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Halo 3 Racks Up $170 Million in Day One Sales
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Bungie, Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
The internet has been set ablaze with hyperbolic phrases like “biggest day in US entertainment history” and “redefining entertainment” and “worldwide celebration,” all used to describe Halo 3’s truly mammoth first 24 hours on the market. Microsoft estimates that the game garnered $170 million in US sales in its first day, eclipsing previous records set by movies like Spiderman 3 or even the latest Harry Potter novel. In addition, Microsoft claims that over a million players went on Xbox Live to play Halo 3, making September 25th “the most active Xbox Live gaming day in history.”
All that remains to be seen is just how big of a sales surge the Xbox 360 will experience for the month of September and beyond.
Read More 
| Major Nelson
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Call of Duty 4 Beta Ends September 30th
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Activision, First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
Robert “402” Bowling from Infinity Ward has posted about some upcoming changes to the Call of Duty 4 beta on his blog. The most significant announcement is the closing of the beta on September 30th, but he also revealed that two days prior the level cap, which has been at 16 for a couple of weeks after being lifted from the initial cap of 11, will go up to 25. That gives beta testers only two days to jump from 16 to 25 before the beta closes down in anticipation of the game’s release November 5th.
Part of the post hinted that CoD4 had gone gold, but Bowling refused to come right out and say it, saving the announcement for more official channels. He did say that Infinity Ward had received congratulations from the Sony of America and the Xbox 360 certification team, which leaves little room for doubt that the game is in the final stages before shipping.
The beta has been an excellent marketing tool for Infinity Ward since the strength of the game is quite evident from the limited, multiplayer-only test version. Even though the game is likely gold, the beta continues for developers to continue gathering data for the inevitable title upgrades and expansion packs. The raising of the level cap so close to the end of the beta is, speculatively, due to the launch of a certain multiplayer juggernaut a few days prior.
Read More | Fourzerotwo's Blog
Inside Halo 3’s $10 Million Marketing Push
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
Microsoft has known how important Halo 3 will be to their success this generation since before they even announced the Xbox 360. Halo 2 sold $125 million on the first day, but then the original Xbox was just struggling for recognition in the wake of the PS2 juggernaut. Now the 360 holds a tenuous lead in installed base and isn’t selling the way Microsoft may have hoped. If it’s possible Halo 3 may have become even more important to Microsoft’s strategy than they originally hoped. Fortunately, they’ve been planning ahead.
In an article released today on Brand Week, the calculated ten-month marketing efforts behind Bungie‘s trilogy finale is dissected starting from the Starry Nights TV spot launched last November through the public beta this spring/early summer. They talk about the Project Iris viral campaign and the efforts they’ve gone to secure strategic branding partners. This has included the Mountain Dew Game Fuel limited edition soft drink that comes plastered with Halo 3 imagery plus a total of $5 million from Pontiac to help push the launch of the game on September 25.
And they aren’t done yet. Microsoft will begin the full blitz with the new Believe campaign that will lead up to the launch taking place at midnight in over 10,000 stores to give Halo fans a chance to grab the game as soon as possible. It’s an interesting read about the science behind building a monster.
Read More | Brand Week via Kotaku
Splash Damage, developer for the upcoming multiplayer shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars based on the Quake property, announced that it will be releasing a PC demo of the game on Monday, September 10th in anticipation of the game’s October 2nd release in North America.
Quake Wars was originally slated to be released in 2006 but was pushed back to allow for more testing and polish. The game is a team-oriented multiplayer skirmish game that takes place prior to Quake II in the game’s chronology and features objective-based missions, vehicles and full bot support for solo play.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is due in Europe and Australia September 28th.
Read More | Gaming Today
Time Magazine’s Cover Feature on Halo 3 Draws Fire
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Bungie, Culture, First Person Shooters, Microsoft, Xbox 360,
Time Magazine has Halo 3 on their cover this week but the feature inside the magazine, written by Lev Grossman, has raised the hackles on the necks of several game writers. Dan Zuccarelli from Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites takes Grossman to task for what he feels is an ill-researched piece. It’s not hard to see where Zuccarelli is coming from. In the third paragraph the Time article calls Halo 2 an Xbox 360 exclusive and the inset graphic (reprinted on BBPS) shows a fan mod Xbox 360 featuring Halo 3 artwork rather than the actual Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360, not to mention mis-labeling the Heroclix Scarab as merely a “sculpture.”
