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Gears of War Community Site Live
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Screenshots, Trailers, Xbox 360,
Epic Games have launched their community site for their upcoming Xbox 360 game, Gears of War. Scheduled to ship in November, 2006, the game was one of the most anticipated releases for the Xbox 360 when it was shown off last year. The site contains sections for community and news, as well as screenshots and trailers. Currently the only trailer is the same movie that was shown at X05 2005 in October, but the trailer has some good shots in it. Gamers will get to see how far the game has progressed at E3 next week, but in the mean time, there is some good stuff to peruse on the site.
Read More 
| Gears Of War Official Site
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Analysts Predict Next Generation Marketshare
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
In a 188-page report from securities firm Wedbush Morgan Securities, analysts lay out what they believe to be the state of the market over the next few years. Their projections indicate that Microsoft will hold onto their market lead for around two years, and then, as HD viewing and media formats take over the market, eventually the lead will be ceded to Sony. Not surprisingly, the analysts pick Nintendo to take third in marketshare. US and European market share for the first two years is projected to be roughly 42 percent Xbox 360, 39 percent PS3, with Nintendo following at 19 percent, giving Microsoft a scant lead over Sony. Sony’s decision to integrate HD media into their console will drive sales further after this, pushing them to a 45 percent to 35 percent lead over Microsoft. It is interesting to see the analysts’ positions on the future console war, and its hard to argue with the numbers as is, but projecting leadership out to such a large degree rests on assumptions whose accuracy could be challenged. At any rate, it looks like Microsoft will cut into Sony’s massive lead in the marketplace, surely good news for Microsoft. Knowing that Microsoft is making a large investment now to gain market share, should Microsoft fail to add to its user base after the launch of the PS3, Microsoft’s losses could be disastrous. Of course, the same could be said about Sony’s upcoming PS3 launch. The next year will be critical for all platforms’ future success.
Read More | Next Generation
On Thursday, Microsoft released their earnings statement for their third fiscal quarter. Microsoft missed their targeted earnings, and the stock would proceed to tumble nearly 11% on the following trading day. In addition, Microsoft issued a guidance that the final quarter earnings would be much lower than analysts anticipated. The reasoning behind the larger than expected losses: the success of the Xbox 360. Microsoft’s CFO, Chris Liddell, said that because each Xbox 360 sells at a loss, each additional sale increased Microsoft’s cost of revenue. In addition, Microsoft poured significant resources into building additional Xbox 360s in an attempt to meet demand, and this increased their cost of production by a large margin. Year over year, revenues in the Home division, where the Xbox lives, increased by 80 percent, but their losses in the same division nearly tripled. Microsoft anticipates that the effort to unseat Sony in the console wars will cost them more in the future, and that affected their projections for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Read More | Microsoft
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MLB 2K6 Patch Available
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Sports, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
For those gamers with MLB 2K6 on the Xbox 360, a patch has been made available via Xbox Live. Anyone with an Xbox Live Silver or Gold account will be able to download the patch, and users should see a “Title Update” available upon inserting their MLB 2K6 game disc. According to 2K Sports, this was an issue with the HD cache corrupting when users turned off the machine while playing a game, and the issue impacted less than 10% of the user base. There have been mixed reports of success in the 2KSports forums, but some people who still had freezing issues post-patch were able to fix their problem by deleting their downloaded content and starting clean, so it looks like the “uninstall-reinstall” fix so common in the PC world has come to the console world. 2K Sports has not provided information on an alternate method of obtaining the patch for those gamers with an Xbox 360 and no network connection.
Read More | 2K Sports Patch Announcement
PS3, Xbox 360 GPUs Compared
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
Impress Watch Japan has just published the latest in a series of articles comparing the PS3 and the Xbox 360. This time, the technical specifications of the GPUs go under the microscope, along with a comparison to the current GPU offerings from nVidia and ATI. Since Google’s translation tools often leave much to be desired when trying to understand the details of an article, a forum member at Beyond 3D has offered their translation. Most interesting are the comments from various anonymous developers; there’s a lot more feedback on the Xbox 360, since it has been on the market longer. One developer says that to work around some of the memory restrictions, developers can render to an internal frame buffer of either 960x540 or 880x540 and then upscale the output for 720p using the built in Display Controller—so gamers may not be getting “true” HD resolutions. In both the PS3 and Xbox 360’s design, though, it looks like memory bandwidth is going to be the killer. Trying to mix high resolution textures with enough of a frame buffer to render HD resolutions is difficult for these machines at 720p, and 1080p for the PS3 is going to be difficult when mixed with multi-sample anti-aliasing; the trade-off will be high resolutions with fewer effects, or lower resolutions with more effects and MSAA implemented. So far, most developers appear to be taking the second approach.
Read More | Original Impress Watch Article
Read More | Beyond3D Translation
UNO Will Support Xbox 360 Camera
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Features, Hardware, Strategy, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade,
While perusing through our Xbox 360 debug unit, we came across something interesting - it looks like UNO will be the first game to support the Xbox 360 camera accessory that we know will be coming at some point. We figured we would record a short video showing the camera settings in UNO, for your viewing pleasure. Of course, if you prefer straight images, we have those too - after the jump.
