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Free Cell Phone Minutes for Watching Xbox 360 Ads
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Portable/Mobile, Xbox 360,
In one of the stranger signs that the upcoming next-gen console war is already upon us, the Virgin Mobile cell phone carrier (through a service called “SugarMama”) will be offering free cell phone minutes to customers who elect to watch 30-second spots for, among other things, the Xbox 360. For those of you dreaming up ways to scam this system, it might be hard - in order to receive your minutes you have to answer questions about the ads and prove you were paying attention. Which brings up the real question: how many minutes of real-life time are worth a minute of cellphone time to you?
Note: The NY Times article linked below says that the service is currently available through the Virgin website, but as of now there appears to be no mention of SugarMama on either Virgin.com or VirginmobileUSA.com
Read More 
| NY Times
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Bill Gates Dismisses Wii Controller
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Culture, E3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Bill Gates, speaking recently to MTV.com, was fairly dismissive of the motion-control technology that Nintendo and Sony are introducing in the next generation of consoles. Gates said, “There’s room for innovation here, but moving that controller around — it’s… not mainstream for most games… It’s tough because sometimes you move the controller, and you don’t [mean] to fly into the ground. You just want to put the controller down.” Of course, it is easy to see why this could be confusing to Gates, after all, with all the coverage given to the Wii during E3, there really wasn’t any mention of a “pause” feature. The ability to pause a game has only been included in almost every game to hit the shelves since Microsoft’s original Sidewinder Freestyle controller shipped. Gates would continue, “People aren’t that good at totally standing still.” While it is understandable that Gates might not have seen any of the actual Wii trailers on the Internet, he certainly must have passed by the Nintendo booth; the only people that might have been standing perfectly still would have been those waiting in the multiple-hour line to get a look at what Nintendo has accomplished. Gates mentioned that he leaves the details of running the games division to others, which is a good thing, considering that while he implied that Microsoft had no plans in the near future for a handheld gaming device, he is still stumping for some kind of unwieldy convergence device, “will you carry… a media device and a phone and a gaming device and, say, a tablet device for reading…” So gamers may be waiting for a while for their ideal portable gaming device from Microsoft.
Read More | MTV.com
Wii Interest Grows in Japan
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: E3, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Japanese gamers’ interest in Nintendo’s Wii appears to be accelerating, according to the latest poll published in Weekly Famitsu. When asked which console gamers were most interested in at E3, Wii lead the pack with 68.8% of respondents. The PS3 followed with 21% of the vote, and the Xbox 360 trailed at 7.2%. In addition, the top ten E3 games were polled, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Final Fantasy XIII lead the list. Nintendo titles filled out the majority of the slots, with five Wii titles and one DS title. The PS3 managed three titles on the list, and somewhat surprisingly, the Xbox 360 made a showing with Halo 3 at spot number ten. Playstation 3 pricing was also a concern: 88% felt that the price was too high. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo can build on this interest, and how Sony will respond to the Japanese gamers’ concerns. Suddenly, the market that one would have thought Sony would have locked up, isn’t looking to be such a sure thing.
Read More | The Magic Box
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Gear Live Game Design Contest: Winner Gets An Xbox 360
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Features, Xbox 360,
Alright peeps, we have yet another opportunity for anyone out there to walk away with an Xbox 360, courtesy of Gear Live. We are looking to see what our readers can come up with in terms of creating a simple video game. We just made one ourselves, and despite not having any previous coding knowledge, we are pretty happy with the way Tennis Challenge turned out. Yeah, it may appear to be a Pong rip, but we made it our own. Now it’s your turn. Here is how it’s gonna go down:
- Download the game we created in Visual Studio Express, Gear Live’s Tennis Challenge
- Download Visual Studio Express. This also enters you in the Upgrade Your Game Sweepstakes.
- Create a game from scratch, or edit one of the game templates that Visual Studio Express gives you.
- Let us know about your game. Blog about it and link us to it. Let us know on our forums. All games will be made available for public download.
- The contest ends on June 23, 2006, but seriously, it took us all of ten minutes to create Tennis Challenge. Of course, we want you to do better than we did.
- We will choose a winner, and that person walks away with a brand new Xbox 360.
Now, this contest is open only to Gear Live members. Of course, signing up is completely free, and takes all of ten seconds. If you have a forum account, you are already a member. Now, go ahead and get to work on creating a game - we want to see just how creative you guys can be. Oh, and we have this extra Xbox 360 that needs a home.
Dean Takahashi, author of The Xbox 360 Uncloaked is looking for information on a project within Microsoft that was codenamed “Helium.” He has an internal e-mail dated from 2003, that describes a project that would have Windows running on the Xbox 360, which would supposedly have been a third SKU for the console. A commenter notes that the author of the e-mail, Jon Thomason worked on the Xbox software team, and supposedly moved to Windows development in 2004 before leaving Microsoft entirely.
