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Splinter Cell Double Agent Screens
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Action, PlayStation 3, Screenshots, Xbox 360,
The upcoming Splinter Cell title for next-gen consoles is looking pretty slick, don’t you think? The original Splinter Cell, released a few years ago, was arguably one of the best looking Xbox games. In fact, many gamers claim the series has the best graphics of any current-gen games.
It’s only natural that as we enter the next-gen, gamers everywhere are expecting the new Splinter Cell title, Double Agent, to be jaw-droppingly gorgeous when it’s released. As it currently stands, Double Agent is seen as one of the more visually appealing upcoming next-gen games, right beside Metal Gear Solid 4. Isn’t it interesting that the two games aren’t only extremely good looking, but are also stealth games? Sure, the Metal Gear Solid series may have a little more action while the Splinter Cell games have a bit more sneaking, but they sure are pretty similar. We have more images after the jump.
Click to continue reading Splinter Cell Double Agent Screens
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NPD November Sales Numbers
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Not too many surprises in the November sales numbers. Xbox 360 sold around 326k but could have easily sold more had its supply been stronger. The PS2 still dominates the charts but console sales numbers are down compared to last year. We’re a little surprised to see the huge 4:1 tie ratio for Xbox 360 software. (The tie ratio refers to how many units of software are sold per machine.) Oddly enough, PSP sales numbers weren’t included in this analysis’ release.
In terms of the software sales numbers, Activision’s Call of Duty 2 leads the Xbox 360 pack despite an annoying bug. While Microsoft’s Perfect Dark Zero was the third best selling Xbox 360 game, consumers simply didn’t see it as the ‘killer-app’ that many originally hoped it would be. Meanwhile, Mario Kart DS made a fairly strong showing at #10 on the list - especially considering it’s a handheld title. The figures released are immediately below.
Xbox 360 = 326,000
PS2 = 531,000
Xbox = 197,000
GCN = 272,000
DS = 370,000 (approx)Xbox 360 software sales = 1.3 million units, Tie ratio of almost 4:1.
Overall software sales are down 18% over November 2004. Console software sales are down 33%, even with the Xbox 360 sales contribution.
Hardware sales are down 44% over last year.
November Top 25 Software Sales
US Top 25 Videogame Titles
Rank Title PublisherRank Title Publisher
1 XBX STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II LucasArts
2 PS2 STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II LucasArts
3 360 CALL OF DUTY 2 Activision
4 PS2 MADDEN NFL 06 Electronic Arts
5 PS2 WWE SMACKDOWN VS RAW 2 THQ
6 360 MADDEN NFL 06 Electronic Arts
7 PSP GTA: LIBERTY CITY STORIES Take 2 Interactive
8 PS2 TONY HAWK AMERICAN WASTELAND Activision
9 GCN MARIO PARTY 7 Nintendo
10 NDS MARIO KART Nintendo
11 PS2 50 CENT: BULLETPROOF Vivendi
12 PS2 CALL OF DUTY 2: BIG RED ONE Activision
13 360 NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED Electronic Arts
14 PS2 SOUL CALIBUR III Namco
15 PS2 DRAGON BALL Z: BUDOKAI TENK Atari
16 PS2 NBA LIVE 06 Electronic Arts
17 PS2 BLITZ: THE LEAGUE Midway
18 PS2 NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED Electronic Arts
19 PS2 RATCHET: DEADLOCKED Sony
20 PSP STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II LucasArts
21 360 PERFECT DARK ZERO LTD ED Microsoft
22 PS2 SOCOM 3: US NAVY SEALS Sony
23 PS2 GUN Activision
24 PS2 THE MATRIX: PATH OF NEO Atari
25 XBX CALL OF DUTY 2: BIG RED ONE Activision
Source: The NPD Group/NPD Funworld, POS
More Xbox 360s Coming Soon to Best Buy
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Corporate News, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
Don’t have an Xbox 360 but want one? Well it looks like you may have to pitch a tent outside your local Best Buy pretty soon. According to IGN, Best Buy has confirmed that it well sell additional 360s on December 18th - that’s this Sunday. The retailer will reportedly sell anywhere between twenty and sixty units per store, and if launch was any indication, this next allotment of machines will surely sell out instantly.
