Xbox 360News for - September 8, 2008
Featured Stories
  Activision Sued for GH: Rocks the 80s Track (via 1up) - Activision did not have a great Thanksgiving week. Not only are they finally up against competition for their suceessful Guitar Hero franchise in the form of Rock Band, but as of Thanksgiving morning they're also facing a federal lawsuit. According to a news story on CNN, rock band The Romantics are suing Activision for the use of their song "What I Like About You" on the Rocks the 80s edition of Guitar Hero. | |
 New Guitar Hero Wireless Guitars Revealed (via 1up) -- Behind the music, Guitar Hero III has another reason it holds the spotlight: the first game to come packaged with a third-party wireless controller on Xbox 360, at the same time bringing wire-free rocking to Wii and PlayStation 3. | |
 90 Great Xbox 360 games for 2008 (via uol Jogos) -- A compilation from all confirmed and rumored Xbox 360 games due in next year with screenshots and release quarter. The article is in Spanish, but the titles and release dates are English. Enjoy. | |
 1UP Gives 5 tips for Developers to Improve Games (via 1up) -- 1UP has listed 5 tips that will help games get better reviews. Developers should take note of these, we may have a few more suggestions. 1. Unskippable Cut-scenes 2. Save Points 3. Quick-Time Events 4. Pay to Unlock 5. Because You Can | |
 No evidence connecting games and violence, says BBFC (via GamesIndustry) - Speaking at the appeal hearing yesterday Andrew Caldecott, representing the BBFC, stated, "The board's position is that there is insufficient evidence to prove, as a fact, there is a causal connection between violent games and behavioural harm...It's a perfectly fair point, and one which we accept, but it's not by any means a complete answer to the question the has to decide. | |
 Top ten non-girly games girls play (via Quickjump) - So you thought girl gamers only indulged themselves in Cooking Mama and Nintendogs? Without being a frag doll for Ubisoft or other companies that use sex appeal to sell, contrary to popular male belief, the ladies actually play games most guys drool about. In fact, many of them female gamers can be competitive and leave us (I proudly admit defeat) in the dust. | |
 Sensible World of Soccer Developer Q&A (via WonderwallWeb) - Thanks to our friends at XCN, we have a Q&A with Sensible World of Soccer creator Jon Hare, and if this is not enough we also have a second set of question which have been kindly answered by Tim Hodges (Marketing Executive, Codemasters), Jim Brown (Director of MMOs and Online Gaming, Codemasters) and Peer Lawther (Website Editor, Codemasters). | |
 Blu-Ray HD battle heats up (via Rapid TVnews) - When HD-DVD players start retailing at just $98.97, is the battle over for Blu-Ray? Wal-Mart has recently been selling HD-DVD players for below $100 in a snap sale, and shifted 55,000 Toshiba HD-A2 players. In fact the discounted units were only a few dollars more than standard-def DVD players. | |
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 Unreal Engine 3 coming to the Wii? (via Joystiq) -- Epic Vice President Mark Rein has said repeatedly that they will not port their popular Unreal Engine 3 to the Wii, but that isn't stopping others from doing the conversion for them. | |
 Gamestop sells demo disc as new game (via Joystiq) -- Someone bought what he thought was a new copy of Steambot Chronicles from Gamestop, only to find out later that they actually sold him a demo disc for the game, with the "Demo: Not for Resale" watermark scribbled out in sharpie marker. | |
 406 Reasons to love your Xbox 360 (via xbox) -- Xbox.com have a list of 406 reasons to love your xbox and yes you guessed it.... 366. Viva Pinata!!! Sorry no Yaris guys so you may want to complain. Hold on! 9. 360style.net ... yet no 360plex ... WTF? Obviously the PR team need educating about the guys at 360plex! | |
 HEI$T Preview (via gameplayer) - Gameplayer has taken a look at the rather cool looking HeiSt, originally slated for this year, but recently slipped to 2008. It goes in-depth on the games features, and gameplay. "The city has been modelled to allow you to explore the criminal underground. You can buy hideouts, from waterfront wharves to dilapidated windmills, to stash your guys and to escape to after a heist. | |
 Why Assassin's Creed Fails (via Wired) - It's not easy to criticize a game that does so many difficult things right. In terms of presentation, Assassin's Creed for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is a slam dunk: A clever premise, a unique setting, a fully-realized world, beautiful graphics and music, responsive controls. | |
