11 on 11 twitch gameplay that happens on the pitch which, to be frank, the controller does a very good job of facilitating."
FIFA 13 remains the target for Kinect's FIFA debut, Wilson re-confirmed. A Kinect team at EA Sports is experimenting with newly received developer kits and the results, Wilson said, were surprising.
"We have already seen abilities and opportunities and capabilities of that technology that we didn't think were there."
Andrew Wilson, vice president, EA Sports
"We're in pre-production right now. We have a core Kinect incubation group that's looking at various different capabilities of Kinect. We have already seen abilities and opportunities and capabilities of that technology we didn't think were there," Wilson said.
"Based on some of the new technology in the SDKs we're getting, there's some things we can do there that give a greater granularity of control and fidelity that we didn't know were there. That points to what I think could be a very promising opportunity for us.
"What we're seeing is: through optimisation that Microsoft has done, and that some of our engineers are doing, there is potentially some cool stuff that we can do."
Kinect headers and volleys? Kinect Wembley? Kinect wall-ball? Kinect goal celebrations? Kinect dives? Kinect four? Oh the possibilities.
Andrew Wilson's boss, Peter Moore, took to Microsoft's E3 stage to announce planned Kinect support for mega-franchises FIFA, Madden NFL and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. His pledge of Kinect allegiance was a surprise, given his trepidation months earlier.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...crew-with-fifa
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July 22nd, 2011, 22:31 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox Live Arcade's portfolio director Chris Charla has admitted that the average price of a game on the service is increasing.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the Develop conference, Charla stated that prices on XBLA aren't subject to the same downward pressure as other digital retail platforms.
"If you look at Live Arcade, and do the math, and look at the publicly available sales numbers, you can see that average prices on XBLA have crept up over the last few years, which has been an interesting trend because on some app markets there's been a race to zero as fast as possible," he said
"We've seen a little bit of the opposite happening. I don't really know where prices are going to go - ultimately, that's set by the market - but it has been really gratifying to see that people are willing to a premium price for digital content."
Average prices on XBLA have crept up, which has been interesting because on some app markets there's been a race to zero as fast as possible
Chris Charla, Microsoft
In 2009, 21 of the 86 games released were priced at 1200 Microsoft Points. That figure rose to 27 out of 85 games released in 2010, and 2011 already has 20 games confirmed at 1200 points, with a number of significant releases due before the end of the year.
However, the proliferation of more expensive games has coincided with a rise in quality. Charla claims that the average Metacritic score for Xbox Live Arcade releases has risen by 12 points since the start of calendar year 2008, challenging widely held assumptions about where to find the best products.
"Sometimes, when [developers] talk about Live Arcade they're like, 'We want to do a boxed quality game on Live Arcade', and I'm like, 'What does that mean?' I can point at a bunch of 38 and 42 and 56 metacritic scoring boxed games, so it actually kind of pisses me off."
"I think the games that we're shipping - a Limbo or a Castle Crashers - are as good as anything on the market."
For Charla, the "beauty" of the XBLA service is that it allows games to be "the correct size," so the experience doesn't suffer in the pursuit of scope.
However, when questioned about the possibility of free-to-play games appearing on the service, Charla had less to offer.
He pointed to Magic: The Gathering, Magic: 2012 and Pinball FX 2 as examples of the service experimenting with micro-transactions, with Pinball FX 2 performing "extremely well".
"For us that's a really interesting model, and we're always looking to be the pointy end of the spear when it comes to experiments, and that's kind of where we're focused right now."
Charla wouldn't comment on free-to-play games on XBLA, but he believes that developers underestimate how open the company is to new ideas, and the company expects innovation on the service to be "game-led."
"Sometimes people get this incorrect impression about Microsoft, that we're very hide-bound or set in our ways, and just because somebody might not have been seeing everything that we're doing, they might think that Microsoft will never do that."
"The reality is... it's actually a pretty dynamic company, and always eager to look and learn. We want to do things right, so we might take our time, but we're always eager to see the innovations people are bringing us."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...es-creeping-up
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