Good luck to those of you contemplating heading out to your local Best Buy. And who knows, you may even meet someone famous while camping out!
Read More 
| IGN
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Xbox 360 Not Designed To Play Games In Vertical Position?
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Hardware, Rumors, Xbox 360,
A 360 Insider blogger reported yesterday of a Microsoft customer service representative explaining that the 360 wasn’t designed to play games in the vertical position.
The owner of the Xbox 360 at hand originally contact customer support because his 360 suddenly stopped reading games. When asked for a solution to the problem, the customer rep simply said to place the console horizontally and asserted that the machine wasn’t designed to be played standing vertically. Sure enough, the Xbox 360 started working again when placed horizontally.
We’ve all heard of misinformed reps, so is the Microsoft rep here just mistaken? After all, Microsoft has shown the Xbox 360 positioned vertically more times than we can count. In fact, all of the in-store kiosks we’ve seen feature the Xbox 360 standing vertically. Should all those consoles be set horizontally? And why did the console at hand start working again when placed horizontally? Will the 360 work better and last longer if it isn’t positioned vertically?
Read More | 360 Insider
An interesting dialog with Peter Moore, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Publishing for Xbox, covers issues ranging from the two SKUs to replenishing consoles in stores. Moore argues that consumers were given a choice at launch with the two SKUs (core and premium,) but were they really? Because of the severe shortage, if consumers were only able to purchase a core bundle - even though they’d prefer a premium - many times they went with the less preferred core package. Some choice, eh?
As for future shipments to stores, here’s what Moore had to say:
We’re working around the clock to get all of our retailers, large and small, as many consoles as we can humanly make. We understand the amazing demand for Xbox 360, and we will continue to do our best. However, demand will outstrip supply for this busy holiday season. We expect supply to catch up with demand sometime early next year.
For all those folks that want an Xbox 360 and have not been able to get their hands on one, I want to thank you for your patience. Keep checking in with your local retailers and ask them when they expect their next shipments so you can plan accordingly.
Supply will “catch up with demand sometime early next year?” How early are we talking? Will everyone who wants a 360 now have one by January or February? Unlikely, but then again it wouldn’t be surprising if people who are demanding 360s now just decide to wait a little longer to get a machine. Or they could decide to simply wait for a certain upcoming Sony or Nintendo home console.
In the meantime, anyone who wants a 360 before Christmas may have to pester their local retailer, or import from Japan, in the meantime.
Read More | GameDaily
According to the consumer electronics retailer, its videogame sales were down for the fiscal third quarter compared to last year. Best Buy reports that while Xbox 360 sales have been strong, despite shortages, sales of older consoles were lacking. So why were older console sales down? Seeing as the videogame industry is cyclical, it’s only to be expected that every several years prior to new hardware releases that older console sales go into a slump. Rather than blowing money on an Xbox, gamers are saving their pennies for an Xbox 360.
Read More | Next-Gen
In quite a contrast to the Xbox 360 sell-outs we’ve been seeing across the US and EU, Microsoft only managed to sell 28% of the 360 units that were shipped to Japan. The 28% translates to a total of 41,817 Xbox 360s sold within the first two days of the console’s Japanese release. While the 360 sold around 322,000 in the United States upon launch, it could have easily sold more had the shortage not been so severe.
Sure, we’ve heard of the original Xbox’s staggeringly low sales numbers in Japan but Microsoft, and a lot of gamers, hoped it’d be different this time around. Microsoft’s certainly made vast improvements to its hardware and software line-up that should please Japanese consumers, but the bulk of the 360’s launch titles simply don’t appeal to Japanese gamers as much as they do to other gamers around the world. For example, take all of the first person shooters on the 360 (Perfect Dark Zero, Condemned, Call of Duty 2, and more). Japanese gamers just have never been too big on the shooters, so it’s no wonder they didn’t sell well. In fact, Ridge Racer seems to be the biggest hit over there. Japanese gamers want more from Microsoft, so hopefully the company will deliver in the near future.
