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by Published on March 18th, 2012 20:15- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Ubisoft's post-apocalyptic survival game I Am Alive topped the Xbox Live Arcade charts on the week of March 5.
It took the top spot above spin-off multiplayer shooter Gotham City Impostors and Alan Wake's American Nightmare.Meanwhile Call of Duty obviously still dominates the most played charts with Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops retaining a firm grip on the top two spots. FIFA 12 hangs in strong at third ahead of Battlefield 3.
Here are the full listings:
LIVE Activity for week of March 5
Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on UU's)
1.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
2.Call of Duty: Black Ops
3.FIFA 12
4.Battlefield 3
5.Halo: Reach
6.Modern Warfare 2
7.Mass Effect 3
8.Skyrim
9.NBA 2K12
10.Gears of War 3
11.GTA IV
12.Forza Motorsport 4
13.Madden NFL 12
14.NHL12
15.FIFA Street Demo
16.Saints Row: The Third
17.Halo 3
18.Mass Effect 2
19.NBA 2K11
20.Call of Duty 4
Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)
1.I Am Alive
2.Gotham City Impostors
3.Alan Wake's American Nightmare
4.Pinball FX2
5.Fruit Ninja Kinect
6.Trials HD
7.Castle Crashers
8.Nexuiz
9.REAL STEEL
10.The Simpsons Arcade Game
11.NBA JAM: On Fire Edition
12.Peggle
13.Dungeon Defenders
14.Full House Poker
15.Warp
16.Shank 2
17.Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
18.DOOM
19.UNO
20.Double Fine Happy Action Theater
Top Indie Games (Full Versions purchased)
1.CastleMiner Z
2.Total Miner: Forge
3.CastleMiner
4.FortressCraft Chapter 1
5.The Impossible Game
6.The $1 Zombie Game
7.Avatar Paintball
8.End Of Days: Infected vs Mercs
9.Miner4Ever
10.Toy Stunt Bike 2
11.FLIRT
12.Fortress Wars
13.Avatar Legends
14.Don't Die Dateless, Dummy!
15.Avatar Laser Wars
16.I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
17.Avatar Onslaught 2
18.Beat Hazard
19.Miner Style
20.Little Racers STREET
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...s-xbla-charts/ ...by Published on March 18th, 2012 14:43- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Last week, MCVuk.com revealed that Microsoft has told its partners that the Next Xbox will not include a disc drive.
It’s a bold move – and one that sparked passionate debates and misconceptions about the birth of digital-only home consoles.
While the next Xbox will feature no disc drive, sources tell us it will offer some sort of interchangeable solid-state card storage.
Whether this will be a new proprietary form like that of Vita, or a standard format such as SD, this will keep an avenue open for retailers to participate in.
PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT
The Hut Group’s business development head Sarah Jasper says keeping retail involved is vital: “An iTunes-style buying revolution is probably quite some time away. If the new Xbox ends up using a smaller cartridge, I would see this as a positive. Products would take up less weight and space, making them cheaper and easier to dispatch to customers.”
Mastertronic’s Andy Payne adds: “Xbox must offer backwards compatibility for gamers, otherwise Microsoft risks losing millions of core Xbox gamers.”
Retail also plays a role that digital currently does not: catering to the mainstream, casual and impulse buyers.
“A large proportion of content sales are driven by impulse,” explains Tesco entertainment boss Rob Salter. “The challenge for publishers is securing the extremely valuable real estate required to serve that impulse – either space in-store or online. So a switch to other forms of packaged goods could be desirable for both retailer and publisher.”
But Game Guide editor Chris Ratcliff warns that retail will not be able to rely on boxed media alone: “A specialist retailer cannot exist in a fractured boxed and digital market unless they embark on some sort of diversification.
“Many former specialists now sell action figures, mobile phone accessories, LEGO – the new specialist indies are an Aladdin’s cave of boys’ toys – I even know of one where you can buy a full-scale working Dalek.
“Games will be just a product that will sell at next to no profit to keep the footfall to sell high margin gadgets and accessories.”
CHANNEL SURFERS
HMV has long since been expanding both its portfolio to sell more than just standard boxed products.
“There is plenty of scope for retailers to remain a vital part of the process so long as they ensure that their offer is a multi-channel one,” says PR boss Gennaro Castaldo.
“The key thing is to create content that excites consumers. Get that right and, as we have seen with Vita and Mass Effect 3, and there will be opportunities for retailers across physical, online, digital – or a combination of all three.
“The change will come whether we like it or not, so the key is to embrace it and see what new opportunities come out of it.”
