Microsoft

Microsoft Bows To The Might Of Rockstar

Perhaps the most telling indicator of the power of Rockstar’s siganture franchise set to detonate at retail tomorrow isn’t so much the millions of dollars in anticipated sales or EA’s outstretched hand / approaching death grip, it’s what it can do to the mightiest of marketing marvels: Microsoft. The undisputed leader in console online gaming has decided to not publish anything new this week on Xbox Live Arcade.

Via Joystiq.

Online Achievements: Should They Exist?

An interesting piece popped up on Gaming Today earlier this week. The author claims that online-based achievements ruin multiplayer experiences by encouraging players to focus on non-essential gameplay feats at the expense of helping one’s team to victory. How valid is this argument and what should developers do to restore balance to the achievement-hungry Xbox Live community?

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Seventy Percent Failure Rate

CheapyD mentioned while our distinguished guest on Aeropodcast 24 that he had posted a new poll asking Xbox 360 owners if their consoles had failed. On CAGcast 110 this week he reveals the results. Out of a whopping 3000-plus respondents to his poll — all of whose responses are made public and are site registrants — the percentage of users whose Xbox 360 had died was nearly 60%. Sixty percent! He goes on to say that if you count the number of units that had died the system failure rate is actually 70% due to some people having had multiple 360’s die on them.

This is a stupendous number, something that CheapyD and Wombat readily admit is a horrendous embarassment to Microsoft. The kicker? They still haven’t fixed the problem yet. Apparently the Falcon motherboards being put into the refurbished Xbox 360’s are to some extent experiencing the RROD, but the jury is still out as to how much more reliable the new design is than the old one.

As you learned during our podcast, CheapyD did opt to send in his Japanese 360 for repair and he tells the story of its pickup and when he expects to see it again during the CAGcast.

See also:
Aeropodcast 24: The CheapyD and Tai Edition.

Source: CAGcast 110.

The Migration Patterns of a Red Ringed Xbox 360

As most readers know, my 360 went belly up a few weeks ago, along with every other gaming device I own. Well, I started to do some research over what the process entailed and how long it would take to get it back, but it seemed like no one really had all the steps down as to what happens to a returned Xbox 360. So I decided to log the entire event and make it available for all of the readers, so they have a mini-guide for what to expect from the whole return process.

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PC Gaming Alliance Founded

For quite some time now long time PC gamers have been sounding off at various places about the decline of the PC as a gaming platform. While I certainly don’t think PC gaming is dying which is what most people seem to be getting it, there is a very noticeable decline in the general sales of PC titles evident from sales of games such as Crysis last year. It seems to have hit the ears of most of the people connected with the PC market as companies such as Acer, Dell, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, Activision etc. have banded together and formed the PC Gaming Alliance – a non-profit organization focused on “coordinated marketing and promotion of PC gaming…”.

Source: Gamespot

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Xbox HD-DVD Fire Sale Imminent

Microsoft seems to have decided that instead of pulling the remaining HD-DVD drives from the shelves and taking a loss on them, they figure it might be wiser to unload them on the consumer base for a small sum. Rumor has it that the drives will be dropped in price to a lowly $50 starting this upcoming Sunday. Now I have not seen an advertisement for this, but the site below seems to have sources in high places.

Call me crazy, but it may be worth picking one up. The format may be on the way out, but the drive does come with King Kong on HD-DVD and a mailer for five free movies. And stores will be clearing out all their HD-DVD discs soon, so you may get some titles at a pittance of full price in the upcoming weeks. So keep an eye out on your sales ads this week and decide if the price is worth the return.

via XboxFamily

Fable 2 Co-op, Live Arcade Content at GDC ‘08

Peter Molyneux, president of Lionhead Games, and lead developer for the game Fable 2, showed off the new co-op features that will be available in Fable 2. The features work very similar to the way that Burnout Paradise does in that it is seamlessly woven into the environment. You do not need to exit to the interface in any way. Also, any money, experience, fame, that you gain in another person’s game, you get to bring back to your single player game. And the amount of experience, money and rep can be adjusted via sliders. So you could have one person getting all the money, while the other one gets all the experience and so on.

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Mass Effect Accelerates Into the PC Market in May

Bioware has finally announced the inevitable today, officially saying that Mass Effect is coming to the PC in May 2008. Bioware has always been good about bringing their RPGs to the PC after they have spent some time on the console. Bioware is adding several features to the game for PC players, including higher resolutions, assignable hotkeys for biotics and skills, a new decryption mini-game and optimized controls for PC players. The game will also be published by Electronic Arts instead of Microsoft Games Studio. It make one wonder if that is the beginning of a change in regards to Mass Effect being locked to one platform.

While it is not strange for a Bioware RPG to go from the console world to the PC, it seems like Mass Effect is coming to the PC a lot sooner than past Bioware efforts. Could it have to do with the mixed reaction that the game got from the media and gamers, or maybe due to the lack of staying power at the cash register over a long period of time? It may be nothing, but I felt that it was worth noting.

The Press Release follows the jump, via Yahoo Business

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Say Excelsior to the Marvel MMORPG

A few months ago, there were a lot of rumors about a possible game cancellation in the Microsoft camp. All the developers that were under the Microsoft Games Studio startedcoming out of the wordwork, saying that their game was not cancelled and that there was no problem with development. Well, except for one. Cryptic Studios did not say anything at all and it had everyone looking at them.

Well, yesterday, the hammer finally fell as Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Games Studio, said that the game was indeed cancelled and that it was a mutual decision with Cryptic, Marvel and Microsoft. While this seems like bad news, I honestly think that it was the smartest thing that happened. When the game was first announced, I was really hyped on playing some of my favorite characters in the Marvel universe. But then I realized that there was no way that there were enough characters in the Marvel universe to make this both profitable and fun for people to play.

via 1up

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A Time for Rememberance

As you can see, a terrible incident happened in our household. Death came swiftly and with a sharp jolt of pain. At 10:57 PM, February 4th, 2008, with Rock Band in hand, I witnessed the horror that others have seen. An Xbox 360, dead long before its time. A tear was shed as my wife threw up her hands in disgust. There would be no four set selection played for a sound manager in Rock Band.

Tonight, I pour a sip on the curb to honor my dead gaming console homie.