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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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January 22nd, 2008, 19:21 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
Microsoft's chief blogger Major Nelson has confirmed that there will be no new releases on Xbox Live Arcade this week, not even a rubbish puzzle game with achievements you'll never play. Damn.
It had been reported that awesome shooter Rez HD and Ubisoft's less exciting Chessmaster Live would take this week's slot, though that's obviously turned out to be a load of rubbish. Maybe next week, eh?
Instead Xbox 360 owners are left to make do with Microsoft's offer of a free copy of Undertow, in compensation for the constant uptime issues with Xbox Live over Christmas. The deal's good until Sunday, so get your skates on.
In case you missed it, the company also rolled out its Xbox Live Arcade Awards yesterday, where gamers are invited to vote for their favourite download games (on Xbox 360, that is) so that Microsoft can crown them with some nice silverware. Get voting!
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January 22nd, 2008, 19:11 Posted By: wraggster
You know, sometimes you get stuff in your tip jar and it's just too far fetched. However, I can't ignore the possibility of this rumor being true. So for now I'll stick it under the rumors column and you can take whatever you want from it.
Basically, some unnamed person has tipped that Microsoft will be dropping the price of the Premium 360 another $49 on the same day that GTAIV gets released. This mwould be a smart move for Microsoft as we know millions upon millions of people love the GTA series.
http://www.thebitbag.com/2008/01/21/...-gtaiv-launch/
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January 22nd, 2008, 19:11 Posted By: wraggster
My source inside the Xbox team posted a response on my Seattle PI reader blog to some of the questions asked in comments.
"First, why the secrecy?
MS knows who I am. That's why I'm not concerned about self identifying to them in these postings with details only they would know, as some here have pointed out. The people who founded Xbox hw number 10. 1 left to go be the VP of manufacturing at Qualcomm, 1 left to go be the GM of engineering at Zune, 1 left after only 2 months in '99 due to conflicts with toddhol [Todd Holmdahl]. He works on Surface now. The rest still work on Xbox. I am the only one who left the company entirely.
I am not concerned about MS knowing who I am. They are worried about me revealing their problems. Not the other way around. Plus, I have contacted every single attorney who has filed a lawsuit against MS and offered to help. Some have accepted, and that work is in progress. We'll talk about that in another post. It's very interesting, I just don't want a bunch of fan boys trying to hack my home PC (that I use for work). Harass my kids, call my house, etc.
Second, why now?
Well, it's not just now. I've been reaching out since before the product went into manufacturing. I left before launch. But many employees continued to contact me about the problems with the product and its launch. I did my best to help them figure out how to mitigate the problems caused my bad management decisions, and test the boxes right. Sometimes my ideas worked, sometimes they didn't. I then started to contact reporters. Sometimes it went no where. Sometimes, it resulted in a spectacular thing, like the ambush interview with toddhol just before MS admitted guilt. But still, it happened too slowly for me. That's one reason I'm doing this now.
Last: My motivation.
I have always been in a position to stand up for the customer. MS stopped me from doing that. They need to pay the price now. If you guys won't get together and make that happen, you have no hope for the future with them. It's not my fight, but I am here fighting. You decide what you want to do. And then do it!
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives...e_responds.php
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January 22nd, 2008, 19:10 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has unveiled the latest update on how its next-generation console is faring in Australia. According to Microsoft, 306,000 Xbox 360s have now been sold in Australia, with more than two million games also sold since the console's launch in March, 2006.
It seems that as many as 160,000 Xbox 360s were sold in Australia in 2007 (and up to 80,000 in the final quarter of the year alone). By comparison, Sony's PlayStation 3 has sold 155,000 units down under since its release in March, 2007.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6184926...s&subj=6184926
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January 22nd, 2008, 19:09 Posted By: wraggster
With a full year's worth of data, we can now see how the three big consoles fared during all of 2007. The weekly console sales rates for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii are shown below.
December 2007 was the best month of hardware sales ever for the Xbox 360, up 11.5% from the record it set in December 2006. For the entire year of 2007, sales of the Xbox 360 were up 17.7% from 2006. At the beginning of 2007, the installed base for the Xbox 360 stood at 4.5 million systems on 14 months of sales. By the end of 2007, just 12 months later, the installed base had more than doubled to 9.15 million systems.
