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Halo 3 Trailer Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, E3, First Person Shooters, Trailers, Xbox 360,
Microsoft has posted the official Halo 3 teaser trailer online, available both on Xbox.com and via the Xbox Live Marketplace. The trailer doesn’t show any real gameplay shots, but more or less sets the stage for the sequel. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of plot to go on in the trailer either, other then the fact that a lot of crazy stuff is going to go down, so those people looking for at least a little closure after the very unresolved ending of Halo 2 are still going to have to wait until 2007 to find out what really happens. Perhaps Bungie will actually have a real ending this time, and answer more questions than they raise.
Read More 
| Xbox.com
Gallery: Halo 3 Trailer Online
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Live from Microsoft Xbox E3 Media Briefing
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Corporate News, E3, Features, Release Dates, Retro, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace,
The Xbox Media Briefing started with an amazing 3D array of the Gamertags of everyone that is here in the audience. It was absolutely stunning the way that they did this.
At the beginning of the briefing, we got a Gear of War trailer, followed by a demonstration of one of the levels. We must say - this game is drop-dead gorgeous.
Peter Moore hits the stage.
Xbox 360 has sold 5 million units faster than any console in history, as well as the iPod. Xbox Live will hit 6 million members within 12 months. As of last week, there is a 57% attach rate to Xbox Live.
We are given a look at upcoming Xbox Live Arcade games, including:
Contra
Frogger
Dig Dug
Ms. Pac Man
Track and Field
PacMan
Galaga
Sonic
Ultimate MK 3
Street Fighter II
Paper Boy
This is gonna be good stuff. All games will be updated in high definition, online multiplayer, and obviously achievements. Arcade is also creating a space for indie developers to get their new ideas across to today’s gamers.
Just announced: Lumines is hitting the Xbox 360 as an Arcade title, “Lumines Live.” The game will have licensed music from the likes of Madonna and others. Totally awesome.
We are watching a trailer of upcoming Xbox 360 titles. I am telling you, there is no difference as of now between these graphics and those of the PS3. Believe that. Smackdown vs. RAW 2007, Ninety-Nine Nights, and Gears of War look fabulous.
By holiday 2006, there will be more than 160 games available for the Xbox 360. When football season starts, Xbox 360 will be the only place to hit up Madden 2007 in next-gen format.
There is still development dedicated to the original Xbox.
Newly Announced: We are watching a trailer for what looks to be a sequel to Fable. In fact, it is! Fable 2 has just been announced, and this game looks incredible. Of course, this is a CG trailer…but the storyline looks tight.
Forza Motorsport 2: Another racing game, but these cars are fully customizable…from the engine, to the wheels, to the paint. Over 300 cars, racing up to 11 people on Xbox Live, and it will have a wireless steering wheel controller.
Other accessories include a wireless headset, and the Xbox Live Vision Camera that we leaked a few weeks ago. All three accessories will be available in Fall 2006.
Focusing on Japan, games like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and DOA Xtreme Volleyball 2 are hopefully going to make the Japanese appreciate the Xbox 360. Um, no they won’t.
Now viewing a trailer for Splinter Cell: Double Agent. I like the new gameplay elements, and the graphics are (again) top-notch. Even the gameplay footage. Launching in September.
Moving on to Viva Pinata. This is like a mix between Cubivore, The Sims, and a few other “do it yourself” games. In order to mate, there is a mating dance. Pretty creative. Launching in Holiday 2006.
Now we are moving on to entertainment, starting with Xbox Live Marketplace. There are over 18 million downloads since the launch, and as of tonight, there are over 1000 pieces of content. Every Xbox 360 developer has a piece of content on the Marketplace.
Xbox Live Marketplace changes the way people buy games. When Fight Night was demoed, pre-orders increased by 5x. Marketplace also provies true episodic content and opens a world of true digital entertainment. Tonight, you can download high definition show content, Gears of War Race to E3. It starts on Xbox Live, and ends next week with an MTV special.
Xbox 360 HD DVD player will be available this holiday. No price yet? What’s the deal?
I think it’s time for Halo 3…Moore is teasing us, and I think he has another tatoo. “Some guys do rubber ducks. Some guys do tatoos.” I was wrong, it’s time for Grand Theft Auto IV, which hits Xbox 360 on October 16th, 2006. He said nothing about exclusivity, but it is available on the platform on day one. Rockstar will also be providing exclusive episodic content on Xbox Live.
Moving on to Vista. The most game-friendly OS in history. Games for Windows is the new unified brand. Now showing trailer for PC game Crysis. Gameplay looked great, and it was running on Windows XP. We now change it up and take a look at DirectX 10 gaming on Windows Vista…and everyone is absolutely floored. Flight Simulator X and Crysis look photorealistic. One word here, folks: Wow. Vista is built to run games, and will be the single biggest launch in Microsoft’s history.
