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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 16th, 2005, 22:07 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has reshuffled the management of its entertainment businesses into four distinct sections, with Peter Moore moving into a new role where he will oversee the entire interactive entertainment sector for the firm.
Moore, a veteran of the industry who headed up Sega of America prior to his move to Microsoft in early 2003, is currently corporate vice president of worldwide marketing and publishing for Xbox.
According to an internal memo seen by news agency Reuters, his new position will see him taking over the reins on both the Xbox division and the firm's successful Games for Windows business.
Robbie Bach, who is the head of the Entertainment and Device unit at Microsoft, will be taking a less hands-on approach with the Xbox and games businesses in future; according to this week's memo, he will be focusing instead on long-term strategy and partner relationships.
"While I will continue to play an important role in the games area, I will spend more time thinking about our broader challenges and opportunities across the division," he told staff in the e-mail.
Bach's role at the Entertainment and Device unit - one of the three business units created to encompass the three key branches of Microsoft's business in an overall corporate reshuffle in September - also encompasses music, television, video, mobile devices, consumer hardware such as mice and keyboards, and embedded systems.
As well as giving Peter Moore a much broader role overseeing the entire games business, Bach's reshuffle of the division also creates an entertainment business focused on music and video, which will be headed up by the division's current CFO, Bryan Lee.
The other two units within Entertainment and Devices will remain largely unchanged, with Tom Gibbons remaining in charge of consumer devices, while Pieter Knook stays at the helm of the mobile and embedded business.
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December 15th, 2005, 18:50 Posted By: wraggster
SuccessHK have posted the release of a new Xbox 360 game and at only USD 56.74 (£30)
A Western shooter mixing first- and third-person viewpoints, this simplistically entitled game is far from a simple shooter in chaps and a holster. The early demo we witnessed in San Francisco last month is a bloody and gruesome action-adventure title, in which Neversoft is intent on capturing the wild nature of the American West in the late 19th Century. This original story follows the life of Colton White, reared as a mountain man in Montana close to the headwaters of Missouri. He accompanies his father, Ned White, to a steamboat to meet a friend, and quickly after, all hell breaks loose. Onboard a fight breaks out; a preacher kills your dad's friend; your dad gives you a special mysterious medallion; and before the boat explodes he throws you over and says, "I'm not your father." The game offers free-roaming exploration as well as set story missions and side missions.
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December 15th, 2005, 18:49 Posted By: wraggster
SuccessHK have posted the release of a new Xbox 360 game and at only USD 56.74 (£30)
No levels. No load times. Just never-ending action that doesn't stop until you leave the game! Tony Hawk's American Wasteland gives you - for the first time ever in a Tony Hawk game - the freedom to skate or bike, throughout a rich, expansive open environment. Once you arrive in Los Angeles, the vast city that gave birth to skate culture, the sky's the limit as you progress through the Wasteland story and choose missions that will have you immersed in the action without ever skating the same line twice!
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December 15th, 2005, 18:42 Posted By: wraggster
"No plans" to add next-generation DVD player to Xbox 360 spec
Microsoft has cleared up speculation regarding possible HD-DVD functionality in future versions of the Xbox 360, saying that it currently has no plans to release an Xbox 360 equipped with a next-generation DVD player.
The unusually direct statement is a straightforward denial of a report from a Japanese news service yesterday, which claimed that the company planned to launch an HD-DVD compatible Xbox 360 in 2006.
"Microsoft, in both America and Japan, has not announced anything regarding the possibility of a next generation DVD drive being placed in the Xbox 360," a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. "There are currently no plans to release an Xbox 360 equipped with a next generation DVD player."
Speculation over whether such a device might be forthcoming originated with comments made back in August by Bill Gates himself, who said: "We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox 360 will incorporate an additional capacity of an HD-DVD player or something else."