The element Helium is in the same family on the periodic table as Xenon; both are noble gasses. Xenon, of course, was the code name for the Xbox 360 CPU. Helium, in the periodic table, is “above” Xenon, and is the lightest of the noble gasses; could this have been a lightweight or smaller footprint version of Vista to run on the Xbox 360? Since little information has surfaced between the original e-mail and today, and the Xbox 360 launch has come and gone, it seems unlikely that such a project is still a going concern. Still, one can speculate on how this might have changed things in the console arena, had the project seen the light of day.
Read More | blogs.mercurynews.com
HardOCP is currently featuring a round-up of some of the various Xbox 360 face plates on the market today. They look at face plates from Microsoft, as well as those from third-party accessory vendor Pelican, and also a couple of XCM face plates and a skin from online vendor Decalgirl.com. Microsoft’s face plates, naturally, set the standard. No one knows the console size like MS, and their replacement face plates fit well, but the XCM faceplate won overall honors for its fit and polish. The Decalgirl skins also got praise, but HardOCP recommended the full system skins over the faceplate skins, just because the looks match up better. Unfortunately, the Pelican face plates got low marks for quality of build. HardOCP seemed surprised that Pelican would release such a poor product, but apparently, they’ve never tried using their Dreamcast light gun. At any rate, those gamers who are ashamed of their core system, or just want a change would do well to look at Decalgirl for their Xbox 360 skinning needs, and the XCM face plates also appear to be a great deal.
Read More | HardOCP
Thieves Den for Oblivion Available Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PC, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,
PC and Xbox 360 Oblivion owners can download the Thieves Den module now, for $1.89 or 150 Marketplace Points respectively. According to Bethesda’s site, the new content features:
- A fully detailed environment for your character to own and explore
- Free sleeping space: never pay for an inn again!
- Five upgrades for your lair
- Hire vendors designed especially for thieves, rogues, and assassins
- As you upgrade your lair new pirates will join your crew and provide you with income
- Over 45 new items
- 15 new spells
The content does seem to offer a great deal more than previous offerings, and so far has gotten a fair amount of praise in the Oblivion forums. Apparently the mod is inspired by the Goonies, so maybe gamers will be teaming up with Chunk and Sloth to take on Ma Fratelli and her boys.
Read More | OblivionDownloads
Gears of War Documentary Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, E3, First Person Shooters, Xbox 360,
For those gamers that missed the show on Friday, or will manage to miss one of the five thousand re-airings of the documentary, Gears of War: The Race to E3, MTV has the show available for streaming online, along with some bonus footage not shown on the air, including some more in-depth footage with Cliff Bleszinksi and Tim Sweeney, and some insights into motion capture and art direction. In some ways, the additional footage is more worthwhile than the documentary aired, but there is some playtest footage where gamers can get glimpses of Gears of War in action.
More after the jump…
Click to continue reading Gears of War Documentary Online
Phantasy Star Universe Interview Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: E3, MMORPG, PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
PSO-World has managed to grab an interview with Takao Miyoshi, producer of the upcoming update in the Phantasy Star Online series, Phantasy Star Universe. While the sequel promises that everything in the game will be bigger and better than before, the biggest development will be the new offline gameplay, featuring a more well-developed storyline that should offer hours of single user play, much more than has previously been offered in the past. Also briefly discussed were the new racial abilities integrated into the game, and the new vehicles like player-controlled fire-breathing dinosaurs. In terms of the online world, the old lobby system will be replaced by larger in-game worlds, that can host up to 1000 people. The segregation of the PS2/PC users and the Xbox 360 users was also touched on, and interestingly, the final decision on splitting the game servers has not been set yet; hopefully, all PSU users will be able to play in the same server environment. No Wii or PS3 support is currently in the cards, but from the interview, it sounds like this may still be a possibility, leveraging the special controllers for both. Phantasy Star Universe should ship in the US in the latter half of 2006.
Read More | PSO-World.com
Team Xecuter Connectivity Kits Shipping Soon
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Mods/Hacks, Xbox 360,
Team Xecuter has announced that their DVD and hard drive connectivity kits should start shipping in the upcoming week. The hard drive connectivity kit should operate similarly to the previously announced adapters from companies like 360 Sata and Datel, but the DVD adapter is a little more interesting, since it would give people interested in connecting their Xbox 360 DVD drives to their computers without having to leave the drives connected to a powered up Xbox 360. Team Xecuter also hints that a USB connectivity solution is near, and that work is continuing on dual firmware solutions for those “experimenters” who might want to run alternate firmware versions on their DVD drive.
Read More | Teamxecuter.com
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