Jasper adds: “You could argue that digital-centric home consoles already exist. The popularity of points cards demonstrates that there’s still a sizeable number of people who enjoy purchasing physical goods over digital ones, or who aren’t likely to become au fait with the digital marketplace just yet.”
Regardless of what types of physical media carry games going forward, some companies believe the day of the disc is over.
WHAT’S A DISC?
Instead, some claim the future lies in solid-state cards and online products that will be activated at the point of purchase.
“The disc business is inherently a high risk one, where content value is recognised on manufacture not demand,” says Salter.
“A shift to a world where nothing is valued until it is sold, whether physical or entirely digital, is a highly desirable one for retailers. The current model is wholly unsustainable.”
The Xbox 360’s successor could be the first home console to centre its sales around an online marketplace. And some publishers believe that a disc-less Xbox would still embrace retail.
Rather than aping Sony’s PSPgo – an ambitious but failed attempt at the model – it is more likely to follow the recently launched PlayStation Vita, striking a balance between physical and digital.
THQ marketing director Jon Rooke adds: “It is more likely that the disc-less Xbox would be one of two or three SKUs aimed at the high-end connected gamer – like Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 Arcade, Premium and Elite.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/featu...he-disc/092909 ...by Published on March 18th, 2012 12:20- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Microsoft dropped a bomb yesterday: they won't be showing new hardware this year or 'anytime soon.' Microsoft told Kotaku that '2012 is all about Xbox 360.' Meanwhile, Bloomberg's mysterious sources are saying that Microsoft 'may show the successor to its Xbox 360 in June 2013 at the E3 conference and put it on sale that same year.' This would 'be a fast journey from announcement to launch,' says Peter Smith, 'but it'd mean we'd still get a new Xbox for holiday 2013, which is about the earliest anyone has expected it to arrive anyway.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/0...-this-years-e3 ...by Published on March 16th, 2012 00:02- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
We knew it'd be arriving on April 1st, but now we're actually longing for it. HBO has just released a half-minute teaser propping up the impending release of HBO GO on Xbox 360, and while it's available on a plethora of other platforms, being able to verbally command HBO (through Kinect, of course) to play your favorite shows just takes the enticement up another level. Care to see for yourself? Tap that video just after the jump.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/15/h...control-video/ ...by Published on March 16th, 2012 00:00- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Days before walking away from both Microsoft and his own studio Lionhead last week, Peter Molyneux admitted that the public were too quick to judge Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect technology.
“It’s just like any piece of new technology or invention, whether it’s a bike, a motorcar, or a flying machine. We as human beings just expect way too much, far too soon,” he told Game Informer.
“We expect the first wave of titles to be the most amazing, incredible things. We don’t think deeply enough about what actually can happen in the second and third wave of titles. Now the second wave is just coming, and we’re starting to realize that it’s very deep, it’s very refined, we really can look at the way you move and that’s what I love celebrating.”
Molyneux also went on to detail the basic error that some who have approached the camera have made when conceiving new projects.
“I think it’s a kind of journey you have to go on yourself as a designer. The first thing you do is, you tend to be a bit lazy,” he stated.
“You think ‘How am I gonna get Kinect to do this, which is so easy to do on a controller?’. That’s completely the wrong way to think. What Kinect is is a very analogue experience, and what it enables you to do is deal with just how different human beings are.
“In Fable: The Journey, if I used Kinect and it forced you to sit a certain way and forced you to throw a certain way and forced you to emote in a certain way, I think that would be the worst thing I could do. The best thing I can do is celebrate how different you are and how analog you are and how the imprecision is actually a huge benefit.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/molyn...oo-soon/092837 ...by Published on March 15th, 2012 23:27- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
DLC plans are getting a boost as well from 20 to 24 pieces this year
Call of Duty Elite is an "evolving" platform, Activision executives said during a presentation last week at GDC. We're now allowed to tell you about some of the stats they shared with us, which shines a spotlight on the growing interest from gamers in the online service.
Elite's big draw with hardcore Call of Duty players has been clans and clan operations. There have been over 670,000 clans formed in Elite so far, and 26,000 clans participated in the first clan operation, while over 200,000 players enlisted for the first (three-hour) operation.
Activision is also running "100K" days each month to give away $100,000 in prizes to winners of competitions. Some of the prizes will be simple swag, but others are huge like Jeeps, ATVs, and scuba diving trips. It's a nice way to engage the community and promote competition. Activision said that it's seeing "tremendous interest from the community" and a "great level of engagement."
This is really where the company envisions Call of Duty Elite 2.0, so to speak, as the longer-term plan is to take the level of integration even higher than what's been present in Modern Warfare 3. Activision said it's "getting the most traction" with Elite features that do engage the community.