And just last month, Microsoft's Japanese Xbox chief Yoshihiro Maruyama said, "it's a possibility" although he did add that it wouldn't have anything to do with games. "If the Xbox 360 uses a next-generation DVD drive in the future, it will only be used for watching movies that run on next-generation DVDs," he said.
As well as allowing high definition movies to be viewed on the system, the topic of high-capacity storage is also of interest because of concerns that standard DVDs - even dual layer versions that can store around 9GB of data - may not be enough to hold all the necessary game data developers want, particularly later in the console's life as programmers and artists come to terms with the machine's capabilities.
However, as Maruyama's comments indicate, there is probably no way for Microsoft ever to move the Xbox 360 to using HD-DVD based games, since by doing so they would render some software incompatible with the original versions of the Xbox 360, which would not be able to read the HD-DVD discs.
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December 15th, 2005, 18:37 Posted By: wraggster
We’re not normally the types to get into the nitty gritty of sales figures and the like, but we have to admit we’re kind of sickly addicted to following the sales trends of the Xbox 360 this season — especially since the only competition it has in the US is its lack of supply. Which might be why NPD is reporting that they’ve only sold about 326,000 consoles by the end of last month — a solid 230,000 consoles behind the 556,000 first-gen Xbox consoles sold in the same time frame. The crucial Japan numbers are in too — crucial because Japan is really the country they want to crack this time around — and they’re, um, not so hot. Like only an estimated 28 - 40% of their allotment Xboxes were sold (Famitsu Xbox 360 editor Munetatsu Matsui attributed this to the postponement of DoA4). We’re not making any judgments or anything, but Microsoft really needs to get these things on the shelves before we can know how successful this console’s really gonna be.
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December 14th, 2005, 21:46 Posted By: wraggster
The first independent figures regarding the launch performance of the Xbox 360 in North America have been released by the NPD Group, revealing that 325,902 consoles were sold by the end of November.
Shortages of the hardware at retail have held back Microsoft's console sales, which lag behind the early performance of the original Xbox - which sold 556,000 units in a comparable amount of time after launch back in 2001, despite direct competition from Nintendo's GameCube, launched only three days later.
However, the console has had an incredibly strong launch in software terms, with 1.27 million units of software shipping alongside those hardware units - representing a tie ratio of 3.9, far higher than the original Xbox tie ratio of 2.4.
Whether that healthy figure is down to consumers being "encouraged" to pre-order additional software in order to guarantee the status of their console pre-orders as the imminent shortages became clear in the run up to launch or not is a matter for debate - but for software publishers, it represents a major bonanza from the new launch.
Activision, in particular, will be delighted with this showing; Call of Duty 2 was far and away the most popular launch title for the Xbox 360, and with just over a quarter of a million sales, 77 per cent of all Xbox 360 purchasers brought home the game with their console.
Electronic Arts took the next two places in the inaugural Xbox 360 monthly chart, with Madden NFL 2006 selling some 178,000 units, and Need for Speed Most Wanted selling 108,000, while Microsoft's Perfect Dark Zero - the best selling title in the UK at launch - was the highest ranked first-party game at number four, with sales of nearly 86,000 units.
Microsoft claims to be making regular hardware shipments to retail in the wake of the launch, and will continue to do so into the New Year - but with many specialist retailers still working through a backlog of pre-orders, it may be after Christmas before there's much free stock of the Xbox 360 on shelves.
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December 14th, 2005, 21:27 Posted By: wraggster
News from Divineo China
We still did not have the full specs from the producer (but they are coming very soon), however, the SmartXX V3 is now IN STOCK.
With what we have seen with Smartxx V1 and Smarxx V2, you can only expect one of the very BEST modchip on Xbox!
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December 13th, 2005, 20:22 Posted By: wraggster
Source The Register
The Xbox 360's DVD file system has been exposed, a coding group calling itself Pi, has claimed.
The group said it has posted source code for a utility that allows discs' files to be extracted and displayed as raw data. The group admits there's not much that can be done with it beyond explore the file-system structure, if anyone is prepared to jump through all the hoops necessary to bring code and disc contents together.
