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Ghost Recon 3’s Official Name: Advanced Warfighter
Posted by Oscar M. Cantu Categories: Action, First Person Shooters, Internet, Nintendo Gamecube, PC, PlayStation 2, Strategy, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Tom Clancy’s latest creation finally has an official name – Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. The game will feature a new way to lead your team and will have advanced technology in all aspects of the equipment used. The game will be released this holiday season for every major console including the PC – sorry, no Mac version. Each version will offer something exclusive to that console – reminds me of Soul Calibur. Here’s a little snip of the background to the game:
The game is set in the year 2013 in Mexico City, which has been overthrown by an insurgence of rebels. The famed Ghosts must head into the capital to squash a rebellion and retake control of the metropolis. Gamers will lead their squad on missions to “save the president of the United States, recover stolen nuclear codes, and eliminate a vicious band of renegade soldiers hell-bent on unleashing catastrophe.”
Read More 
| Gamespot
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Microsoft Planning to Split Xbox 360 Userbase?
Posted by Rob Stevens Categories: Corporate News, Features, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
It’s hard to tell for certain, several months before the launch of Xbox 360, what Microsoft has planned for their “2.0” console. However, recent statements made by none other than BillG himself point to a console that will be constantly evolving in terms of specs and capabilities ... something that has spelled danger for consoles past.
At a recent event in Tokyo, held jointly with HD-DVD standard bearer Toshiba, Microsoft reiterated their commitment to the standard. Microsoft and Toshiba have a cross-licensing deal which extends back to April of this year, which has resulted in Toshiba being one of the leaders in Media PC and Tablet PC development. The stakes in the next-generation DVD battle are huge, and having Microsoft as an ally would certainly add a certain amount of credibility to the format.
At this same event, Bill Gates stated that while the initial shipments of the Xbox 360 would contain a standard DVD drive, they are considering putting HD-DVD drives in future versions of the console, as well as other alternatives. “We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox 360 will incorporate an additional capability of an HD DVD player or something else.”
Typically, consumers don’t like to hear that it’s possible that their hardware will be obsolete the moment it is released, and is part of the reason why Sony is throwing as much hardware at the PlayStation 3 as possible and eating the cost, including Blu-Ray support, the other format competing with HD-DVD as the standard for high-definition movie content. By including the drive at launch, not only does Sony “future-proof” the machine, but they can possibly propel Blu-Ray to the forefront in the standards race, giving them an competitive advantage. The success of the PlayStation 2 is widely credited towards including DVD movie playback. In fact, in the first year of the PlayStation 2, more movie content was attached to PS2 sales than were game software. It also helped that the PS2 was a fairly inexpensive DVD player upon its release.
What is baffling is that considering what is at stake, and Microsoft’s close ties to Toshiba, why Toshiba is not supplying the drives at no- or low-cost to Microsoft, in an effort to simply get the hardware into consumers homes and get a head start on Sony. Given Microsoft’s willingness to add the hardware at a later date, potentially skewing the installed base and giving no competitive advantage to Toshiba, it is truly strange that Toshiba isn’t willing to eat the cost now to guarantee themselves an early leadership position.
It’s important to note that this won’t necessarily impact people planning to use the Xbox 360 solely for game play, but for those buying into Microsoft’s philosophy of turning the game console into a media component in the living room, it’s a potentially hazardous decision. Announcing the decision this close to the Xbox 360 launch may even cause some consumers to wait until the HD-DVD capability is included, by which point Sony may already have the Blu-Ray capable PlayStation 3 in the marketplace.
This is not the first time that confusion has been expressed over the specs of the Xbox 360. Initial photographs released indicated a 40GB hard drive attached to the machine, but the final specs released at E3 showed the storage device as 20GB, but that the drive is upgradeable to higher capacities later.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Will Xbox 360 Games Look Better Than The PS3?
Posted by Jesse Easley Categories: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
After E3 many people, including myself, said it looked like the PS3’s graphics would be better than the Xbox 360. Well, ATi claims that the 360 will out perform the PS3 because Nvidia’s RSX chip is lacking the unified shader architecture that the Xenon chip has. If this is the truth than Microsoft made a good deal switching to ATi for their next-gen. Read more for a more technical breakdown.
