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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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May 25th, 2008, 14:46 Posted By: wraggster
With the launch of our Community Games on Xbox LIVE (beta), I'd like to issue a renewed call for our entire Creator community to submit their games written using XNA Game Studio 2.0 for distribution over Xbox LIVE. The newly launched site is in beta and we're still looking at the official release later this holiday. There is no better time than now to take the system for a test drive. We have several different roles for all of our XNA Creators Club Premium members:
- Create & Submit: Create your dream games or something wacky just for fun using XNA Game Studio 2.0
- Peer Review: Check out and review games submitted by your peers and help the community overall to create and share the best games possible
- Play: XNA Creators Club Premium members in the USA can also download and play the games directly from Xbox LIVE Marketplace after games successfully pass Peer Review
So whether you have a game and want to share it, simply enjoy reviewing games that others are creating and submitting or just want to play all the amazing games created by your peers - there's more than enough for all our Creators to do! Over 20 games have already made their way to Xbox LIVE Marketplace and more are on their way!
http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/archive/20...mes-redux.aspx
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May 24th, 2008, 01:30 Posted By: wraggster
We'd been getting pretty used to getting an Xbox 360 Dashboard updates every other season or so, but it looks like it's going to be a barren spring: there's no update coming this spring, according to Xbox Live manager Marc Whitten. In an interview with Next Generation, Whitten said that Redmond's focusing resources on "building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service" -- which hopefully means those Live outages will soon be a thing of the past. Whitten also said that the Live team is working on a Live DRM update that'll allow XBLA games to be re-licensed and played offline if you swap consoles, and that underperforming XBLA titles with Metacritic scores under 65 percent will be eligible for delisting. Sure, sure -- just make with that wacky motion-sensing controller soon, okay?
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/23/m...coming-this-y/
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May 24th, 2008, 01:26 Posted By: wraggster
Just like we said, the Zune has made its first retail appearance in Canada. Come June 13th, our friends to the north will be able to get their hands on Microsoft's media players, starting at $139.99 (for the 4GB flash variety), up to $249.99 for the big-daddy 80GB version. Pre-orders are being taken now, but something tells us you'll be able to get one on launch day regardless.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/23/z...-june-release/
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May 24th, 2008, 00:53 Posted By: wraggster
A new beta version of the homebrew game 'Super Mario War(info)' for Xbox has been released.
What's new/fixed:
- New world match type and world editor (prototype) with working screenshots
* Stages, paths, bridges, lots of the stuff from SMB3
* Item menu system with new types of multiplayer style items like change controls, score multipliers and stage resurection
* Moving stages in the form of hammer brothers and tanks
* Bonus houses to visit and a pipe minigame to play
* Doors/keys and warp pipes
* New pipe minigame
- Added suicide timer so players that sit still for too long will countdown and die
- New enemies: spiny, buzzy beetle, paragoomba and parakoopas to stomp
- New powerups: freeze wand, podobo, bomb, tanooki, leaf and pwings powerups
- New map hazards added: flame cannon, bullet bills, pirhana plants, fireball strings, and rotodiscs
- New map items: Springs, Spikes and Kuribo's Shoe!
- New modes: Greed, Collection, Health and Phanto
- Added hidden blocks option to note blocks, powerup blocks, flip blocks
- Added ability to search map field for more than just a single character by typing multiple chars
- Added glide option to chicken in chicken mode (unlimited leaf powerup for player that is the chicken)
- Added new jail key item to jail mode
- Added exploding eggs option to Yoshi's eggs mode
- Added center flag option to capture the flag mode
- Added 3 new map filters for item destroyable blocks, hidden blocks, and map hazards
- Added push only kills option to timed and frag modes (sumo mode)
- Added two new types of platform paths -> continuous path and ellipse path
- Updated straight paths to allow the path to be at any angle, not just vertical and horizontal
- Added team specific spawn areas
- Added new options to yoshi's eggs mode to allow for 4 different colors of yoshis and eggs
- Added warp lock options - enterance only, exit only, both, whole connection, all warps
- Added kill credits for pushing other players into hazards
- Added mode specific extra time powerup for time limit and star modes
- Level editor can now specify where flag bases and race goals will start in a map
- Updated bonus wheel - only 10 bonuses are displayed and the player can choose when to stop the spinner
- Added 11 new tile types: Including right and left death tiles, ice solid on top, ice + death and super death tiles
- Added weapon destroyable blocks that can only be destroyed by that weapon - i.e. fireball breakable blocks, hammer breakable blocks, etc.