The utility runs on a PC, apparently, but Xbox 360 DVDs are incompatible with PC DVD drives. Since the code won't run on an Xbox 360, users have to create an image of an original disc then transfer that image to a PC.
The utility does not bypass copy-protection mechanisms, the group claims. More to the point, even creating and transferring an image of a disc you own is against the law - if only as a violation of the end-user licence agreement.
However, it is likely to provide the foundation for work seeking to attack the content protection put in place by Microsoft.
According to the Pi people, the Xbox 360's file-system is essentially the same as the one employed by its predecessor console: "Once you get past the protections and down to the raw bits on the disc, its just the standard xboxdvdfs, however the offset and layer breakpoint are different."
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December 13th, 2005, 20:08 Posted By: wraggster
The first figures to emerge from Japan regarding the Xbox 360 launch there last week have indicated that almost three quarters of the stock shipped to the region remains unsold, suggesting a tough start for the new console.
Market research firm Media Create estimates that only 28 per cent of the consoles shipped in the territory sold through in the weekend of launch, representing actual sales of just under 42,000 units.
While that baseline figure is by no means disastrous - it's certainly better than the original Xbox console, which sold under half a million units in Japan in its entire lifespan in the region - the low sell-through rate is embarrassing for Microsoft, which has struggled to meet demand for the console in Europe and North America.
In Japan, the Xbox 360 launched at a significantly lower price point than it did elsewhere - with the premium pack, the only version being offered in Japan, retailing for just slightly more than the Core Pack does in the EU and America.
Microsoft has focused strongly on the importance of being first to market with the Xbox 360, a factor which it sees as crucially important in Japan - where in the last generation, it lagged behind rival Sony by a full two years.
As well as launching earlier, Microsoft also hopes to win over Japanese gamers by having more locally developed software for the Xbox 360, including titles from high-profile developers Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez, Space Channel 5), Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy) and Yoshiki Okamoto (Street Fighter, Resident Evil).
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December 13th, 2005, 07:17 Posted By: JuggaloBob
A couple months ago I read up on the possibility to transfer Xbox saves on to your PSP using a USB device that plugs into the controller port. Would this work with transfering your original xbox saves to the 360???
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December 12th, 2005, 19:00 Posted By: wraggster
In North America and Europe, Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold out in most retail locations within hours of going on sale. In Japan, though, it was a different story, as there were still plenty of consoles on shelves throughout its debut weekend.
Microsoft had a successful launch ceremony at the Shibuya Tsutaya shopping center, where executives Peter Moore and Yoshihiro Maruyama joined 250 gamers to count down the last seconds before the Xbox 360 went on sale in Japan. Bill Gates didn't make an appearance in person, but nevertheless, the console sold out in just 30 minutes at the store.
But at other retailers in the city, lines for the Xbox 360 were not nearly as long. At the Shinjuku location of the popular Yodobashi Camera electronics-store chain, where Sony officially launched the PSP last year, around 30 people were lined around half an hour before the console went on sale at 7:30 a.m. At other major shops, crowds reportedly ranged from 10 to 30 people, although customers who pre-ordered didn't have to line up at most locations.
But after hardcore gamers made their purchases, many 360 units remained unsold. For example, the Akihabara branch of Yodobashi Camera also promoted the Xbox 360 heavily. It established a dedicated area and cash register for the machine, where many customers stopped to check out a trailer of the 360 forthcoming adventure game Ninety-Nine Nights. However, most visitors walked away without buying a 360. On Sunday evening, one of the busiest shopping times in the weekend, over two dozen Xbox 360s were stacked up behind the 360 cash register and several idle, bored-looking sales assistants.
