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Archive for: xbox

Xbox Kinect 360 With Over 5000 Swarovski Crystals

Obviously there are gamers out there that just have to have a Microsoft Kinect 360 that is Blinged to the max. Here is an Xbox Kinect 360 that has 5000 Swarovski crystals.

XbList is a Desktop Xbox 360 Friends List


XbList is a little program that sits in your tray or pinned on you screen that shows you what friends are online and what they are playing. It also supports popup notifications that you can set. You could have a notification every time someone goes online or offline or every time they change games.It is a good program if you like to know who is on Xbox live and who isn’t.The only bad part about this program is that you must login with IE first and that sometimes there is a delay of like 10 seconds but nothing major.

Microsoft Entering the Mobile Games Market

Microsoft maintains focus, as all the large companies, in the mobile market. And now is making another important move: Creating a special division in the mobile area, the mobile gaming section.

We all know that the mobile market is the most wanted area where all large companies are working with a high intensity right now, and the games development is one of the most important divisions. Android is getting important improvements and we don’t have to say anything about Apple, browse for a few seconds the AppStore and we can find thousands of games available.

Windows Phone 7 is trying to compete in the mobile OS share, but it won’t be easy with Android and Apple (we’ve discussed this earlier with the report about smartphones), which already have control of this share globally.

The new division inside Mobile’s, is called MGS Mobile Gaming. And they are already were looking for professionals; and since they’ve already found it, we can only imagine that this area will be online ASAP. No time to waste.

eBOX Arriving in China (Instead of XBOX Kinect)

China’s company eDoo will be announcing later this year the launch of the “eBox”, which will provide gaming and entertainment experience just through the body actions detected by a webcam-style device, and no other controllers will be needed. Thinking Kinect?

This is what it seems a leaked image of the eBox:

China’s government announced recently that they will not allow the commercialization of XBOX Kinect device; but as always, people are always looking for a workaround, and the eBox device is appearing.

There are no official announcements, but apparently more news will appear in November and possibly the launch of this product will be on 2011. XBOX games won’t be supported by the eBOX console, but there are currently working 16 professional teams, some of them have developed games for Xbox 360 and Wii, from 8 countries will take part in the development of eBox’s games.

When I see this pic, I cannot avoid thinking about the other Chinese invention this year: The iPed.

E3 2010: New Games

The ultimate game convention is taking place right now in Los Angeles Convention Center and they are ready to introduce us with some significant announcements and gaming news. Here’s a recap.

New Games: PlayStation 3

  • Metal Gear Solid: Rising
  • Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  • EyePet
  • Free Realms
  • Gran Turismo 5
  • Saw II
  • Killzone 3
  • LittleBigPlanet 2
  • Move Party
  • PlayStation Move games
  • SOCOM 4
  • Sports Champions
  • Slider
  • TV Superstars
  • The Fight: Lights Out
  • The Last Guardian
  • The Shoot
  • Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
  • Clash of the Titans
  • Enslaved
  • Splatterhouse
  • Mafia II
  • Fallout: New Vegas
  • Hunted: The Demon’s Forge
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 3
  • Bionic Commando Rearmed 2
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned
  • Toy Story 3: The Video Game
  • Lego Star Wars III
  • Monkey Island 2 SE
  • The Force Unleashed II
  • R.U.S.E
  • Shaun White Skateboarding
  • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
  • Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2

New Games: Nintendo Wii

  • Metroid
  • Zelda Wii
  • Wii Party
  • The Cages: Pro Style Batting Practice (Wii)
  • Lego Star Wars III
  • The Force Unleashed II
  • Shaun White Skateboarding
  • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

XBOX

  • Fable III
  • Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  • Gears of War 3
  • Halo: Reach
  • Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
  • Metal Gear Solid: Rising
  • N3: Ninety-Nine Nights II
  • Saw II
  • Clash of the Titans
  • Enslaved
  • Splatterhouse
  • Mafia II
  • Fallout: New Vegas
  • Hunted: The Demon’s Forge
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 3
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned
  • Toy Story 3: The Video Game
  • Lego Star Wars III
  • Monkey Island 2 SE
  • The Force Unleashed II
  • R.U.S.E
  • Shaun White Skateboarding
  • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
  • Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2

New Games: PSP

  • Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip
  • God of War: Ghost of Sparta
  • Invizimals
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
  • Ace Combat: Joint Assault
  • Lego Star Wars III
  • The Force Unleashed II
  • Valkyria Chronicles II
  • Shaun White Skateboarding
  • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Ready to make your pick?

Microsoft Shakeup in Entertainment Division Management

Microsoft, once the dominant giant in the technology industry, has more recently been forced to share the stage with a number of competitors. Apple and Google being major players on the field now, not just in technology and research but in the consumer market with devices like set top boxes, hand helds, and entertainment apps. Microsoft is quickly losing ground in this arena, and they are determined to change the course.