On to Oblivion, it sold 1.7 million copies in 3 weeks. Joint release for Xbox 360 and PC. Today they are announcing two more joint release games that will be released on both platforms, offering gamers a choice. The first is Shadowrun, which looks to provide a high-level depth of gaming. Launches with Vista in January. The other game is called Alan Wake, and it looks like a high-level survival-horror/thriller. A psychological action thriller.
Bill Gates hits the stage, and talks about Xbox 360’s global presence. By the end of June, between 5-5.5 million consoles will have been shipped.
Before others enter the marketplace, Xbox 360 will have a 10 million unit head start.
Just announced: Live Anywhere. Built-in to Vista, but will also be on cell phones, Xbox 360, etc. Have your Live account on all your devices, giving you one Gamertag that you can use across multiple platforms. Sounds like you can play games on Windows Mobile, and use your Gamertag and possibly even earn achievements. “Start a game on Xbox, continue it on the phone. Maybe schedule your Xbox to download something from your phone while you are away.” Moving from Live, to Live Anywhere.
We are given a demo of how this all might work. This stuff is going to be a big deal - we will have a video up later this evening. For now, know that Xbox Live’s experience will be fully realized on mobile phones, Windows Vista, and the Xbox 360.
I think it’s now Halo time. The crowd is going nuts. Halo 3 looks insane. The storyline will rock…but everyone wants to see multiplayer. It’s coming in 2007.
Gallery: Live from Microsoft Xbox E3 Media Briefing
Microsoft released more details about the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 this weekend, and it was confirmed that the new HD-DVD drive will connect to the Xbox 360 via the USB port, and will use the existing outputs for the Xbox 360 to display content. Microsoft pushes HD-DVD for a few reasons, primarily cost. However, cost eventually will be a wash, and while Microsoft says that initial Blu-ray players have been priced at $1000, they convieniently ignore the fact that the PS3 will cost nowhere near that amount. No pricing details for Microsoft’s add-on have been announced, and MS makes no mention of how they are working around the HDCP resolution limitations, given that no current video output option has any form of HDCP support. While no current discs implement the restriction, this can not always be guaranteed to be the case.
Read More | Xbox.com
Gallery: Xbox HD-DVD Details
Xbox Handheld in Development?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Portable/Mobile, Rumors, Xbox 360,
In the latest book from Dean Takahashi, The Xbox 360 Uncloaked, he states that the Xbox 360 team was split after the release of the Xbox 360, with half moving into a portable gaming project, and the other half handling the post-launch production cost reduction. Supposedly, the new unnamed portable would be a competitor to the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, but very little detail is available at this point. Still, given the launch of the UMPC, this might be a glimpse into what Microsoft is expecting. However, significant cost reductions would have to be made in order to make something cost competitive. With the DS at $129 and the PSP at around $200, Microsoft would have to anticipate taking a serious loss on each unit, or vastly simplifying their hardware. Also, the DS and the PSP (and the GameBoy Advance) all use non-standard media as their game format; would Microsoft be willing to push into getting their own media type created? Neither the Windows Mobile nor the UMPC format seem close to a valid form-factor and price point for a mobile game unit, so the success of such a handheld is going to depend on how well Microsoft understands the trade-offs.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Gallery: Xbox Handheld in Development?
Free E3 Xbox Live Gold Week Begins
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, E3, Internet, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,
Microsoft’s free Xbox Live Gold week for E3 has started. From Monday, May 8, 12:01AM PST through Sunday, May 14, at 11:59PM PST, all Xbox Live Silver members will be able to play online and make use of the Xbox Live Gold features. In addition, Microsoft will be dropping some exclusive E3 content in the form of game trailers and demos, and will be hosting a number of giveaways and contests. Of course, since the last dashboard update didn’t include the ability to download files in the background, gamers trying to access the new content won’t be able to game at the same time. But still, there should be a lot of great insider content available on Xbox Live that gamers wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere.
Read More | Xbox.com
Gallery: Free E3 Xbox Live Gold Week Begins
Shadowrun Teaser Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, E3, Role Playing Games, Rumors, Xbox 360,
TeamXbox.com points out a new teaser image online at Shadowrun.com. The guys at TeamXbox.com have been tracking the game’s release for a while now, trying to put together the pieces, and this seems to be the final confirmation that a Shadowrun game will be appearing soon, possibly at E3. Shadowrun is one of FASA Corporation’s original pen-and-paper RPG properties, and the game made appearances on both the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, with the Genesis version gaining a fairly large cult following since it more closely approximates the original role playing game. While the pen-and-paper version has gone through some revisions (and passed hands from FASA to Fantasy Productions when the former went out of business) the game concept has stayed the same: a futuristic world, where technology and magic mix. Microsoft’s rendition of the game will almost certainly be more action-oriented than previous releases, possibly as either a first-person or a third-person shooter.