The apparent lack of enthusiasm came despite retailers' efforts to promote the Xbox 360. Most displayed the console prominently near their entrance or cash register. Many stores also had high-visibility Xbox 360 demo kiosks where people could try out the games or watch trailers on a high-definition LCD screen. In general, retailers also sold the Xbox 360 at around 38,800 yen ($322), a slight, 1,000 yen ($8.33776) discount from its official sticker price.
Some major retailers offered more substantial Xbox 360 discounts. Akihabara's Asobit City gave 15,000 yen ($125) store credit when a customer signed up for broadband internet-service plan when they purchase their Xbox 360. Sofmap offered a 20,000 yen ($166) discount on Xbox 360s, with a purchase of a game and a broadband ISP signup. Sofmap also randomly gave away two free Xbox 360s to customers who purchased a certain amount of goods at their store.
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December 12th, 2005, 18:58 Posted By: wraggster
Peter Moore has reiterated Microsoft's conviction that Xbox 360 will exceed expectations in Japan, and has spoken in more detail about the importance of offering a "Core System" alternative outside the region - both in terms of price-sensitive regions at launch, and as the system matures throughout its life cycle.
Speaking to US website 1UP on the eve of the Japanese launch, which took place on Saturday, Moore said that the Core System - which retails for UKP 209.99 and consists of a bare bones Xbox 360 without a hard disk - was important going into countries like China, Russia, India, Poland, Hungary and Latvia. "Those are markets we're going in. We're going to globalise this industry, and price becomes a big issue."
"[W]e need to offer cascading price points in 2008, 2009, 2010, to bring in tens of millions of gamers each year. And the flexibility the Core System versus the Premium SKU gives, is that," he added.
In terms of the Japanese launch, Moore said that the "overall strategy" was the same in terms of branding and tagline while TV advertisements and "tactical marketing" would differ slightly.
Moore was robust in his defence of the global launch strategy, although he did effectively concede that the Japanese day-one line-up was less than ideal. When it was suggested that having big titles at the Japanese launch would have been important, he compared it to the PlayStation 2 - widely thought to have grown stronger following a weak launch period. When asked if the global launch was the right decision, however, he responded, "Absolutely. It's a marathon, not a sprint."
Dead or Alive 4's slip to December 29th, widely publicised in the past week, was a question of integrity, he said - it was non-negotiable that it be finished before it shipped. He went on to argue that, "a year from now, everybody will have forgotten that it was two weeks after launch."
Microsoft has also raised eyebrows with news that Japanese-developed or produced titles like Ninety-Nine Nights, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon and Enchant Arm won't be ready until 2006 either, but Moore insisted that all were quality propositions, and argued that the free beta of Square Enix's port of PC and PS2 massively-multiplayer RPG Final Fantasy XI available to Japanese Xbox 360 buyers was "a big deal".
The Xbox gamer in Japan, Moore said, was quite insular compared to his European or American counterparts due to the language barrier, but some did make forays into the worlds of Halo 2 and other Westernised gaming environments. He also said that he expected Xbox Live Silver, which allows for chatting between Xbox 360 owners although no gameplay, would be popular, and that Xbox Live Arcade, which allows players to buy and download older arcade games and submit scores to global leaderboards, would be "huge" and "a killer app".
Reflecting on the US launch, Moore expressed regret that more units hadn't been available, but said, "The fact of the matter is, there are a lot of people loving playing Xbox 360 around the world right now." The US launch sold out "in minutes", he said.
Whether the console would see that kind of success in Japan wasn't something Moore was prepared to be specific about. "I sense the demand is strong," he said, but didn't offer any estimates. Xbox 360 is technically on sale worldwide now, and Microsoft hopes to meet demand by re-supplying retail channels on a weekly basis.
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December 12th, 2005, 18:56 Posted By: wraggster
Need an Xbox360 then why not buy the Jap Version, heres all the info from Lik Sang
Microsoft's second-generation video game console features a multicore 3.2GHz IBM PowerPC-based CPU, a custom ATI graphics chip, and multichannel surround sound. The unit has wireless controllers and offers 720p and 1080i support for all games. The system contains a detachable 20GB hard drive and media remote. The included LAN cable and free Xbox LIVE trial makes it ready for online gaming, out of the box. For a limited time, also includes a free Xbox 360 headset and Final Fantasy XI Xbox 360 game.
