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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 2nd, 2008, 01:43 Posted By: wraggster
We're well aware the first three words on the Xbox Live service status box are "up and running," but those issues are continuing to persist, and if our flooded tip jar and the Xbox Live forums are anything to go by, they're probably not just "intermittent". If you're (still) seeing issues, as always feel free to shout it out, as well as hit our poll so we can keep track of just how severe this stuff is. (So far, of those polled who've been trying to use Live, roughly 75% responded that they've been experiencing moderate to severe issues.)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/01/x...ng-except-not/
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January 1st, 2008, 23:33 Posted By: wraggster
The Xbox360 has apart from Japan positioned itself as the true hardcore gamers console with many fantastic games coming from the console, on the hacking and homebrew front the breakthrough still hasnt been reached so to all fans heres a question for you !
What are your Hopes for the Xbox 360 both in Homebrew and the Commercial Arena ?
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January 1st, 2008, 22:16 Posted By: wraggster
This Sunday will mark the end of an era: Bill Gates is going to deliver his final CES keynote in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, the rumor mill continues to churn, unwilling or unable to pause briefly and reflect on the legac ...
... whoa, sorry about that. On to the rumor du jour: Seattle Times staff columnist Brier Dudley speculates that Microsoft "may be preparing to license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer-electronics companies." While you look up 3DO on Wikipedia (we'll help you out), we'll continue with the specifics of this speculation. Dudley envisions a Toshiba-built 'box bundling "a digital video recorder with a hard-drive, high-definition HD-DVD drive and Xbox gaming capabilities." Alternatively, Microsoft could forgo the licensing and bundle that HD DVD drive themselves "putting it on par with Sony's PlayStation 3 that has a built-in Blu-ray drive."
The rumors regarding an integrated HD DVD drive have been swirling about for some time (Toshiba says "no comment"), so Dudley could be basing his speculation on the old "where there's smoke, there's fire" adage. Guess we'll know soon enough.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/01/sp...into-xbox-360/
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January 1st, 2008, 17:05 Posted By: wraggster
Considering it's due on the Mac in early 2008, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the on-again, off-again Xbox 360 port of Epic's Unreal Tournament III isn't "on hold" any longer, and may even be as far along as 90% complete – if we're to believe a scanned image from a German gaming magazine. Our German is a bit rusty (read: nonexistent) but the folks from ********** are saying the release is expected sometime around April of next year.
If accurate, that means the PS3 enjoys a four-or-so-month timed exclusivity, including the lucrative holiday season. Now, if only those pesky sales would pick up ...
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/31/ru...0-90-complete/
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January 1st, 2008, 17:04 Posted By: wraggster
We know we don't need to tell you guys this, but Metal Gear Solid 4 coming to the Xbox 360 is still a rumor despite gaming site Xbox Family saying, rather unequivocally, "Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming to the Xbox 360. This is not a rumor." Well, duh ... it's a rumorang.
With that caveat out of the way (and stowed safely in a locker somewhere), we'll proceed to relay the rumorang your way: An unnamed Konami rep apparently dropped some knowledge on Xbox Family, whispering that MGS4 would sneak onto the Xbox 360 12 to 14 months after the PS3 version is released (whenever that is). The site also published a lengthy email from Microsoft's John Porcaro basically saying "no comment" which they also suspect may be further proof of the rumor. (Why did he write so much? He's very polite, you know.)
With Konami execs straight up saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 may go to other consoles, and MGS4 producer Ryan Payton saying the game needs to sell a million copies on day one to make the pricey production profitable, it's not like Konami's showing their best poker face either. But that doesn't mean it's not still a rumor which, of course, we don't need to tell you guys.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/01/ru...4-months-late/
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January 1st, 2008, 00:56 Posted By: wraggster
Just as Microsoft's past year was characterized by launches, the next will be defined by a departure.
But even as Bill Gates leaves his full-time executive role, the company will be grappling with some of the biggest competitive challenges in its history, particularly on the Internet.
Here's our annual look at what to watch at the company in 2008.
* XBOX: The coming year will be pivotal in the video-game console industry, where Microsoft's Xbox 360 is competing against Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3. Entering the past holiday season, the Xbox 360 and Wii were neck-and-neck in worldwide market share, with the PlayStation 3 trailing.