The keys to Microsoft's success were the August price drops and the launch of Halo 3 in late September. Together they effectively started Microsoft's holiday sales surge a month early, pushing monthly Xbox 360 sales up over Wii sales briefly.
The biggest win for the Xbox 360 in 2007 is quite possibly what did not happen: consumers did not shun the system after Microsoft acknowledged higher than acceptable hardware failure rates. The billion dollars that Microsoft set aside to cover the extended warranty program is costly, for sure, but as PR it has worked brilliantly. While many consumers know about the "red ring of death" failures, they bought more of the systems than ever before after Microsoft's mea culpa.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...=8750&Itemid=2
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January 22nd, 2008, 19:07 Posted By: wraggster
A while back I posted that I was looking for an RROD Xbox360; I actually sent it off to MEFAS to get digested for solder joint inspection on the GPU through a process called "dye and pry". In this process, the motherboard is flooded with red ink, and then the GPU is mechanically pried off the board. The red ink flows into any of the tiny cracks in the solder balls, and at least in theory, when you pry the GPU off the cracked regions will shear first so you will be left with visible red spots at the points of failure.
I was a bit puzzled by these results because you didn't see any "catastrophic" failure -- pools of red ink over a connection interface -- just partial cracking. Partial cracking isn't terribly uncommon, and many products work quite well despite such artifacts. However, after reading the [SeattlePI RRoD] article, if Microsoft shorted safety margins around many of the design parameters to get the product out on time, it makes sense that the summation of many partial failures could lead to a total system failure -- failures that have symptoms that vaguely cluster together but are difficult to point to any single root cause. Heisenbugs. Yuck
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=223
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January 21st, 2008, 21:41 Posted By: wraggster
Carcassonne, Pac-Man CE lead nominations
Microsoft has announced the inaugural Xbox Live Arcade Awards.
The finalists in each category were selected by a panel of consumer and videogame industry journalists, but the winners will be determined by popular vote. Fans can cast their votes on the Xbox web site between January 22 and January 30.
Microsoft plans to announce the winners of the awards at the Game Developer Conference in February.
The award categories open for public voting include:
Best Overall Arcade Game
Puzzle Quest
Pac-Man CE
Carcassonne
Bomberman Live
Alien Hominid
Catan
Best Classic Game
Castlevania
Prince of Persia
Asteroids
Jet Pac Refuelled
Sensible World of Soccer
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Best Original Game
Pac-Man CE
Boom Boom Rocket
Aegis Wing
Undertow
Band of Bugs
Hexic 2
Best Family Friendly Game
Pac-Man CE
Carcassonne
Catan
Bomberman Live
Hexic 2
E4
Best Competitive Multiplayer Game
Puzzle Quest
Carcassonne
Bomberman Live
Super Puzzle Fighter II
Undertow
Catan
Best Cooperative Multiplayer Game
Alien Hominid
Golden Axe
Aegis Wing
Double Dragon
Arkadian Warriors
TMNT
Fans will also be able to enter write-in candidates in the above categories to vote for a game not otherwise listed. Only XBLA games released in 2007 are eligible.
Other award categories not open to voting include:
Best selling game
Most played game
Highest rated game
Staff choice
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=32296
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January 21st, 2008, 19:32 Posted By: wraggster
via xboxscene
Klutsh released a small update of iPrep 101, a .NET application and collection of MSDOS scripts/applications for use in flashing a Samsung TS-H943A or BenQ DVD drives.
What's new/fixed:
* Fixes a typo in the DOS Samsung batch files.
* To use just replace the iPrep101.exe in the programs directory.
https://www.x-projects.org/news.php
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January 21st, 2008, 19:13 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
It's time to get all excited about that game you'll (probably) never play. A 'leaked' video of GoldenEye XBLA has once again put Rare's N64 gem under the spotlight.
The supposed XBLA footage shows Bond running through the Missile Silo level with the trusty KF7 Soviet.
The textures and gun look like they've been given a polish over, and if you watch through to the end you'll notice a B-button icon on the menu screen (to the lower right), and a text box that reads: "saving content, please don't not turn off your console."
