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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.
THE LATEST NEWS BELOW
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December 12th, 2010, 22:33 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...EAnbSsBQxh.php
Hyper_Eye released a new version of Odamex for the Original Xbox:
[QUOTE]
Today is the 17th birthday of Doom and I am pleased to announce the release of Odamex 0.5.1 for all platforms including Xbox. This release has many Xbox bug fixes as well as the addition of chat macro support which allows Xbox players to communicate using the controller. Please read the updated README.Xbox to learn about the chat macro feature as well as the new default controller scheme. If you have played Odamex on your Xbox before you may want to reset your configuration settings so that your controller bindings will update to the new defaults. You can do this by selecting "Reset to defaults" at the bottom of the Odamex options menu.
What is Odamex?
Odamex is a modification of DOOM to allow players to compete with each other over the Internet using the client/server architecture. Odamex also provides a feature-rich single-player engine.
Please see the general README provided with Odamex for a thorough description of Odamex and its features.
General Odamex Changes:
* Fixed DirectX palette issues on Windows Vista/7
* First pass of zdoom map support including acs, mapinfo (classic)
* Scoreboard fixes
* Higher resolutions supported
* Various bug fixes and more
Odamex Xbox Changes:
* Chat macro support
* Fixed a bug that makes retrieving/refreshing the server list many times faster on affected Xbox's.
* Fixed DEH/BEX patch loading (mods like Batman Doom and GoldenEye load correctly)
* The player color sliders are now usable
* The launcher loads Odamex properly when it uses a long path name
* odamex.xbe can be launched directly from an XBMC shortcut with command-line parameters using the tag
* Various other bug fixes
Official Site: http://odamex.net/
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December 11th, 2010, 01:21 Posted By: wraggster
In his latest report to the game industry, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter shed some light on the battle between Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's Move motion control systems. Pachter reports that Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles outsold PlayStation Move console bundles in the US by a margin of five to one in November. According to Pachter, "about half" of the Xbox 360 consoles sold in November were part of Kinect bundles, while PlayStation Move bundles made up for "about one fifth" of total PS3 console sales for the month.
With Microsoft reporting 1.37 million Xbox 360s sold in November, that puts the Kinect bundle figure somewhere in the range of 685,000 units, thus putting Move console bundles around 137,000 units. Of course, it's worth pointing out that these figures only refer to console bundle sales and not to individual Kinect and PlayStation Move sales. According to Microsoft, global Kinect sales have topped 2.5 million units. Sony has reported that 4.1 million PlayStation Move units have been shipped to retailers, though the company hasn't disclosed actual sales numbers.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/12/10/xb...to-1-in-novem/
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December 11th, 2010, 01:15 Posted By: wraggster
Yeah, we're a sucker for a good Kinect hack, and we're a sucker for anything involving RC cars, too. Happy day for us, then, as the two come together in blissful harmony with this project from Michael Schweitzer and Michael Himmelsbach at the University of Bundeswehr Munich. It's a 1:10 scale auto with Microsoft's fancy cam mounted up front and what looks to be a surplus Dell XPS M1330 riding in style on the back. The laptop is running a simplified version of the software that propelled the school's MuCAR-3, a full-sized VW Touareg, in the Darpa Urban Challenge. This little 'un is a little shaky right now, but that's largely because they haven't managed to get an accurate odometer working yet. Still, it does avoid obstacles, as you can see, and now all it needs is some Lexan bodywork before it can look pimpin' when cruising the strip -- autonomously, of course.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/10/k...g-can-stop-it/
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December 11th, 2010, 01:13 Posted By: wraggster
Let's face it, the daddy of all motion-controlled gaming is the humble art of air guitar. There's no question about it, creationists and evolutionists all agree, the genesis of our modern craze for motion sensitivity was your uncle rocking out to Jimmy Page's face-melting solo in Stairway to Heaven. Now that we've got the history lesson out of the way, someone's gone and programmed Kinect to recognize the fine craft of your air strumming and deliver concordant chords in response. Excellent!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/10/k...ar-hack-video/
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December 11th, 2010, 01:11 Posted By: wraggster
PrimeSense, the company which developed the technology behind Microsoft's Kinect sensor, has released open-source drivers for the camera used in the device and founded an organisation dedicated to the promotion of Natural Interaction devices.