What really has some people frothing though is Grossman’s obvious bias against gamers that seeps from nearly every paragraph as he repeatedly refers to them as antisocial, unhealthy, unpopular and even twice refers to gamers as residing in a ghetto. It’s not clear whether he refers to a literal ghetto or if he’s being metaphorical, but either way it doesn’t seem particularly balanced or neutral in tone.
Read More | Time via The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites
Haze Goes PS3 Exclusive, Gets New Gameplay Video
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Sony, Ubisoft, Xbox 360,
The video above, showing some of Ubisoft‘s shooter Haze, reveals some of the combat tactics in play later in the game once your character has joined against his former employer.
While the video looks nice and showcases some of the game’s more intriguing facets, even more intriguing is the announcement that the game is now slated to be a PS3 exclusive. Originally haze was to be a timed exclusive, hitting the PlayStation 3 first and then coming later to the Xbox 360 and PC. Now it seems that developer Free Radical is only working on the PS3 version, although Ubisoft isn’t conting those version out completely, saying only, “The official statement on PC and Xbox 360 is that these platforms are not confirmed.”
Read More | GameSpot
Amazing New Halo 3 Videos
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, Bungie, First Person Shooters, Microsoft, Trailers, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Any gamer with even an inkling of interest in Halo 3 should head over to Gamersyde right away and check out some of that site’s stunning off-screen campaign footage, a sample of which we have posted above. This video shows off the game’s unique replay feature, which allows you to record and play back entire levels of the single player campaign, as well as multiplayer matches, at your leisure. Players can then use the footage to analyze their enemy’s defenses, exploit weaknesses, and polish their own skills to a Legendary sheen. Note how the Bungie representative in the video uses the feature to check up on the exploits of a group of Marines on the other side of the battlefield! This is awe-inspiring stuff.
Halo 3 hits the Xbox 360 on September 25th, but of course you already knew that.
Read More | Gamersyde
Is BioShock a Perfect Game?
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Features, First Person Shooters, PC, Reviews, Xbox 360,
The reviews have been coming in for a week now, and they have been phenomenal. Consider that according to GameRankings.com, BioShock is the 4th best game of all time. On Metacritic, BioShock has received more perfect 100 scores than even The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, usually the game cited as the best of all time. Clearly, 2K‘s Mature-rated, failed utopia FPS is a critical smash hit.
Perhaps then there is little need for another glowing review of the game. Except this is not a glowing review in the strictest sense, because BioShock is not exactly the masterpiece of perfection indicated by these scores. Instead, BioShock is a wonderful game that happens to draw to light the inadequacies of the way games are typically reviewed and the inherent inconsistencies of how games are judged.
Click to continue reading Is BioShock a Perfect Game?
Valve’s Gabe Newell Speaks About the Orange Box and Wii
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: First Person Shooters, PlayStation 3, Release Dates, Wii, Xbox 360,
Game Informer has an interview up with Valve‘s Gabe Newell where he discusses the upcoming Orange Box which will include Half-Life 2 plus Episodes 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. From the interview:
Episode Two was really helped by Episode One, believe it or not. I think that we’ll continue to get the hang of it. It’s a pretty big deal to throw a bunch of wrenches into your development process and say, “We’re going to try to do this differently now.” We’ve learned a lot. If we’re right, the fans we’ll let us know, and if we’re wrong, they’ll let us know. (laughs) I think they’re going to be pretty happy. I think they’re going to be really, really happy with the Orange Box in what we’ve been able to pull off, and a lot of it is based on their feedback from what we did with Episode One.
Newell also briefly weighs in on the Wii, casually dismissing the lesser hardware specs compared with the other next gen consoles saying, “I think it’s more interesting than just graphics chip – CPU combination. It’s the machine I have at home.”
Click to continue reading Valve’s Gabe Newell Speaks About the Orange Box and Wii
Read More | Game Informer
Killzone 2 Footage Shows the First-Person Cover System
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: First Person Shooters, PlayStation 3, Sony, Trailers,
New footage of a developer demo for Killzone 2 showcases, in addition to the very grey but attractive graphics, the ‘Lean and Peek’ cover mechanic. Essentially it works like the cover system in games like Rainbow Six Vegas or Gears of War, but doesn’t compromise the first-person perspective to do so. It maps the left shoulder button to the cover snap (like hitting ‘A’ in Gears) but pulls low cover up to cover about half the screen and still allows for blind fire as well as snap-up firing. With high cover you use the analog stick to lean out and take your shots. Check out the video above for the full scoop.
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