- Added fish, snow, leaves, rain and bubble eyecandy availalbe in 3 different layers
- Flipped over shells when hit with POW, MOd, spin attack or bounced from below
- Red and Gray throwable blocks (bounce and keep going when they hit a player/enemy)
- New spin move for tail and cape powerups
- Allow powerup weights to be specified in the map and added options to use weights from game, map or an average of both
- Added two alternate modes to jail "Owned" and "Free for All". Named the 1.7 jail mode to "Classic"
- New animated tileset that gives you complete control over animated tiles in multiple layers
- New tail powerup that can spin attack and allow the player to float down slowly
- Added super stomp move to kuribo's shoe and tanooki statue
- New "poof" gfx for transforming player into different forms
- Expanded tilesets - allows player to use any number of customized tileset inside the game (ships with SMB1, SMB2, SMB3 and SMWorld)
- New blue and orange note blocks
- Removed dependency on tileset.tls -> this file is now only used for default tile types assigned in the level editor
- Added ability to jump off of falling donut blocks
- Added mode settings to tours -> all mode settings are now settable using the tour file and old tour files are still supported (settings default to what they are set in the game mode menu)
- Added view blocks (from AFE), similar to powerup block except you can see what you're going to get when you hit it
- And tons more stuff!
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=651234
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May 24th, 2008, 00:51 Posted By: wraggster
Video-game retailer GameStop has decided to stop selling Microsoft's Zune players at its stores due to what it sees as insufficient demand from customers.
"We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated," said a GameStop spokesperson. "It (also) did not fit with our product mix." GameStop made the decision about a month ago. GameStop said it will sell Zune players online until it clears out its inventory.
Microsoft said Friday that the Zune continues to be carried by other big-box retailers. "We have a set of great partnerships that give Zune a strong presence at retail including Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and others," said Adam Sohn, director of marketing for Zune, in a statement. "We will continue to invest in retail partnerships and have seen good momentum online and at retail over the last few months."
http://www.thestreet.com/s/gamestop-...FREE&cm_ite=NA
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May 23rd, 2008, 22:14 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Are you good at Guitar Hero III? Not by the standards of a man named Daniel Johnson, you're not, because if you were you'd be the world record holder. He's broken the world record for a Guitar Hero III score, is what we're saying.
He scored 890,971 on the Xbox 360 version of the game doing the "Through the Fire and Flames" song by Dragonforce on Expert level. That's completely insane. The previous record-holder was a guy called Chris Chike, who scored 880,920 in March.
According to Guinness, who were on hand to record his achievement, Johnson was competing at a Guitar Hero 24-Hour Marathon presented by Blockbuster in Dallas. The idea was to drum up awareness for Education is Freedom, a non-profit foundation that does something to do with children. We didn't bother to learn.
If you're interested in videogame world records, incidentally, be sure to check out The King of Kong, a documentary about two guys competing for the Donkey Kong world record. It's brilliant and out on Region 2 DVD on 16th June.
Or you could buy the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008, which features contributions from a number of Eurogamer regulars. Just in case you ever wanted Wikipedia in hardback.
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May 23rd, 2008, 19:21 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Shane Kim has said that a future version of Project Gotham Racing could be developed by Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10.
Speaking to Kikizo recently, Kim said, "Our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing."
