Just seconds after the first Xbox 360 was sold at retail in Europe, we caught up with regional director Neil Thompson to talk about the stock situation for the console in the run-up to Christmas, the extensive pre-order campaign - and his feelings on finally seeing a 360 in the hands of a consumer...

GamesIndustry.biz: You just sold the first Xbox 360 in Europe literally seconds ago - what's the feeling now that it's finally in the hands of customers? Are you relieved?

Neil Thompson: No, it's a feeling of pure, unadulterated excitement at this point, to be honest! We've worked very long and hard over the last four years, really, in building the Xbox brand, and I think the Xbox 360 will take that brand to the next level. It's a very very exciting time.

What are your expectations in terms of what people are going to be saying tomorrow morning and this weekend, after the launch?

I think people who've got it will be raving about the gaming experience they've had. I think people will probably be getting online within about a quarter of an hour, when they get home - and I think when they get online they'll start playing with folks in America and other folks around Europe, and getting really excited about PGR and Perfect Dark and Call of Duty, and all of the titles that are going to be really exciting.

You know, people will still be commenting tomorrow on how many units we had, and how quickly we'll be replenishing - so I'll still be saying tomorrow what I've been saying for most of the day really, which is that every week we're going to be shipping units in. We're doing all we can to get as many planes and ships through as fast as we can - so that's my guarantee to people, that that's the effort we're putting into it.

In terms of the stock tonight and tomorrow morning at launch - is there a lot of stock in the UK that's on a first-come, first-served basis, or is it really mostly pre-ordered stock?

I think... I would say the majority of what I've seen from retailers is on pre-order of some form or shape. I think some retailers will have plenty of free stock, because the pre-order mechanic isn't something that necessarily they can manage very well - but a lot of it will be pre-ordered stock.

Has Microsoft expressed a preference about that to retailers?

No, that's a retailer decision - how they manage their customer base and how they operate as retailers. That's why you have some some retailers doing very strong pre-order campaigns, like GAME, and other retailers, the more mass-market retailers, have a free stock system.

All the people you see here tonight were invited down because they've pre-ordered - they needed to have a special invite to be here because they've pre-ordered. Otherwise, I think it would have been very difficult just to manage the crowds, to be honest! There could have been thousands outside here, rather than the, I don't know, five hundred or so that we've got.

It's probably not a night where you want to talk about challenges - but briefly, what do you see as the biggest hurdle you have to overcome between now and Christmas?

I think it's concentrating on meeting the demand as best as we possibly can. It's making sure people are enjoying and getting the best out of the system - and obviously, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with retail partners helping them manage the customer situation and any concerns that may arise.

We're really going to focus all our efforts on getting as much stock in as possible, because the demand is proving to be phenomenal.

Are you going to be doing anything to communicate that situation to consumers - to make them aware of the stock situation?

Well, people ask me this a lot, and ever since E3 last year, I think I've been saying to everyone that I expect demand to exceed supply when we launch. I've been saying it for six months in practically every press interview that I've done - so you know, hopefully people are conscious of that fact, but are also conscious of the fact that we are committed to replenishing the product on a weekly basis. We're not leaving the market dry for six, eight, twelve weeks - we're going to come out with more product every single week. That's really the situation.

Neil, thanks very much for your time.

Thanks. ...

Last night's Xbox 360 midnight launch saw the flagship store of leading UK and European videogames retailer GAME, on London's Oxford Street, being decked out in the green and white livery of the new console, as hundreds queued to collect their pre-orders and musc pumped out of a DJ booth to warm up the crowd on the cold, damp December night.

Lisa Morgan, deputy CEO of GAME, was on hand to chat about the importance of the launch, the impact on the Christmas market - and the type of consumer who's picking up an Xbox 360 from the first shipment.

GamesIndustry.biz: Tonight sees the first launch of a next-generation console - how important is an event like this for a retailer like GAME?

Lisa Morgan: This is really, really important for GAME. As the UK's largest specialist retailer of videogames, it doesn't get much more exciting than this. We've been planning and preparing for months, and it's just fantastic to see so many people actually queuing up and buying the machines!

Do you have any idea what kind of numbers you have here this evening?

I think there are easily about a couple of hundred people here this evening. We only invited consumers who placed a deposit, and who pre-ordered the machine with us probably many months ago now, and we're pretty confident that every one of them will go away with their machine - that's the job that we wanted to do for them.

Looking onwards towards Christmas, how important is Xbox 360 going to be to you over the next few weeks?

