Posts in “Gaming”
OnLive Delivers Through The Cloud. But Will It Succeed?
Recently, OnLive began offering their OnLive Game System for pre-orders online for a very attractive price of $99. This game system features a revolutionary way of accessing games and content through the use of “The Cloud” as opposed to the more traditional physical media formats that you see in today’s consoles. But what is OnLive? What does it do? How does it work? And more importantly, what effects, if any, will it have on the… Read On »
I Am A Monument To All Your Sins
To say that Bungie’s swan song in the Halo universe, Halo: Reach has by far the most challenging campaign of all of the Halo games is a gross understatement. To play the campaign on the highest difficulty setting, Legendary is for the most part, insane. Checking my Bungie.net stats, I started playing the game on Legendary – Solo on September 22nd. Ironcially, seven days after the release of Halo: Reach (For those of you who don’t know, Bungie… Read On »
VGChartz Sales Data On Kinect Sparks Remarks From Greenburg
Yesterday, VGChartz released initial sales data for Kinect for the Xbox 360, stating that the device had sold almost 480,000 devices between its launch on November 4 to the week ending November 6. For two days worth of sales, it’s not a figure to laugh at. Especially considering that it took the Playstation Move four weeks to reach a similar number.
But Mr. Aaron Greenburg, Chief of Staff for Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, is indeed, laughing. Per his post on Twitter, “LOL’ing at sales reports from VGChartz, why do people release info as official when there is no source or science behind the #s?”
VGChartz has come under fire before for the accuracy of the data that it reports. Many times, their data will be corrected when groups such as NPD release their own tracking data. However, with NPD no longer reporting their data to the public, VGChartz is the only source left for many bloggers, myself included, to gather semi-accurate sales data.
Brett Walton left a comment in the Kinect article stating, “I’m a little disappointed that a senior figure like Mr Greenberg decides to comment in such an immature way rather than maybe offer the actual figure for example.
As ever, it is entirely possible that our figures aren’t perfect (they are only estimates from samples afterall), but they shouldn’t be that far out.”
So is this another example of VGChartz guesstimates being way out of what the actual numbers are? Or could Mr. Greenburg be clutching on to the real sales data because the true numbers aren’t as impressive?
Stay tuned.
~W75
October Sales Data – Christmas Season Predictions
Nintendo down 50%, Sony Leads The Month Sony led the month of October with over 990,000 unit sales pulling ahead of Microsoft by almost 230,000 sales in the last two weeks. Two contributing factors to Sony pulling ahead were most likely the launch of the Playstation Move, Sony’s motion controller, and anticipation of Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360, with people opting to pre-order the Xbox 360S 4GB and 250GB bundles with the Kinect device. More… Read On »
Console News For Monday, November 8
Microsoft Bundles Alan Wake – Forza 3 In Holiday Bundle
For those of you who don’t want to be Kinect’d, Microsoft is releasing this year’s holiday bundle with core gamering goodness. The new bundle will come with a copy of Forza Motorsport 3 and a token to download Remedy’s hit thriller, Alan Wake. This bundle will launch at the $299 price point leaving gamers to decide, get Kinect? Or go with a couple of core games?
Source: Major Nelson
Mass Effect 2 For PS3 To Receive Free Extra Content, Missions
PS3 users will finally be receiving Mass Effect 2 on the Sony console with some extra goodies. It will be including all of the DLC missions that Xbox 360 users had to purchase this last year, as well as a new mission worth about six hours of gameplay and an interactive comic to walk them through the events of the first game, making key decisions that affect the outcome of Mass Effect 2.
It will be interesting to find out if Xbox 360 fans will have access to this extra six hour mission as later downloadable content. It would probably be a good idea for EA to release it to appease the 2.12 million fans of the Xbox 360 version may feel a bit left out and disgruntled if it isn’t the case.
Source: GameRant
Kinect Technology Could Have Gone To Apple First
Apple Inc., a company whose dedication to innovating arguably stands above any other company could have had Project Natal, now known to the world as Microsoft’s holiday hopeful, Kinect, first. But why would Apple, king of new technologies miss out on this huge opportunity to bring something unique to their own line of products?
Because, “Apple is a pain in the ass,” according to PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha.