Nothing is set in stone, he said, but he did add that "after four versions of PGR, it's really important for us to take a fresh creative approach to it and to really think about what we want the next version of PGR to be if we do that".
PGR began life in another guise, Metropolis Street Racer, on Dreamcast with Bizarre Creations, who went on to steer the series through four critically acclaimed Xbox platform-exclusive iterations.
However, with the developer's acquisition by Activision, announced last September, Microsoft had to rethink. "Project Gotham Racing is a signature racing franchise for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live and we plan to continue the series but we have nothing further to announce," the company said at the time.
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May 23rd, 2008, 19:19 Posted By: Shrygue
via Games Industry
Microsoft has said that it will be removing underperforming Xbox Live Arcade titles from its console download service.
Titles that have suffered an average review score of less than 65 per cent and have a trial conversion rate of 6 per cent will be taken off the service after a three month grace period, reports Gamasutra.
The move comes following confirmation that Microsoft is to raise the file limit of game downloads to 350MB.
Microsoft will not be releasing a spring update for the Xbox 360 dashboard as it has done in the past, but wil instead work on server issues
The firm will also establish a new internal develoment team focused on downloadable content.
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May 22nd, 2008, 22:21 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
Square Enix has confirmed that its first Xbox 360-exclusive RPG, Infinite Undiscovery, will be released worldwide on September 2.
The game is being developed by Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile dev Tri-Ace, and has been described (by Square Enix) as an epic RPG where "various situations unfold in a world that changes in real time, with players' choices leading to unknown discoveries."
After Valkyrie Profile 2's excellent reception last year, this could turn out to be a good'en.
Have a look at the latest, bloody gorgeous screenshots here.
UPDATE: Square Enix has informed us that the European date is September 5, and the earlier one is for North America. We've added five new screenshots as well.
Screenshots
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May 22nd, 2008, 01:16 Posted By: Shrygue
via IGN
Square Enix sent out a surprise announcement today of the release date for Infinite Undiscovery in North America and Japan. RPG fanatics will be able to get their hands on the tri-Ace (makers of Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile) developed title on September 2, 2008. Yes, you read the year properly. The game is coming out in just a few months.
"With the simultaneous release of Infinite Undiscovery, Square Enix is entering an exciting new period of delivering great gaming experiences to our fans all around the world at the same time, creating new global communities," said John Yamamoto, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix, Inc. and Square Enix, Ltd. "This is something that we have aimed to do for a long time and we look to continue to deliver worldwide gaming experiences across all platforms well into the future."
Infinite Undiscovery promises a real-time world where "every decision you make leads to a myriad of discoveries and affects every encounter." Stay tuned for more.
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May 21st, 2008, 21:43 Posted By: Shrygue
via Games Industry
Shane Kim has said that officially Microsoft has no plans for a motion-sensing controller for the Xbox 360, but the company continues to invest heavily in hardware, online and services.
Speaking to Wired, the corporate vice president of Microsoft would neither confirm or deny the existence of the heavily rumoured peripheral, which many expect the company to unveil in a bid to compete directly with Nintendo and it's Wii controller.
"We don't have anything like that under development," said Kim.
"Here's my point about hardware: You know that were investing pretty heavily into hardware, online services and content. And regardless of what the underlying technology is, we're going to continue to push innovation in a whole bunch of different places."
"Whether that's in motion-sensing or some other area, we'll see," he added.
During the interview Kim also said that it was to early to call a winner in the latest hardware generation, at least until "somebody's well on their way to reaching 100 million units."
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May 21st, 2008, 21:17 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
Namco Bandai will be adding a fleet of new planes to its surprisingly popular flight sim, Ace Combat 6, in new DLC packs launching May 29.
Five separate download packs will bring a total of nine new planes to the game, if you fancy spending the points to get them all, that is.
The Su-47 -Grabacr Emblem, comes alone and is free (just the way we like it). The Su-33 - Type Ace2 plane will set you back 200 MS Points (around £1.70).
