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It was a little stunning to learn last week that at least one disgruntled Xbox 360 owner had decided to skip the regular channels when dealing with a burnt out 360 and instead went straight to Bill Gates. Even more stunning, Gates apparently knocked some heads and got the guy sorted out in record time (24 hours). More »
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We know that Nintendo dominated 2007, with a constant, reliable stream of good news and strong sales. But how did the rest of the competition stack up? We've decided to look back at a full year of sales data from Japanese analyst outlet Media Create, whose sales data we regularly feature in the Simple 2000 Japanese Sales Chart series. More »
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The BBC News had a sit down with Bill Gates at CES recently and instead of asking him their own questions, they asked him their viewers. This gem, the first in the Q&A video, asked Gates about the hardware issues that have plagued the Xbox 360, almost since launch. More »
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The weeks long connection troubles many Xbox Live users have experienced since the holidays was due, according to Microsoft, to heavy Xbox Live server load brought on by a record number of users attempting to access the service. Xbox group marketing manager Albert Penello told us that "It's wasn't a malicious thing." He explained "We had the biggest concurrent day we've ever had on Live. We had more people than ever signing up on Live, it was 9 million, then 10 million, and it literally was that a lot more people were trying to get on, sign up and play than we had expected over Christmas." More »
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Twas the month before Christmas and all through the land,
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There were more than 34 pages of comments and entries for our year-end Shopping Bot contest. And I can see why. Not only were we offering to give someone $2,000 in game-related gear, we're going to do the shopping to pick it up and then ship it out to the lucky winner. And by we I mean me. More »
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Reggie Fils-Aime may have referred to it as a raincheck program, but GameStop's official name for their pre-pay Wii program hitting on Dec. 20 is the Wii Certificate Program. There are a couple other things Reggie was a bit off on, according to the details released this morning from GameStop. More »
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In many ways, many, many ways eBay is an albatross around the necks' of gamers. This is most evident around the holidays when the demand for consoles and games goes through the roof. More »
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Some good, scratch that, great news for Rock Band fans from Harmonix today. They wrote to tell us that gamers who are experiencing problems with their guitars (or any of the Rock Band instruments) should contact EA's customer support website and they will send out a replacement immediately. More »
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See that? It says "Welcome to the world of Xbox 360" and asks me to select my language. About thirty minutes ago, I plugged in my "fixed" Xbox 360. Back in August, my Japan launch 360 Red Ringed. Twenty-two days passed, and I received my "fixed" Xbox 360 via airmail. That was on September 11th. Since I had to go to Tokyo yesterday, I took it out the box and put it under my TV. Today was the first time I could plug in the machine, and when I did, my new black wireless controller didn't sync with the console. Neither did my old controller. More »
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A hacker has knocked GayGamer.net, the only news gathering gay-gaming site, offline with a series of denial of service attacks after flooding the site with threatening emails and hate speech, the site's owner said Sunday. More »
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Just how many Xbox 360's have died on you. I've had nine give up on ghost on me, good thing they were all loaners from Microsoft. Hit the jump to vote, try not to cheat. :) More »
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Computer and Video Games reports on a rumor that the always on connectivity of the Wii's WiiConnect24 is being blamed for downing some of the consoles. More »
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I spoke with Peter Moore, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division, for a few minutes a little while ago about today's announcement regarding the extended warranty. More »
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After more than half a year of bad publicity and red-ringing Xbox 360s, Microsoft has again decided to expand their warranty coverage for the console. Now any customer whose console gets three flashing red lights will be covered by a three year warranty from the date of purchase. The warranty will cover both the repair and shipping costs. More »
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By: Brian Crecente and Michael McWhertor More »
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Click to view More »
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While video game retailers have made "significant progress" in limiting the sale of M-rated games to children, movies and music retailers have only made modest progress, according to a report released today by the Federal Trade Commission. More »
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We've been hearing the rumblings for awhile now, but today it's official: The 20GB version of the PS3 is no more in North America. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=251567&view=rss&microfeed=true It appears that reports of a systemic hack of Bungie.net to obtain a slew of Xbox Live accounts may be blown out of proportion. More »
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I was waiting to hear back from Microsoft on this, but haven't so here's where things stand according to ZDnet. More »
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By: Michael Fahey More »
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I convinced my dad to buy my older brother an Xbox 360 earlier this year for his birthday. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=222843&view=rss&microfeed=true The Associated Press, it seems, has backed away from calling Nintendo's product replacement plan for the Wii Remote Strap a recall. More »
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Looks like Nintendo, while a bit slow to react, is taking the classy way out of their flimsy Wii strap fiasco. More »
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Just about everyone has pointed out just how painfully obvious that the "All I want for Xmas is a PSP" website is really just a bad marketing ploy for Sony. Well everyone, but Sony. More »
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Chicago's NBC 5 reports that the Better Business Bureau is now "challenging" Toys R Us on it's apparent practice of forcing bundles on people who come in to buy a Wii. More »
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Yesterday our Consumerist bros reported on a foul little bait-and-switch FYE pulled on their Wii customers during launch. More »
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A poster on Black Friday Ads reports that CostCo is going to start selling their stock of PS3 ads online starting at 8 a.m. PST on Friday Nov. 17 More »
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Our good Gawker buddies over at the Consumerist, while remaining total assholes, did manage to spot a fascinating gamer-related story in between all their kvetching about exploding laptop batteries and fruit-flavored Cheerios: at least one Gamestop out there is knowingly selling counterfeit Nintendogames. More »
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In these tumultuous times of next-gen console fixed pricing, any small downward swing of price is a good thing. So this is news: courtesy of our plucky soul brothers over at the Consumerist, we discovered this deal on a Xbox 360 Platinum System for only $350 after a fifty buck rebate. Plus free shipping! More »
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Our brothers over at the Consumerist spend so much time whining about boring companies like Comcast and AOL that the entire network has practically disowned them. No one likes a Negative Nelly. Losers... see you at Gawker Lay-Off Party 2006! More »
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Somehow, our canny brothers over at the Consumerist took time out from insulting all gamers everywhere to hack into Kotaku's email account and steal an email meant for us! We'll let them have it: they need the content. Although our kotaku.com email password is definitely being changed... Crecente's measurements were obviously too easy to guess. More »
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If Kotaku is the charming, sexy ubermensch of the Gawker network, our brother site The Consumerist is the absorbed yet still sentient fetus that was cut from our side, pickled in brine and stuffed on a jar on our trophy shelf. More »
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On March 28th, 2006, a strange Venusian satellite streaked an eerie fluorescent parabola across the sky, irradiating the world's cemetaries, funeral parlors and abattoirs with an extraterrestrial radiation. Four days later, the dead walked, slavering for human flesh and tasty brains. And we were here covering it. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=164636&view=rss&microfeed=true More Starforce wackiness! After warezing critics' games and accusing others of being affiliated with the Russian mafia, what's next for gaming's most beloved Russian son? How will they entertain us today? More »
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He just couldn't stay away. Joel Johnson, former Gizmodo editor and hermit, has returned to the Gawker fold helming a new site all about consumerism. Consumerist may sound boring, but it ain't. The site is dedicated to bringing down the retail man and all of his price-boosting, supply-hiding, customer-screwing ways. I'm sure his first month is going to be very 360 heavy. More »
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