OpenNI, the organisation founded by PrimeSense, has released OpenNI Framework – an open source development kit which includes an API designed to program for the use of Natural Interaction devices.
Middleware included in the package allows users to develop software both for the camera used in Kinect and PrimeSense's own PDSK 5.0 unit, Next-Gen.biz reports.
Kinect was hacked into performing any number of interesting different tasks shortly after it was released, with a group of MIT alumni offering prize money for the first team to demonstrate a successful hack.
It's thought that the plethora of applications which various hacks have opened up for Kinect have accelerated the release of the open-source material, which PrimeSense had always said it would make available.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ect-technology
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December 9th, 2010, 23:55 Posted By: wraggster
Not to denigrate the numerous fine hacks that Kinect's undergone since its launch, but it's always nice to see the professionals come in and shake things up a little. A crew from MIT's brain labs has put together a hand detection system on Microsoft's ultra-versatile cam, which is sophisticated enough to recognize the position of both your palms and fingers. Just as a demonstration, they've tied that good stuff up to a little picture-scrolling UI, and you won't be surprised to hear that it's the closest thing to Minority Report's interactive gesture-based interface that we've seen yet. And it's all achieved with a freaking console peripheral. Video after the break.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/09/k...destiny-video/
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December 9th, 2010, 23:50 Posted By: wraggster
Motion control is intended to enhance player interaction, but when done badly or inaccurately motion control actually "reduces interactivity" and "can be harmful".
That's according to Sean Murray, boss of XBLA game 'Joe Danger' developer, Hello Games. Murray spoke positively of motion control as a method of adding "more interactivity" to games, along with touch screens, more advanced processors, voice control, cameras and augmented reality.
But he added: "inaccurate motion control actually reduces interactivity and that's harmful," demonstrating his point by playing the now seemingly infamous video of a player coming third in Kinect Joy Ride without moving.
"It's such as shame, it's such a lost opportunity," Murray went on. "It is actually a good game, but there's a danger of making games too casual and removing interactivity, and you see that sometimes. I think even the casual gamer doesn't want to just have reward."
Nail on the head, we reckon.
Murray also said developers who don't play and enjoy their own games are "in trouble".
"Some game developers, they don't play their own games, they don't feel it's an expression of themselves," he said.
"If you're having no fun making your game then you're in trouble," he added, showing a video of the Hello Games team laughing while playing Joe Danger.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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December 9th, 2010, 23:46 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft Games Studios' Kieron Connell told the Evolve In London Conference yesterday that Microsoft is "very serious" about Windows Phone 7 and will not sit back and allow others to dominate the mobile handset market.
Answering a question from panel chair Will Freeman, Connell made clear that although Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle, it has no intention of rolling over and giving up.
"How much momentum does the iPhone have? Is it dominance a reality, is it going to stay that way for a long time," asked Freeman of the guests.
"I think there are too many people with too much money invested to let Apple win in terms of flooding the entire market," Connell told listeners.
"You'd better believe Microsoft is very serious about Windows Phone 7, and protecting their part of the business. It's going to be an interesting time - that's for sure."
In an earlier response to the question, Ngmoco's Neil Young had observed that Google's Android platform was gaining ground on Apple, but failed to mention Microsoft as a player in the market.
"Yes, it is dominant in the west," he said of iPhone. "In the East it's probably Android then some of Europe is probably up for grabs. Android has lots and lots of momentum right now but an inferior publishing model."
The feelings of the panel reflect recent findings from a study in the US which show that the gap in market share between iOS devices and Android platforms is closing fast, but Microsoft remains a peripheral player in the area.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...n-phone-market
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December 9th, 2010, 21:57 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Microsoft has abolished plans to wipe away the Halo Wars online statistics after a passionate response from gamers.
