Google is being inundated with complaints about its Nexus One phone.
The touchscreen smartphone was launched on 5 January and can be bought directly from Google and used on almost any phone network.
But confusion over who should answer customer queries has led many to file complaints on support forums.
Many people are unhappy with Google only responding to questions by e-mail and are calling for it to set up phone-based support.
Phone frustration
Americans can buy the Nexus One directly from Google for $529 (£331) or on a contract with T-Mobile for $179 (£112). In the UK the phone will be available via Vodafone but prices and launch dates have yet to be released.
The support forums that Google has set up for the Nexus One are filling up with complaints from many of the first to buy the phone who need help.

...we're committed to sorting out the few kinks that do exist
Google spokesman
The top query, with more than 500 responses, is about how much people should pay for the phone and whether existing customers of T-Mobile can get the device at a reduced rate. Only new customers of T-Mobile will be able to pay $179.
Many are also trying to get more information about the phone they have placed an order for to see how long it will take to reach them.
Almost 500 people have logged problems with the Nexus One's support for 3G wireless networks. Others reported bugs when synchronising contacts or getting the handset to work with existing Google accounts.
Many are also complaining about the amount of time that it takes Google to respond to queries. Google said it would answer problems via e-mail though any response may take a day or two to arrive.
Frustrations were also reported by those that had turned to either T-Mobile or HTC for help and had been bounced back and forth between the handset maker and the mobile operator. Conflicting information about the phone, particularly if it supports 3G, is being given by Google's partners.
A common sentiment on the support forum was that for the $500 people have paid for the phone they should be able to call a dedicated help line.
"Right now it's a big mess," said KseniaCoffman on the forum.
Google has answered a handful of the questions posted on the query but so far the vast majority lack a response from the search firm.
"We've worked closely with our Nexus One launch partners to make support available through a variety of channels," said a spokesman for Google. "This is a new way to purchase and support a mobile phone, and we're committed to sorting out the few kinks that do exist."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8451473.stm ...

Casual games have featured prominently in Microsoft's list of the most popular games on it's online Xbox 360 Live service. While the likes of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 dominate, a number of casual games have joined the best selling and most played online games on a console that appears to be courting an increasingly diverse userbase.
In the Xbox 360 top Live titles, which is based on unique users, interactive quiz show 1 vs 100 charts as the 17th most played game, while in the list of the best selling downloadable Arcade titles Hasbro Family Game Night takes forth place and Uno and Peggle secure 8th and 10th positions respectively.
The charts, detailed on on Microsoft's official unofficial blog Major Nelson, the top selling Indie games are also listed, and again casual titles boast a healthy presence, with the likes of Rumble Massage, myFishtank and Aquarium HD featuring prominantly.

The only chart without any casual titles is the Xbox Originals list, which shows the most played games from the first generation Xbox downloaded for the 360. Despite the absence of casual sector inclusions, in context with the other charts it demonstrates how Microsoft have managed in one console generation to move from courting an entirely hardcore audience to a far more varied demographic.

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/296...-games-of-2009 ...

Nintendo has responded to a Greenpeace report published last week which named it as the most environmentally unfriendly electronics company in its annual survey.

The Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics scored Nintendo just 1.4 out of 10 for its chemical, e-waste and energy policies. However Nintendo has argued that it takes environmental responsibilities seriously, and pointed out the Wii is more energy efficient than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

"We would like to assure customers that we take our environmental responsibilities seriously and are rigorous in our commitment to comply with all relevant laws relating to environmental and product safety, including avoiding the use of dangerous substances in our manufacturing processes and ensuring the safe disposal and recycling of materials," Nintendo said in a statement made to Eurogamer.

"We consider the environmental impact of our products over their entire life cycle, from planning to disposal. In the planning phase, for example, we make every effort to design energy-efficient products and select materials for component parts and packaging materials with careful consideration for the environment. We also consider the importance of reducing environmental impact at end-of-life disposal by clearly indicating the materials used in each product to make recycling easier.

"We also work to eliminate harmful substances from our products right from the initial stages of material selection and have established strict environmental control standards, with our 340 production partners all co-operating with us in our efforts."

The Wii is "notably the most energy efficient [console] of its generation," said the company, adding that the DS design had been improved to minimise energy consumption.

Nintendo was marked down in the guide in part because of its failure to submit information on energy and e-waste policies to Greenpeace. In the areas where data wasn't supplied, the company was scored zero.

The environmental group has previously slammed Nintendo for not making these policies public.

