XBox 360 Rally

Since last September, I have wanted Spore, but I’m going through a phase right now where I am just over PC games. Don’t get me wrong, I still play them incessantly and I will get Spore, but it would be nice if Spore were to come out for the Xbox 360. Sometimes a girl just wants to sit on her couch, backward and upside down and play video games. You just cannot do that on a computer.

Maxis created crack for nerdly gamers back in the day and it goes by the names of the Sims or SimCity. Well, Maxis is trying to capture lightning in a bottle once again, and it could happen with Spore.

But Spore, if it does evolve into the game of choice for all levels of game addicts, will only be a PC or Mac-based game…oh, yeah, and a DS and a Wii game.

That’s right. Spore is being developed for play on the Wii and the Nintendo DS, but not the damn Xbox. Why, for the love of jove, why? Maxis and Nintendo are the evil heart of this conspiracy, and players like me that would like to be able to play all games on a large LCD HDTV instead of my 17″ laptop screen are the ones who suffer.

Bad Maxis, bad.

However, for all those who play on PC’s or mac’s, DS’ or Wii’s, you will be getting Spore either for the first time (Wii and DS) or you will have available for your gaming pleasures two new Spore games in Spore: Galactic Adventures and Spore: Creature Keeper (developed for younger players, and kinda like a sim-habitat-thing).

To be fair, the exec in the interview does not not say that Spore is being developed for the Xbox and PS3.

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Having had my Xbox 360 since August 2006 (when my Xbox was dropped during a move), and having gone through the whole Ring of Death Debacle, I am happy that a Microsoft exec let it slip out that the Xbox 360 will not be replaced/upgraded anytime soon. With as much as I spend on games, I don’t have enough for a new system just yet…

Xbox division president Robbie Bach told Bloomberg this week that flashy graphics won’t be enough for consumers to adopt a new platform.

“Just coming up with something that’s faster and prettier isn’t going to be sufficient,” said Bach.

Additionally, he predicts products from Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. will hold a longer life span.

“The life cycle for this generation of consoles — and I’m not just talking about Xbox, I’d include Wii and PS3 as well — is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations.” -PunchJump

Faster and prettier is always good, but I tend to agree with Bach. Something very new needs to happen, kind of like what has happened with the Wii, insofar as a new way to game must be the next step and the reason that I will trade up my gaming console.

Not to mention, Microsoft is still paying through the nose to correct hardware issues with the Xbox 360, so I doubt that the R&D budget for the new-gen Xbox has not been affected by the ongoing problems.

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In a year when just about everything didn’t sell as well as last year, sales of the Xbox 360 increased by 8 percent this lame holiday season over 2007’s sales figures for December. The 360’s final yearly sales showed an increase of 19 percent over 2007 sales.

Not bad, but the bigger news is that the Nintendo Wii won the Holiday sales war with over 3 million units sold. The PS3 didn’t come close to a million at a bit over 700,000 sold. The PSP topped over a million units sold, and for some reason, about 400,000 Playstation 2’s were sold. Do people really still buy those and why?

The Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 nearly 2 to 1. Prices may have something to do with that. The Wii package runs about $250 base and you have to spend another $40 to $50 on a second controller. The Xbox 360 runs about $300 for the mid-level model and another $40 for an additional controller. The PS3 runs about $400 for the base model.

More news this week…Xbox 360 games topped the rankings for video game rentals. Xbox 360-platform games took all the top five spots in the list, and took another two spots among the top ten. Three Wii games placed in the remaining tops spots. And missing from the top ten were any PS3 games.

The Top Ten (as compiled by Rentrak)

PC World Mag also published a listing of anticipated Xbox games for 2009. You can click here to see the article. Notables on the list include Halo Wars, I am Alive and Alpha Protocol.

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Even if you can’t read a lick of German, numbers and percentages shouldn’t escape you. Take a look at the image at the bottom of this story a moment. Do you see that “90% Komplett”? Yeah, Unreal Tournament 3 (talk about retro linkage) is almost done. So done, in fact, that according to this very German article that you can easily view below, UT3 will be storming the people next April.

