Microsoft Sells One-Million Consoles in Best Sales Week in Xbox History
It looks like Microsoft and Xbox 360 has managed to break their own records again with the “best week in Xbox 360 history” where the company moved almost 1 million consoles. Along with that they’ve moved 750,000 Kinect peripherals during that Black Friday week as well.
Nice to see that the almost-7-year-old console is still a workhorse. Kit Dotson at SiliconANGLE has the story.
Microsoft Buys Skype For More Money Than the Human Mind Can Comprehend
That’s 8.5 billion dollars, with a “b” for those keeping count. Microsoft has purchased Skype, the internet video conference software company, for an obscene sum that makes me wish I made some different choices during my college career. Bloomberg has the story. Read the comments for more.
Xbox.com Gets a New Look
Visitors to Xbox.com early Wednesday morning were greeted by a waiting screen (under construction) as Xbox.com got themselves a facelift. Including a bridge between Xbox Live and Windows Phone 7 mobile gaming.
That particular portion of the highlights really caught me by surprise and it’s something that I’d like to see more information about: what in Xbox Live can be played on the Windows Phone 7 as well as the Xbox? Certainly we’re probably not going to see Windows Phone 7 Borderlands, but it would be curious to actually play web games through Xbox with distant friends tethered to their phone by circumstance.
Plus, these sorts of developments will allow a certain amount of extra interactivity between
…
Does Halo’s “combat evolution” still stand up against Alien versus Predator?
Halo came to the masses with a bold statement from Microsoft, “Combat Evolved.” Certainly, Halo did change the game field. Now we’ve seen an entire series, in fact, evolve from the franchise and it’s time to see how it stands up against other FPS models from other publishers.
The first Halo caught our attention immediately when it was released in 2001 and became a must-buy after the demo gave us mousepaw. Although, really what captured our imagination happened to be the attention to detail to the world—the halos, their implications, the threat of the Flood, etc—and also the portrayal of the various characters across the storyline. The FPS evolution seemed to come in terms of a clean presentation, low bugginess, excellent sound, nicely architected environments with strong visual cues to identify structures and enemies.
…
Xbox Live now with egg-on-face over name of West Virginia town: Fort Gay
In a show of humility, Microsoft Corp. and Xbox Live are now issuing an apology to a 26-year-old gamer and a West Virginia Town over a ban due to thinking a player had violated the game’s terms of service. All this due to the name of the town he’s from: Fort Gay, West Virginia.
From the coverage by AP,
The town in western West Virginia is real. But Seattle-based Microsoft and the Xbox Live enforcement team wouldn’t take Josh Moore’s word for it.
They suspended his gaming privileges for a few days last week until he could convince them his Wayne County hometown is real.
Remind us voces to avoid posting that we’re gaming from Hell, Arizona; or those particular individuals from Athol, Idaho (although, Athol is really only
…
Corporate Masters Feign Care About What Xbox Players Think
Doritos and Microsoft have teamed up to promote their brands through a contest on Xbox Live, offering players a chance to submit their own hard work, dreams, and efforts to their corporate masters for little more than the chance to win a contest. It’s called Unlock Xbox, and it runs today through October 4th.
“We are always looking for new ways to connect with fans and give them unique opportunities to express their creativity in a way only Doritos and our partners can deliver,” said Ann Mukherjee of Frito-Lay, in a statement that made my skin crawl with a thousand outraged artistic sensibilities.
The end result will be ten semi-finalists, voted on by Xbox players, and plastered up and down with branding from Doritos, Microsoft, and whatever other corporate partners attach themselves to the contest.
You can read the whole press release here. Bring along some strong drink, …
Xbox 360, Playstation 3 Slash Prices
This Friday, Microsoft will drop the price of its top-end Xbox package, the Xbox 360 Elite, by $100 to compete with a similar sticker slash from Sony. These cuts come at a good time, just into the holiday season and with newer, hit titles to back them. Both Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 carry the latest Madden title, John Madden NFL 10, as well as Batman: Arkham Asylum. Word on the street puts the new Batman game as a solid Game of the Year title, so that should help sales on both consoles.
When asked when they’d cut prices on the Wii, Nintendo responded with the finger from atop their ever-growing tower of raw cash.
Xbox 360 Avatar Awards and Dashboard Update
The monolithic computer overlord Microsoft just released a new dashboard update for the Xbox 360, including tighter Netflix support, new Avatar goodies to buy, and the mysterious Avatar Awards.
You still can’t run a proper search on the Netflix. Neither will you be able to waste your time and life on Facebook or Twitter, both promised features that will be released sometime either later this year or when Hell freezes over.
None of that really means anything, though, in the face of the new Avatar upgrades and Avatar Awards. That’s what you googled to find this page, right? Here’s what we know.
Avatar props give your digital representation new toys to play around with on the screen, so you can use your top-end, vastly powerful, expensive gaming console and its …
Microsoft Knew the Xbox 360 Could Damage Discs
Of course, there’s a lawsuit about it. Recently unsealed documents show that Microsoft knew the Xbox 360 could damage discs inside it when tilted or bumped while playing. Oh, and that they knew before tossing the 360 up on the market in 2005.
Microsoft engineering teams considered three solutions to the problem, but dropped all of them. Something about being too expensive. Good thing there’s that replacement disc program from Microsoft, you know, the one that costs $20 per disc. Yeah, you know I love re-buying a game because the cat jumped up on the console while I was playing.
Oddly enough, everyone else who spins a disc in their players has figured out a way to prevent damage in case of a stiff breeze tilting their machines a whole degree off axis. How this strange and alien technology escaped Microsoft is …
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