Buy you Xbox 360 at a fair price and for UK people cheaper than what you can buy in the UK here --> http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?pro...0&lsaid=219793
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December 11th, 2005, 11:05 Posted By: wraggster
Heres a cracker of a news article from Lik Sang and with pictures & videos too:
 
Our live-from-the-craze-in-tokyo reporter, Tim Rogers, got it all covered for us again. After his brilliant feature about the hectic PSP launch last year, Tim assembled his crew for Lik Sang once more, this time around, to head towards Tsutaya in Shibuya, in order to cover [and rampage] the Xbox 360 official event. Event which was embarrassingly anticipated with much lower expectations in Japan than in the western world, analysts predicting the 360 to be yet another big flop for Microsoft in the mother country of video games [check Forbes' related story here]. Tim Rogers, who braved the cold and went on "36 hours without sleep mode" again for the occasion, reported a situation that fits with what we all came to expect: there wasn't such a big of a party going on and it was incomparable with crazy release days that Japan is known for when it comes to a new PlayStation, a new Nintendo system or even a new Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy opus.
Read the full report from Japan Here --> http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?art...&&lsaid=219793
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December 11th, 2005, 01:27 Posted By: wraggster
Can’t say anyone’s too surprised, but apparently the general reaction to the Xbox 360 launch in Japan today was lukewarm at best. Microsoft does have first-mover advantage there on the next-gen console playing field unlike last time around, and they’re hoping that will be the ticket to increased sales in a market that, if first-day reaction is any indication, may end up preferring to wait for the PS3 or Revolution to arrive next year.
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December 10th, 2005, 20:42 Posted By: wraggster
Darcelf has released a new emulator for Xbox.
Xvectrex is a port of vecx, a vectrex emulator.
The Vectrex is an 8-bit video game console developed by General Consumer Electric (GCE) and later bought by Milton Bradley Company. The Vectrex is unique in that it utilized vector graphics drawn on a monitor that was integrated in the console; no other console before or after the Vectrex had a comparable configuration. It was released in late 1982 at a retail price of $199. As the video game market declined and then crashed, the Vectrex exited the market in early 1984.
More info at his site here --> http://www.darcelf.tk/
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December 10th, 2005, 20:10 Posted By: wraggster
SuccessHK posted this news:
Microsoft's XBox 360 console is facing its hardest test yet as it prepares to launch in Japan tomorrow. Japan is the third largest market in the gaming industry and the traditional stronghold of Sony and Nintendo.
Microsoft's previous attempt to woo Japanese gamers with its original XBox console did not produce noteworthy results as the company remained third in the previous console wars. This time the software giant hopes it has an advantage as it is the first manufacturer to launch its next generation console while rivals Sony and Nintendo are not expected to release theirs until spring 2006.
X360 has had an, all things considered, successful US and European launch with most retailers selling out by the first day but Japan may not offer a similar pleasant experience for MS. Pre-orders on the Internet look solid, but I don't think the retail stores will sell out of Xbox 360s in the first day, said Takeshi Tajima, an analyst at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. According to Japanese analysts the delay of Dead or Alive 4 until after the launch, may damage Microsoft's plans for the launch and while most hardcore gamers will buy the console, many will wait until better titles are available and by then other consoles may also be available. This analysis focuses on what many U.S. and European analysts have noted about the XBox 360 launch; the lack of a killer title.
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December 10th, 2005, 14:31 Posted By: wraggster
The Shibuya Tsutaya Shopping Center has always been a popular location for game companies to launch a new product. It's where Microsoft unveiled its original Xbox to the Japanese in February 2002, and the company decided to use the same location for today's Japanese Xbox 360 launch ceremony. The center is located at an intersection right outside the Shibuya train station, which is one of the famous landmarks in Tokyo.