“It’s way better than I would have expected at this point in the history of 3D graphics,” said Huddy of the Xbox 360 hardware. “The unified shader architecture alone is capable of giving a performance increase of a factor of nearly two over the hardware that we have in PCs today. That’s because we see many cases, and this is particularly true on consoles, where games are limited by one of the two groups of engines in the graphics chip, either the vertex engines or the pixel engines. With a unified pipeline we can now devote 100% of the hardware to which ever task is the bottleneck.”
Read More | GameDaily
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Yesterday, Seagate announced a new line of 2.5” hard drives for the consumer. The more interesting news is that they announced that these hard drives will be the storage spot for the Xbox 360. Most of the story can be summed up in this one point:
“The hard drive extends the gaming experience on Xbox 360,” said Todd Holmdahl, corporate vice president, Xbox hardware . “From downloading trailers, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, and more to supporting custom playlists in every game and storing video messages from friends, Seagate’s LD25 Series 2.5-inch hard drive brings gaming and digital media together for the ultimate entertainment experience.”
Read More | GameDaily
Future Eye Candy and Game Play Goodies of the PS3, Xbox 360 and Revolution
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
This week I had a discussion about the impending PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Revolution where I emphasized over and over again “We play the games not the specs sheet”. Having gotten that mantra out of the way there are some fascinating possibilities that this massive shift in computing and graphical power would bring to the video game world.
Click to continue reading Future Eye Candy and Game Play Goodies of the PS3, Xbox 360 and Revolution
You know, I enjoy giving away items on Gear Live and Playfeed. Of course, there are those who are just in it for purely selfish reasons who can’t imagine that things may sometimes get in the way. Of course, these are usually the young-un’s. Nonetheless, we have a winner. We don’t like to post results until after we have contacted the winner, and heard back from them. The reasoning behind this is that many people sign up for giveaways using fake email addresses. How, then, are we to contact you to send your prize? I digress. The winner, after 2 unsuccessful attempts to contact the original winner, is one Phil Kefer. Enjoy the faceplate with which you will have nothing to affix to for the next six months.
Everything looks better in HD right? Well that being the case, these trailers of video games to hit the Xbox 360 look amazing. Best of all, they are straight from the source so you know they look good. Question still remains if these are console graphics or some renders. Only half a year left until we find out. For now, just sit back and enjoy.
Read More | Microsoft HD Downloads
The million dollar question remains truly unanswered, which next generation console is the best? Well the Microsoft Xbox team aims to try to answer this question by comparing all the numbers that are being fed to us by both PR departments in a four part series. Still wondering which console they say is the best. Can you blame them for stating that their console is the best? They clearly do make very good points and do give the PS3 proper credit; however to say that one console is better than another at this point is a mighty bold claim. What we need to see are in game stats and to experience both consoles ourselves to really make that final conclusion. One thing for sure is that we will all find out soon enough if the next Xbox lives up to expectations.
Read More | Major Nelson: Part 1 of 4
Read More | Major Nelson: Part 2 of 4
Read More | Major Nelson: Part 3 of 4
Read More | Major Nelson: Part 4 of 4
E3 2005: Gears of War Screenshots
Posted by Jesse Easley Categories: First Person Shooters, Xbox 360,
While Andru and I were at E3 we saw a trailer for an awesome game called Gears of War for Xbox 360. Unfortunately, out of all the press kits and access that we had there were no trailers for us to give you all. We were able to score some screenshots for you though. I personally think that this game will be the “Halo” of Xbox 360. The gameplay looks excellent and the graphics are amazing. We don’t have any storyline details yet, but we’ll pass them along when we get them.
Editor’s Note: I actually did get a bit of the background on the game during the Microsoft press briefing. Gears of War can best be described as a hybrid third-person shooter and survival horror game. There are locusts which do not like to be in the light. If you can stay near light, you have a better chance of surviving. The trailer shown at Microsoft’s conference was truly amazing. These screenshots are in game.
Click to continue reading E3 2005: Gears of War Screenshots
Mountain Dew To Give Away An Xbox 360 Every 10 Minutes
Posted by Oscar M. Cantu Categories: Xbox 360,
In order to build more hype and bring the console to the mass market achieve in getting a console in the homes of most Americans, Microsoft has teamed up with Mountain Dew to give away one Xbox 360 every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 weeks straight beginning on August 28th. You will need to register on the website to build a profile and enter codes found in specialty marked beverages and choose when and which codes to play. Looks like I’m going to be drinking Mountain Dew a lot more than usual. Full press release and details are available after the jump.
Click to continue reading Mountain Dew To Give Away An Xbox 360 Every 10 Minutes
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