"After seeing the reaction and passion from Halo Wars fans as well as Halo FPS fans who were concerned about the future of other Halo titles, we determined that the previously stated plan of action was not in line with our intended plan of loyal support for Halo' games,' said Microsoft in a statement to IGN.
The loss of online statistics was going to be collateral for Halo Wars moving under the Halo Waypoint umbrella. Forums will still be merged, MS clarified, "But other than that, nothing changes."
"If and when the location of accessing your stats changes, we will let you know at that point in time," MS promised.
Halo Wars, made by Age of Empire developer Ensemble, was released at the start of 2009. It was supposed to do for RTS games what Halo did for the FPS - bring the genre natively to console. That didn't work out, and Ensemble was shut down soon after, the staff force eventually reforming into three entities: Robot Entertainment to oversee Halo Wars, Bonfire Studios and Windstorm Studios.
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December 6th, 2010, 22:56 Posted By: wraggster
Neil Thompson, the general manager for Xbox in the UK and Ireland, has put an end to any rumours that Kinect shortages may have been managed to stimulate demand by making the product appear more sought after.
The shortages, he told GamesIndustry.biz, are entirely down to the vast logistical challenges involved in bringing a new consumer technology product to market worldwide – Microsoft has done everything it can to ensure a continual supply of stock to retailers.
"Anyone who actually works in the business of producing new technology, especially hardware technology, will know that these things are never managed. Everyone else loves to think that they're managed, but they will know it's not. It's a function of coming to market with a brand new innovation and you have to scale up," said Thompson.
Previously, Don Mattrick had warned US consumers to order their Kinect units early to avoid disappointment, as Microsoft were anticipating stock shortages before Christmas.
This led some to believe that Microsoft was controlling the flow of hardware to retailers in order to accentuate demand – an accusation which has also been levelled at both Nintendo and Sony in the past. Thompson, however, made clear that any large-scale technology launch will have to make compromises on available units in order to meet release schedules.
"The choices you always have are: do we launch in November or do we wait until February, March when we could hit some bigger launch numbers but then we miss Christmas. So you're always in this fine balance, saying 'well, we want to give people the product as soon as we can, but you can't switch on the manufacturing like water.' It takes time to scale."
"It's absolutely not a strategy, we want to get the product into consumers hands as quickly as we can because we think its exciting, it's innovative. We wanted to do that for Christmas and that's what we've done. We've built a really strong supply and resupply chain over the coming weeks."
Thompson was speaking as part of an interview with GamesIndustry.biz on the future of the Xbox 360 on its fifth birthday.
Also in the room was UK Xbox marketing manager Stephen McGill, who made the point that Kinect had seen a very accelerated release schedule worldwide, eschewing the staggered strategy which many manufacturers adopt.
"Often consumer electronics companies and games companies have staggered their launches by territory by some quite considerable margins. With Kinect we launched around the world in three weeks. That was a huge task. No region is being penalised," said McGill.
"We're trying to make sure every region has a good amount of stock every week. That can't be underestimated either."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...not-engineered
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December 5th, 2010, 21:28 Posted By: wraggster
Razorfish is a little marketing company that has done some impressive things on Microsoft's Surface, things you may or may not have seen because that particular brand of pedestal hasn't exactly become a threat to the global dumbtable market. One of Razorfish's cool things is a so-called Surface Physics Illustrator called DaVinci, which lets a user doodle on the screen and turn those doodles into balls, boxes, levers, and fulcrums. Now that code has effectively ported that code over to Kinect, as you can see in the video below, letting you do the same sort of things but with thine own two hands floating in mid-air. You can cause shapes to levitate, create gravity between them, make things orbit, even enable magnetism that alternately pulls and hurls your little doodles across the screen. The company is said to be continuing to refine the experience and maybe, if you all ask nice, they'll even release the app when they're through so you can try it for yourself.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/05/r...-physics-cool/
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December 5th, 2010, 00:08 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...uVNWPeNhcz.php
Ced2911, member of the LS-Team, released the first public version of FreePSX: a Playstation1 emulator for homebrew/JTAG 360s.
