Well, until I had seen the trailer for Ironman, the movie with Robert Downey, Jr. in it, I would have been asking who could play the character of Ironman. I think Robert is a good choice for the movie and I can’t wait to see the movie as well as try my hand at the game.
That’s right folk, Microsoft is now offering the once costly emulator for game developers to test out HD-DVD via a USB connection of an external drive or networked PC.
The once costly emulator which Microsoft was selling for $2999 is now being offered for FREE!!!
Now that Toshiba has all but given up support for the HD-DVD format, I’m guessing Microsoft is offering the emulator free as it’s still a good program for testing out programs for the Xbox 360.
For those developers that have purchased the emulator, they are in luck, Microsoft will refund the purchase of the program.
What would be the chance that Xbox 360 will give up on the HD-Dvd format and start offering the Blu-Ray player for connection to the Xbox 360 system
The chance is highly likely to happen in the next 3 months, according to the Australian website, Smarthouse.
Smarthouse reports on their website that insiders at Microsoft has told them that a stand alone Blu-Ray player has been connected to an Xbox 360 system and based on Marketing approval, a release of the system could be available in the next 3 months.
I think the next update will actually be the Xbox 360 with built in Blu-ray player built in. That does not mean owners of the older Xbox systems will have to purchase a new system, I don’t think Microsoft wants to alienate Xbox users. They should have an add-on accessory to play Blu-ray based discs soon.
With fans like Philip and Joanne Ortiz, a husband and wife that loves to play games on their Xbox system, Microsoft will build up a great following for their Xbox gaming consoles.
Philip and Joanne have a blog called Third World Gamer that has officially been recognized by Xbox.com.
The husband and wife team are great fans of the Xbox system and are hoping that with their blog added as an official communities recognized, that their campaigning for PinoyXbox.com will be recognized and also to get the Philippines added as a supported country, which the country is not at this time.
I have to give them mad props, they have done a great job with their articles and love of Xbox.
Looks like the war against the Covenant will only be fought by the brave soldiers using Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console.
In a statement released by Microsoft to IGN, the spokesman said:
“Halo Wars is being developed from the bottom up for the Xbox 360 and its control scheme to ensure that we deliver a groundbreaking console RTS experience. Given that, we have no plans to develop Halo Wars for Windows Vista at this time.”
Too bad for non Xbox 360 owners as it looks like the real time strategy game will be really exciting to play…
I will say this, I predict that once sales of the game for Xbox 360 starts slowing down, they’ll release a PC version.
European owners of the PS3 may cry foul against retailers for jacking up the price of the popular game series “Devil May Cry 4.”
The cost of the PS3 version of DMC 4 is £10 more than Microsoft’s Xbox 360 version in Europe while the prices for DMC 4 in the US is the same.
Videogamer had a quote from a Capcom Spokesperson.
“We don’t set the prices of our games, that’s at the discretion of the retailer. In this specific instance, the process has resulted in a price difference, but the process itself is not something we completely control.”
Grand Theft Auto 4 was expected to be released last fall but was delayed for a release in 2008.
The speculation was that it was a PS3 issue with development for it.
Rockstar announced today that they would be releasing the game on April 29, 2008.
“We are so excited to be releasing Grand Theft Auto IV,” said Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games. “We’ve pushed ourselves very hard to make something incredible and hope the game sets a new benchmark for interactive entertainment.”
Jeronimo Barerra, the Rockstar product development VP addressed the issue on MTV.com.
“It’s really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that. Now, we’re neck and neck. That’s not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the PS3 version. It’s awesome. They’re both identical.”
Also mentioned in the MTV feature is that, on occasion, certain portions of GTA 4 will not require the use of a hard drive on Xbox 360 systems.
Here’s the comment I wrote in Seekingalpha regarding the genius of Xbox 360 and what I thought was an interesting question to what disc format Microsoft will start supporting now that Hd-Dvd is nearly dead.
As a PS3 fan, I agree with everyone that Microsoft’s Xbox360 needs improvements.
What the author, Bruce, is talking about is the guts of the system; the components built are relatively cheap compared to the innards of a PS3.
Microsoft is also the king of bringing back a product, newly improved. Who would have thought that Windows would have succeeded with the first launch and all its faults?
Microsoft actually listens to it’s customers and uses that information to improve their products. I don’t doubt that a future Xbox 720/1080 will really give Sony a run for their money.
I think it’s going to be a fun gamble to see what Microsoft will do about future games that will need larger disc space. Microsoft has been supporting the Hd-Dvd system but with Blu-ray all but having won the movie market, Hd-Dvd will be dieing out. Will Microsoft start supporting the Blu-ray format by it’s competitor Sony?
The only way for HD-Dvd to last a while longer, at this point, is to become a burning solution for PC users.
PC users will always need larger discs to hold all the data that they accumulate. With Blu-ray burners available and no Hd-DVD burners yet that I have seen, even this might be a hard battle…
Look how Nero will be able to use his “Really Big Fist of Pain Giver” to pluck the feathers from the foul fiend.
Fans of Devil May Cry will be happy to know that they can download the demo version of DMC4 to their Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 systems, via the Sony Playstation store and Xbox Live Marketplace. The demo will be available for download in early 2008.
I have the dates for release as Jan. 31, 2008 for the Xbox 360 but only show January for PS3. I expect it’ll launch on the same date as the PS3 version for Asia and Japan are also Jan. 31, 2008. That should mean the demo will be out in the first week of January, or maybe even the last week of January…
Fans of BioShock for the Xbox 360 and PC platform will be happy to hear that 2K Games, the publishing arm of Take-Two Interactive Software have heard their fans and will release new contents and upgrades for the game.
“As one of the highest rated games of the year, we wanted to continue to connect with the fans that made BioShock such an overwhelming retail and critically-acclaimed hit,” said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. “We are excited to offer new downloadable content that will extend and enhance the replay value of this title.”
From the feedback from gamers at the “Cult of Rapture“, the game will now offer Widescreen option, allowing a wider horizontal field of view. The updates will be automatically installed on the Xbox 360 users connected to Xbox Live. The PC users will need to download the patch from 2K Games.
The free downloadable contents are:
Sonic Boom: Hurls creatures and objects back with a blast of force
EVE saver: Enables Plasmids to use less EVE
Vending Expert: Reduces prices in the vending machines
Machine Buster: Increases the amount of damage players deal to cameras, bots and turrets
Exclusive to Xbox 360 users:
Xbox 360 players can gain 100 points for “Brass Balls,” by beating BioShock on the “hard” difficulty setting without dying.