In an interview with Cult of Mac Editor, Leander Kahney, Beracha said that when Apple was introduced to the technology, it was the stack of legal agreements and NDAs that turned Beracha off to the partnership.
Interesting.
Source: Cult Of Mac
Microsoft Giving Away Free Xbox 360s With Purchase Of Win7 Phones In Toronto
As you know, Windows Phone 7 launches today. And what better way to celebrate this event than getting a free Xbox 360 with your purchase of an HTC 7 Surround or LG Optimus 7? People shopping at the Toronto Eaton Centre can get just such a deal. But you better be quick, word is that numbers are limited.
Source: Wirelessly Obsessed
Coming This Week
I’ll be taking Microsoft Kinect For Xbox 360 for a test drive and writing down my thoughts, as well as with the new 360 Dashboard. Also, my holiday sales predictions after last week’s numbers are posted. Stay tuned.
~W75
Stores Gearing Up Early For Black Friday With Deals
Online retailers are gearing up early and offering “Black Friday” deals well ahead of the mark this November in an effort to boost sales for the holiday season. Retailers are starting to push out big ticket items to the net savvy over three weeks early with some deals. Let’s take a look:
Walmart.com
Walmart’s online store will be offering deals with its Amazing Walmart Electronics Event starting on November 6th this year, with LCD TVs being at the front of some amazing bargains. One of note is a 55″ Vizio LCD sporting 1080p at 60Hz for $898. As well as the Sony PS3 Move Bundle for $399 which includes a $50 Walmart Gift Card.
These deals are listed as while supplies last, so get up early on Saturday to score the best deals you can find.
Newegg.com
Newegg is holding a Black November event this year, with deals changing daily including sales on GPS units, computer parts and accessories, George Foreman grills, cell phones, electric shavers and more.
Amazon.com
Amazon is holding a Get Three Games For The Price Of Two sale on over 800 video games on their site. Many popular and new games are available to be purchased under this sale including Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, and Rock Band 3.
Slickdeals.net is also reporting a deal on Target‘s website to purchase 3 Kinect games for $85 shipped. Although a recent check has the games out of stock, I’ll be watching this one closely for my own holiday shopping.
With some key retailers ramping up the deals early, you can bet that many others will follow suit. You may want to tune into slickdeals.net and bfads.net for the latest and greatest in holiday deals.
Kinect Sold Out On Amazon/Best Buy – Resellers Taking Advantage
As reported earlier this week, Amazon and Best Buy appear to still be sold out on Kinect sensor pre-orders. As a matter of fact, checking on Amazon’s list of sellers under “See My Buying Options” reveals that their third party resellers have now upped the price over $200 for their Kinect pre-orders.
Another check on eBay reveals that sellers are doing the same there. Charging anywhere from $159.99 to $300 for a pre-order there.
Savvy Shoppers should know that if you instead go to sites such as Newegg, or Walmart with their $199, two game bundle, or Gamestop instead of these other third party resellers.
While I would like to believe that it’s the innovation in the new product and its easy to use interface, I’m much more inclined to believe that these sell-outs are largely happening due to the Oprah and Ellen effect.
Console News For Wednesday, October 27th
Sony To Introduce Its Own Console Phone?
As reported by Engadget, it looks like Sony is looking to steal some of Microsoft’s thunder in the phone market with their own Playstation phone. While still considered a rumour, I can’t but wonder if this is the reason why Sony has so drastically marked down the price of the PSP Go.
Microsoft has been working very dilligently to bring the XBox Live experience to the mobile platform with the introduction of Windows Mobile 7, and further extend the Live experience with their upcoming revamp of Games For Windows Live to unify gamers across all devices. An entry by Sony with a Playstation phone could very well take a bite out of Microsoft’s efforts in re-entering the mobile market.
Of course, if Sony is to do this, then the real winner would be Apple Inc. As a split of users determined not to buy an iPhone between Microsoft and Sony would only bolster their position as the number one mobile phone maker in the market.
Source: Engadget
NATS and Xbox Live
@majornelson‘s (Xbox Live’s Major Nelson) Twitter feed this morning links us to a Microsoft Xbox Engineering blog talking about NATs (Network Address Translation) and how strict and moderate NAT’ing can affect your Xbox gaming experience. It’s full of plenty of extremely useful information of how Xbox devices under networks of certain NAT configurations will react to Xbox devices under other NAT configurations.
