In what's seen as the first step towards a worldwide price cut, Microsoft has slashed the prices of the Xbox 360 gaming console on the Japanese market by margins that go up to 30%. Now the Xbox 360 Arcade is cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. And many analysts, like Colin Sebastian from Lazard Capital Markets and the ubiquitous Michael Patcher from Wedbush Morgan, are saying that prices are set to fall in the rest of the world just before Christmas in a move designed to spice up the appeal of the Microsoft console over its competitors. Well, I beg to differ. Cutting prices might lure some late adopters to the Microsoft-made device and... [read more >>] Take Two is reporting the best quarter it has ever had as a videogame publisher, with the board saying that for the fifth time in a row the company did better than it had predicted. Sales went up to 433 million dollars, which is more than double the $206 million sales it reported for the same quarter of last year. The biggest contributor to the excellent results of the company was, of course, GTA IV which has sold, as of August 16, more than 10 million units worldwide and which can claim to account for 60% of the revenue that the company reported. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolutions and Top Spin 3 brought in significant amounts o... [read more >>] Activision Blizzard is a big company that has considerable resources it can use for video game development. And Blizzard, which is set to remain autonomous from its bigger partner Activision, is well known for the fact that it releases games when it believes they are ready and not when the publisher thinks they should be launched. Starcraft II was shown at all the big trade shows of the summer, like E3, PAX and the Leipzig Games Convention, and it seemed pretty playable. Those who got some hands on time with the game reported that it was an interesting experience, which added new things and options while preserving the feel of the firs... [read more >>] September 5 is the date when Microsoft will officially cut the price of the Xbox 360 line of consoles in North America, following the cut in Japan earlier in the week. The interesting thing in the press release that details the price cut is that it puts the emphasis on the Xbox 360 Arcade and on the way it offers the promise of social interaction. It reads "Imagine if friends and families had the ability to instantly watch movies from Netflix, live out their musical fantasies through "Rock Band 2" (Harmonix/MTV Games) and "Lips" (iNiS Corp./Microsoft Game Studios), star in their own Hollywood classics with "You're in the Movies," ... [read more >>] Spore might be the most awaited and most hyped up game of the year. Will Wright, one of the most influential authors in the videogame world, is working on it, backed up by the team that designed The Sims and the various games connected with that franchise. The Spore Creature Creator, which was released earlier in the summer, was met with almost universal praise, leading to a Sporepedia filled with more user created creatures than there are species on Earth. And now the game is nearing its release date, with an option already present to pre-download the game so that you can play it as soon as the official launch takes place on September... [read more >>] Sony is certainly moving fast when it comes to new product releases. They are now saying that the new PSP-3000, a hardware update for the gaming handheld from Sony, is set to be launched on the Japanese market as soon as October 16, as part of a bundle and as a standalone product. The new version of the console features several significant changes from the previous incarnations of the PlayStation Portable. The most important change is set to be made to the screen. Advances in LCD technology since the handheld was launched mean that the new screen will have visibility significantly improved in direct sunlight, with better contrast and w... [read more >>] Microsoft is announcing that the Xbox 360 gaming console is set to receive a significant price cut on the Japanese market. Prices will be lowered by as much as 30%, which means that the Xbox 360 Arcade package will end up costing less than the Nintendo Wii. If you're looking for concrete prices, Reuters is reporting that for an Xbox 360 Arcade package you can now pay the equivalent of 183 dollars, which is around 8,000 yen. For comparison purposes, the Nintendo Wii is priced at 25,000 yen, which amounts to 231 dollars, while the PlayStation 3 is the priciest of the three, with buyers paying the equivalent of 368 dollars for a Sony... [read more >>] When Gears of War was launched the Xbox 360 fan base cheered as the title promised to be the flagship of their console, with top notch graphics, incredible action and innovative controls. The idea was that the Epic made game would be so much better than any other shooter on the PC or on the PlayStation 3 that gamers would flock to the Microsoft made console. The game was also set to be console exclusive. A few years have passed since then and now we can look back at the first Gears of War and see how things turned out. The game was ported to the PC, the graphics were cool, but not extraordinary, while the game delivered on the act... [read more >>] When game developers begin to talk about limits and maximum potential, hardware developers know it's time to create something new, powerful and shiny enough to keep the software boys busy for another 5 to 10 years. So when Rod Fergusson, who is the senior producer of the Gears of War 2 game, recently stated that he thought the Xbox 360 was nearing the limit of its graphical capabilities, you could almost hear the cries of the poor engineers working for Microsoft at the New Console We Are Not Talking About division. The senior developer was talking to Gamasutra as part of an in depth interview when he specifically said that "with t... [read more >>] Blizzard has a history of unparalleled innovation when it comes to strategy gaming and especially to its Starcraft franchise. Warcraft was always more formulaic in its approach to strategy, but Starcraft incorporated some elements that were really revolutionary when the game shipped. One of these elements was that the game managed to present the player with a choice of three fully fleshed and original factions that were pretty well balanced even at launch and that were different enough to produce very interesting gameplay variations. This happened at a time when most strategy titles only had two sides which usually had the same units ... [read more >>] | 
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