As if breaking into a home, jacking a mysterious PlayStation console, only to return for the power cord used to hold victims captive with wasn't zany enough, now we've got a Big Ten all-star (and his twin brother) reportedly swiping an Xbox. While nothing's been "confirmed," Wisconsin cornerback Jack Ikegwuonu and Northern Illinois safety William Ikegwuonu have been accused of "breaking into an off-campus apartment and trying to steal an Xbox console." Both players now face burglary and criminal trespassing charges, and if convicted, will probably not face the maximum "four years in prison" penalty. Interestingly, Wisconsin is refusing to suspend their guy until "all the facts are gathered," presumably hoping to squeak him in the lineup for the team's January bowl, while NIU has already dropped the axe on ole William, who didn't start a single game all season. But hey, at least he can simulate the team's Poinsettia Bowl matchup on a (rightfully purchased) Xbox, right?
The death knell has tolled for Xbox 360's predecessor as official release schedules show seven of the UK’s top ten publishers appear to have turned their backs on the format.
According to official release schedules, major third parties like Ubisoft, Sega, Midway, Vivendi and Activision have no planned future Xbox releases.
European president of Sega Mike Hayes told MCV: “Sales on Xbox have fallen dramatically in the last six months. It no longer represents a viable platform for us.”
And general manager for Activision in the UK and Ireland Andrew Brown added to the groundswell of opinion: “Given the current dynamic in the Xbox market in the UK, we have had to manage the availability of our slate in line with consumer demand.”
According to ELSPA statistics, Xbox enjoyed just 2.6 per cent of total software sales last week. This was still 30 per cent better than the week before, however – perhaps an indication that retailers have started slashing software prices in order to shift remaining stock.
Retailers such as Virgin Megastores, HMV and Woolworths have pulled Xbox hardware off the shelves completely and started selling-off marked-down software.
“It's fairly self-evident that demand for particular titles on Xbox is diminishing and becoming less commercially viable,” head of games at HMV Tim Ellis told MCV. “I can understand why some titles may no longer be coming out."
The only big budget games still officially due for the format are: Avatar The Last Airbender from THQ (09/02), Medal Of Honor: Heroes from EA (Q1 2007) and 2K Games’ film tie-in Ghost Rider (Q1 2007).
In stark contrast to Wednesday's news that mod chips were to be formally legalized in Australia, British trade organization ELSPA has announced that a man in England has been sentenced to one hundred and twenty hours community service for running a "while you wait" modding service.
The conviction was made at Carlisle Crown Court on the Scottish border, where Stephen Fitzgerald pleaded guilty to nine charges relating to "chipping" games consoles, contrary to the British Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (copyright circumvention offenses). He was ordered to pay £2,500 towards prosecution costs and subject of a Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) confiscation order for £2,710, to be paid by May 23rd or face three months in jail.
Fitzgerald was picked up by Police, Cumbria Trading Standards and an ELSPA investigator in April 2004 when, trading as www.mods-and-sods.co.uk, he operated a stall at a computer fair held at the Swallow Hilltop Hotel in Carlisle, where he offered to modify PlayStation and Xbox consoles while people waited. His stall also offered and advertised for sale pre-chipped PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles.
Operating out of a Newark home cluttered with DVD burners, computer towers and piles of blank discs, Derek Ramirez was like countless other high-tech thieves pirating computer game software, authorities say.
But, those authorities say, Ramirez was a thief with a difference. He would not only sell customers pirated DVDs for Microsoft's Xbox 360 game. For $60, he would modify an Xbox console so it would not reject counterfeit software, they said.
Investigators estimate Ramirez, who advertised on the Internet, had thousands of customers before the Essex County Prosecutor's Office raided his home and arrested him yesterday.
"He was one of our higher profile targets in the area," said Robert Hunter, manager of intellectual property enforcement for the Entertainment Software Association, whose investigators keyed in on Ramirez.
Ramirez, 24, was arrested in the three-story home on Mount Prospect Avenue he shared with his mother and other family members. He was charged with violating New Jersey's anti-piracy act, a third-degree offense that can carry up to five years in prison.
