Microsoft

Xbox 360’s Game Room Wants You to Rebuy Your “Arcade”

When the Xbox 360 gets its Game Room later this year, players will have to repopulate the arcade with titles no matter what they have already purchased through Xbox Live, Game Informer reports. That’s because Microsoft considers the Game Room titles, which are “originals, different from the Xbox Live Arcade titles, which are revamps, GI…

Microsoft Made $19 Billion Last Quarter, Sold 5.2 Million Xboxs

It was a good quarter for Xbox 360 maker Microsoft. No, it was the company’s best ever, pulling in record revenue of $19.02 billion. It highlighted “exceptional demand for Windows 7,” wisely downplaying the decrease in the Xbox 360 division. Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, corporate home to the Xbox business, was responsible for $2.9…

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Demo Launches Surprise Attack On Xbox 360

Not to be outdone by the impending release of a beta on the PC, the Xbox 360 has secured some Battlefield Bad Company 2 action of its own, with the surprise release of a demo. Originally appearing in Australia overnight, the demo has now been downloaded – and played – by people all over the…

Master Mario Mashup

Mario/Master Chief tattoo, now on an unknown fan for life. As seen at Hawty McBloggy.

Is Lost Planet 2 Doing Marcus Fenix Right?

Gears of War’s Marcus Fenix and hetero life companion Dominic Santiago are getting the Lost Planet 2 treatment, but is Capcom’s MT-Framework 2.0 treating them right? Let’s compare! First off, we’re taking an image from a brief trailer shown during the announcement of the Gears guys’ cameo in Lost Planet 2, so until we get…

Report: Nintendo Said “No, Thank You” To Project Natal Tech

Nintendo executives were reportedly given the option to snatch up the technology that powers Microsoft’s controller-free Project Natal but passed, worried that the camera tech was too expensive and not responsive enough for the Wii maker. CVG cites an anonymous source at Nintendo—specifically “a top insider (and we mean top insider)”—as saying that Nintendo bossman…

New Xbox Japan Ads Are Reminiscent of Old Dreamcast Ads

For those living outside Japan, the country’s Xbox 360 commercials have been interesting. There have been a boy band and a song about kicking the shit out of the recession. The latest series of ads features a trio of salarymen from the “Xbox Mission Department”. The guy with the Xbox 360 logo for a noggin…

Microsoft Facing Lawsuit Over Xbox Live Pricing

Samuel Lassoff, an attorney in Philadelphia, is taking Microsoft to court over claims that the Xbox 360’s currency system – Microsoft Points – exists to “unjustly enrich” the console manufacturer. The basis of Lassoff’s complaint will no doubt also the basis of many of your complaints over the system. Namely, that prices are engineered so…

X10 Sees Microsoft Return To Hosting Its Own Game Show

Having abandoned the show to the Canadian wilderness in recent years, Microsoft is bringing its “X” event back into the limelight in 2010, with a showcase night planned to take place in San Francisco next month. The last proper “X” event was all the way back in 2006, when Peter Jackson was in attendance promising…

Gaming: The Fifth Network

The very public, very messy late-night fight between Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and NBC didn’t just offer interesting insight into the inner workings of network television, it reminded everyone that the TV isn’t used only for watching shows anymore. Video games, right behind bad programming and bad decisions, are television networks’ biggest threat these days.…

But What Does Modern Warfare 2’s Timed Exclusive DLC Mean?

At last year’s E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced that the first two downloadable maps for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are timed Xbox 360 exclusives. Timed? How long is that? “We have a 30-day timed exclusive on the Modern Warfare content packs,” a spokesperson told website Eurogamer. “So it will be…

Microsoft Points Were Never Meant To “Mislead People”

Like Nintendo’s currency of the same name, Microsoft’s “Points” have been confusing people since they were first released, humans being accustomed to think of money spent in terms of, well, money spent. Not some abstract points scheme. If it makes you feel any better, Microsoft never meant for MS Points to confuse you. To mislead…

Some Halo: Reach Screen Shots

Game retailer EB Games has uploaded the first direct feed Halo: Reach screens onto the game’s product page. Anyone with the most recent issue of Game Informer magazine has seen these screens — not everyone has the latest GI, though! That, and these are some of the first proper screens for the game. Halo: Reach…

The Big Three All See Revenues Drop in 2009

Revenues were down for most video game companies in 2009, and the big three platform holders were no exception. Pretty clear, but if you need it spelled out a little clearer, nice graphs tend to do the trick. Put together by NPD fetishist Matt Matthews over at Gamasutra, it shows the decline in revenue all…

Mass Effect 2 “Super Elite” Console Bundle Announced

This is the Mass Effect 2 Limited Edition console bundle, announced today for the Australian market and selling for AUD$599 (USD$550). It includes a black Xbox 360 with a 250GB HDD, two wireless controllers, a headset and a copy of Mass Effect 2. No custom paintjob on the console, sadly, but the inclusion of a…

How Xbox Could Have Helped The Dreamcast Survive

There have been rumors for years that Microsoft planned to buy Japanese game maker SEGA. But did you know SEGA hoped to make the original Xbox compatible with Dreamcast games? The SEGA Dreamcast was launched in late 1998 to great fanfare. The console — featuring dial-up online — was years ahead of its time. Then…

GameStop Looking To Offload Its Xbox 360 Elites?

On Monday, we wondered where all the 120GB hard disk drives for the Xbox 360 had got to. This GameStop promotion may help explain what’s going on. It’s offering a $50 GameStop gift voucher with every Xbox 360 Elite console sold. Out of the blue, not long after official price cuts and the holiday season.…

More Fable III Concept Art

Still want some Fable III screens? Once again, there are no Fable III screens. Sorry. There are images of , a queen, a king and his family and chimney sweeps. The action role playing game, which allows players to choose between good and evil, moving on from a stylised renaissance and is, Dickens novels in…

Microsoft: No Need to Launch New Console

The Xbox 360 launched in November 2005. The original Xbox launched in November 2001. It is now 2010. About time for a new Xbox, right? Not necessarily, Microsoft says. “I think it’s important to say that the Xbox 360 is the console of the long future for us,” David Hufford, senior director of Xbox product…

Where Have All The 120GB Xbox HDD Gone?

Last fall, Mircosoft released a new addition to its Xbox 360 console line: the “Super Elite Bundle” Bundled with either racing game Forza Motorsport 3 or military shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the Super Elite Bundle includes a black “Elite” Xbox 360 console as well as a detachable 250GB hard disk drive. The…