Microsoft has said it wants its Home and Entertainment Division, which includes the Xbox business, to reach sustained operating profitability in the company's current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...oftware31.html
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January 1st, 2008, 00:53 Posted By: wraggster
In Spokane, Washington, a 20-year-old man was arrested on felony stalking charges after chatting to a 15-year-old girl on Xbox Live and eventually threatening to rape the girl and her sister.
At around 9:00pm Friday, Stetar sent a text message saying that he was driving by her house at the moment. The girl's parents in fact saw his car drive by.
At 9:36pm, Stetar sent another text message stating, "Tell the cops that I'm gonna rape you and your sister."
The girl's father called police, and officers found the suspect staying at a nearby Econo Lodge motel.
http://gamerush.zoomshare.com/files/..._Xbox_Live.htm
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January 1st, 2008, 00:50 Posted By: wraggster
There are sure a lot of "best of lists" coming out of the woodwork now since the year is beginning to come to a close. And not surprisingly, many of the lists read basically the same. Many of the games that are on those lists are definitely must play games (Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4, The Orange Box), but whatever happened to the other games that were fantastic throughout the year like World in Conflict, Persona 3, or Lunar Knights to name a few. With just an avalanche of triple A titles hitting us at the end of the year, many excellent games were overshadowed by the sheer amount of press coverage and excellent PR campaigns that were given to those games that were at the top of those 2007 lists. So here are the games that are the ones that have been forgotten because they came out early in the year or worse, never got the credit that they deserved in the first place.
The Xbox360 games in the list:
02) Eternal Sonata (Xbox 360)
10) Overlord (PC; Xbox 360)
14) Bomberman Live (Xbox 360)
16) Virtua Tennis 3 (PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Sony PSP)
http://www.poisonous-pixels.com/2007...ve-played.html
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December 31st, 2007, 11:35 Posted By: wraggster
We're nearly nauseous from all the spinning on the Xbox Live carousel. One minute we're in, the next we're out. Now, Microsoft is confirming that the issues are back via Xbox.com, and as if that weren't enough in and of itself, the outfit is also informing Zune owners that they "may experience intermittent issues logging onto Zune Marketplace." From what we can tell, there's no definitive ETA on a resolution that will actually stick for more than ten minutes, but if we were you, we'd lock down that Hotmail account, pronto.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/30/x...ves-microsoft/
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December 30th, 2007, 22:50 Posted By: wraggster
Many of you might have noticed a bevy of problems facing Xbox live over this past week: An unresponsive marketplace, the inability to recover a gamertag (or even sign in), and aggravating matchmaking wait times, to name a few. Major Nelson issued a statement last night explaining that while there have been no complete outages of the service over the past week, "problems like this are not acceptable," and that they are working to get the service back to normal. Sadly, no time frame was provided on when repairs to the service would be complete.
There's been no official statement on why the service has been so shoddy lately, but if we were the guessing type, we blame it on the holiday season. We're sure that tons of people found a 360 under their trees (or candles), and immediately tried to hop online; only to collide with the millions of vacationing gamers who were already playing. Technology has come a long way, but the internet can still only hold so many racial epithet-slinging Master Chiefs before things start breaking down.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/30/ma...x-live-issues/
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December 30th, 2007, 18:13 Posted By: wraggster
Skyllus vBi, member of the professional gaming group Team vBi, just can't seem to catch a break. After being recognized by Bungie for making a very popular Halo 3 video, Skyllus was rewarded with the incredibly rare in-game "Recon Armor", which only Bungie employees and a select few Halo community members have. Of course, it didn't take long for some of the shadier members of Halo 3's player base to grow green with envy -- Skyllus has reportedly had his Xbox Live account hacked three times since late October.
The latest hack that Skyllus has suffered has been particularly difficult on him, due to Live's uncooperative customer service. After being told that there was nothing he could do to regain control of the account, and being given the runaround for a few hours, Skyllus had to settle for the promise of an investigation into the account in question.