The GFX emulation is very good for most games, but there are still a few sound problems.
The release includes the full source-code for other developers who may want to help improving FreePSX.
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December 5th, 2010, 00:07 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...ZEgZsPCUXy.php
As we know now the USA v. Crippen [Xbox Modder] case has been dismissed by the prosecutors. Andrew "Bunnie" Huang was supposed to testify as expert witness. Today "Bunnie" posted some key concepts on his blog of what he was gonna present in the case:
[QUOTE]
While the true facts are not as simple, raw facts are essentially useless to a jury. The real challenge for me personally was to take a world of technical jargon full of one-way hashes, modular exponentiation, prime numbers, finite fields of characteristic two, stealth sectors, lead-ins, lead-outs, and reflectivity measurements using a laser and a four-quadrant photodetector and boil it down into a set of factually correct statements that any lay jury could not only understand, but feel confident enough to use to decide upon two felony counts.
So, for the purpose of encouraging discussion, criticism, and education, here are some of the key concepts I was to present in the case.
Check out bunniestudios.com for a nice overview of how the 'Xbox360 ODD modification' actually works, but here's his 'conclusion':
[QUOTE]
In the case that the “answer table” is lacking from the disk inserted into the ODD, the disk will not play. Thus, the question is: given that the user of the modified Xbox360 (in this case, the private investigators and agents that the government hired) must also materially participate in the “process” by providing an “answer table”, is the mod alone sufficient to justify felonious conduct?
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December 3rd, 2010, 00:53 Posted By: wraggster
You've seen so many Kinect hacks by now that you probably think you know them all -- but wait, have you seen one that makes you look like Predator when he's busy predatorizing the populace? Or one that lets you reenact your favorite Metal Gear Solid scenes with Snake's camo turned on? Yup, a Japanese coder by the name of Takayuki Fukatsu has exploited the versatile openFrameworks to give Kinect a mode where it tracks your movement and position, but turns the dull details of your visage into an almost perfectly transparent outline. Of course, you're not actually transparent, it looks to be just the system skinning an image of the background onto the contours of your body in real time, but man, it sure is cool to look at. You can do so for yourself with the video after the break.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/02/k...al-camouflage/
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December 3rd, 2010, 00:44 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has said that it currently has around 12.5m paying subscribers to Xbox Live. Subscriptions to the service currently cost £40 a year in the UK.
“Of our 25m members, about half of them are subscribers to the business and pay us about $60 a year for that,” Microsoft’s head of Interactive Entertainment Dennis Durkin said at the Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference, as reported by IGN.
“So it's a very large business for us and for our partners.”
Durkin added that Gold subscribers in the US spend an average of three hours a day logged into Xbox Live, and that 40 per cent of those users access non-gaming applications such as Netflix and Facebook.
“This is a great opportunity for our media partners to stay connected with their customers and to sell them goods that they care about in their home,” he added. “Whether that's game add-ons, movies, music, or clothing for their avatars, this is a very big business.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42096/XBL-...5-Gold-members
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December 3rd, 2010, 00:34 Posted By: wraggster
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes that combined sales of Move and Kinect could top 8 million units by the end of the year.
Looking further ahead, he expects the peripherals to shift between 20 and 25 million units by the end of 2011, although he noted that software sales will only rise marginally.
"These 20-25 million households are likely to buy 2-3 games apiece, resulting in software sales of 40-75 million units and publisher revenues of $1.6billion-$3 billion next year.
"These sales are not all incremental; clearly, consumers who buy Kinect or Move are console owners, and presumably, they would have bought other games had they not purchased the peripherals. We think that the incremental contribution from the two devices will be around $500–$800 million in 2011, or around 2.5-4 per cent of industry sales next year."
Both Microsoft and Sony have pushed out numbers for the peripherals this week, with Microsoft claiming 2.5 million sales, and Sony 4.1 million sales - although it later amended the number to units shipped to retail.
Pachter added that he believes Microsoft will cut the price of its basic Xbox 360 model to $249 in the US, prompting Sony to bundle Move with its standard 160GB $299 PlayStation SKU.
