Microsoft Corp. today unveiled a new parental control feature, the Xbox 360 Family Timer. The Family Timer will enable parents for the first time to set the appropriate amount of gaming and entertainment time for their kids, on a daily or weekly basis.
To support the launch of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Activision, Inc. , Pontiac and Hot Topic are teaming up on a national promotion giving Guitar Hero fans, ages 16 and older, the chance to show off their fret burning skills and win a 2008 Pontiac G5.
It has been revealed that the huge Mass Effect is just 6.74GB in size which of course is well within the upper capacity specification limits of a dual layer DVD-9. So hopefully this will fill Xbox 360 owners with a bit of confidence in light of various news which suggest that the medium used by the Xbox 360 is too small for future blockbusters.
IGN has conducted a review on Scene It? Which is a move by Microsoft to try and capture a new demographic of casual gamers. They believe that it does not make for anything too revolutionary but it is a decent enough game which can be fun to play with friends. In comparison to the regular game, $60 for the Xbox 360 version does seem like a better value proposition although it\’s nothing that we haven\’t seen before - 7/10.
Nintendo\’s Reggie Fils-Aime has commented that their \’competitors\’ Microsoft and Playstation have gone down the path of building expensive hardware of which they lose money on and these machines make games development hard. Fils-Aime claims they have put themselves in a box and he doesn\’t know how they are going to get out of it…
According to GFK sales figures fo October, the Xbox 360 was the top selling next generation console for the month of October in Australia, following on from its success in September with another very good sales performance in the region. Halo 3 also remained as the top selling software title.
Despite the ongoing legal fight between Epic Games and Silicon Knights over the former’s licensor support for Unreal Engine 3, it appears that developers aren’t shy about signing on to make games that use the technology behind Gears of War. Destineer Studios announced its license to use UE3 this week, and today SouthPeak Interactive confirmed its new studio license for the engine.
The SouthPeak studio license covers PC and console games on all major platforms for the life of the engine, and will be put to use for the upcoming PlayStation 3 game Monster Madness EX. Destineer’s license is for a yet-to-be-announced project.
The two companies’ approaches to using the engine share some similarities. Destineer president Peter Tamte said in a statement that, “We are using the Unreal Engine to make a game for a genre in which you would not expect to see it.” SouthPeak’s first UE3-powered game was Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, which was singled out by Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski at this year’s Game Developers Conference as evidence that the tech could be used for more than just “first-person shooters with a lot of metal and stone.”
According to sources close to retailers, the budget Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player sold around 90,000 units on the week-end alone which will be sure to boost the installed base of HD DVD players. The player was cut to $99 across a number of retailers a short while ago.
One gamer is claiming his local Circuit City (Store # 3111) is refusing to honor its advertised offer of free Call Of Duty 3, when you buy COD 4. His local store told him that it was a misprint and refused to honor it. The advert you can see below is from the weekly circular for Naperville, Il which clearly states \”Buy Call Of Duty 4 & get Call Of Duty 3 free\”. He says his local Circuit City store regularly \”bait-and-switch\”. Anyone else had any problems redeeming the offer?
Microsoft Executive Mindy Mount has suggested that the Xbox 360 will last for longer than the traditional 5 year lifespan of a games console, Mount pointed towards the PS2 as evidence that it is indeed a possibility to go beyond the average. Mount likes the idea of extending the life cycle of the console as profitability increases with each year that goes on by.
The boss of Silicon Knights, Dennis Dyack has commented that the PS3 and Xbox 360 are equal in terms of technical capabilities despite a general belief that the PS3 is a more robust next-gen offering. Dyack believes that both systems are equal and while the PS3 may have more processing power, the 360 has more available memory so its pretty much equal.
Massess of gaming publications have recently published their reviews on Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The review scores are very similar on each platform which is great news for all PS3 owners too. Three publications have thus far awarded COD 4 a perfect score, while the lowest it has received so far is a mere 90%!
C4eva has released some new hacked firmwares for use with BenQ Xbox 360 drives in the form of IXtreme BenQ v1.1 rev 2 and a regular Xtreme version. The latter will be banned on Live if using non-stealth backup discs.
A MaxConsole reader mailed us in to let us know about his frustrations in not receiving the five free HD DVD movies with his purchase of the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on. He purchased the drive on August 1st and mailed out the form to claim his HD DVDs by August 6th, after a variety of problems he was sent a letter today which indicated that his movies would ship towards the end of the November and he was welcomed to cancel the \’order\’ if he wished.
Microsoft Xbox European Chief Chris Lewis has commented that he believes Microsoft has all the aces in the pack and he remains very confident of the future success of the Xbox 360. Lewis claims that the Xbox 360 is still better value in comparison to the low priced PS3 which comes with an integrated Blu-ray player for the same price as an Elite console in the UK.