If you remember back to E3, there was a big stink about how the PlayStation 3 would be getting UT3 before the Xbox 360. In fact, many PS3 fanboys got ahead of themselves and started bragging on various message boards that Unreal Tournament 3 was in fact a PS3 exclusive. Obviously that isn’t the case, and I would even venture to guess that the Xbox 360 version, like so many other games brought to both systems, will be the superior effort.

But only time will tell, and we’ll know by April.

[MaxConsole]

As picked by CVG. I can’t say that their list is too far off. I think most of the bigger named titles have already come out, and though the list below does have some “AAA” games, it just cannot compete with what has come out this year. CVG’s gives us a ‘top ten’ list of what is going to be available next year, for the most part I think titles we knew were of course coming, but when seen in list form, I can’t say I am greatly excited. I think Lost Odyssey, Condemned 2, Soul Calibur IV, and maybe even Battlefield: Bad Company (if it is going to rip of CoD4 as much as I think it will, it should be good):

Banjo-Kazooie
Too Human
Fallout 3
Grand Theft Auto IV
Ninja Gaiden 2
Splinter Cell Conviction
Fable 2
Devil May Cry 4
Halo Wars
Resident Evil 5

[See ComputerAndVideoGames.com for their full thoughts on each of these games]

I just wanted an excuse to use the above picture. XKCD is the best. Still, there is new songs to download for you, not my particular taste, but maybe something for you:

“Attack” - 30 Seconds To Mars (from 2005’s A Beautiful Lie)
“The Kill” - 30 Seconds To Mars (from 2005’s A Beautiful Lie)
“Dirty Little Secret” - All-American Rejects (from 2005’s Move Along)
“Move Along” - All-American Rejects (from 2005’s Move Along)
“Song With A Mission” - The Sounds (from 2006’s Dying To Say This To
You)

See after the break for the full break down from MajorNelson with cost and legal info:

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I own it. You own it. Odds are your friends own it. There is simply no denying that Halo 3 is an absolute beast of a game. In its first day in the US, Halo 3 made nearly $200 million, and helped Microsoft by being a definite system seller, pushing 527K consoles out the door in September. But just how impressive are the numbers?

Well, according to the NPD numbers through November, 4.1 million copies of Halo 3 have been purchased in the US. Meanwhile, there have been 7.9 million Xbox 360 consoles sold in the US since its launch just over two years ago. Doing the math, a whopping 52% of all Xbox 360 owners own Halo 3.

That’s more than half, people. And with Christmas looming but a week away, you can expect both Halo 3 and the Xbox 360’s numbers to increase.

[GameDaily]

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The Witcher a PC RPG which is in no specific terms contains mass amounts of both “epic” and “awesome”, is making its way to the Xbox 360.

Maybe.

You see, the developer of The Witcher, CD Projekt, has said publically that The Witcher is never, ever going to be on the consoles. However, the developer now has a job opening posting where they state that they are looking for someone who is skilled in “parallel programming” for the Xbox 360.

For those of you who are completely illiterate with computers, I’ll sum it up for you: They’re looking for people who can translate code from one platform to another… okay, I’ll dumb it down a little more: A port! They want to PORT something… make sense now? Good.

Now, unless they intend to port “Football Manager 2008″ to the Xbox 360, odds are we can see The Witcher sometime in the not-so-distant future. Cool, huh?

[CD Projekt]

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Hey folks, figured I would pop my head in to share something as a new writer for the site here is being figured out (Applications still being accepted!). I love how to this day, KoToR 3 talk still persists and some peoples Xbox 360’s are being wrapped in towels, awesome.

Onto the news, the Halo 3 map pack is out. With it came the news that it will be free at some point. Awesome. Unlike Lost Planet, they never tell you that the things you buy would eventually be free!!! Ahem..apologies for that outburst, that is buyers remorse talking. Well if you want to buy now, it actually seems like a pretty decent set of maps. Want a little preview of them before buying ? Of course you do, so here is the great guys at Red vs Blue showing off the new DLC:

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Fulfilling my mandatory obligations to update this site once in a blue moon because some of you have yet to catch onto the fact that Paco and I take up residence at 1PStart now, I’m going to tell you a little story about a console that could. You see, in 2005 the Xbox 360 launched with much fanfare, and for a good long time was the only player in town.

