News from Play Asia of this weeks HD-DVD Film Releases:

Land of The Dead (~Simon Baker, Asia Argento, ...) HK US$ 27.90
The Bourne Identity (~Matt Damon, Franka Potente, ...) HK US$ 31.90
The Bourne Supremacy (~Matt Damon, Franka Potente, ...) HK US$ 31.90
The Prestige JPN US$ 46.90 ...

News from Play Asia

Welcome to this week's Movie/Music news roundup, containing all new Japanese and Hong Kong Video and Music releases from this week listed at Play-Asia.com. Around 70 new items are covered in this week, including new J-Pop, Anime as well as Japanese, Hong Kong and Western movie releases and much more.

Here's a summary of all new releases that were published between Saturday, December 29th and Friday, January 4th. If some specific item that you are looking for is missing, please don't hesitate to contact our customer service with your request.


J-Pop Music releases (18)
ENKA Music releases (3)
Anime Soundtracks & Drama CDs (4)
Video Game Soundtracks (1)
Hong Kong Version Music releases (9)
Blu-ray Disc Movies (8)
HD DVD Movies (4)
Hong Kong Version Movie releases (10)
Japanese Movies (1)
Non-Japanese Movies / Japanese Version (12)
Anime DVD releases (6)
J-Pop DVD releases (7) ...

Still not convinced Burnout Paradise was "THE best demo released" last year? Criterion has rubbed some grease on frontman Alex Ward's heaping helping of self-praise by doubling the maximum number of online players (from 4 to 8) and adding 13 new Freeburn Challenges. So does this mean that Burnout is now the best demo of 2008? Quick! Somebody give these guys an award!

(Note: The multiplayer boost will take effect on servers between today and Jan. 14th. The demo is available on PSN and Xbox Live.)

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/04/bu...ew-challenges/ ...

Microsoft has announced that over 17.7 million Xbox 360 units have been sold worldwide since launch.

And updated sales figures for last year's Halo 3 reveal the game has shifted more than 8.1 million copies since launch on September 25.

The BioWare developed RPG Mass Effect has also seen impressive sales, with a total of 1.6 million units sold in just six weeks of release.

"Microsoft is proud of the contributions Xbox 360 is making to the gaming industry, and looks forward to an even more successful 2008," said the company in a statement.

Sales of the Xbox 360 are outpacing the original Xbox, with 17.7 million units sold in just over two years on the market, compared to the original Xbox which sold over 24 million units between November 2001 and May 2006.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31842 ...

Looks like Microsoft is going to do the right thing: as anticipated, Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten states in a letter to customers that, as recompense for nearly two weeks of outages, the group is offering up a full, free Xbox Live Arcade title free of charge. Sounds like it won't be until the next couple of weeks before the offer is active, but it will indeed apply to "all" Xbox Live members, and assuming it's for games worth more than 200 Microsoft points, it will be net positive for Gold users who lost about $1.64 worth of Live service over the last twelve days. Well done Microsoft, we think most will consider the stinging pain eased.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/04/m...-arcade-title/ ...

The obvious answer as to why Xbox Live has been up and down (but mostly down) over the last couple of weeks is, of course, that the service has undergone a massive distributed denial of service attack. (Feel free to blame the illusory Sony / Nintendo fanboys, if you must.) Naturally, we're already starting to see some of those rumors catch hold, in no small part due to the fact that while GM of Xbox Live Marc Whitten did offer a free game for peoples' trouble in his public memo a few hours ago, he didn't speak to the cause of the outages. We did, however, get some conclusive inside information from a trusted source, and confidently relay to curious Live users that the issues were not at all related to a malicious attack. Yeah, we know, it tones down the drama quite a bit (and actually makes the Xbox team look a little worse than if they were attacked), but the speculation that the service was out due to a two week long internet assault? The stuff of myth.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/04/d...o-ddos-attack/ ...

i so want one of these



With all the Wiimote couplings currently making the rounds, we're bound to see a few lightsabers out there. Of course, this is where Camy's Pro Gear Wii Light Swords come into play. The colored plastic Wiimote holders are available in three "ultra bright" colors -- including the red "Dark Knight," which we're almost positive is a copyright infringement. Nevertheless, the swords will cradle your Wiimote lovingly, with ample room for the IR signal to make its way to your console. Should you desire, you can flip a switch and light up the night sky with your fear-inducing -- yet rather stubby -- laser blade. Sure, we've seen similar, but these come in green. The swords are slated for a May / June release, no word on price.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/04/c...gs-up-a-notch/ ...