Read More | TeamXbox
Gallery: Shadowrun Teaser Online
Oblivion Rating Updated to Mature
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, PC, Strategy, Xbox 360,
The ESRB has, effective today, updated the rating on Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to Mature, from its previous rating of Teen.
According to reported statements from the ESRB, and a PDF released on the ESRB website, the following content triggered the update:
The content causing the ESRB to change the rating involves more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating, as well as presence of a locked-out art file or “skin” that, if accessed through a third party modification to the PC version of the game, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters.
Another statement on the ESRB website states that Bethesda Softworks, publisher of Oblivion will be taking the following actions:
- Immediate notification to all retailers of the change in rating, along with a request to adhere to their respective store policies not to sell the newly rated M (Mature) game to those under the age of 17, and explaining how to address consumer concerns;
- Issuance of stickers with the new rating information to all retailers and distributors to affix on the packaging of all existing unsold inventory;
- Display of the newly assigned M (Mature) rating in all future product shipments and marketing materials
- Creation and posting of a downloadable patch that will modify the art archive, rendering the topless skin inaccessible on the PC version of the game.
In addition, Bethesda will be releasing a new version of the game without the topless skin, and at that time, the “Nudity” content descriptor will be removed. The last high profile rating update, of course, was for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which had its rating revoked until an updated version of the game could be shipped.
Given the nature of the Oblivion changes, the impact of this change should not be that great. Most retailers will still offer “M” rated games, while Grand Theft Auto was threatened with a sales-deadly “Adults Only” rating. While it is good for the ESRB to react quickly to changes it believes impact the rating of a game, it is critical for the organization to get the ratings right the first time. It may be time for a comprehensive review of the ratings process.
Read More | Gamedaily.biz
Read More | ESRB Parental Advisory (PDF)
Read More | ESRB Rating Update (PDF)
Gallery: Oblivion Rating Updated to Mature
New Xbox Live Message Center
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Microsoft’s Xbox Live service is back online, and with it comes some new features. While there is no dashboard upgrade (which was confirmed to be the case earlier,) there are some changes on Xbox.com. So, gamers with Xbox Live still don’t have the ability to download in the background, but now Gold members can send and receive text messages on the Xbox.com community site. Silver members can receive messages, and block messages, but not send. Voice messaging is not yet supported. Gamers without Xbox Live accounts can see some screen shots of the new interface in Major Nelson’s Flickr account.
Read More | Xbox.com
Read More | Interface screenshots via Major Nelson
Gallery: New Xbox Live Message Center
Electronic Business Online has published an article from Dean Takahashi, author of the book Opening the Xbox, which detailed how the original Xbox came to be. This time, he takes on the critical missteps that Microsoft made in the original Xbox, and how they tried to fix them in the new Xbox 360. The main problem Microsoft had with the original Xbox was the ownership of the hardware; built from largely off-the-shelf components from partners Intel and nVidia, Microsoft owned very little of the intellectual property for the engine that made the Xbox run. This would make reductions in cost very difficult, and in one case, these issues leaked into the public with Microsoft’s argument with nVidia over GPU costs. This also limited what Microsoft could do with the original Xbox, and while Sony was releasing a streamlined PSTwo to the market to revitalize their market share, Microsoft was stuck with the clunky Xbox. This would also bite them in their plans for the Xbox 360; since Microsoft did not own the IP rights to the GPU in the original Xbox, they would be forced to make a deal with nVidia to license their technology so that they could include backwards compatibility as a feature.
Click to continue reading Xbox 360: Learning from Failure
Gallery: Xbox 360: Learning from Failure
New Too Human Screenshots
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Adventure, Screenshots, Xbox 360,
Gamerscoreblog has just dropped some new Too Human screenshots into their Flickr account. Too Human is being developed by Silicon Knights for the Xbox 360, and is scheduled for a Holiday release. Silicon Knights last handled the port of Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes to the Gamecube, but is probably more known for their mind-bending release, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Too Human is another game with a long history; the original concept for the game was pitched for the Playstation, and then when Nintendo formed their partnership with Silicon Knights, the game was rumored to be heading to the Gamecube. However, when Silicon Knights ended their partnership with Nintendo and wound up at Microsoft, the game surfaced there. The Xbox 360 may finally be the platform that will support Silicon Knights’ ambitions with the game universe, and looking at these new screen shots in Flickr, one is almost glad that the game never saw the light of day on the Playstation. Some of the screenshots have huge resolutions available, all the up to 4200x3255, which may mean these are frame buffer grabs or target renders. There’s a lot of detail and varied environments in the screens, and it looks like Too Human will be awesome visually, at least, upon its release.
Read More | Gamerscoreblog Post
Read More | Gamerscoreblog Flickr Pool
Gallery: New Too Human Screenshots
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