Xbox is in the news this week, again linked to tragedy. During the opening hearing for Tyrone Spellman's murder trial we were reminded how Spellman beat his 17-month-old daughter Alayiah to death after she allegedly knocked his Xbox off of the shelf while he was playing Ghost Recon. "I thought it was broken. I popped her in the face," Spellman told police.
Alayiah's death is one of several child slayings, at the hands of parents, recently profiled by the Philadelphia Inquirer in an effort to expose the Department of Human Services' failings. DHS workers had visited Alayiah's home twice during the month before she was murdered.
via joystiq
A new version of the homebrew game 'Super Mario War for PC and Xbox has been released.
What's new:
* Game Graphics Pack, Menu Graphics Pack, and Sound Pack Support
* Graphics in PNG format
* Better menu system
* Support for map browsing by thumbnails
* New background/music system
-Includes support for any number of arbitrarily-named BGs
-Map makers may freely pick music categories in editor
-Music can now be in MP3 format
-Music packs for 1.6 will no longer work! (But they can be upgraded)
* Fully customizable controls, including joystick support
* Game engine improved with support for carryable stuff
* Support for Tournament Tours
* Multiple A.I. difficulty settings
* New interaction blocks
-Blue throwable blocks
-ON/OFF blocks and switches (4 colors)
* Increased interaction block limit (shouldn't crash with too many bricks now)
* Players now gradually slow down on ice (there is now a little friction)
* 11 new items
-Shells (4 types - green, red, spiny, and buzzy)
-2UP, 3UP, and 5UP mushrooms
-MOd Block
-Feather
-Mystery Mushroom
-Boomerang (includes three trajectory options - flat, SMB3, and Zelda)
* Item switch which lets you change which items appear and at what frequencies
* Bullet Bills are now color-coded and properly attribute kills
-If two Bullet Bills of different colors collide, they explode
-This can kill anyone, including the owners of the B.B.s
-Bullet Bills can also now kill enemies in Stomp mode
-If a player uses two B.B.s in succession, their effects now overlap
* 3 new modes
-Star
-Capture The Flag
-King Of The Hill
* Goomba mode expanded into Stomp mode, which now includes Cheep-Cheeps and Koopas
-Enemies in Stomp mode now also burn up by falling (just like players)
* Fire Frenzy, Hammer, and Bob-Omb modes combined into Frenzy mode
-Also includes 9 more cards
-You can still configure it so that it plays like the old modes
* Eggs in Yoshi's Eggs now have to be manually carried by players
-Can kick eggs to Yoshi and still get the points
* Jumping an already-owned player in Owned mode is now worth a 5-point bonus
-Chicken kill bonus is also 5 points now
-Tag death penalty also 5 points
* Podoboos and Bowser Fireballs added to Survival mode
* Most modes now have extended scoring options (i.e. you can set the goal higher)
-Point-based modes still only go to 1000 but you can select by 50s now
-As a result, 1UPs in point-based modes are now only worth 10 points
* Free Play mode removed (replaced by infinite limit in all modes)
* New configurable options available in most modes (Too many to list here - see Readme for more info)
* Random skin selection (pick a skin at random)
* "Random" skin selection (pick a skin at random at the beginning of each game)
* Skins are now alphabetized regardless of creator, like maps
* New option to turn off the bonus wheel after a tournament
* New option to clear currently stored powerups
* Moving platforms in maps (and test function in editor)
* Ability to filter maps based on several attributes and custom lists
* Ability to browse maps by thumbs
* Expanded and better-organized tileset
* Ability to limit or increase frames per second
* Respawn time now settable in half-seconds
* Configurable off-screen arrow time and item respawn rate
* Option to turn off warp locks
* Option to put the crown on the leader in-game (not just on the HUD)
* Lots of new projectile options (fireball life, shell life, etc.)
* New race lap and game-start sounds
* New chicken skin
* POW and MOd now animated
* Players are now animated on the team select screen
* Skin names are displayed on the team select screen
* "Ready" icon on team select screen
* At the end of the game, losers are shown with their aerial death sprite
* Pause button can now terminate the game when someone has won
* Lots of extra eyecandy added to lots of things
* Item no-spawn zones in editor (prevent coins, eggs, bases, etc. from spawning)
* Can now choose tile type for each tile on the map in editor
* Map screenshot option in editor
* Default map eyecandy set to None (was clouds)
* Tons of new maps and skins, and new and fixed BGs (thanks, forum regulars!)