300 MS Points (about £2.75) gets you the Razgriz Set 04, containing three more planes. There's a two-plane Jungle flamingo set, which will also go for 300 points, and for a hefty 400 points (£3.40) you can get another two planes in the oddly-named Idolmaster Ami,mami Set.
Whether you'll want to blow 1200 points on some planes is another issue, but there's some screens of them below, if you're minted and actually considering it.
Screenshots
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May 21st, 2008, 21:16 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
EA has confirmed that the demo for Battlefield: Bad Company will hit Xbox Live and PSN on June 5.
But, however, EA is promising access to the demo a full week early, on May 29, to those of you keen enough to pre-order the title now.
The demo will include a snippet from the single-player campaign, apparently giving you an "early look into the quest for Gold with Bad Company".
On the multiplayer side, you get "the all-new Gold Rush mode on the Oasis map, featuring land, sea and air vehicles," and if you reach Rank 4 in the demo, you'll unlock "an exclusive in-game weapon".
Go to the official page and follow the links through to participating retailers to get in the whole pre-order deal.
Oh, and if you want to know why you might want to put in that order, check out this Bad Company preview while you're at it.
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May 21st, 2008, 20:57 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Hollywood director James Cameron has revealed that Ubisoft already has a version of its Avatar movie tie-in game running in "stereoscopic" vision.
This means you can see a 3D image if you put on special glasses like the ones you might have worn at one a Disney theme park as a youngster. But a bit more futuristic.
Cameron made no mention of whether the game will require 3D glasses like his Avatar film will, but had plenty to say about the benefits of "stereo" vision.
"When you are viewing in stereo, which is what we do, more neurons are firing. More blood is pumping through the brain," said Cameron at the Microsoft Advanced '08 advertising conference (watched by News.com).
"Stereo production is the next big thing. We are born seeing in three dimensions. Most animals have two eyes and not one. There is a reason, I think."
The biggest area to benefit from this will be games, according to the Aliens, Terminator and Titanic creator.
"You are in the game. This is the ultimate immersive media," said Cameron.
Stereoscopic pictures needn't necessarily require 3D glasses, either; Cameron goes on to suggest that laptops, phones, Zunes, and even Windows should be capable enough of producing the three dimensional picture themselves.
Ubisoft was unavailable to comment, but will be pestered mercilessly at its UbiDays event in Paris next week.
Avatar takes place 200 years in the future, and is centred around an ex-marine thrust unwillingly into a colonisation project on an exotic planet. This new world is rich in things us greedy humans want, and will get - if our exploitation schemes go to plan.
But our hero soon finds himself with a conscience and ends up leading the aliens in a battle for survival. The same aliens that can apparently manifest themselves by possessing humans, hence the name Avatar.
Cameron has previously gone on record as saying he expects nothing but the best from Ubisoft with its virtual interpretation, and will certainly not settle for a typical movie tie-in affair.
The Avatar film is set to launch next year. There are no dates or platforms mentioned for the game just yet, but an Xbox 360 version is rather obviously in the works.
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May 21st, 2008, 03:30 Posted By: wraggster
The clever men and women at Rare actually figured out a way to offer connectivity between Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise on the Xbox 360, and the Viva Piñata game on the Nintendo DS. Unfortunately, they figured it out a bit too late in development, and the unprecedented "Three-Six-DS" (say it out loud) connection will not make it into either game.
How would it have worked? Trouble in Paradise on the 360 uses the Live Vision Camera to interpret special codes on Viva Piñata trading cards. The camera's resolution is high enough to even read card codes off of digital screens, like iPods, Zunes (lawl) and portable gaming systems.
According to MTV's Stephen Totilo, Rare realized that codes could be placed in the Nintendo DS Piñata game to allow content to be transferred from the portable to the 360 version. Sadly, this realization came too late in the development cycle of the DS game, and reportedly could not be included. It's the thought that counts, right?