Hi all today i got my hands on the JXD301 a games console/Media player thats buzzing in the homebrew scene at the moment. Heres my review of the JXD301.

Foreword

I am not an expert on anything even though i webmaster one of the biggest homebrew sites, i am infact a fan just like most others and more of a noobie than an expert, if i dont know i ask, so from me youll get a review in a way that as long as it works then im happy, i am no expert so you wont get a massively technical explanation youll get a straight yes or no.

What is the JXD301 ?

Heres the description:


Heres Some Photos of the JXD301

The Box



Inside the Box



All the accessories



The Jxd301



Sideview



Ordering and Delivery

I ordered my JXD301 from USA retailer GP2XStore.com (who sell a lot more than just GP2X). The order was dealt with within the hour and was shipped the same day which was very impressive, nothing worse than ordering and waiting weeks for the console. Shipping and the console were at a good price too, even more so with the weak dollar .

My parcel was delivered by EMS and i had no Customs Charges something which pleases me no end and even though it was the festive season it arrived within 4 days, yet another plus.

Opening the Packaging

The console comes in a box which tells you what it does etc but no mention of emulators most likely to avoid customs etc. The console itself is a similiar size to a GBA Micro although thinner. In the box was a soft case for the console, Headphones, USB Lead, USB Adapter, Driver Disc, Manual and Worldwide Compatible Power Lead (you just need a shaver plug in the UK).

The Review Itself

Turning on the JXD301 reveals what must be the best GUI on any handheld system ive ever played, its so user friendly and easy to use, plenty of options to change, bright and cheery. A major thumbs up so far.

Connecting the system to my laptop via USB cable was an horrid experiance it just wouldnt work at all, i then went to my PC and it connected straight away, godknows why this happened, but i wasnt happy with it.

I then tried some roms and movies on the console and to my surprise the movies played quite well infact i enjoyed watching heroes on the jxd301 so much that ive got 6 episodes on now

On the rom side of things GBA Emulation was a waste of time, sure it booted up but was as slow as hell.

Nes emulation was much better infact quite decent.

Snes emulation was amazing with sound on its crap but the speed was very very nice. I did find the controls a tad strange without L and R buttons.

GB/GBC emulation seemed to be crappy, whatever emulator they ported over didnt work well at all, low compatability and no sound.

Megadrive emulation was also nice enough but sound is rubbish luckily the games play reasoably well.

NeoGeo emulation is also a plus for the console, roms need to be with a .neo extension

The Ebook reader also seemed pretty decent and because i love my harry potter ebooks its great to read when i feel like it

Battery time for me lasted about 4 hours ive heard its supposed to be a lot more but thats what i got out of the system.

Conclusion

The JXD301 is a nice console/media player for the price, it has a nice built in battery and 2GB hard drive and the build quality and display on the screen are very good. The GUI is simply the nicest on any console in my opinion, For movies your going to have to try and see what works best for you in terms of encoded quality, the tv shows i tried ran decent although an adult film i tried was a fraction slow but in some ways that was a benefit

On the emulation side of things Snes and Nes with Neogeo trailing were passable but not awesome. GBA was a waste of space and GB/GBC and Megadrive need a lot of work.

But for the price and with some excellent coders already working on the console this could be the budget emulation console of the year. The lack of buttons even though its a fairly powerful machine ...

Mathieulh has let slip some more news on the status on custom firmware 3.80 M33

Heres the translated info:


So for any non french people it means that 3.80 M33 firmware is already up and running and they are just ironing out bugs

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