Microsoft

Report: New Xbox 360 Elite Bundles Up With Halo 3 & Fable II

Microsoft may be offering a much more valuable version of its Xbox 360 Elite package, one that packs in two of the console’s biggest games, all for the exact same price its charging now. Ars Technica‘s “mole” says that the Xbox 360 maker is planning to bundle Halo 3 and Fable II into a new…

Nielsen Drops the Ball on Console Usage Numbers

Remember that study of video gamer habits Nielsen released earlier this week showing the Wii in third place and the Playstation 3 in seventh, last even after the GameCube and original Xbox? It was wrong. Fast Company reports that they’ve been told that the graph was mislabeled. The real graph, which now appears in the…

Tart Up Your Xbox Media Centre With Some Skins

Despite dying off as a viable games machine a few years back, the Xbox is still good for something: the Xbox Media Centre. Problem is, the thing looks really boring. Lucky for any of you using the setup, there are ways to spruce things up a bit. Make the Media Centre a little easier on…

Halo Encyclopedia Shoots For Bookshelves This Fall

Halo fans with a thirst for referential material will be queuing up for the Barnes & Noble midnight launch of the Halo Encyclopedia, which has been announced for a fourth quarter release at book stores. DK Publishing, fine reference book publisher of things all things useful, historical, mundane and incredibly nerdy, will pack 350-plus pages…

Gears Of War 2: Snowblind, As Narrated By Bender [Update]

There’s a new Gears of War 2 map pack available. It’s called Snowblind. And sure, you could let Microsoft, or Epic try and sell you on it, but how about Bender instead? Yes, sit back and allow John DiMaggio – who does the voice work for Futurama’s surly robot (and also some Marcus Fenix guy)…

You Could Have Won $2,500 If You Were Better Than These Guys

The good thing about the second annual Bay Area Game Jam‘s make-a-game-in-4824-hours contest is you get free games the day after the contest ends. The grand prize of $2,500 went to Daniel Bryner, Bradley Johnson and Chris Webb who managed to create Lava Ball on Wild Pocket’s new 3D engine. How they did this with…

Xbox Live: 2,500,000,000 Achievements Unlocked

Xbox 360, PC, Wii, doesn’t matter, everybody loves online user statistics. Especially when, they get into the billions, as was revealed by Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg last week. Contributing to a Gamasutra piece on achievements, Greenberg revealed that, as of this month, there have been 2.5 billion achievements unlocked by the Xbox Live user base. They…

Microsoft, Lionhead Settle Gay Discrimination Claim

Jamie Durrant, an ex-Lionhead employee suing Microsoft for £45,000 on the grounds he was harassed in the workplace for being gay, has settled the case out of court. Terms were agreed upon earlier this week in a court in London, but as is usually the case with these things, terms of the deal were not…

Bay Area Game Jam Rocks My Weekend

This weekend, Wild Pockets, Crispy Gamer and Microsoft are teaming up to host Bay Area Game Jam – a 24-hour game development competition at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, California. Contestants have to use Wild Pockets’ 3D web-based game engine and the fine print on the contest rules specifies that this is…

Xbox Live’s April Deals Of Darkness

Microsoft has revealed the game and add-on discounts coming your way as part of the Xbox Live Deal of the Week program, and odds are you might find something worth spending points on. Heading up the deals for this month is Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, on sale next week for…

Lips Mics Will Work With Metallica, Rock Band 2

Microsoft’s nifty wireless microphones that were packed in with Lips just got a whole lot more useful, supporting Guitar Hero Metallica and soon Rock Band 2. Tethering a music game singing virtuoso to a console is a sad, sad thing, especially since the cords are never long enough to allow for the sort of microphone…

Japanese Game Industry Sales Dropped Last Year

Comparing 2007 to 2008, the Japanese game market is shrinking. Enterbrain, publisher of game magazine Famitsu, has released the hard data for last year’s domestic sales. The total market place (hardware and software sales) was worth ¥552.42 billion in 2008, compared to ¥676.95 billion the year before. Hardware sales were ¥231.52 billion in 2008 and…

Xbox 360 Update Offers “No New Features”

A mandatory update has just hit the Xbox 360. According to Microsoft’s Larry Hryb, “This update addresses interruption issues that some Xbox LIVE users may have experienced when playing a limited number of Xbox 360 games.” Meaning? “There are no other changes or enhancements in this update…in other words no new features.” Xbox 360 System…

Greenpeace Once Again Gives Nintendo Low Marks

Every year that Greenpeace releases its “Guide to Greener Electronics”, one company is always at the bottom. That company is Nintendo. According to Greenpeace, “Nintendo remains in last place with a pitiful 0.8 points out of 10, scoring zero on all e-waste criteria.” Why did Nintendo score so low? Not providing information on things like…

A Look At How Microsoft Approve A Game For Release

Introversion – developers of Defcon and Darwinia – have a treat in store for us. Following “unprecedented approval” from Microsoft, they’ve uploaded a paper trail documenting the journey a game takes from pitch to release. And it is fascinating. Provided you find this kind of backroom stuff interesting, anyway. Available for perusal are bug reports,…

Xbox Avatar Clothing — Serious Business

Your “New Xbox Experience” avatar has just gotten some grown up clothes, eight new pieces of formal and business casual articles that will be a hit at your next Xbox Live con call. New shirts, slacks, waistcoats and skirts are yours for the virtual closet raiding, provided you want your Avatar to look nice, but…

Microsoft Discounts PS2 Price Cut

Sony’s Jack Tretton says that dropping the price of the PlayStation 2 to $99 will bring new consumers to the PlayStation platform. Microsoft rolls its eyes. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Microsoft’s VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business Chris Lewis dismissed Sony’s announcement, suggesting that the key to staying competitive in the console market lay in developing…

Xbox 360 Has Sold A Million In Japan, PS3 Sold Three Million

Last we, we broke word that Microsoft would soon reach one million Xbox 360s sold in Japan. By soon, we meant this week, because that’s what has been announced today. According to sales figures from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain, lifetime sales for the Xbox 360 have crossed the million sold watermark in Japan with 1,001,191 units…

XNA Games Don’t Sell, Don’t Make Money [Update]

Much was made of Microsoft’s attempt at gestating a user-created gaming platform on the 360 with their Community Games service. But six months on from launch, how well is it faring? Here’s a hint: not very. Statistics for the service’s games have been made available (and then collected by GamerBytes), showing how many times a…

The World of Fable II Wastes Less Than The World of Fable I

I wasn’t sure what to think of “The World of Fable II” when they played a blues song with the chorus “gonna give you a whippin'” before the panel started. What game had I been playing? I thought maybe I was in the wrong room, but then Fable II’s Technical Art Director, Ian Lovett, started…