I think we have to be realistic. We're really being kept in tune with what kind of stock is coming into the market, and the volumes of stock are not necessarily what we would have liked to have seen as a retailer - so in terms of overall impact on our business, there are other formats that are going to play a bigger part in terms of revenue.

In terms of sentiment, though, this is really key to our business. We think it's important to the market that there's new product coming into the industry, and this product is absolutely fantastic. It's really taking gaming that one step forward for us. So for us, 360 isn't just about the next few weeks - it's about next year and the year after, because we're in this for the long term.

What kind of people have you seen coming in to pre-order the 360? You've probably got more pre-orders than any other UK retailer - do you have any data on those people?

We've got our GAME Reward Card database - we've got over five million customers on that, and we've tracked all of our pre-orders on the database. So we can tell you that the bulk of the consumers so far are male, between the age of 20 and 30 years old, and virtually all of them are historical Xbox purchasers. The majority have bought games like Halo and Fable - so a really loyal Microsoft following for the new machine.

It's quite an achievement to build up such a loyal following in just four years...

I think it's a real credit to them.

From your perspective as a retailer, how has that following been built up? What's different about Microsoft's approach that allowed them to do this?

I think, having done the first launch with them, and obviously being a very key part of the second launch - we're their official partner - it's fair to say, I think, that both of us have learned an awful lot along the way. I think what's really great from the guys at Microsoft is that they've listened. They've listened to retail, they've listened to consumers, and they've really responded to things that I believe will really make this machine a much bigger success than the first machine. So yeah, we're feeling really encouraged.

Looking to the software - any predictions as to what titles are really going to do well on Xbox 360 in the coming weeks?

Well, we'll take a quick look at the figures tomorrow, that's for sure - but I think Project Gotham will probably be number one, Perfect Dark Zero number two, Call of Duty number three... That's probably my projection.

Lisa, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. ...

PoPoLoCrois is sure to be an instant favorite for the new generation of PSP users. This classic fantasy story features brand-new sequences from the animated TV series, new playable adventures, plus exciting battles with rich, vibrant colors and cell-shaded 2D graphics. You'll be hooked on the delightful characters and animated storyline that is fun for all ages.



Many more screenshots and info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...5&lsaid=219793 ...

This is a port of the classic computer game "Sopwith" by Lazy1.

Author notes:
I have gotten quite a bit of work done on my port of sdl sopwith to the nintendo ds, right now the game is playable but I'm not the best at finding bugs. So I'm releasing this alpha version to see how many people can find.

The game is playable in it's current state but must be run under real hardware and does not have any sound. Keep in mind its still far from release quality.

Tested using a gbamp and passme so I'm not sure about other loading methods.

Download via Comments

Thanks to PDRoms for the news. ...

Source - PSPFanboy

PSP Fanboy reader Ryan writes in asking if the 2.6 firmware has some bugs. He notes, "I installed it just fine and then added the wma support which seemed to go just fine. I transferred a bunch of wma songs over as i have done many times with the mp3 format. The songs play fine until you try to skip forward (cue) through a song. Doing this seems to immediately lock up the PSP. The only way to stop it is forcing a restart buy holding the power switch off for a good 7-8 seconds till it powers off or to remove the battery. Then you restart. I was able to repeat this 'lock up' every time and on different songs in different folders."

Has anybody else seen this? What about any other bugs since the firmware update? I've had the Browser crash on me not once, but three different times when I was trying to load Yahoo!'s podcasting service to grab a few items for RSS Channel. This wasn't a light crash either. Each time, my entire PSP rebooted. Not cool. ...

SudoX is a free Sudoku program for UIQ phones. It includes both flip open and flip closed operation, multiple board configurations (3x3, 4x2, 5x2, 4x3) and random board generation - unlimited puzzles.

download via comments ...

Stephen Stair has posted this update:

I've mainly been reworking some sections of code to better support IP fragmentation, I should be able to support that soon. And, the test program is coming along... version 0.1 can be found on Stephens page. - Version 0.1 only includes a "wardriving" app, capable of cataloging up to 512 access points the DS detects. More will be added before too long. I've been wasting a good deal of time lately - however, I'm getting back on track now and hopefully can manage to work on this a good deal more in the near future. Expect good things

More info --> http://www.akkit.org/dswifi/index.html ...

NK has updated the NeogeoCD Emulator for the GP2X, this release adds a the ability to use MP3s as background music.



Download and try for yourself here --> http://gp2x-emulation.dcemu.co.uk/neogeocdemu.shtml ...

Over at Joystiq there was a great news submission about a story where someone was "Unpacking the GP2X", well worth a look and a read, check it out Here --> http://www.datarealms.com/gp2x/ ...