Games round-up Plus Xbox 360 Elite
exposedWELCOME BACK TO the Monday morning gaming round-up.
Xbox
Investment advisor Roger Ehrenberg of Forbes, has written an interesting rebuttal concerning the success of Microsoft's Xbox 360.
Ehrenberg believes Microsoft's foray into gaming has been a "disastrous endeavour", and that it should rethink its entire strategy.
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Microsoft needs to take a long, hard look at its gaming strategy--and, in fact, its entire H&E strategy. At what point, regardless of its virtually endless financial resources, does it say 'enough is enough'?".
Ehrenberg backs his statements up using the home entertainment P&L figures which total a $5.4 billion loss.
He continues by suggesting Microsoft should follow Nintendo's lead with the hotly-sought mass-market orientated Wii, and also concludes the Japanese market is an incredibly important territory.
"Success in Japan is frequently a precursor to success globally".
It won't help Microsoft's bottom line knowing that Sony's networking services on the PS3 are free, and Xbox Live is possibly overpriced - Teamxbox has written an article entitled 'An inconvenient truth' which discusses this point in finer details.
Fortunately, it seems there's a huge demand for the 360 Elite - and Complete.com suggests it already surpasses the demand for the Core and Premium models.
Fancy taking a pick into the newly announced Xbox 360 Elite before it's even hit the shelves? Well now you can, courtesy of LLamma.com. The second part takes a further look at the CPU packaging and the back of the motherboard.
You can also take a garner at pictures of the HDD transfer cable here.
If its a portable Xbox 360 you're after, look no further. If attaching a portable display isn't your cup of tea, you can followEngadget's Xbox 360 laptop build tutorial, which came after Ben Heckendorn's unveiling of the Xbox 360 Laptop mk2. Quality stuff.
If you're tired of the laptop mod, how about a tilt mod for your 360 controller. Now you can no longer be jealous of those tilt wielding PS3 and Wii friends via this hack, called 'Xilt'.
Other Xbox related news has flown thick and fast this week. Most important of all is news that Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe is finished and heading to XBLA quicker than you can say sheepie.
Microsoft has announced a new colour barcode system for use on Xbox games and similar products.
This new color-based barcoding system developed by Microsoft is designed for user interaction, such as taking a picture with an XBL webcam and having it register as a prize or reward inside a video game. Sounds like fun and might finally give some use to thewebcam.
Fancy OpenBSD on your original Xbox? Keep an eye on the work being done here.
PS3/PSP
This INQ hack has had to force himself to have time off from his newly acquired Japanese PS3 from down-town Akihabara to bring you this report. Bah.
Downloadable PS1 titles compatible with the American Playstation 3 will start to appear sometime next month, according to Sony Computer Entertainment's US office. A Sony UK spokesperson wasn't immediately able to clarify European plans for downloadable PS1 games, but did say that we should expect an announcement regarding the Playstation Network 'soon'.
This came shortly after the release of firmware updated for both PS3 and PSP aimed at allowing for PS1 games bought in the PS3 Store to work on both formats.
The 1.70 update for the PS3 puts in place ability for PS3 owners to play downloaded Playstation 1 games on their PS3. There's a growing number of PS1 titles available for download on the Playstation Network that originally required downloading onto a PSP in order to use. They've also put in a feature to allow transferring PS1 save game data to and from a PSP memory stick, letting you continue your saved games on the go.
Another major plus with the new 1.70 firmware is the news that PS3s will now be compatible with any PS1 or PS2 accessory. All you need is a USB adapter for the controller and plugging it in will allow it to fully operate.
Lets hope this helps Sony ship consoles in Europe, as UK retailers are already cutting PS3 hardware and software prices - some as low as £387.87 for the 60GB UK model, and Easter holiday software sales at £29.99 a pop.
Despite these cuts, Sony are suggesting that the European launch was an unprecedented success - Sony has sold 800,000 PS3s in Europe and the company’s CEO, Howard Stringer, called it the "largest consumer electronics sale in history."
This apparently hasn't helped stock issues in the US though. SCEA said in a statement, "We continued to find ourselves supply constrained in March due primarily to the shift in manufacturing focus to the PS3 PAL version to support the launch of the system in Europe."
In other Sony related news, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves has issued an internal letter warning that up to 160 staff could be made redundant, citing a need to reduce the company's cost base, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
The memo states: "In order to further our market leadership we sometimes have to make difficult business decisions. The management of the company has concluded that we need to change our structure, streamline and strengthen our business operations - and that our cost base needs to be significantly reduced."
It appears difficult times for SCEE lay ahead.
Better news comes from Sony's first decent foray into the online gaming space. A Gamespot report reveals the first usage statistics for the Playstation 3's online network, which appear to show impressive figures.
According to Sony, over 1.3 million users have signed on to the free service, 600,000 of them being based in the United States. All together, users have downloaded 3.7 million pieces of content.
Wii/DS
Strong figures for March made Nintendo's Easter holidays even more worth celebrating.
The Wii was again the No. 1 current-generation video game console, selling 259,000 units in March, NPD said Thursday. Microsoft's Xbox 360 U.S. unit sales were 199,000 in March and outpaced Sony's Playstation 3 unit sales of 130,000.
In the handheld category, sales of the Nintendo DS reached 508,000 in March, ahead of Sony's Playstation Portable, or PSP, with 180,000 units.
Strong sales will also be seen for the new batch of Pokemon games - the Nintendo DS debut of Nintendo's Pokemon series, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, comes in less than a week, and the company's announced that more than 530,000 people have already signed on in the form of pre-orders.
These numbers are already more than twice what the previous games, Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green, combined before release.
Hopefully a top selling Guitar Hero esque game won't be too far away, given the gnarly demonstration of ahomebrew guitar strumming interface.
Don't forget to do your Wii warm-ups before you start though - The Times has lovingly provided us all with a series of exercises for just the thing to get us warmed up here.
This is if you're not already too busy making your own Chuck Norris Mii.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39096