* Skin error checking (skins of the wrong size or color depth won't work now)
* The game now detects no sound card and will default sound/music to off
* There is now an option to change music tracks instead of looping one repeatedly
* Spawning code greatly improved - players/items shouldn't spawn in blocks/walls now
* Losts of Bugfixes (full list)
* Much-improved Readme
* Various minor bugfixes and whatnot
* And probably something else I forgot, because Two52 put in so much new stuff (yay)
We thought it was a teensy bit unfair for everyone to harsh on the Zuners for not having full Vista compatibility at launch when Vista isn't even really out yet for consumers for another month or so. That said, the Zune team is adding Vista support today in a 22MB update that also claims to fixes bugs, improve the installation process (thank god), and hopefully generally help keep the loathing of Zune to a minimum. Now we're wondering if we'd have had as much trouble with firmware v1.2 yesterday if we'd have waited for software v1.2, too.
P.S. -Update goes live at 10:00AM PST, set your downloaders for stun.
It's not the first time, nor the last, that people will find porn on (supposedly) new or recycled consumer electronics. This time it happened to a family in Southside Chicago who purchased Microsoft's Zune from the local Walmart for their 12 year-old daughter. The daughter, who says the box looked like it had been opened (the charger was missing) discovered that her player contained porn. When confronted, the Walmart store manager initially blamed Microsoft for the pre-load. Later, a Walmart spokesman said they would investigate the matter and provide the couple with a full refund plus a $25 gift card -- presumably to pick up a copy of "My Two Daddies" to help the mother explain to her daughter why the "5 men were having sex with each other." Uh, "join the social" Microsoft?
Replacing your failed DVD drive just got easier, with Talismoon’s 8164 solderless adapter. This device allows you to use an LG-8164 DVD drive with your original Xbox. Repairing your Xbox just got cheaper and easier! In addition, the LG-8164 drive reads CDs at 52x and DVDs at 16x, which means that you will also experience faster read speeds (up to 8 times faster than OEM). Fast read speeds means faster load speeds, which is less time waiting when you could be playing.
Specifications & extra information
Installation consists of using 2 PCBs to reroute the signals to pass through Xbox connectors. It takes less than 5 minutes to use the included ribbon cables to accomplish this, and no special tools are required to install the adapter.
The LG-8164 has native support for reading the following disc types:
CD-R
CD-RW
DVD-R
DVD+R
The LG-8164 (with adapter installed) will work with Xbox versions 1.0-1.6. Your Xbox must already be modded to take advantage of the full features of this item.
It's a long way from a portable Xbox (others' best efforts notwithstanding) but it looks like Microsoft has at least one form of portable gaming in mind if this latest word from the company's European Chief Chris Lewis is any indication. Commenting on the Zune's potential game playing abilities in an interview with TotalVideoGames.com, he says that "gaming is certainly something we're considering for the device." Unfortunately, that's about all he said on the subject, although if we had to guess, we'd expect the games to be more in line with the iPod's offerings than a shrunken-down version of Gears of War. Some form of Xbox 360 connectivity would seem to be a definite possibility, however, given that it's already able to share other content with the console. It also seems likely that this won't be the full extent of Microsoft's foray into portable gaming, in light of some of the earlier indications we've heard.
Leaf is a software application that makes it easy for you to fully utilize your always-on broadband connection to your home network. Setup and installation is easy! -- download the latest version of Leaf 2006:
* Create your own private network with your friends
* Our file sharing is like no other file sharing, it is actually disk sharing.
* You can always stay connected to your media no matter where you are.
* Easily stream music directly to your friend's digital media receiver.
* Play XBOX head-on-head with your friends no matter where they are.
With Linux running on iPods for a few years now, it would seem that it was only a matter of time before someone got a version of the operating system up and running on Microsoft's Zune, especially given the fact that the player's Freescale iMX31L processor can already handle the OS. Well, according to one fearless warranty-voiding individual, that prospect is now at least one step closer to reality. In a post on ZuneBoards, "Mys Videl" claims that he's managed to get Linux on Zune "partway working," currently only able to be booted while synced and with limited capabilities. While Videl's not willing to let the secret loose just yet (or even provide pics of it in action for that matter) he is promising to release it as open source when its finished, and open it up to beta testing before that. Exactly when that might happen, he isn't saying.