Keep in mind that any kind of identity theft is illegal, especially if the hacker touches the victim's credit cards (which are easily accessible through information on an XBL account). We hope that the digital notoriety that comes from wearing rare armor in a game is worth the risk of going to real-world jail.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/30/pr...-halo-3-armor/
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December 30th, 2007, 12:08 Posted By: wraggster
Since Microsoft knew you were tired of having your holiday break marred by the annoyingly frequent news of Xbox Live outages, they've decided to redefine the verbage, newspeak style. Apparently the term "Status: Up and running" has now been expanded to include a laundry list of "intermittent issue" caveats some users might be experiencing, including but not limited to trouble with: "Tournaments, Storage Downloads, Gamer Tile, Statistics through Arbitration, Match Making, and Messaging." If you're hoping to play Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 online (you rebel, you) you're most likely even more out of luck. There are also far-reaching problems that trace back to Windows Live IDs, so there's a decent chance that your Zune account is on the fritz at the moment as well. But don't worry, it's all up and running.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/29/x...sh-with-irony/
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December 30th, 2007, 00:18 Posted By: wraggster
TeamXbox.com can confirm that Microsoft has been researching alternative input technologies for the last two years, including vision-based recognition such as the one used on Xbox Live Vision, as well as motion sensing technologies similar to those seen in the Microsoft Freestyle Pro and the PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS.
Particularly, Microsoft has looked at ways to improve the right analog stick input and you'll hear more about those efforts soon.
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/15364/...60-Controller/
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December 29th, 2007, 00:50 Posted By: wraggster
We know that there are some of you who have already tired of your holiday toys, and while we think this is incredibly selfish and that you should be ashamed, Microsoft has stepped up, announcing an "updated version" of Metal Slug 3 for Xbox Live Arcade. The game will roll onto the service next Wednesday, January 2, and promises updated HD visuals and two player co-op over Xbox Live, along with all of the 'rocket lowncher' antics you can handle. So, for those of you who are just like my mother, and are never satisfied, prepare to fork over a cool 800 MS Points ($10). There, happy now?
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/28/th...g-3-onto-xbla/
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December 29th, 2007, 00:46 Posted By: wraggster
We're starting to think Xbox Live's holiday strategy was modeled after Newtonian physics: what goes up must come down. Although the Live support site shows the service as being "up and running", apparently users are still experiencing intermittent issues, sometimes more dramatic than those officially listed. We don't know about you, but even though only some of us on we were able to get on, even they have been seeing a lot of stalling and freezing -- and the unlucky ones are just completely shut out of Live. How are things going out there? Any XBL issues of which to speak?
P.S. -Microsoft, congrats on the great holiday season. You obviously sold a TON of Xbox 360s and Live service contracts. Now be a doll. Give everyone a week (or, say, a month) of free Live service for the ugliness over vacation, ok? These people paid for their service when the other guys offer it up for free.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/28/x...-difficulties/
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December 28th, 2007, 22:48 Posted By: Triv1um
Via Geek.com
The Scottish government has decided to use the advertising potential in videogames. It has allocated US$19,778 for videogame advertising to send out a message to youngsters about the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol.
The advertisements will be seen by Scottish gamers in popular games on the Xbox 360 console. The specific games are
Need for Speed: Carbon, Project Gotham Racing 4, and the soccer game Pro Evolution Soccer 2008.
Speaking of the advertising initiative, Stewart Stevenson, Transport Minister, said:
With statistics showing that road deaths, particularly among young people, are continuing to rise, it is clear we must look at new ways of getting road safety messages across. This is exactly the kind of initiative we should be trying … It is innovative, it is new, and it is far removed from the more traditional methods we have been using. I believe that is what we need if we are to reverse the number of Scots families suffering the tragedy of a loved one being lost.
If this initial campaign turns out to be successful, then road safety advertising may be expanded in videogames.
I think using videogames to get important messages across to teenagers through advertising is a good idea. In the U.K., the driving age is 17, and the drinking age is 18, so teenagers are gaining access to two desirable activities very close together.
I’m not sure the choice of games is the best, however. In racing games, you are usually traveling at fairly high speeds, and therefore advertisements will be passing you at a rate that may make them unreadable. Hopefully, clever positioning at the starts of races and during loading or story progression sections should alleviate this problem.
