Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division (all Microsoft bosses have really long, cool titles), says during an interview that Microsoft will sell 100 million Xbox360 consoles. They’ll do it by expanding the market and target general non-gamers.
“If you’re going to hit 100 million you need to address that market. We’re still finding ways to be able to do that, but we will. I absolutely guarantee that we will.
EA’s upcoming futuristic shooter, Battlefield 2142, will come in a Collector’s Edition version; only released via the EA Downloader, and not in retail. The Collector’s Edition includes a game soundtrack, behind the scenes video and a special 24-hour head start on the upcoming demo of the game, scheduled for release sometime next week.
The game has just gone gold and will be released on October 16. Three new screenshots have also been released, more after the jump.
READ ON »
[gv data="http://www.youtube.com/v/BzGDqVB-f1I"][/gv]
IGN’s ultimate Nintendo fanboy and Wii reporter Matt Casmassina got a chance to play around with some Wii hardware and made a video walkthrough, presenting the Wiimote, nun-chuch accesory and the Wii console itself.
Epyx has announced that they will be delivering several of their Commodore 64 games to the Wii Virtual Console. The Virtual Console already has Turbografx 64, Sega Genesis, NES, SNES, and N64. It is unconfirmed exactly which titles will be released, but you can see the list of games Epyx released after the jump.
READ ON »
Assassin’s Creed developer Ubisoft says that while the Xbox360 and PS3 versions are “nearly identical”, the Xbox360 game will have a better AI system. According to an IGN article, Producer Jade Raymond says,
“The hardware also allows for improved threading, which will improve even further the crowd AI,”
The article only mentions “crowd AI”, and not enemy AI, so the difference is probably insignificant. However, it suggests that the Xbox360 hardware is easier to work with, as the chip architecture is simpler to that of the PS3.
Read (IGN)
Pictures of the upcoming Nvidia G80 graphics card have emerged. The card is larger than any other on the market, and sports a massive cooler (one version with a water cooler as well). It has two 6-pin power connectors, which fuels the rumor suggesting it will consume 300W, more than the entire power consumption of a moderate computer. More pics after the jump.
READ ON »
Microsoft’s brand new portable media player, called Zune, will be accepting Microsoft Points for purchasing Zune songs. Microsoft Points will be available via retailers and the Xbox Live Marketplace. The price of each song you can purchase is 79 Microsoft Points, which is the equivalent of 99 cents, which is also the exact price of a song that could be purchased on iTunes.
The Zune will launch on November 14, 2006 with a $249.99 price tag. It is unsure at the time if the Xbox360 will be able to communicate with Microsoft’s Zune media player, but with the Microsoft Points system being used, it may be possible.
Read
Apparently Nintendo is selling so many DS games that they are running out of plastic boxes. At the moment they are using GBA style cardboard boxes for top sellers such as Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Tetris DS. So far only Europe has to bear with the cardboard boxes, but Nintendo includes an offer to order a plastic replacement when they have enough plastic.
See also: Pokemon Sells Millions In Hours
Only a few months to launch and obviously Nintendo and Sony are trying to get all the PR they can at this point. Nintendo’s president Reggie Fils-Aime said during an interview with ABC News that he would be selling the first few Wii consoles in New York on launch day, November 19. He said
“Those consumers, the core gamer, are very important to us. And you know what? I’ll be at a store in the New York area, where they will camp out and I will be handing out some Wiis that very first minute that we’re available for purchase.”
It’ll probably take place at the Nintendo World Store, where other Nintendo events also have taken place. Check out the full interview here (10 mins), where Reggie talks about the Wii and how they plan to expand the gaming audience.
Those Japanese gamers, we never quite get them. Apparently, the launch of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl for the DS sold over 1 million copies per game during the first few hours it went on sale. In addition, 500,000 units of customized Pokemon DS Lites were sold. Both games and the speacial edition DS Lite are sold out now.
Photos of hundreds of Japanese gamers waiting in line to get a Pokemon game after the jump.
READ ON »
