via gamespot

Last week was all about Sony as it launched its much-delayed PlayStation 3 in Australia. This week, Microsoft is attempting to take back some of the attention, confirming that the newly announced Xbox 360 Elite will indeed be coming down under in 2007.

Microsoft Home and Entertainment Division Regional Director for Australia and New Zealand David McLean said that the upgraded version of the 360 would be coming in "winter" this year, but declined to give more specific details. McLean also declined to disclose an Australian price.

"It's too early to announce price. We are really trying to gauge the market size for it, so when we launch we will launch with a limited number of units," he said.

McLean was happy, however, to unveil the latest sales figures for the Xbox 360 in Australia. The 360, which launched on March 23, 2006 (exactly one year earlier than the PS3), has now sold 157,000 units locally. More than 800,000 units of software have been sold, making for a software attach rate of just over five per console.

"In terms of the first year, we're delighted with the numbers and delighted with our share, and extremely delighted with our software attach because no one is competing with us there at the moment," McLean said. ...

Those of you entitled to a free copy of Casino Royale on Blu-ray will receive an email next week confirming that one will be heading your way, Sony told Eurogamer this afternoon, finally putting an end to confusion surrounding the giveaway.

"An email will go out at some point next week telling people if they have been successful or not with regards to registering on the [PlayStation] network for their copy of a Casino Royale Blu-ray disc," a spokesperson for Sony UK told us. "Depending on the release date in each particular country the disc will be sent out accordingly."

The offer promised that the first 500,000 people to register their PlayStation 3 on the PlayStation Network would receive a copy of James Bond film Casion Royale on Blu-ray. Something to show off the capabilities of the new format, you might say.

However, when we registered our consoles on the network we received no confirmation of such a disc making its way to us, nor could we find any advertising on the PlayStation site to suggest the offer was still going ahead.

Still, Sony seems to have cleared it all up, and recently announced you'd have to wait up to 45 days after the film is released in your territory before you can expect to receive your present.

However, that doesn't appear to have stopped people flocking to buy the console, as Sony revealed this afternoon that more than 600,000 units have been sold across Europe. An estimated 165,000 of these were sold in the UK alone, after having been on sale for just two days.

via eurogamer ...

High street retailer HMV has told Eurogamer this morning that the Xbox 360 Elite will probably launch in late summer in Europe.

"All we understand is that it's at some point perhaps around the late summer, but we don't know anything beyond that," a spokesperson for HMV told us.

"We're expecting the product to be sold in sooner rather than later, and obviously at that point we'll have a fuller idea of all their launch plans, precise timings, pricing and everything else from a retail point of view we're likely to know."

The comments support those made by Albert Penello, director of global platform marketing for Xbox, who expects the unit to ship outside of America in the late summer.

Microsoft told Eurogamer this morning that it was still waiting for confirmation on a European launch date, clearly awaiting word from the big cheeses in America.

If you've not caught up yet, Microsoft finally confirmed the existence of the black Xbox 360 Elite this morning, which will sport an HDMI port and 120GB hard drive.

It's launching in the US on 29th April for US$ 479, and will include HDMI, component and DS cables in the box, as well as black peripherals to suit your styling needs.

via eurogamer ...

Here's an interesting one. It appears that a newly-elected mayor is trying desperately to restore order to the "notorious inner-city barrio of Tepito," but rather than raiding gang hangouts and throwing 'em all in the slammer, the Mexican government is looking to reward them. In a presumably last ditch effort to curb gunfighting, officials are offering up computers ( reportedly worth $769) to gunslingers who give up a "high-caliber weapon such as a machine gun," while folks coughing up smaller artillery will be blessed with an Xbox console. Notably, the effort is already seeing minor "success," as some 17 guns were turned in on the program's launch day alone. Look, we know it's a hard choice between gaming and booze (and hair, for that matter), but we seriously doubt that turning citywide bullies into hackers and couch potatoes is the ideal solution here.