Redmond, Washington—With a robust library of 160 high-definition games expected by holiday, Xbox 360™, the video game and entertainment system from Microsoft Corp., will get even better today. On its one-year anniversary, Xbox 360 will digitally deliver an initial lineup of TV shows and movies to gamers in the U.S. via Xbox Live®, the online games and entertainment network from Microsoft.
As announced earlier this month, Xbox Live Marketplace will now provide gamers with easy access to hundreds of full-length TV shows for download to own and movies for download to rent from CBS, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment with more content rolled out through Xbox Live Marketplace every week. Xbox 360 is the first gaming console to offer standard and high-definition TV shows and movies via digital distribution.
Xbox 360 Experience
Since its launch on November 22, 2005, Xbox 360 has gained impressive traction fast. Xbox 360 was the fastest console to reach five million sold, and six million Xbox 360 consoles had been sold by the end of September 2006. At least 10 million are expected to be sold by the end of this holiday season.
Expected to be available in 37 countries by holiday, Xbox 360 continues to retain record game and accessory attachment rates, according to NPD. With more than 4 million members and an expected six million by June 2007, Xbox Live continues its leadership as the first and most comprehensive online games and entertainment network seamlessly integrated throughout the entire Xbox 360 experience.
Xbox 360 is prepared to have a booming holiday season, with consoles readily available at retail along with a host of new accessories such as the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel, Xbox Live Vision camera and Xbox 360 HD DVD Player, not to mention blockbuster games such as Gears of War® and Viva Piñata™.
"We're exactly where we wanted to be this holiday with Xbox 360 retail stock availability," said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "With an incredible library of games, more than four million gamers playing online with Xbox Live, and a growing catalog of high-definition gaming and entertainment content, why would anyone wait in line when you can get a superior experience from Xbox 360 right now?"
Examples of the download-to-own TV shows and download-to-rent movies available on the network on November 22 include the following:
CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, NCIS, and Star Trek from CBS.
Chappelle’s Show, Drawn Together, and Emmy and Peabody award-winning South Park from COMEDY CENTRAL.
Pimp My Ride and Punk’d from MTV.
Avatar: The Last Airbender and SpongeBob SquarePants from Nickelodeon.
Skyland and Invader Zim from Nicktoons Network.
Chinatown, Star Trek VII: Generations, Patriot Games, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Sum of All Fears, The Untouchables, and We Were Soldiers from Paramount Pictures.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Frisky Dingo, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Sealab 2021, and The Venture Bros. from Turner Broadcasting.
Some of the most intense fights from Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Breaking Bonaduce and Hogan Knows Best from VH1.
Perfect Storm, Poseidon, The Shining, Three Kings, and V for Vendetta, as well as The Nine and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip along with the CW show Veronica Mars from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
Using the Family Settings feature, parents and individuals can choose the video content that can be played on their family’s Xbox 360. With the availability of this new entertainment content, it's easy to set controls based on movie, TV, and video ratings, or you can entirely block explicit and unrated video content for yourself or your children.
Xbox 360 gamers in the U.S. can access Xbox Live Marketplace with a free Xbox Live Silver subscription or a paid Xbox Live Gold subscription and a broadband connection. Pricing is competitive and will vary based on format, media type and whether the content is a new release movie or a classic feature film.
Download Pricing
High-definition TV shows will be 240 Microsoft® Points per episode, and standard-definition TV shows will be 160 Microsoft Points per episode. New release movies in high definition will be 480 Microsoft Points, and standard-definition new release movies will be 320 Microsoft Points each. Classic feature films in high definition will be 360 Microsoft Points, and standard definition will be 240 Microsoft Points. After purchasing a high-definition TV show or movie, you can download the standard-definition version at no additional charge.
Microsoft Points can be purchased at retail or via Xbox Live. For example, gamers can get a 1,600 Microsoft Points card at retail for $19.99 (U.S.) or 1,000 Microsoft Points through Xbox Live for $12.50 (U.S.). More information about Xbox Live Marketplace is available at http://www.xbox.com/marketplaceentertainment.