Microsoft fared little better in the report and came out just one place ahead of Nintendo with a score of 2.4.

Of the three console manufacturers, Sony came out on top with a score of 5.1 and praise for its reduced greenhouse gases output and increased use of recycled plastics.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...its-generation ...

Activision’s Call of Duty title is already the third biggest selling game ever in the UK video games market
As Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 spends its ninth week at the top of the ELSPA GfK-ChartTrack All Formats Top 40 this week, it has been revealed that the game is now the third best selling title (in unit terms) of all time in the UK.
With seemingly no end in site for MW2’s chart supremacy, Activision will surely by eyeing up the all-time UK record.
The most successful game in UK history is currently DS puzzle outing Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training. Nintendo’s defining portable title was released in June 2006 but still regularly reaches the Top 40 – this week it sits at number 35.
Second place is currently held by PS2, Xbox and PC epic Grand theft Auto: San Andreas, which was first released in 2004.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/37086/MW2-...time-UK-record ...

The market for new boxed videogame product in the UK declined 18 per cent during 2009, according to the latest Chart-Track data released by ELSPA.

Overall boxed software unit sales were down 12 per cent, with only two formats, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, seeing an increase in units and revenue over 2008.

11.9 million PlayStation 3 games were sold in 2009 (up 14%), generating £342 million in revenue (up 2%), while Xbox 360 games totalled 16.2 million units (up 9%), generating £459 million (up 4%), making it the number one format by revenue.

Nintendo Wii games sold 18.1 million units (down 10%), generating £392 million in 2009 (down 18%), while Nintendo DS unit sales were 14.6 million (down 24%) generating £266 million (down 27%).

Non of the above data includes sales of full-games via any of the direct download services such as XBLA, PSN, WiiWare or Games on Demand, nor additional sales of specific game DLC or other content.

Boxed retail game sales of the PSP format declined to 2.8 million (down 32%) generating £44 million in revenue, although no stats are available for content for the digital-only PSPgo.

According to ELSPA/Chart-Track, boxed PC software unit sales were down to 6.2 million (down 26%) generating £91 million (down 22%) although again this does not include any data from digital sales such as Steam, or microtransactions, subscriptions and other payment methods.

It's also worth noting that software sales in this report do not include any game sold via the second-hand or pre-owned market.

ELSPA noted that "the much hoped for December 2009 sales spike on hardware never materialised," with handheld sales at 2.7 million units (down 27%), generating £314 million (down 14%).

The total home console hardware units sold was 4 million units (down 25%) and generated £746 million (down 28%), with the PS3 the only format to sell more consoles that last year.

Console accessories sold 29.6 million units (down 5%), generating £523 million (down 5%), with PC accessories at 6.2 million units (down 30%), generating £107 million (down 32%).

As detailed last week, overall boxed product sales were £3.311 billion in 2009, compared to 4.034 billion in 2008.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ercent-in-2009 ...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has remained at number one in the UK chart for a ninth week, while new entries Bayonetta and Darksiders have entered the top ten at numbers five and eight respectively.

Modern Warfare 2's sales now make it the third biggest game ever in UK history in terms of sell-through, according to Chart-Track data. Only Nintendo's Dr Kawashima and Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas have shifted more units.

Sega's critically acclaimed Bayonetta made its debut at number five in the top ten, while THQ's Darksiders entered at number eight.

Wii Fit Plus climbed three places to number two, and Ubisoft's Just Dance achieved its highest chart position since release, climbing four places to number three.

The number four position was held by Wii Sports Resort, while Fifa 10 also held onto its last week position of number six.

The full all-formats top 20 UK chart for the week ending January 9 is as follows:

01 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
02 Wii Fit Plus
03 Just Dance
04 Wii Sports Resort
05 Bayonetta
06 Fifa 10
07 Assassin's Creed II
08 Darksiders
09 New Super Mario Bros Wii
10 James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
11 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
12 Mario Kart Wii
13 Forza Motorsport 3
14 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
15 Batman: Arkham Asylum
16 Need For Speed: Shift
17 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
18 Grand Theft Auto Episodes: Liberty City
19 Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
20 Wii Play

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rt-at-number-5 ...

Microsoft has named its most played and downloaded Live titles of 2009, with Halo 3 coming out as the most popular Live game of the year.

Following behind Halo 3 in a chart determined by unique user connectivity, were three Activision titles, Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: World At War. Gears of War 2 came in at number five, and Grand Theft Auto IV and Left 4 Dead were at numbers six and seven respectively.