Of course the biggest kicker of all is the 360’s price over there. The console (that’s right - there’s only one option) sells for 37,900 yen, or about $316. With a hard drive. Basically, Japan gets our $400 model for $84 dollars less. And they’ve got units still sitting on store shelves while Americans, and Europeans, are left out in the cold. While pulling off a global launch represents a bold move for Microsoft, we wish the company had done a smoother job and delivered more machines where they’re desired.
Read More | Bloomberg
Call of Duty 2 Bug
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Xbox 360,
Doug Perry, IGN Xbox 360’s Editor in Chief, created a forum post on the IGN Boards detailing a bug in the Xbox 360 version of COD2. Apparently the glitch involves COD2 locking up randomly followed by deletion of your saved progress. Different forum members had similar experiences and expressed frustration with having lost their saves after pouring so much time into the game. As of right now, Doug’s waiting to hear back on the issue from Activision. In the meantime he offered a short-term solution that seems to fix the problem. The fix follows:
To maintain your saves, you have to log into your gamer ID before booting up the game. If you log onto the system through the front end of the game, your file will be written over.
Once again, that’s just a short-term fix and hopefully we’ll hear details of a permanent solution (hopefully a patch) in the near future.
Read More | IGN 360 Boards
Ubisoft King Kong Interview
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Adventure, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Played the new King Kong game? It’s surprisingly good, even if it’s a little bit on the shorter side.
Considering that games based on movies usually don’t turn out this good, it’s interesting to take a look inside Ubisoft and see what made the game’s development special. GameDaily recently posted an interview with some members of the Kong development team that’s definitely worth checking out. In fact, here’s a Q&A excerpt:
BIZ: Obviously creating the official game for the movie is a huge undertaking. What steps were needed to ensure that production stayed on course?
Xavier: The main challenge is to work in parallel with a movie and a universe that is created as you are developing the game. You have to anticipate, to wait for assets to be delivered, and make sure you validate on a regular basis the different choices you make to make sure you are on the right track… while making sure everything still fits in your planning.
Peter J made us feel comfortable because he really did not want the game to be a simple adaptation of the movie but he sees the game as a sister or a brother to the movie and an expansion to his universe. That means he accepted (and was suggesting) differences between the movie and the game in order to meet our constraints and make the best game possible. We also worked with Philippa Boyens (co scenarist) to make sure we were respecting characters and tone.
You need a lot of exchanges, and we were lucky to go to New Zealand five times to breathe some of Kong’s air!
Five times to New Zealand?? If only we were so lucky…but then again, we could just boot up a copy of the game and find ourselves in a remote jungle without having to sit on a plane for hours on end.
Read More | GameDaily
December’s Upcoming Game Releases
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, Portable/Mobile, PSP, Release Dates, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Looking for some new games to spend your hard-earned money on? Well you’re in luck! What follows is a list of games that will be hitting retail shops between now and the end of 2005.
This Week:
Final Fantasy IV Advanced - GBA
Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku I & II - GBA
Chaos Field - GCN
Gauntlet Seven Sorrows - Xbox/PS2
Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play - PSP
Next Week:
Pocket Dogs - GBA
Samurai Showdown V - Xbox
Dead or Alive 4 - Xbox 360
Aside from Dead or Alive 4, it looks like there isn’t anything too excited due out for the rest of the year. Furthermore, will Dead or Alive 4 even come out this year? It’s slated to ship on December 21st, but it wouldn’t be that surprising if it were delayed again.
Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play could turn out to be a keeper, but we’ll hold judgment on it for now. And finally what the heck is Pocket Dogs? Dare it be a Nintendogs rip-off?
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