Click to continue reading UNO Will Support Xbox 360 Camera
Xbox.com E3 Site Launched
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, E3, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Microsoft’s E3 coverage started officially with launch of their Xbox.com E3 2006 mini-site. Currently available on the site are a “year in review” retrospective, and a few interviews, including one with Peter Moore. Moore’s interview, particularly, gives some insight into what messaging gamers might expect in the upcoming E3 Expo. He start’s by touting the recent success of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion: “To follow up as quickly ... with a roleplaying game like The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion™...only four and a half months after launch, is a huge achievement.” Of course, Oblivion was originally scheduled to be a launch title, so “only” slipping the release date twice is still somewhat of an achievement.
Moore also touts the upcoming game titles, 150 - 200 in the next 12 - 18 months, quite respectable. Since Nintendo is talking about reaching out to different audiences, Moore also pumps up Rare’s Viva Piñata, where gamers must “...attract all 60 unique piñatas.” Apparently, you have to catch them all. The Xbox Live Arcade gets some support as another method to attrach casual gamers. The two games that get mentioned are Joust and Geometry Wars. It does seem a little odd that the big Live Arcade titles are the same ones that are present at launch, and four plus months later there isn’t another game that captures the same success.
On the plus side, there should be a bunch of exclusive E3 content available on the Xbox Live Marketplace during the expo, so gamers can look forward to that. Moore also looks to the future of MMORPGs, hoping for a Snow Crash like environment, of course, brought to the world by Microsoft.
Updates on the site will accelerate as E3 approaches, and gamers with an RSS reader can add the feed for the site to keep pace.
Read More | Xbox E3 2006 Coverage
Read More | Peter Moore Interview
New Oblivion Content Available
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Adventure, Internet, PC, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,
Bethesda today made available the latest Elder Scrolls: Oblivion downloadable content, the Wizard’s Tower. Like previous releases, the content is available for the PC for $1.89, and for the Xbox 360 for 200 Live Marketplace points. Updates include:
- A fully detailed tower for you to explore
- A breathtaking view of Cyrodiil from the highest point in the land
- Simple furnishings including a bed for leveling up
- An indoor botanical garden with over 130 specimens… including Oblivion-native herbs!
- Summon Atronach Familiars that obey your commands
- Instant teleports to every Mages Guild in Cyrodiil
- New Spell and Recharge vendor in the Imperial City
- Fully upgrade the furnishings in your lair to suit your needs
- Upgrade to a fully functional Enchanting and Spellmaking station with no need to join Mages Guild
- Upgrade to a laboratory that buffs your Alchemy skill
No real quest related additions seem to be present for the new content, so there might be further disappointment with this add-on. Still, Bethesda appears to be committed to regularly releasing new items and areas for the game, extending its play life, little by little.
Read More | Obliviondownloads.com
Square Enix Announces E3 Titles
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, E3, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360,
Square Enix have updated the E3 2006 section of their website with the software titles they will be highlighting at this year’s Expo. The company will be showing Final Fantasy XII, Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, Dirge of Cerebus: Final Fantasy VII, and Dawn of Mana, all for the Playstation 2. Square Enix will also highlight their recently released Final Fantasy XI: Treasures of Aht Urghan for the PC, PS2, and Xbox 360. DS gamers will see the port of Final Fantasy III in 3D, as well as Children of Mana and Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. Other titles to be shown include Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, a port of the original Playstation game on the PSP, and Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI on the Gameboy Advance. Square Enix also will be showing off some of its new mobile titles. Along with everything previously announced, one should expect to have some secret titles shown for the next generation consoles.
Read More | Official Square Enix E3 Site
Sony, Nintendo, Then Microsoft: Pre-E3 Schedule Set
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, E3, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
If all goes as scheduled, Sony, then Nintendo, and finally Microsoft will let the gaming world know their plans for the upcoming year. It looks like Sony will lead the pack on Monday, May 8th. At 2:00 PM in the Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, California. Sony should be playing up the PS3, possibly playing up themes like realistic gaming experiences and convergence. The day after Sony’s announcements brings Nintendo to the plate.
May 9, 2006, at 9:30 AM in the Kodak Theater in Hollywood will hopefully bring all Nintendo devotees the answers they are looking for in the Revolution. Nintendo will most likely be stumping for its unique game line-up, and continue to drill into the concept of games for everyone. The Revolution will take center stage, but also expect to hear about the DS Lite, and Nintendo will tout the success of their non-traditional content like Brain Age.
The last of the major pre-E3 conferences will be Microsoft’s. Microsoft will hold court at 11:30 AM at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Microsoft will certainly claim their successes in the Xbox 360 launch, and talk about Xbox Live adoption numbers. It should be expected that Microsoft will hammer home the fact that they have their console on the market now, and that there is strong content available now, and there will be great content in the future. It is possible that the HD-DVD add-on will be announced, but this certainly will not be the focus. Microsoft’s story in the upcoming year should be community, content, and availability.
It will be interesting to see how the announcements play out, especially in how each company addresses the others.
Read More | Gamasutra
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