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

Video Games Live Comes Back To The Motor City

I am a huge fan of Video Games Live.  And in Detroit, I’ve now had the pleasure of working as a volunteer at both concerts, this year and the one in 2008.  If you haven’t yet been to see this awesome concert in person, I urge you to go right now to their website and check for the soonest date that they will be in or around your city. Conceived in 2005 by founders Tommy… Read On »

Supreme Court To Hear Arguments On CA Video Game Ban Law

Today, the United States Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in  Schwarzenegger v. EMA.  This case will determine if the 2005 law passed in California banning the sale of violent video games to minors is constitutional or not.

The law overrides the ESRB ratings by requiring a seperate label be placed on video games deemed inappropriate for minors.  The point of contention in the law is the labelling of “violent video games” in the law makes it possible to label children’s games such as “Super Mario Bros.” as violent and require an 18+ label.  This of course could greatly affect video game sales, as well as the type of content that they could sell to minors.

As a parent, I agree with the restriction of sales of violent video games to minors.  However, I believe that the ESRB has created a robust system of ratings designed to catch the attention of parents and make it easy to decide whether or not a game is appropriate for their child.  I also believe that the ESRB’s retail partners overall are doing a good job of enforcing these ratings by refusing to sell Mature rated games to minors.

However, laws passed by the government are usually intentionally vague and are open to broad interpretation, usually doing more harm than good.  And instead of creating an arbitrary system to label games as the government sees fit to label as Mature or 18+, I think that any state government would be better off to partner with the ESRB in enforcing its already established ratings system as they already have 15 years of experience behind them.

~W75

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.

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.

Source: PunchJump; BestBuy