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December 28th, 2007, 12:07 Posted By: wraggster
via xbox scene
It's starting to get a real tradition to see the xbox-linux/free60 guys at the Chaos Communication Congress at the Berliner Congress Center in Berlin, Germany. The 24th edition of the congress (25C3) started yesterday (Thursday), and later today (Friday) Felix Domke (alias Tmbinc) and Michael Steil (alias Mist) will hold their 1-hour "Console Hacking 2007" lecture.
The title for this year is "Why Silicon-Based Security is still that hard: Deconstructing Xbox 360 Security", so I guess they will not only explain and talk about the Hypervisor Exploit (remember: it was introduced 'anonymously' last year during one of the 'Lightning Talks' at 23C3 by the 'hoodie guy'  ) but also about the Timing Attack downgrade-hack. To know if there will also be some new stuff introduced we'll have to wait till after the 1-hour lecture that will take place at 4pm CET.
Here's the introduction of their lecture:
The Xbox 360 probably is the video game console with the most sophisticated security system to date. Nevertheless, is has been hacked, and now Linux can be run on it. This presentation consists of two parts.
In the first part, we describe the motivation and the design of the Xbox 360 security system from a very high-legel point of view, present the hack and what is possible with Linux, and discuss how the situation can be improved both for the manufacturer and for hobbyists with future devices.
In the second, very technical part, we will discuss the design and implementation details of the Xbox 360 system and security architecture and describe in detail how and why it was hacked, as well as how Linux was ported to this new platform.
Other console related lectures at 24C3:
* 'Playstation Portable Cracking' by TyRaNiD on December 30th 5:15pm CET
* 'Console Hacking: State of the Wii' by Ben Byer+others - 14th in line of the 'Lightning Talks' (5-minute talks)
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December 28th, 2007, 12:05 Posted By: wraggster
There are certain events of 2007 that industry folks would just as soon not ever hear about again--so here they are...
#10 - The Non-Elite Elite
"Now, for only $20 shy of the price of a PlayStation 3 you could own a wireless-less, HD-DVD-less system with a larger hard drive and that thunderous Xbox 360 fan noise. To its credit, it did have a sweet black paint job..."
#7 - Surprise! Zombies!
"The corporate VP of Microsoft Game Studios, Shane Kim, had a secret. Each morning he chuckled quietly to himself, knowing it would make a huge splash at E3 in 2007. Then a Game Informer interview ruined it. You can't really improve on the original, so just read for yourself"
#1 - Red Ink of Death
"With a year's headstart and exclusive hits like Gears of War, Microsoft started 2007 looking every bit the confident market leader they'd longed to be since 2001. Beneath that sanguine exterior, however, lurked a horrible, horrible truth: "Things break."
So said Microsoft's Peter "Antoinnette" Moore of increasingly prevalent Xbox 360 hardware failure - known colloquially as the Red Ring of Death - in a May 2007 in an interview with Mike Antonucci of The Mercury News. Within two months Microsoft publicly acknowledged finding several design flaws which were killing systems and took a $1 billion charge to extend consumer warranties. That charge alone cut Microsoft's profit for the quarter by 25%."
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...1&limitstart=0
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December 28th, 2007, 11:17 Posted By: wraggster
The format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD continues, but now the participants are really getting feisty. Both camps have been particularly aggressive this holiday season, offering a variety of discounts, free movies, and other incentives to convince consumers to back a particular format. The intense competition seems to have rubbed off on Internet fanboys, leading to Internet arguments that are even more ferocious than usual (which is saying something). As part of the animosity, the official Blu-ray site was hacked this weekend, and an online forum had to shut down its format discussion section.
The Blu-ray site modifications occured last Friday, when visitors to the Blu-ray site were redirected to "The Look and Sound of Perfect," the website for the HD DVD format operated by the North American HD DVD Promotional Group (including Universal Studios, HP, and Intel).
The redirection seems to have been fixed quickly, but it was no doubt a bit disconcerting to the Blu-ray camp while it lasted. There's no word yet on who was responsible for the mischief, although speculators have proposed various scenarios, including the HD DVD Group paying off a hacker to do the job. That last one seems particularly improbable, but we've heard stranger stories before. Either way, this hack wasn't a particularly malicious or damaging one, but it is representative of just how heated the format wars have become.