Gamers planning to buy an Xbox 360 at Shibuya Tsutaya didn't have to worry about lining up early, as the store gave out numbered tickets to ensure order. Nonetheless, there were already more than 80 people lined up outside in the cold an hour before the console went on sale at 7 a.m.
An additional crowd of curious pedestrians also gathered around the building, wondering what all the fuss was about. Some of the attendees from the previous night's countdown party at the Xbox 360 Lounge were also on hand. The number of customers at the Shibuya Tsutaya event eventually totaled 250, according to Microsoft.
The Shibuya Tsutaya Xbox 360 launch event was hosted by Hisanori Yoshida, a famous DJ from the Nippon Broadcasting radio station. Yoshida, an owner of the original Xbox, expressed his excitement over the launch of the Xbox 360. He also confessed that he couldn't stop playing Halo 2 the previous night, when he should have been resting for his big job this morning.
Fired up by Yoshida, the crowd went wild when Yoshihiro Maruyama, Microsoft Japan's Xbox operations chief, came up on stage. "Thank you all for coming so early to the countdown ceremony today," said Maruyama. "We've finally been able to make our way to the Xbox 360's launch here in Japan. We've all been doing our best to respond to everyone's expectations, and we're finally going to be able to deliver it today. We're anxious to see if everyone will enjoy it."
When asked by Yoshida about his own gaming tastes, Maruyama revealed that he likes racing games. "I've played a lot of Ridge Racer 6," said Maruyama. "I keep on racing the courses in time trial mode to see if I can score below one minute. It takes me a while to get used to racing games. I try to memorize the courses and figure out where to drift."
Maruyama also recommended another racing game. "Microsoft will release Project Gotham 3 in January [in Japan]," he told the crowd. "I think we've already said it before, but it recreates cities like Shinjuku [in Tokyo], Las Vegas, London, and New York, in a very realistic fashion. You can really check out the billboards and other objects as you drive around. I've rode around the city of Shinjuku a lot [in the game], and I could see the pubs and stores that I go to, which is pretty cool."
After Maruyama finished his speech, Microsoft corporate vice president of worldwide marketing and publishing Peter Moore (who also had stopped by the Xbox party last night) came up on stage. He received a huge cheer from the fans at the Shibuya Tsutaya after telling them "Ohayougozaimasu!"--"good morning" in Japanese.
He then continued in English. "Thank you for getting up so early in the morning here to welcome the new era of gaming with the Xbox 360," he said through a translator. "On November 22nd, just a few weeks ago, we were very proud to introduce the Xbox 360 into the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people were able to buy the console that night, and have been playing great games ever since." said Moore, who went on to explain that the console has also a big a hit in Europe.
"But as exciting as those two events were, nothing is more exciting for me personally than to be here in Tokyo this morning, with seven minutes to go to the launch of Xbox 360 here in Japan," continued Moore, who has been committed to penetrating the Japanese game market, where the original Xbox never gained major popularity.
"I want to give my thanks to the hundreds of people who work at Microsoft here in Tokyo that have labored the last two and a half [to] three years to enable to get us here," Moore said. "And perhaps equally as importantly, my thanks to the fans of the Xbox here in Japan, who have been so loyal to us though our difficult times in the first generation. Your loyalty will pay off with incredible gaming experiences in the next generation."
After Moore finished his speech, a large high-definition monitor on the stage began counting down the last remaining six minutes--360 seconds--until the opening of the store. Then the anxious customer waiting in line to purchase the first official Xbox 360 in Japan was pulled on stage. The customer, a 22-year-old graphic designer, had come to the Shibuya Tsutaya on Thursday morning, but was turned away because the numbered tickets for the event were not yet being handed out. Today, he got in line at 4 a.m., long before trains begin to run in Tokyo. Fortunately, he works in the area, so he decided to spend the night at his office.