via engadget ...

via engadget

Never let it be said that a console war doesn't benefit the consumer -- for the goldmine of quotes, if nothing else. This latest one is from John Rodman, group product manager for the Xbox platform and Xbox Live, who was talking up the Xbox 360 in a New York Times article of all places. "We don't feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing," he said. "We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else." Oh snap! Finally the truth comes out. We were getting a bit tired of all those backhanded praises Sony and Microsoft have been showering on the Wii, since it's not the "competition." Seems like it's worth Rodman's time to pay it such a diss (not that we have anything against sub-14 year olds, but let's be honest here) and there's no doubt the Wii is more of a threat to Sony and Microsoft than they'll ever admit. ...

EA is planning to release a brand new The Lord of the Rings title in 2008, the publisher has revealed this afternoon.

And continuing to invest in the power of the Ring, the company's announced it's renewed its licensing agreement with both New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises which will result in "new, in-depth and compelling interactive adventures inspired by the books and movies of The Lord of the Rings."

Details on the brand new game mentioned "will be forthcoming", the publisher has said.

"The Lord of the Rings is an incredible canvas to create epic games," said Frank Gibeau, EA's executive vice president and general manager of North American publishing. "We look forward to our next project with New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises scheduled to ship in 2008."

via cvg ...

Yosuke Hayashi, director of Ninja Gaiden Sigma which is due out on PS3 later this year, has said that developers claiming that PS3 is hard to develop for is just an "excuse to the consumer".

"For us it's not a question of being easy to develop for, that's a relative term," Yosuke told gamepro.com.

"When we first got our hands on the hardware it took us a while to get back into the flow of working with Sony, because they way they do things is a little different," he explained.

"The developers that say it's too hard to develop for and complain about it are missing the point. It sounds like an excuse to the consumer to us.

"If you're going to do a project you have to do the best you can. It's like if you bought a CD and it sounded bad and the singer said it was because the studio and the engineer were no good. Ultimately it's up to that person to make sure they have the quality that's needed," he said.

Speaking proudly of Ninja Gaiden Sigma, he added: "Look at what were able to do and the quality we are able to achieve and that speaks for itself. I think people will be satisfied with what we were able to do. If we can do it then other people will be able to do it as well."

He makes a solid point. Have you seen the latest Sigma screens? The game looks stunning. More like this please, PS3 developers.

via cvg ...

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has informed CVG that sales of PS3 in Europe have topped the 600,000 unit figure, meaning a hefty portion of the million units for the European launch has already been snapped up.

In the UK, the console shifted 165,000 units in its first two days of sale, moving Sony's Phil Harrison to hail the launch of PS3 in the UK as the biggest product launch ever.

"We are already seeing across Europe out of stock situations where retailers re re-ordering. It was always our strategy to have a good supply. There's never been a launch of a console in Europe that's had a million pieces of hardware sold in or available", Harrison said in a Game Theory Podcast.

via cvg ...

Sony's Phil Harrison has hailed the launch of PS3 in the UK as the biggest product launch ever, in the wake of the revelation that the console shifted 165,000 units in its first two days of sale.

"In the UK 165,000 units were sold through to consumers in the first 48 hours, and that is over £100 million worth of business going through UK retail tills in PS3 hardware, software and peripherals", Harrison said in the Game Theory Podcast.

"This not only makes it the most successful games hardware launch, we think it is the most successful consumer launch of a product in the UK".

He added that Sony staffers have been scratching heads trying to think of a consumer product "that has achieved that level of consumer sales in such a short period of time", then going on to talk about sales and supply strategies.

"We are already seeing across Europe out of stock situations where retailers re re-ordering. It was always our strategy to have a good supply. There's never been a launch of a console in Europe that's had a million pieces of hardware sold in or available.

"We've kept some back in order to continue to supply the market. It's been a tremendous success and something that we are very pleased about."

via cvg ...