The acrimony has spilled over to audio-visual forums, too, providing plenty of examples of the heated discourse about Blu-ray and HD DVD that has been clogging the tubes lately. Plenty of name-calling is sprinkled in with discussions of the merits of the two formats, and a little misinformation tends to further feed the flames. The AVS Forum is a particularly popular venue for home theater discussion, and the arguments there apparently got so hot that the site temporarily closed its Blu-ray and HD DVD discussion areas in November.
They're back now, but with a pretty extensive set of rules and liberal warnings against format arguments posted all over. Again, some format forums closing isn't a huge deal, but the fact that the discussion is getting this heated in the first place is a good indicator of just how passionate both sides are about their formats.
Sadly, there's no end in sight to the Blu-ray/HD DVD war, but hopefully things will at least calm down a bit as the holiday season winds down and people are buying fewer movies and players. If not, we're going to keep seeing the format wars splashed across the web as the hacks and the arguments continue. Happy new year!
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...en-uglier.html
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December 27th, 2007, 21:05 Posted By: Shrygue
via Kotaku
New numbers have come from Famitsu, who has broken down Japanese sales figures on the top 50 Xbox 360 games since launch. None of the results are good. While Blue Dragon, an RPG by famous Final Fantasy developer Hironobu Sakaguchi was indeed Japan's most successful 360 title, it only sold 202,740 copies. (So it would seem Microsoft had the idea right, just not the scale). Dead or Alive 4 comes in at number 2 with 108,618 and Halo 3 is all the way back at spot 4 with 82,987.
So what's the grand total of all the top 50 Xbox 360 games sold in Japan? 1,818,924. Ouch. Hit the jump for the full list that's accurate up to Dec 9th, 2007.
Xbox 360 top 50 game sales totals in Japan
01. Blue Dragon - 203,740
02. Dead or Alive 4 - 108,618
03. Ace Combat 6 - 83,045
04. Halo 3 - 82,987
05. Ridge Racer 6 - 73,501
06. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - 72,274
07. Trusty Bell - 70,244
08. Gears of War - 68,270
09. Dead Rising - 68,078
10. Lost Planet - 61,555
11. DEAD OR ALIVE Xtreme 2 60544
12. Lost Odyssey - 60,376
13. Idolm@ster - 48,695
14. Dynasty Warriors 6 - 44,292
15. Assasin's Creed - 41,436
16. Ninetynine Nights - 38,019
17. Forza Motorsports - 2 31,255
18. Rumble Roses XX - 29,187
19. Crackdown - 28,588
20. Culdcept Saga - 27,960
21. Earth Defense Force 3 - 27,087
22. Perfect Dark Zero - 26,085
23. Test Drive Unlimited - 25,788
24. PGR3 - 25,058
25. Beautiful Katamari - 24,186
26. World Soccer Winning Eleven X - 21,904
27. Armored Core 4 - 21,096
28. Dead Rising (Xbox 360 Platinum Collection) - 20,325 (total sales 88,313)
29. [eM] eNCHANT arM - 20,233
30. Saint's Row - 18,593
31. Rainbow Six Vegas - 18,592
32. Oneechanbara vorteX - 18,443
33. Need for Speed Most Wanted - 17,973
34. Bulletwitch - 16,241
35. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 - 15,994
36. PlayOnline/Final Fantasy XI All-in-One Pack 2006 - 15,754
37. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 - 15,090
38. Idolm@ster (Xbox 360 Platinum Collection) - 14,864 (total sales 63,559)
39. Earth Defense Force 3 (Xbox 360 Platinum Collection) - 14,707 (total sales 41,794)
40. Final Fantasy XI Wings of the Goddess Expansion - 14,412
41. Call of Duty 3 - 14,194
42. Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena - 13,169
43. Chrome Hounds - 13,110
44. Tenchu Z - 12,974
45. Project Sylpheed - 12,283
46. PGR 4 - 12,237
47. Viva Pinata - 12,184
48. Godfather - 11,670
49. Dynasty Warriors 5 Special - 10,957
50. Bulletwitch (Xbox360 Platinum Collection) - 10,857 (total sales 27,098)
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