Surprisingly, the first customer revealed that, despite his eagerness to pick up an Xbox 360, he doesn't own a current-generation Xbox. "I'm especially looking forward to the graphics," he said. "I heard that the visuals will be extremely beautiful with the shift to high definition. I really got interested in the Xbox 360 after I checked it out at the [Xbox 360] Lounge."
When asked by host Yoshida if he'll be playing with his girlfriend, the customer quietly mumbled and dodged the question. Later on, Moore teased him, saying "I'd like to tell our lucky winner, that he's a guaranteed girlfriend with every Xbox 360."
During the last 60 seconds of the Xbox 360 countdown, a short video where various people, including game developers, shouted the console's name. When the clock struck zero, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates appeared on screen to holler "Xbox 360!" in Japanese. He did not, however, appear at the event in person as some had hoped.
From a purely retail perspective, the event was a resounding success. Half an hour after the launch began, all the Xbox 360 consoles at Shibuya Tsutaya were sold out. There wasn't even a unit left for Moore and Maruyama to pose with for press photographs.
Following the light-hearted ceremony, the two Microsoft execs got serious, issuing some stern comments about their company's competitors. "History tells us that no great empire lasts forever," said Moore. "In the case of the Sony PlayStation, obviously it has been a great empire. But when a superior culture comes along, typically, it means the end of that empire. We believe that the superior culture is the Xbox 360 games experience, particularly the Xbox Live experience, which will bring communities from around the world together through gaming."
Moore also said he believes that the Xbox 360 will help Microsoft become a leader in the Japanese game market. "The most important thing is that we have the support of every major Japanese publisher … and I'm very proud that we've able to get that support from the Japanese development community."
Moore concluded with even grander statements. "This is not a sprint. This is a marathon. Life cycles of consoles last for many years, and it's now a global business. We're the first company in the world to launch globally in the United States, Europe, and then Japan in 18 days. We think that gives us phenomenal momentum against our competition. We're very optimistic about our numbers. Obviously on a long-term basis, it's our goal to drive towards complete market leadership around the world."
Maruyama talked more about the current status of the Xbox 360 in Japan, and revealed that some additional surprises should be waiting during the remaining few weeks of 2005.
"As you may all know, we've had an uphill battle with our current-generation platform," conceded Maruyama. "Our approach this time is to consistently provide good titles to the Japanese users, and make everyone acknowledge that the Xbox 360 is different. We believe that doing so will make our business flourish. We see Sony as a rival, but we think that the most important thing is to deliver [good] entertainment."
"We've already said that six titles are being released today, and four additional titles are coming out within the year," continued Maruyama. "During the year, we'll also announce several new titles that are being developed for the Xbox 360. We will also release details on a number of other games that are already announced, especially Blue Dragon, which is being developed under Microsoft. We should be able to show off some new footage."
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December 10th, 2005, 01:45 Posted By: wraggster
Gamespot is reporting that a new update to the 360's backwards compatibility has been issued ... and just as promptly recalled. From the article: "Late last night, Microsoft updated the backwards-compatibility list with eight games from the trio of Tom Clancy-inspired series. Software emulators for Ghost Recon, Ghost Recon 2, Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike, Rainbow Six 3, Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow, Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory all became available for download. However, within hours of the new update's release, reports began to circulate that it was causing problems with Halo 2.
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December 9th, 2005, 21:11 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox-scene.com has a brief story on the first Xbox 360 game dump here. A full dump of the game 'Condemed' has been released. From the article: 'The PI group released Xbox 360 game ISOs today. Note that downloading such releases is illegal and you can't do anything with them yet (they will not boot on your Xbox 360). They also released an open-source tool to extract these releases (basicly it's an 'x360-ISO extractor') so you can check out the files in the image. It will NOT work on original discs as a PC DVD-ROM can't read those.'
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