They could be clues pointing to it being genuine, but as sceptics we would point out that everything in the video could be easily faked using a re-textured, modded version of the N64 ROM running on a PC emulator. By 'easily', we actually mean by homebrew ninjas.
The sad fact is that if there's a lot of hype over anything the gaming world, there are loners out there who'd love nothing more than putting time into making something like this. It must make them feel special to get on .
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January 21st, 2008, 19:05 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Slick Entertainment has announced that puzzle-platform hybrid N+ will soon be available in an Xbox Live Arcade near you.
The game follows the adventures of a tiny ninja with a taste for collecting treasure. It will feature both competitive and co-op multiplayer modes.
According to the Slick website, the release was delayed due to certification. However, as the latest post reads, "N+ finally got through the certification phase, and will be on Xbox Live Arcade soon!"
If you can't wait even a little bit longer, you could always download the PC version - it's free and everything.
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January 21st, 2008, 02:11 Posted By: wraggster
via insert credit
Mazer Mayhem is a new shooter from that bastion of shmupery, ABA Games. Besides the 360 degrees of mazering and the fun abstract graphics, Kenta Cho decided to write this game in Microsoft's XNA. Indeed, he has erected a new category on his main page titled "XNA" (right above an equally new "Flash" section: also worth your while) suggesting that there will be more where that came from. Gentlemen; ready your PCs and 360s!
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu...m/index_e.html
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January 20th, 2008, 14:11 Posted By: wraggster
As I've tried to educate my readers last year with my blog "Why HD movie downloads are a big lie", these so-called HD movies [from on-demand download services] use very low bit-rates compared to even standard definition DVDs let alone something like HD DVD or Blu-ray. Raw uncompressed 1080p video at 60 frames per second is about 3000 mbps so even HD DVD's 28 mbps needs to be compressed about 107 to 1 with the H.264 or VC-1 codec. By all reasonable standards this needs to be the minimum bit-rate for acceptable loss in quality on 1080p video.
Standard definition 480i DVD movies are typically 5 to 8 mbps (megabits per second) MPEG-2 whereas these so-called HD wannabes weigh in at a pathetic 1.5 to 4 mbps of 720p H.264. Apple's new HD service is capable of 4 mbps which simply isn't enough to be considered HD. XBOX360 downloads are 6.8 mbps 720p VC-1 so they're semi-decent borderline HD. Marketing will push the nicer sounding "720p" aspect of the video but they don't tell you it's way too compressed to offer good video fidelity. Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 40 mbps while HD DVD offers a maximum of 28 mbps. Over the air broadcasts can be up to 19.38 mbps.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=959
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January 20th, 2008, 13:04 Posted By: wraggster
Site 8bitjoystick, the same people who seem to have broken the news that Bungie was splitting from Microsoft, claim to have scored an exclusive tell-all interview with an Xbox 360 designer regarding the console's notorious stability. Most of the piece really just confirms that which was already suspected (reasons for the RRoDs, early Xboxes failed around 30% of the time, etc) but what caught our eye was the insider's estimated failure rates on new, smaller and cooler-chipped Xbox 360s seem to still be around 10%.
Q: How much more reliable are the current generation of Xbox 360 than the previous designs? Original Xenon, Zypher and Falcon. I've heard that the failure rates for the current design is sub 10%. Much much better, but still too high imoh. And those designs haven't seen much life yet, so no one knows if that failure rate will hold.
Maybe we are reading too much into the quote, but if the failure rates were closer to, say, 5%, we think that would have been mentioned. No matter what the reading, the Xbox 360's failure rates don't seem to contend with those of the Nintendo Wii or PlayStation 3.
http://gizmodo.com/346891/new-xbox-3...und-10-percent
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January 20th, 2008, 12:58 Posted By: wraggster
We're sure that many of our readers have experienced, or known someone who has experienced, the death of an Xbox 360. If not, you have now -- every member of the Joystiq staff has suffered the bitter taste of the Red Ring of Death or a ruined disc drive. In the midst of this veritable plague of hardware failures, you may find yourself asking questions of your spiritual leaders and community pillars -- questions like: "Why did my 360 stop working? Was the system rushed to release? How do they go about fixing them?"