Of course it was written by an Engineer, so if you find the details to be a bit cumbersome, they included a very easy to follow diagram for the regular non-geek.
NAT info for the regular person.
Source: Twitter, XBox Live Engineering Blog
Game Pack 11 For Game Room Released
Microsoft has released Game Pack 11, the add-on for Xbox’s own classic video game emulator just a couple of weeks after the closing of Krome Studios. The Microsoft dev team responsible for Game Room and the “regularly scheduled releases”.
I haven’t downloaded the pack to see what games are on it as of yet, but one fellow blogger seems to be quite taken with a Konami game that found its way into the release.
Source: Xbox Live, The Examiner
Sims 3 On Xbox 360 And Playstation?
EA has announced that the popular Sims franchise is now available for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. So now you can date, get a job, be a criminal and set your virtual you on fire from the comfort of your couch!
Interestingly enough, there’s been a lot of news about problems with Microsoft’s Xbox Live guidelines and MMOs in the press lately. With that said, you have to wonder if any of the guidelines were bent or broken to allow the Sims 3 to come to the Xbox? Or is it a case of the subscription requirements in the other MMO games that are the real sticking point?
Only time will tell.
Source: Electronic Arts; MCVUK
Best Buy Sold Out Of Kinect Standalone Again
After hearing that Kinect was sold out on Amazon.com, I decided to check out the usual haunts and found that Best Buy is again sold out of the standalone Kinect unit, and still has not restocked their Kinect 250GB Console Bundle.
Newegg and Gamestop appear to still be taking orders however. Looks like Microsoft continues to underestimate demand for their product. This is the second time that the largest retailers of Xbox products have run short of Kinect Standalone units in just a few weeks.
Console News for Tuesday, October 26th
Microsoft Spent $30,000 To Build The First Kinect Device
The New York Times has a very thorough article on Kinect, and the work that was done to make it happen. One thing of particular note is the cost of the first Kinect device. Over $30,000 was spent to build the intial unit. Also, the article claims that, according to Don Mattrick, Microsoft’s President of Interactive Entertainment business, “the company has a product it can sell for $150 a pop and still turn a profit.”
I wonder how much of a profit they turn with the discounted Xbox 4GB Bundle?
Source: New York Times
PS3 and PC To Get Back To The Future, Xbox 360 Excluded?
NowGamer is reporting that while the upcoming Back To The Future game is set to release on the PS3 and PC, it is not slated to release on Xbox 360. A quick check on Telltale Games’ forums indicate that there is in fact no current plans to release Back To The Future to Xbox Live Arcade.
Nuts.
Source: NowGamer
Red Dead Redemption – Undead Nightmare DLC Now Available
Zombies are what bacon is to any food. It just makes it so much better. And now you can get tasty tasty zombie cowboys for your RDR needs. The new DLC touts:
And all of it is now available on PSN for $9.99 and Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft Points. Not a bad deal at all!
Source: Bezinga
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Demo Now Available On Xbox Live
You can now get your mits on quite possibly the NFS game to hit the consoles on Xbox Live. Check out the demo and let me know what your thoughts on the latest addition to EA’s high speed franchise.
Source: Xbox Live
Microsoft Not Interested In HD Remakes…For Now
During an interview with Microsoft VP Phil Spencer, they asked if there were any plans to re-release original Xbox titles such as Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 in HD. Spencer replied, “”We obviously have a lot of new things going on, so the thought of re-doing a bunch of things is probably difficult to just weave into the overall portfolio,” Spencer added. “If you can provide real value to the customer, there could be possibilities for that, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.”
Honestly, I can agree with him. While Sony is re-releasing PS1 and PS2 games on PS3 by way of BluRay disc or PSN, they have to with the lack of backward compatibility available in the newer systems. Whereas there are very few games in the Xbox library that aren’t compatible with Xbox 360. Likewise, many of the original Xbox games are being re-released on Xbox’s Games On Demand for public consumption.
I do know that with Halo: CE, the Games On Demand version is in HD and widescreen format. But I don’t see MS releasing a completely revamped version for something that already works and is available for the time being.
Thoughts?
~W75