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/20/vi...-not-happenin/
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May 20th, 2008, 21:54 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
Mistwalker's Lost Odyssey sees some decent download content; the 'Seeker of the Deep' Dungeon Pack is out on Xbox Live this weekend, May 23 for 400 Microsoft points (about three quid).
The pack was released in Japan last month, while we had to make do with the comparatively rubbish 'Triple Pack', which had you pay for three items that let you replay game scenes. Cheers for that.
Assuming the Dungeon Pack is the same as the Japanese version, you can expect a single rare item and a new boss encounter at the end.
To get to the dungeon, says Microsoft: "download the DLC pack. Then, once the Nautilus can fly, fly to the centre of the gulf on the right of the inland sea on the north of the Tower of Mirrors (near Saman, the City of Merchants), and dive into the water. When the game displays either "Examine" or "Enter" at the bottom right corner of the screen, press the A button, and delve into the Seeker of the Deep!" How can you miss that?
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May 20th, 2008, 21:01 Posted By: Shrygue
via IGN
Xbox Live Arcade games have been getting larger and larger, and Microsoft has responded by gradually upping the maximum allowable file size for its downloadable offerings.
The original cap was 50 MB, exceeded by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in January 2007. Microsoft then bumped the limit to 150 MB, a threshold that both Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Bionic Commando Rearmed intend to smash.
As a result, Microsoft is moving the bar once again. In an interview with the gaming business site GamesIndustry.biz, Xbox Live portfolio manager David Edery confirmed that the new limit is now or will soon be 350 MB, more than doubling the current cap.
"We've been listening to our partners, listening to our customers to try and get a feel for what's right," Edery told GI.biz. "We don't want the size limit to hit the roof because we think there's some value in promoting small pick and play experiences that don't cost $20 million, it's good for the ecosystem."
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May 20th, 2008, 20:44 Posted By: Shrygue
via Games Industry
With Nintendo's WiiWare launching today across Europe, and Sony's PSN establishing itself as a credible download service for the PlayStation 3, Microsoft has told GamesIndustry.biz that Xbox Live Arcade is about to "leapfrog" the competition using XNA-created games.
First unveiled at the Games Developers Conference in February, the Community Games initiative will become a channel for professional and amateur developers to deliver experimental titles on Xbox Live Arcade.
"I certainly think from an innovation perspective it's going to help us leapfrog the competition, effectively until they find a way to duplicate it, assuming they ever do," stated David Edery, Xbox Live Arcade's worldwide portfolio planner.
"To some extent it will certainly help us have more innovative content than either of them, just by definition. With all this random stuff coming from the community, every once in a while there's going to be a real gem in there that you just couldn't have found otherwise, it wouldn't have found its way on to a console," he added.
The initiative is expected to go live before the end of the year, and Edery believes the service will help identify and create niche audiences that have so far not been served by a download service on home consoles.
"The example I always like to give is will someone finally make that scuba diving game, where there's really only 15,000 people interested in a hardcore scuba diving simulation, but they really, really want one? And maybe through XNA someone can profitably get one out there," he said.
"Today, there's not really a venue for that. I'm not going to green light a hardcore scuba diving game for Xbox Live Arcade today because there are not enough people who are interested in that. But with XNA it's perfectly possible.
"So I'm much more interested in it from a perspective of can it be used to satisfy more people, with more diverse content, than anything else," added Edery.
There are also hopes that the service will be used by established developers and publishers to put experimental ideas and new game mechanics out to an audience able to get hands-on and offer feedback.
"Who knows, maybe a guy like Will Wright will spin out a game in three weeks, toss it out on XNA and see what happens.
"This could become a wonderful test bed and you'll start to see super-cool stuff coming from guys who wouldn't really have that opportunity to do that kind of test marketing," offered Edery.
The full interview with David Edery, where he discusses Community Games in detail, as well increasing the size and rate of games on Xbox Live Arcade, can be read here.
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