All of these questions and more are apparently answered in a recent article by Jake Metcalf from 8Bit Joystick (no relation), who interviewed a nameless "inside source" at Microsoft who was involved in the testing and manufacturing of the console. According to the John Doe, the system was rushed to beat Sony to the market, had purposefully cheap heat sinks (which causes most of the RROD problems), and, most disturbingly, there's a chance that Microsoft may run out of systems with which to replace those that suffer hardware failures.
Jake has proven that he's well connected in the past, calling the Bungie-Microsoft split a week before it was announced thanks to another anonymous Microsoft tipster -- but some of the claims made in this particular article are inflammatory enough to merit higher-than-usual levels of skepticism.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/19/ru...he-red-ring-o/
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January 19th, 2008, 20:05 Posted By: wraggster
IGN's Predictions for 2008:
* Gears of War 2 Won't be Announced at GDC
Unlike what most press sites will tell you, we're going to say that the game will not make its debut at this year's GDC. To say that it will is a natural assumption. It's a big show and people are expecting Microsoft to offer up some exciting game properties to satiate the insatiable appetites of their audience. Gears of War 2 fits in with those plans, but we're saying that we won't see the game for a few more months yet.
* Microsoft Won't Release a Blu-ray Player
As it stands, the Xbox 360 has two HD solutions for movies; HD-DVD and Xbox Live Marketplace. Adding a third, especially before the HD-DVD format is totally done and the digital download service hasn't had a chance to truly flourish, is unnecessary this year. Cross your fingers if you want Blu-ray but don't hold your breath.
* Microsoft will Continue to Try to Break into Family Gaming
We predict that Microsoft will still make valiant efforts with family-oriented games continuing to be announced through many of the large game shows, but they'll continue to struggle with consumers. Whether it's because of poor marketing (Scene It?) or the games themselves are poorly made (Sneakers), Microsoft will continue to fail when it comes to pleasing an entire family of players.
* Not Every Big 2008 Title Releases in 2008
Here's a short list of a few of the games that have the sort of ambition or history to make us second guess their release stability: Alan Wake, Fable 2, Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3, Last Remnant, APB, Huxley and Age of Conan.
* We'll Stop Getting Three Red Lights E-Mails by December 2008
Well, we're stepping out on a ledge to say that the Three Red Lights epidemic will have quelled by December 2008. By that time all Xbox 360s bought before a certain date will have fulfilled their destiny and kicked the bucket. Millions of gamers will have gone through the pain of repairing their system. It will be a great day indeed.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/846/846309p12.html
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January 19th, 2008, 17:09 Posted By: wraggster
The rumors of Bully's Wii and Xbox 360 semester starting in March were pretty much on the money, with Rockstar confirming North America starts class on March 4 and the UK getting a delayed opening 'til March 7. As is evidenced by the Xbox 360 screenshot above, Rockstar isn't making the awkward teenagers of Bullworth Academy any prettier for their now-gen premiere. The game is pretty much a port of the PS2 version with some improvements -- hopefully the loading times will be one of them.
Bully: Scholarship Edition features eight new missions, four new classes and some other minor upgrades like achievements for the Xbox 360 and waggle-added gameplay for Wii. The tuition for this trip to Bullworth will be $50 on both systems. We'd say just pick Bully on the cheap for your PS2, but achievements or waggle will probably make another spin with Jimmy Hopkins on a new system worth it.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/18/bu...st-week-of-ma/
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January 19th, 2008, 00:24 Posted By: wraggster
Having a free trial does not exempt a downloadable game from taking advantage of PR; not even in XBLA, where every game gets downloaded by a large number of people. Why? Two reasons. First, that "large number of people" could be a lot larger. 2x (or more times) larger, in fact. Just because a lot of people download every game that comes their way doesn't mean you can afford to ignore the people who don't. Plenty of consumers only think to download the titles they are familiar with -- that's why licensed IP is so popular with many publishers.
Second, conversion rates are influenced by anticipation. This is easy enough to understand. Imagine being faced with two games, both of relatively equal quality. One has been hyped in the press for months. One is unheard of. Your friends are all talking about the first game. You yourself have been looking forward to it. But the other game is just as good. Which are you going to buy?