The most purchased Arcade and Indie titles for the year were also revealed, with Battlefield 1943 topping the former.

That was followed by Castle Crashers, Trials HD and the Hasbro Family Game Night titles.

The most popular Indie game proved to be Jamezila developed shooter I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES!!!1, followed by Avatar Drop, RC-AirSim, Headshot and Miner Dig Deep.

These are the full top tens, as reported on the Major Nelson blog.

Xbox 360 top live titles

01 Halo 3
02 Call of Duty 4
03 Modern Warfare 2
04 Call of Duty: World at War
05 Gears of War 2
06 GTA IV
07 Left 4 Dead
08 Halo 3: ODST
09 Fable II: Episode 1
10 Biohazard 5 - Resident Evil 5
Top Arcade titles

01 Battlefield 1943
02 Castle Crashers
03 Trials HD
04 Hasbro Family Game Night
05 Shadow Complex
06 Marvel vs Capcom 2
07 Magic: The Gathering
08 UNO
09 Worms
10 Peggle
Top Indie games

01 I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES!!!1
02 Avatar Drop
03 RC-AirSim
04 Headshot
05 Miner Dig Deep
06 Rumble Massage
07 Who Did I Date Last Night
08 Kodu Game Lab
09 Avatar Golf
10 Aquarium HD

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-game-of-2009 ...

Microsoft is developing Project Natal plus new software and content services to prolong the life of the Xbox 360 games console, rather than introduce a new machine

We all know that the games business goes in cycles and that a new generation of consoles always comes along to replace whatever is popular today. In fact, we should now be talking about the Xbox 720, Sony PlayStation 4 and Wii II, or whatever they might be called, because game developers need a couple of years to create new games to exploit the new hardware capabilities that justify the launch of a new generation. But we aren't, and Microsoft doesn't want us to.

"I think it's important to say that the Xbox 360 is the console of the long future for us. There is no need to launch a new console, because we're able to give this console new life either with software upgrades or hardware upgrades like Project Natal," said David Hufford, senior director of Xbox product management in a briefing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "The Xbox 360 was designed for a long life, and I don't even know if we're at the midpoint yet."

Rather than release a new console, Microsoft is developing Project Natal to enhance existing systems. At a CES keynote, Xbox boss Robbie Bach said Natal will be released for the 2010 holiday season, ie in the run-up to Christmas. Hufford said the team had demonstrated at E3 that the technology worked, and now "we've asked the development teams to concentrate on making the games."

Hufford said that the Xbox 360 did not need an upgrade to support 3D games -- "Avatar is on Xbox and we have a 3D game, Scrap Metal, in our booth right now" -- and nor would he commit to offering a Blu-ray drive. Indeed, I couldn't even get him to speculate about moving the 360 forward to a more modern chip technology. This would reduce the Xbox's manufacturing cost and also produce a console that generated less heat and cost less to run -- benefits that have already accrued to Sony with the launch of the PS3 Slim. It should also be more reliable.

"We love our prices right now," said Hufford. "I don't want to say that technology stops, but we believe we have a high quality console, and we stand by that quality with an unprecedented warranty, so we think we're in a good place now heading into the Natal era."

Microsoft is clearly working on the software and content parts of the Xbox with the Zune movie service, support for social networking, the Gameroom of classic arcade games, Mediaroom TV services, Project Natal and so on. It's not looking to launch new hardware.

This makes sense because new consoles typically sell at a loss, and the system only becomes really profitable in the later years as manufacturing costs fall and sales of high-priced software mount up. Sony, of course, is in the same position but worse, because it's still selling PlayStation 3 consoles at a loss, and will need several profitable years to get back its huge investment.

So what has changed?

Most console wars result in a big win for one player -- Atari VCS, Nintendo NES, Sega Mega Drive, Sony PlayStation or whatever -- with the others failing. This encourages the failing companies to move to the next generation first to get a competitive edge.

This time around, the three major players have all achieved viable market shares. Perhaps there's no incentive for any of them to start a next-generation console war, and Ken Kutaragi will have been correct in claiming that the PS3 would last a decade.

What do you think? Technology has moved on since 2005, when the Xbox 360 was announced. Will you be happy to have the same system in 2015?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ft-no-new-xbox ...

News via http://www.xbox-scene.com/

Nes6502 released a new version of Final burn Legends for Xbox1.
What's new/fixed:
* Fixed controls for:
Mega Man - the power battle
Mega Man 2 - the power fighters

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=701922 ...