 Polish Magazine Promotes Xbox 360 Nude (via BuzzFocus) - You’ve heard of outlandish promotional schemes before to boost holiday sales. Well one country’s magazine is shedding its clothes for the Xbox 360. CKM, Poland’s more “mature” version of Maxim magazine, is using a topless model to push sales of Guitar Hero, Halo 3, and the Xbox 360. | |
 Teens can get workout while indulging love of games (via fredericksburg.com) - Children of the video-game generation have a new reason to embrace virtual reality: They're breaking a sweat in the process. The YMCA's Massad Branch introduced a new InterAct Zone in May, giving kids an alternative to traditional sports through the use of physically demanding video games. | |
 Quest for the Nintendo Wii leaves many empty-handed (via statesman.com) - The holiday shopping season is upon us, and if your little one is craving the world's most popular gaming system, you may have a Wii problem. Last year, Nintendo's Wii gaming console became a latter-day Cabbage Patch Kid or Tickle Me Elmo, prompting long lines of desperate parents haunting gaming emporiums and big chain stores hoping to satisfy the gaming demands of their precious little snowflakes. | |
Guitar Hero III... Will it blend? (via willitblend.com) -- As far as guitar based video games go, Guitar Hero easily cracks the top three. Unfortunately they left the Beach Boys off the game, and you know what that means... (cool site if you never been to it) | |
 Falcon Consoles Identified in British Forums (Rumor) (via Xbox Live) -- I was browsing the Xbox Forums in the uk when I came across this post it looks pretty legit, so if you want one of those Falcon Chips here's the information to get you one. | |
 CNBC Console Wars Holiday Season Report (via CNBC) -- CNBC takes a look at the video game wars brewing this holiday shopping season, with Dan Hsu, editor in chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly, and MarketWatch's Herb Greenberg. | |
 VG Chartz: Xbox Live Arcade Sales Chart for 11/17/07-11/24/07 (via VG CHARTZ) -- VG Chartz has the latest weekly sales chart for all currently available Xbox Live Arcade titles. The titles are ranked by units sold for the week. The chart also includes each title's cost, revenue (for the week,) release date, total launch-to-date units sold, and total launch-to-date revenue. | |
Game Releases This Week Well has run dry edition (via The Xbox Domain) -- After a good run of weekly releases, the well has finally run dry. This week we see no triple A release. All we get is History Channel's Battle for the Pacific. I actually never even heard of this game until I was searching for what was coming out this week. | |
 Stargate Game (via stargate-game.com) - A new game based on the hit tv series stargate Sg1 and atlantis is going to be run on the same engine as halflife 2. Hopefully this will be the first online game that will actually have its own virtual world that exceeds phantasy star universe with more features eg spacecrafts and different weapons more like todays. | |
 Western Games That Made it Big In Japan (via Japanmanship) -- With all this defeatist talk of the difficulty Western games have in Japan, I thought it might be time to have a gander at those mythical titles that actually have migrated successfully. | |
 Poor sales of Space Giraffe make Jeff Minter sad (via stinkygoat.livejournal.com) - Jeff Minter, head of Llamasoft, is apparently a bit upset about the sales of his Xbox Live Arcade title Space Giraffe. Upset enough, in fact, to post a disparaging message to his Livejournal blog, insinuating that he means to stop making games altogether. "not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than ten to one, in one week. | |
Is it OK for adults to play video games? (via ABC Southern Queensland) - Still a stigma attached to computer games? "As the next lot of generations come through they'll be more comfortable with the medium. I guess there is a stigma, but that's quickly going away, especially with the internet, Web 2 and Web 3 technologies, it is everywhere. | |
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 Console War Heats Up Over Holidays (via eFluxMedia) - The Nintendo-Playstation-Xbox war is heating up over holidays, as expected. Sony isn't about to give up on its gaming powerhouse Playstation 3: the company announced it will launch a major TV push in the UK for its console in a bid to win over shoppers in the crucial Christmas season battle against rivals Nintendo and Xbox. | |
Wii edges up to Xbox 360 in total market share (via seattlepi) -- In the battle for supremacy in the video-game world, Nintendo Co.'s Wii has now matched the Xbox 360 in total market share, despite the Microsoft Corp. console's one-year head start. | |