The trial... it's not just the first five minutes of your game
It's surprising how many developers don't think about their game's trial experience until the very last minute of the development process. A downloadable game's trial is everything! If someone doesn't enjoy your trial, then they probably won't buy your game. It doesn't matter if you licensed the three greatest IP of all time and fused them into the holy trinity of game design itself. If the trial stinks, most people won't bother to lift the curtain on the full experience.
* Don't confuse or frustrate the player
* Don't make the player wait for the fun
* Don't make the trial too short
* Don't make the trial too long
* Intensify the player's curiosity
* Work that upsell message
* Show off your best features
http://www.edery.org/2008/01/how-to-...ll-more-games/
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January 19th, 2008, 00:23 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox 360 Drives the Video Game Console Industry in 2007: NPD data released today confirms consumers spent more dollars on Xbox 360 in 2007, with more than $13.7 billion in total consumer spending. Xbox 360 won 2007 with $4.8 billion in total consumer spend compared to Wii with $3.5 billion and PlayStation 3 with $2.2 billion. This wraps up a historic year, with NPD reporting consumers have spent nearly 45 percent of total industry figures on Xbox 360.
Here is a quick snapshot of what is driving revenue for Xbox 360, based on the latest reports from NPD and Microsoft data:
XBOX 360 WIDENS THE GAP OVER PS3 WITH CONSOLE SALES: According to NPD, Xbox 360 sold 1.3 million consoles in December alone, and has steadily widened the gap between Sony's PlayStation 3 console sales. In December, NPD stated that Sony sold 798,000 PS3 hardware units. Since PS3's launch in November 2006, Xbox 360 has outsold PS3 by nearly 2:1 on average, bringing a total U.S. Xbox 360 install base of 9.2 million consoles, compared to and installed base of 7.4 million Wii consoles and 3.3 million PS3 consoles.
GAMES DRIVE INDUSTRY GROWTH: Xbox 360 robust games portfolio spans across the highest-ranked AAA titles to the largest collection of "Everyone" and "Teen" rated games. According to NPD, of the top 20 best-selling titles in 2007 for this generation, 11 were on Xbox 360; while only seven were sold on the Wii and two sold on the PS3.
* NPD reported that this holiday's leading multiplatform blockbusters continue to sell better on Xbox 360:
o "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" for Xbox 360 was the leading game last month with 1.5 million copies sold, outselling the PS3 version nearly 3:1.
o "Assassin's Creed" for Xbox 360 was the fourth best selling title, having sold 894,000 units. It outsold the PS3 version more than 2:1.
o "Guitar Hero III" outsold the PS3 nearly 2:1, having sold 625,000 copies.
o "Rockband" continues to rock the charts, selling 463,000 units for the Xbox 360 platform, compared to 174,000 units for the PS3
* To date, 33 third party games on Xbox 360 hit the top 10 list across all consoles compared to five third party games on PS3, and four on Wii. These results confirm that third party partners create better games and reap more sales on Xbox 360 than any other platform.
* In its fourth month on the market, Halo 3 continued its strong performance and was the sixth best selling title in December, selling another 742,000 units. In 2007, NPD projects that Halo 3 has sold 4.8 million units in the U.S. since its launch in September.
* Xbox 360 continues to lead in number of games sold per console, setting another record with an attach rate of 7.0 games per console.
XBOX LIVE SETS NEW HEIGHTS: Xbox LIVE's network is 10 million members strong and growing, achieving membership goals six months ahead of schedule. Only on Xbox LIVE can members experience the largest catalog of on-demand, high-definition content in the U.S., including movies and television shows from our most recent partners: Disney-ABC Television Group and MGM Studios.
We're not slowing down in 2008. The next versions of powerhouse franchises like "Grand Theft Auto," "Resident Evil" and sports games like "Madden", "FIFA", and "Pro Evolution Soccer" open up a new arena for game play on Xbox 360. This year we will make great strides toward improving our brand appeal to consumers interested in more physical game play. With titles like "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock," "Rock Band" and "Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action" we're creating interactive experiences on Xbox 360 for the entire family.
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