…and then Nintendo came with it’s souped-up Gamecube with the powerglove controller, and in time surpassed the Xbox 360 in total sales. This still hasn’t deterred people from wanting the little guy, however, as Microsoft is struggling to meet demand for the console in the UK.

We’re struggling to meet the demand from every retailer every week. I think we’ve probably done it better than some of our cohorts out there, but it’s a weekly thing - we’re getting stock in, we’re getting it straight out to the retailers who need it

So things are going well for Microsoft, and it also seems like the UK is turning into a hot bed of gaming shortage. Earlier Nintendo made it clear they would be pulling its television advertisements for the Wii in a ditch effort to try and control demand in what I assume is an attempt to hide their own shortage.

If you get desperate for a 360, and aren’t too… hung-up about this pesky “Region Lock” thing, may I suggest Japan?

[Next-Gen]

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A sting operation in El Paso, Texas where fugitives were informed that they had won free electronics including Xbox 360s, has resulted in over 100 arrests.

“Our goal is to try to keep El Paso safe and arrest as many fugitives as we can,” said U.S. Marshal supervisor Gerry Payan.

The operation was aimed specifically at targeting those with past illigal entry, violence and drug charges (because apparently all gamers are drugged up illegals with hot heads ). 129 warrants were cleared in all, and over $25,000 worth of traffic fines were collected.

Just more proof that the Xbox 360 draws you in. But remember south Texans… if you are told you won a free 360, in the words of Admiral Ackbar “It’s a trap!”.

[Shack News]

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Following on a rumor first reported by… well, us (you’re welcome), XueCast is now reporting that they have been able to confirm that Microsoft is currently working with DivX to bring their popular MPEG-4 format to the Xbox 360.

According to the article, DivX CEO Kevin Hell stated that, due to Microsoft’s restrictions and requirements, the Xbox 360 DivX project is running much slower than the PlayStation 3 counterpart. PlayStation 3 DivX support has already been partially implimented.

[XueCast]

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If you live in Europe, I’m really starting to hate you. First you get the exclusive Xtival 07 from Microsoft which gives you free Xbox LIVE Gold (limited time) and exclusive downloads. Then you get the Simpsons Game PSP bundle. Now, seemingly not pleased yet, Europe has snacked another nugget of shiny awesomeness as, during the Xtival 07 event, one lucky Guitar Hero III fanatic will get the chance of a lifetime by playing a few rounds with Steve Jones.

If you don’t know who Steve Jones is, I’ll give you a helping hand:

Now, the rules for this Game with Fame contest are slightly different. This time around, you have to play through the demo of Guitar Hero III (not available on Xbox LIVE), and when you’ve completed the demo you have to send a picture of your high score to , along with why you want to play with a punk rock God. The winners will be sent a copy of Guitar Hero III, and the top three will join Steve online.

The winner will be crowned European Champion, and win a guitar signed by Jones himself.

Once again… I hate Europe.

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Microsoft is fighting fire with fire it seems, as the Official Xbox Magazine is reporting that Xbox 360 owners will be able to download original Xbox titles come December 2nd. The service will be part of the Fall Dashboard Update, and will feature six titles available from the start, each on sale for 1200 MS Points ($15 USD). What games are for grabs, you ask?

• Halo
• Fable
• Burnout 3
• Fahrenieit
• Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
• Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex

• To say this is awesome is a slight understatement. With a service like this, Microsoft could very well rival Nintendo’s Virtual Console service.

  [Eurogamer]

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Hi, boys and girls. It’s just me, your friendly neighborhood JW, here to remind you all that we’re currently looking for people to replace us here at Xbox 360 Rally. All you have to do is go HERE, fill out the form, and wait to hear back. It’s really not that hard.

So, get to it already — so Paco and I can get to the NEW site!