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 »

Xbox 360 Takes on the Nintendo Wii

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,” or have the power to never miss the latest episode of “Heroes”  all from one device, starting at $199.” Note that they’re not promoting one hardcore game and they mention video streaming twice, which is kinda weird for what is mainly still a gaming console. Read More »

How to Start building games for Xbox 360

XNA Game Studio
Platform games, shoot-em-ups, racing games, and adventure games. Peek this and poke that and the next generation of software developers were born. But why don’t people write games for fun anymore? Perhaps games and their programming languages went in different directions, we all grew up and wrote database applications. Writing simple games became hard and the immediacy and fun just got drowned out in the API calls and lines of C++. Read More »

Free Games at Windows Live

Windows-Live

To compete with Apple’s successful iPhone and iPod App Store, Microsoft announced today that Windows Live will have free games for its PC users. What used to be only available to Xbox users is now available across the entire Windows platform.

Microsoft’s press release states “the launch of Games for Windows  LIVE marks a major expansion of the Xbox LIVE service across multiple platforms, uniting gamers with a single identity, a single gamertag, a single friends list and a single list of achievements attainable on the Xbox 360 and a Windows-based PC.” Read More »

Live Your Life with PlayStation

This is certainly the day for announcements made by Sony. In addition to revealing a video rental service designed for the PlayStation 3, the company is also launching a few other initiatives that are designed to make its gaming console more attractive to other demographics than the “hardcore” gamer. The social aspect of the PlayStation Network is brought into focus in an effort to compete with the Xbox Live service from Microsoft.

While mentioning that the PlayStation 3 has so far shipped more than 12 million units all over the world, Kaz Hirai, President of Sony Computer Entertainment, revealed that this number is past the critical stage at which the company begins to focus on providing more content to its users rather than on extending the installed base at an accelerated rate. Additional content is intended to create loyalty amongst the player base. Read More »

Mass Effect Is 10 Dollars Cheaper

Electronic Arts has released a statement announcing a 10 dollar reduction in price for all those who pre-order the PC version of Mass Effect. The offer comes into play today and will last until the official launch date of the game, which is May 27 in North America and June 6 in Europe. The offer is not limited to games retailers such as GameStop, Amazon and GoGamer. Details on how the offer will work in Europe have not been released by Electronic Arts.

It seems that the 10 dollars off offer is limited to pre-orders made through retailers and does not apply to purchases made through the electronic store that EA maintains. On the other hand, the people who make the pre-order online will also benefit from some goodies, in the form of the first issue of the Dead Space comic book and of a wall sized Dead Space poster. The items are limited in number so hurry if you want these pieces of memorabilia. Read More »

Buku Sudoku to Launch on Xbox Live Arcade

Buku Sudoku, the first sudoku game to be released for the Xbox 360 consoles, will hit the market this spring, ready to delight all the sudoku fans in the world. The game will be published by unknown publisher Merscom.

Buku Sudoku will use three of the most appreciated Xbox Live Arcade features in order to create the “best Sudoku console experience”. And it will probably be very easy to achieve this, having in mind that this game is the only sudoku game. Still, the developers promise to bring some high resolution graphics that will make the grid reading really easy. Also, they say that the controller’s triggers and thumbsticks will allow a very fast numerical entry method, thus reducing the frustration of “video-sudoku”. Read More »

Mass Effect Banned for Lesbian Sex Scene

Will Mass Effect be the new Manhunt 2? It’s already following in its footsteps, being a highly anticipated title that gets leaked on the Internet and then gets banned. However, the ban is not as serious as it was in the case of Manhunt, because it only applies to Singapore and its gamers. The decision was taken due to the inclusion in the game of a lesbian sex scene, which seemed to bother the local authorities.

Singapore’s Media Development Authority (some sort of ESRB or BBFC) apparently wasn’t too keen on that scene which featured a human woman and an alien female making out. MDA’s decision was soon followed by the gaming community’s reaction, as its members deemed the ruling as a very strict action. Read More »

Play Ball on Xbox Live

New high definition content is heading to Xbox Live courtesy of Microsoft and ESPN. The Redmond company announced the inking of a new agreement with ESPN designed to provide Xbox 360 users with a variety of sporting events and programming via Xbox LIVE. In this manner the material from ESPN is added to those coming from over 30 studios and networks that have already partnered with Microsoft over Xbox Live. For the Redmond company the deal only means that it managed to enrich its portfolio of premium entertainment content already counting in excess of 3,200 hours.

“Establishing this relationship with Microsoft on Xbox 360 provides an innovative way to reach our target demographic through this dynamic next-generation entertainment console. Read More »

Xbox 360 Explodes Fueled by the Halo Effect

The release of what Microsoft referred to as a global entertainment phenomenon has managed to explode sales of its Xbox 360 consoles. The combined market performances of Halo 3 and Nintendo’s Wii console have contributed to a 75% jump in sales of video gaming hardware and software in the U.S. According to market research firm NPD, gaming related sales passed the $1.3 billion milestone in September, increasing from $779 million the previous month. NPD indicated that Microsoft’s claims revealing Halo 3’s impact as a new standard of interactive entertainment were justified, as the title pushed in excess of 3.3 million copies in its first month. In this context, the following nine games combined, in the top 10 selling titles, account for a little over half of Halo 3’s sales. Read More »