Additionally, Elite subscribers (who automatically get all DLC) will be pleased to hear that Activision is bumping up this year's DLC from 20 pieces of content to 24. And the company stressed that it's "going after innovative ides" and not just issuing map packs.
On the mobile side of things, Elite is now approaching 2 million downloads of the app on iOS and Android, and a tablet app for Elite is still in the works.
GamesIndustry International spoke with Jamie Berger, VP COD Digital at Activision, so we'll have more on Elite soon. Stay tuned.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...bile-downloads
...by Published on March 15th, 2012 23:04- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Publishing contract for alleged Xbox 720 game 'fell through'
As many as 30 developers were made redundant at North Carolina studio Obsidian after Microsoft pulled funding for a next-generation Xbox project, an purported insider has claimed.
An anonymous source “familiar with the matter” said Obsidian’s directors had to cancel the mystery 'North Carolina' project after Microsoft decided against supporting the title, according to a Kotaku report.
Yesterday it emerged that Obsidian had made as many as thirty staff redundant, apparently due to the project cancellation.
Obsidian and Microsoft were unavailable to comment when contacted by Develop. The claims remain unverified.
Historically Microsoft has splashed cash on external game development projects prior to announcing its latest console.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...ct-at-Obsidian
...by Published on March 15th, 2012 22:52- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Next gen console will not be seen 'anytime soon'
Microsoft will not be showing the next generation Xbox at E3 2012 or anytime soon.
In a statment released to Kotaku, Microsoft said it would continue to focus on the Xbox 360 after the console had its highest selling year in 2011.
"While we appreciate all the interest in our long-range plans for the future, we can confirm that there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon," reads the statement."
"For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360-and it's the best year ever for Xbox 360. The console is coming off its biggest year ever-a year in which Xbox outsold all other consoles worldwide. Xbox 360 didn't just outsell other consoles, it also outsold all other TV-connected devices like DVD players, as well as digital media receivers and home theatre systems. And in our seventh year, we sold more consoles than in any other year-defying convention."
http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...0-reveal-at-E3
...by Published on March 15th, 2012 01:04- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Former Sony and Atari exec Phil Harrison was hired by Microsoft to help boost the Xbox 360's standing in traditionally more PlayStation-friendly Europe, a number of industry analysts have speculated.IDC Research manager Lewis Ward suggested to GamesIndustry International that the high profile appointment of Harrison as head of Microsoft's European Game Studios last week is part of a drive to improve the console's performance on these shores by leveraging the Brit's local contacts."Microsoft has a significantly smaller Xbox 360 installed base in Western Europe than it does in North America and Phil Harrison may be able to help drive additional sales there partly through ramping up more third party game and content/video partnerships," he said.David Cole of DFC Intelligence echoed that sentiment."I think the biggest impact of Phil Harrison will be increasing the European business. Microsoft has been very strong in North America, not so strong in Europe," he said."I think there is a huge opportunity for MS to expand its core Europe business and that is where Phil may have the strongest impact. That is a huge potential growth opportunity for the Xbox platform."Billy Pidegeon from M2 Research added that Harrison might help Microsoft pick up more development talent on the continent in the run up to the next round of console tech."His strong connections with European developers may lead to some acquisitions and will help Microsoft to prepare content for the next generation hardware launch."Ward also suggested that Harrison's time at Sony could help build bridges with developers put off by Microsoft's rather salty industry reputation."Microsoft is viewed as being somewhat tougher to work with in the developer community so bringing on a former Sony/SCEE exec may be read as a sign that IEB is seeking to soften some of its sharp edges."He also mooted that Microsoft brought Harrison on board because of his experience with cloud gaming while at streaming service Gaikai. Is it a sign that the platform holder is preparing to go down a similar avenue with its next console?"I now suspect the next-gen Xbox will launch toward the end of 2013. The fact that Phil H was on the board of Gaikai is interesting since I think the next-gen Xbox will have a strong cloud focus and so his arrival may also be about laying the groundwork for next-gen connected console services in Europe."...
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-phil-harrisonby Published on March 15th, 2012 00:49- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
The upcoming Limited Edition Star Wars themed Xbox 360 hardware SKU will not be stocked at GAME, MCV can reveal.
News broke just moments ago that both Microsoft and Activisionhave joined Sega, Capcom, Nintendo and Tecmo Koei in refusing to sell stock to GAME Group stores.
MCV has learned that this will also include the stylish R2-D2 themed Xbox 360 and Kinect hardware bundle, that is due for release in April. It's the first hardware to be withheld from GAME following the very successful launch of PlayStation Vita last month.
The SKU was up for pre-order at £349.99.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/game-...console/092768 ...- Search DCEmu
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