Recently it was announced that J. Allard, a major influence in the shaping of the X-Box, would be leaving the company on a rumored disagreement with Steven Ballmer over the cancellation of the Courier Tablet project. While questions remain, what is for certain is that Microsoft may be making some major changes in their executive management in the Entertainment and Devices division. This change would mean more than just replacing, but rather a full scale revamp to find their footing in a race that Microsoft has been steadily losing ground in.

The division is more than just the X-Box, but also includes the Zune and their mobile operation systems. This comes as  a relief for me because I’ve personally felt that Microsoft has always missed the mark on their efforts for mobile consumer devices. Whether it’s phones or the Zune, Microsoft seems so divided, with so many fragmented operation systems that lack consistency or the attention to detail that their competitors show. It will be interesting to see where Microsoft ends up after these changes.

Xbox Slim Model: Images Leaking?

There’s a rumor that appeared in the last few weeks that Microsoft is preparing a slim model for the Xbox 360 game console. And now there are some images that seems represents the brand new model, take a look:

The images look like the HD DVD model that was released a while ago, so it could be a fake?

Even though we are not in any condition to confirm these images, the rumor does exists and already is saying that the new Xbox model could also be released at the same time with Natal Project from Microsoft. And if you think about it, it makes sense, since Natal will be working together with the Xbox platform. We’ve already discussed this in these articles:

There are no big specifications about what the new model will include, besides the slimmer model. Other image that leaked and showed us that the motherboard included in the next Xbox model will actually be a lot smaller and with the integrated chips for graphics.

XBOX 360 Elegant Edition

The Red Ring of Death and the curved shape – both features of the XBOX 360, which I hate. No matter which way you put it, it always looks out of place amongst my other players and cable boxe. It has always baffled me as to why games companies simply can make minimalistic games consoles – although I suppose the Wii was a step in the right direction.

The XBOX Elegant edition which will be out shortly features a new layout and a new (regularly shaped!) exterior made from aluminium. It’s bulkier than the previous incarnation but at least it looks better than it.

The reason why it’s bulkier is because it has extra cooling features which can help prevent the Red Ring of Death.

Bad News: I did some serious digging around and every major tech blog is stumped when it comes to finding out how. Also, nobody is 100% sure where the original picture came from. But it does appear to be real and the second when we have details – I’ll post an update.

The Future of Home Entertainment and Films

dvd demiseNetflix is a great service. I think that the days of strolling to the DVD store to pick out a few of your favourites are ending rapidly. Why should you pay full price for a DVD when you could stream loads every month for the same price? The same kind of service is taking place with our games consoles. Less than two weeks ago Games On Demand was released for the XBOX 360.

This allows you to download games paying a reduced price for them. I downloaded Battlefield 1943 and Assassin’s Creed – it’s just like having the game on a disc without the trip to the store. It saves the distributors money, it saves the producers money and more importantly it saves you money. But this rapid change in the way we get our movies will have big repercussions.

Firstly, there will be job losses. All those staff at the DVD store will be given their notice. What’s the point in keeping on staff when there isn’t enough business to pay them? The only solution for the big entertainment stores is to head online and try to create a Games on Demand or Netflix alternative.

Secondly, the whole hobby of collecting special edition DVDs and first editions will die. Because we can simply press ‘Download’, movies are starting to loose their individuality and allure that they’ve had for generations. The only thing, I believe, that will stop cult films and massive hits from loosing their spark will be the cinema.

Thirdly, you can say good bye to physical media. Games consoles are now being sold with hundreds of GM of memory. Soon, all media players (the equivalent of today’s BlueRay players) will just be giant memory card sitting underneath your TV.

But it may not all be bad news for the businesses, collectors and DVD player makers out there. When VCRs came out everyone assumed that the cinema would be finished in ten years. Yet here we are. I also think this will be good for piracy. Yes there will be more films online but once they are protected properly, sharing should diminish. After all, the main reason why people watch illegal copies of films online is because they don’t want the trouble of buying a DVD. If they offer videos of a very high quality at a small price, video viewing that’s all above board will come back.

The future looks bright for home entertainment indeed.

Popcorn2

Sky on a box? No, Sky on an Xbox

xbox360Are you an Xbox gamer? I’m sure you are going to enjoy this. Sky broadcaster has just signed a deal with Microsoft, more specifically with the Xbox platform to deliver their transmissions to all Xbox Live users.

Since Sky has their main offices in England, this offering will available only for UK and Ireland users. But I’m sure if this works for them, will be available in other countries.

In fall, british XBox Live users will have the possibility to enjoy live transmissions, including football games. And the transmissions will be streamed in DVD quality, the standard for this broadcaster. Here’s a quick image that was revealed in advance (from TechRadar):

sky_live

There are two things that are not official yet: price and the channel that will be available, we’ll have to wait for a confirmation. But there is already the minimum requirement for the connection speed: 1mb connection as minimum and 2mb recommended… not much if you ask me, considering the you’ll be receiving fine quality video streamed in real-time.

Sky also expects that this service won’t be exclusive for Xbox and already thinking in other platforms that could support the same functionality (yes, PS3 mainly).