Centipede and Asteroids on Xbox via Xbox LIVE Game Room
Come spring 2010, Microsoft plans to dust off a plethora of arcade titles and to make them available to Xbox console owners via the upcoming Xbox LIVE Game Room. At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the past week, the Redmond company announced that Xbox LIVE Game Room would go live this spring and that it would bring to the table no less than 30 classics, including Centipede and Asteroids Deluxe.
“There’s a generation of people who grew up with a set of games like Centipede that are favorites,” says Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division. “They look almost like casual, fun games today, (but) at the time they were high-end, edgy games. Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market and bringing that to a very broad audience.” Read more
Zune HD
Microsoft is introducing the fourth generation of its digital media player devices today, September 15th, 2009. Taking center stage is Zune HD, a product positioned as a direct rival for Apple’s iPod touch, and which is now available for purchase via retail channels. Zune HD models have been available for pre-order since the first half of August 2009. The 16GB flavor of Zune HD costs $219.99, while the Zune HD 32GB features a price of $289.99. At the end of the past week, leaked video demonstrations/advertisements of Zune HD offered an insight into what the digital media player brings to the market.
“Our research indicates that there’s strong consumer demand for dedicated media players and Zune HD offers visible differentiation in this market,” noted Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret LLC. “Microsoft is also offering some compelling software and services with the Zune ecosystem that will help Zune HD stand out from other offerings.”
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NBA 2K Goes Online and Moves to China
2K Sports has always held the second place in the sports games race, which has been dominated by EA Sports. So, it needs to offer some pretty good and innovative concepts in order to gain ground on the dominating force of the market.
One such innovative idea has just been announced, as the company is saying that NBA 2K10, its fully-licensed basketball simulator, is being brought to China and the larger South East Asian market via a partnership with Tencent Holdings. And as if this wasn’t enough, the game is also being offered online.
Ben Feder, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Take Two, declared that “I’m pleased to announce our first strategic move in what is now the fastest growing online game market in the world. Given the universal appeal of sports, specifically NBA basketball, we believe that our partnership with Tencent to make NBA 2K Online is the perfect entry point for Take Two into this market. NBA 2K has revolutionized the basketball gaming genre and we are confident that its best-in-breed pedigree can be fully leveraged in China with the support of our valued partners at Tencent and the NBA.” Read more
Sonic Rush Unlockables
The gaming industry has quite a few figure heads in terms of video game characters, which have pushed the whole genre forward through the adventures that they have been on. One such famous character is Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog, which made history during the early years of gaming.
Sadly, in recent years, things haven’t been so good for the blue hedgehog, as Sega’s resident Sonic Team hasn’t made the best titles for it. But, fortunately for the speedy animal, the developers collaborated with Dimps and delivered Sonic Rush, one of the first Sonic titles for Nintendo’s hugely successful DS handheld platform.
The game was released on November 15, in North America, while the PAL region received it on November 18, and Japanese fans got a taste of Sonic on November 23, all in 2005. Even though the blue hedgehog wasn’t popular those days, the top-notch gameplay and graphics of the title made it a best-seller and prompted some big critical acclaim from reviewers. Read more
XNA Game Studio 3.1 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3
Microsoft has released and made available for download the latest iteration of its gaming development solution designed to permit developers to build video games for Windows-based PCs, Xbox 360 consoles, but also Zune digital media player devices. XNA Game Studio 3.1 went live on the Microsoft Download Center on June 11, 2009, and is now up for grabs for free. According to the Redmond company, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 are the supported operating systems for XNA Game Studio 3.1.
“This release is incremental to XNA Game Studio 3.0 and contains many new features, including avatars, Xbox LIVE Party support, and video as well as enhancements to existing features. For the full list of improvements in this release, see the “What’s New in XNA Game Studio 3.1” section of the documentation once you have installed the product,” revealed Rob Cameron, Microsoft industry evangelist. Read more
These Are the Best-Selling PC Games of March
PC gaming hasn’t been going through the best times in recent years, and, at least according to some analysts, it will be dying out in a matter of months or possibly years, succumbing to the popularity of consoles, which are more user friendly to gamers and, in some cases, piracy free.
But the platform is still very stubborn and keeps on going, with the help of organizations such as the PC Gaming Alliance and with companies that are still devoted to their early roots on the old platform, like Blizzard, Electronic Arts or Bethesda. Read more
3 New Windows Games for Windows 7
As it is the case with previous versions of Windows clients, Windows 7 comes to the table with its fair share of components. Among them is a collection of games, some traditionally associated with Windows, and some new additions. There are a total of 11 games in Windows 7 by default including: Chess Titans, FreeCell, Hearts, Mahjong Titans, Minesweeper, Purble Face, Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Internet Backgammon, Internet Spades, and Internet Checkers. Some of theme, like Minesweeper and Solitaire, are nothing short of Windows classics, while others, especially the Internet-based ones, have been added to Windows 7. Read more
2009 new Need For Speed 3 is coming!
In the past year, Need For Speed: Underground’u managed to achieve the targeted revenue figure was not related to many speculations. Estimates because of the failure of the racing game Need For EA’nin popular Speed’i a while “will rest” it was. But was not expected and EA decided to go over questions. And the more insistent.
Company official in 2009 as it plans to issue three new NFS’yi announced. The first NFS: Shift the name will be removed and will target the more serious racers. PSP, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 will be ready for the Shift except NFS: Nitro, EA’in Montreal studio will be prepared and only the Wii and DS will be released for. Read more
Microsoft Pushes Gaming Technology Event into 2010
For the time being, Microsoft has kept “2009” for what should now be Gamefest 2010. However, the Redmond company did announce that its gaming technology event had been pushed back into the next twelvemonth. Rather than holding Gamefest 2009 by the end of this year, the software giant revealed that the conference was re-scheduled for the start of 2010. The company explained that the new date for the event was the logical response to the feedback received from its partners.
“Gamefest is Microsoft’s premier conference on game development, and so it should revolve around game developers. We sought out feedback from developers who attended Gamefest 2008 and we found that, given development schedules and ship dates, the conference would be more impactful if held earlier in the calendar year rather than right before the busy holiday season. Read more
Top 10 Xbox 360 Hacks
Geeks love getting the most out of their gaming consoles. I hope you would agree that the Xbox 360 is the best gaming console on the market. I recently purchased an Xbox 360 so I have been looking into what I can do (I know, kinda late). With that being said, I would like to share my top 10 hack finds so far.
1. Turn your Xbox 360 into a Laptop – Like soldering? Engadget takes us through the steps of turning your Xbox 360 into a portable laptop. How. Cool. Is. That. Read more