The new bundle could add value for Sony, as he believes Move has a manufacturing cost of around $40. Currently, Sony's Move and PlayStation 3 bundle retails for $399 with a 320GB unit.
"If Sony were to take such action in early 2011, we think it would accomplish its goals of profitability, solid console sales and Move penetration, and think that its controller would have a dramatic impact on software development and sales next year," he added.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-8m-this-year
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December 3rd, 2010, 00:34 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Division CEO Dennis Durkin believes that 2010 has been a milestone year for the Xbox business.
"It's been a good three years for us," he told listeners at the Credit Suisse Group Technology Conference yesterday. "We've had nice stair steps in terms of growth every year sequentially getting bigger than the previous year, and this year is going to be our biggest year ever."
He also revealed that last week had seen "our biggest Black Friday in history, in our Xbox history."
Live and Kinect appeared to the focal points of growth, with Durkin revealing high take-ups for paid Live subscriptions. "Of our 25 million members, about half of them are subscribers for the business and pay us about $60 a year for that. So, it's a very, very large business for us and for our partners." The average subscriber was on the service for three hours a day, he claimed.
Kinect had been a success, he felt: "It was an amazing launch, amazing momentum, and it's something we're very, very excited about, still very committed to our 5 million number for the holiday, well on path for that."
Although not acknowledging the mixed critical response to Kinect's launch titles, he claimed consumers were pleased. "There's more than 300 reviews within the Amazon ecosystem. I've read all of them the best part about it is that almost 90 percent of them are four or five-star rated. And when you go through those, you realize that we are touching a bunch of new audiences."
While he declined to reveal Microsoft's specific intentions for Kinect's future, he hinted that it had potential for "healthcare, entertainment, other verticals, and you can really see some of the applications that are coming to life.
"There's a lot of experimentation going on right now in the developer community, which our CEO has famously avowed his support for developers over time."
Microsoft was no longer in the game of hardware experimentation for experimentation's sake, he claimed: "I want to make money on things that we sell. I think the business of subsidizing things is a historical artifact. And so, for us, it's about making money and extracting value for the things that we're building.
"I think with the pieces that we have today now in our hardware platform, in our Live ecosystem, and now with Kinect, and the new input paradigm that you have with Kinect, we think we have a real opportunity to have a five to ten-year major growth spurt within our business and space."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...gest-year-ever
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December 3rd, 2010, 00:32 Posted By: wraggster
A first-of-its-kind court case brought against an alleged Xbox 360 modder has been dismissed after the judge gave prosecutors a 30 minute dressing-down.
As reported by Wired, US district judge Philip Gutierrez bellowed that he had "serious concerns about the government's case," adding, "I really don't understand what we're doing here."
He then criticised prosecutors of 28-year-old Matthew Crippen, who was accused of two counts of violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for calling witnesses who could also be guilty of criminal behaviour themselves.
The defence claimed Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario violated California privacy law when he secretly videotaped Crippen allegedly performing an Xbox mod in his LA home.
Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who inspected two consoles allegedly tampered with by Crippen, admitted that he had modded Xboxes while at college too.
"Maybe two of the four government witnesses committed crimes," the judge said. "I think it is relevant and the jury is going to hear about it – both crimes."
Prosecutors were arguing that Crippen ran a small business modifying Xbox 360 firmware to allow users to run pirated games, an offence that could carry a maximum 10 year prison tarrif.
Crippen had attempted to argue a "fair use" defence, claiming it was legal to hack the consoles on the grounds that the mod had non-infringing purposes, like running homebrew software or backing-up games.
The judge had initially prohibited him from doing so but then backtracked during the course of his rant.
Once the judge was done with his outburst, prosecutor Allen Chiu meekly said, "I apologise to the court" and asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, dismiss the case entirely or go ahead with the trial.
Just before the trial was set to begin Chiu told the judge, "The government has decided to dismiss the indictment," allowing Crippen to walk free
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...0-hacker-trial
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