Home out in 1 day!!!
Kotaku writes:
Just got a press release from Sony. All about Home. It’s pretty matter-of-fact. Basically says that, after months of promise followed by months of delay, Sony’s Home service for the PS3 now has a “release date”.
And that date is December 11.
X-Play Best of 2008: Game of the Year & More
After the break you can see the rest of the results from X-plays Best of 2008 Winner List
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World At War On The Top Of UK Charts
Last week’s chart here. Data below for the week ending December 6.
- Call of Duty: World at War
- Mario Kart Wii
- FIFA 09
- Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training
- Need For Speed: Undercover
- Tomb Raider: Underworld
- Fallout 3
- Wii Fit
- Wii Play
- Guitar Hero: World Tour
EA Founder Questions of PlayStation Home
“What I can’t really tell yet about the various announcements [Sony has] made about online and what they’re doing so far, I can’t tell whether they’re going more towards this mass market idea – the way I’m describing this ‘omni-market’ – or if they’re being lured into essentially trying to compete with Warcraft or Second Life,” Trip Hawkins told Hatchet Job.
“My own personal opinion is: if Sony makes Home feel too much like a [World of] Warcraft environment, they’re just never going to create the kind of audience size that you’re going to see Nintendo and Microsoft create.
“Because clearly Nintendo is orientated towards the mass audience, and even Microsoft has learnt a lot of valuable lessons from things like Xbox Live Arcade,” he added.
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New Riddick Game to Have Innovative Multiplayer
Starbreeze has divulged details on Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena’s unique multiplayer modes, including a poo-your-pants ‘Pitch Black’ game set, yes, in the dark.
Spilled in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine US, Riddick’s new online modes include the obligatory 12-player deathmatch and capture the flag modes, as well as an interesting Butcher Bay Riot game that pitches three teams of four against each other.
Teams include guards, mercenaries and prisoners, each tasked with fighting their way to and activating a central power cell. Although each team apparently plays the same, the implementation of a Counter-Strike-style weapon purchase system sounds fun – and at least it’s not Halo 3 with Vin Diesels.
As we mentioned though the most exciting mode revealed is Pitch Black, which puts combatants in a big dark arena and makes one of them a fast-moving, ultra blade-wielding Riddick – the others are just grunts with guns and flashlights. Good luck.
If the grunts can manage to spot and kill Riddick – who can see clearly in the dark, by the way – they can become Riddick in the next round. This is going to be shit scary, and you know it.
20 maps are planned for the final game, which is out early next year.
Netflix Resolves Poor Quality Streaming Issues
via N4G:
Some owners of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 who have signed up to receive movies via Netflix’s streaming movie service have seen the same loss of video quality as owners of Roku’s Netflix Player.
A mysterious glitch has been hobbling video streams distributed by the two set-top boxes for at least two weeks, said a source close to Netflix on Thursday. The problem is the first setback for Netflix’s streaming, which has won accolades since the $99 Roku box debuted last spring. Microsoft, LG Electronics, and Samsung followed with their own set-top boxes featuring Netflix’s service. Microsoft did not respond to an interview request.
**Update**
From Teamxbox.com alternate source below:
Netflix has acknowledge the problem and said it has been resolved:
Recently some Netflix members using Roku or Xbox movie players noticed lower quality streaming than they had experienced earlier. This was a temporary issue that we believe we have resolved. Working with our content distribution partners and key carriers, we made some specific changes that should restore everyone’s experience to where it was before – high quality streaming.
- A Big Shot
GTA IV PC a buggy mess, Steam customers ask for refunds
via arstechnica:
It seems that the PC port of Grand Theft Auto IV is having some problems; the official forums are filled with people suffering from glitches, crashes, and graphical issues. Oh, my. How bad have things gotten? Gamers are reporting that Steam is actually offering refunds on a case-by-case basis.
Gamers were blunt about the refund opportunity. “I asked for one. Frankly, Rockstar was completely misleading in their system recommendations for the game. I’m well above the requirements, yet can’t even run the game on the lowest possible settings. Usually, recommendations are optimistic, not an outright lie. I love Steam, buy a lot of Steam games, and will buy more in the future, so I hope they honor my request,” wrote a frustrated customer.
When the two of the three stickied threads on the forum are “How to get GTAIV running,” and “Missing texture issue,” it’s not a good thing. Luckily gamers seem to be having some luck troubleshooting the various issues between themselves, but do people really want to spend that much time getting a game to work before they can enjoy it?
While Steam is a contentious issue among gamers, this is one of the bigger issues with the service. Even when refunds are offered, you have to deal with the billing department, and you’ll be waiting a few days to hear if your request has been approved. It’s certainly not an ideal situation.
- A Big Shot
Guitar Hero 5, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, New Tony Hawk Controller Confirmed by Activision
According to MTV, Call of Duty 6 is now known as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and is slated to arrive in fall 2009. As previously revealed, series creator and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare veteran Infinity Ward will return for the latest entry.
Furthermore, an in-game shot of Guitar Hero 5 was shown in a demonstration of Massive’s in-game advertising strategy for Activision, showing a “Burger King ad to the right of the note highway.” Past Guitar Hero games have used similar in-game ads.
Activision also confirmed rumors that the next Tony Hawk title will be played using some type of peripheral rather than with a controller. The skateboarding game will hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and DS in October.
An original James Bond racing title from Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations was also announced, and is set to debut next September. Bizarre is also working on an original racing title, described by Activision as “Mario Karts meets Forza.”
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Prankster Takes Mario Kart to the Streets of France
Xbox 360 Registers Biggest Black Friday in Its History
Xbox 360 consoles and games sell at record levels; outsells PlayStation 3 by three-to-one ratio.REDMOND, Wash., Dec 01, 2008 - Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system kicked off the holidays with record- breaking console sales on one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year in the U.S. Retailers reported Xbox 360 console sales over the Black Friday weekend were on pace to beat previous years, outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and estimating a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures from 2007.
Strong game sales rounded out a historic Black Friday for Xbox 360, with record-paced software sales continuing for key Microsoft titles, such as “Gears of War 2,” “Fable II,” and “Lips.” Xbox 360 continues to have the highest game attach rate of any console at 8.1 games per console.
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