Staff columnist Brier Dudley published an editorial earlier this week in which he speculates the announcements Bill Gates could make in his last CES keynote as chairman of Microsoft.
Dudley said the following regarding the Xbox: Saving the best for last, Gates could end his CES run with a bang by making a blockbuster Xbox announcement.
I've speculated on my blog that Microsoft may be preparing to license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer-electronics companies.
In particular, Microsoft could work with Toshiba to develop a digital video recorder with a hard-drive, high-definition HD-DVD drive and Xbox gaming capabilities. They're already allied against Sony and other backers of the Blu-ray DVD format, and Toshiba could help Xbox finally penetrate the Japanese market.
Microsoft could also make a splash by announcing plans to give the Xbox 360 an internal HD-DVD drive, putting it on par with Sony's PlayStation 3 that has a built-in Blu-ray drive.
I’ve been saying Xbox Live is chock full of weirdos, but this one takes the cake so far. In Saratoga Springs, New York, 20-year old Joshua Stetar met a 15-year old girl, who was living in Spokane, Washington, through playing Halo online over a year ago.
He apparently found her address online and began sending packages and flowers to her home, all of which her parents returned.
He also sent several hundred text messages to her cell phone, which forced her parents to change her number. But he managed to find her new number by “Googling” her and then drove 40 hours straight to her neighborhood. At around 9 pm on Friday, he sent a text message saying that he was driving by her house; her parents in fact saw his car pass by. Then at 9:36, he sent a message reading, “Tell the cops that I’m gonna rape you and your sister.” The girl’s parents called the police, who found Stetar at a nearby motel. After interrogating him, police learned that he had actually visited Spokane earlier and drove by the girl’s house in a rented U-Haul truck, which the girl’s parents were unaware of. He also had apparently been sending numerous text messages to the girl’s cousin, who lives in Billings, Montana, over the summer, until the police called him and told him to stop. He was booked in the Spokane County Jail on one count of felony stalking, but was released on Saturday on bond.
Wow, what a creepy, creepy guy. Let this be a lesson to you kids: Xbox Live is full of freaks and weirdos, so don’t give them your real name or anything. Man, it’s like the new MySpace or something.
We all knew it was just a matter of time, but now we have video evidence. The Wii has been totally haxored! That's right, just check out the video below and take a look at what these guys have accomplished.
In all honestly, about half of what they say is Greek to me, but I'm impressed with the final result nonetheless.
I did catch that they managed to load Linux onto it. All I can say is, "of course they did."
Xbox Live is still borked (we're going on a week now) and It's getting to the point where we expect and accept the service to act unreliably wonky.
But not everyone is willing to be so understanding, as a general cry of dissatisfaction is erupting all across the internets and some are demanding compensation.
Over on the Xbox.com forums, members started a thread about the Xbox Live downtime and are going as far to demand some sort of compensation for the week long disturbance. Compensation either in the form of free Xbox Live, Microsoft points or games. But, as with any civil movement that gains ground, Xbox.com moderators were quick to lock the thread and any others that bring up the subject of compensation (what ever happened to freedom of Xbox Live speech?) So far we've been able to remain level headed and patient about the whole thing, but if our Xbox Live isn't back on its feet soon we just might jump on the compensation bandwagon. We're getting our picket signs ready and have mapped a route to the Xbox Live offices. No payment without service ... or something like that.
On 360-Hq.Com we do our best to provide you with the latest information, screenshots, trailers and achievements no matter which country/region you are from.
This time we have a full list of upcoming titles for release on the xbox 360 for our Australian members and readers.. Check it out below!
Aussie members, here is the release schedule for the next few months on Xbox 360.
Baffled by multiple tactics games? Bemused by the Final Fantasy universe? This could be the place to begin.
The clue is in the title: Final Fantasy Tactics A2 picks up where Final Fantasy Tactics Advance left off, instead of taking the series’ forebear, Final Fantasy Tactics, as its starting point.
For the benefit of anybody unfamiliar with pre-PSP Ivalice, that means a wider selection of playable races, a more involved and engaging career progression and skill structure, a more interesting quest system, a customizable world map, and the return of judges, who lay down the law on the battlefield with an impervious steely will. It also begins as the GBA game began: with the youthful protagonist (in this case a young boy called Luso) discovering a grimoire that transports him to the world of Ivalice.
The difference is that, this time around, Ivalice contains even more jobs, playable races and quest types, and crisper, more assured visuals – although three games in, navigation of the battle map can still cause problems when things get a bit congested.
Gaming theologians will no doubt question whether the game takes place in the ‘real’ Ivalice of the original Tactics and FFXII, or the ‘imagined’ world of Tactics Advance. The answer is probably beyond mortal comprehension, though Vaan and Penelo (last seen in Revenant Wings) do put in an appearance.
Apart from that, it’s business as usual – which, as anyone who lost hundreds of hours to the GBA original can attest, is excellent news. For anybody who didn’t have that pleasure, The Sealed Grimoire looks like a perfect starting point.
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Saving the best for last, Gates could end his CES run with a bang by making a blockbuster Xbox announcement.
For the benefit of anybody unfamiliar with pre-PSP Ivalice, that means a wider selection of playable races, a more involved and engaging career progression and skill structure, a more interesting quest system, a customizable world map, and the return of judges, who lay down the law on the battlefield with an impervious steely will. It also begins as the GBA game began: with the youthful protagonist (in this case a young boy called Luso) discovering a grimoire that transports him to the world of Ivalice.
