Shadowrun coming May 29th to Vista and Xbox 360

Halo 2 drops May 22nd and it will be quickly followed by Shadowrun hitting retail on the 29th. Shadowrun will retail for $60 for Xbox 360 and $50 for the Windows Vista version. Shadowrun will be the first game to pit 360 Console gamers against PC players. WASD vs Gamepad. I expect there to be some balancing issues initially, but in the end it will be a great evolution of the gaming space for everyone. Afterall, more available gamers to pwn is always a good thing, right?

In order to play against Xbox Live gamers, you will have to buy a Gold level Xbox Live membership, which is $50. Without Xbox Live Gold, you can still play Vista Shadowrun online, you just won't have matchmaking or the ability to play against 360 gamers.

So, which camp are you in, keyboard and mouse or gamepad?

Gamers raise over $14,000 to help classmate

Proving that video game players aren't the cold, robotic androids that most media reports like to portray them as, gamers in Kaukauna, Wisconsin held an event yesterday to raise money for a classmate who was struck by a drunk driver. (I live in Minnesota and would normally be required to make a joke right there, but this is not the time or place) The result? Over $14,000 raised.

All of the money raised will to go the hospitalized Tiffany Pohl as part of her recovery. Tony Bushner of the Kaukana Gamer's Club said, "It was successful to a degree that none of us even dreamed of, and we are all deeply touched by the community's involvement." Pretty impressive for an event that sold $1 raffle tickets for things like a Nintendo Wii and 50 cent tickets to play games like Guitar Hero, DDR, and Super Smash Bros.

You think this story will make the national news? Not when they would rather blame all the world's ills on games and gamers. We need more positive stories like this to come from the gaming community. Great job Kaukana!

3-D Screenshot of Call of Duty 4

Now that Infinity Ward has moved the Call of Duty franchise away from the stale WWII setting, apparently two dimensional screenshots are like, soo 2K6. So, they have released this admittedly pretty cool 3D screenshot of the game. It rotates and stuff, very high tech. Enjoy. I need to get outside more.

Xbox Live Spring Update tomorrow

You've been waiting and here it is...the Xbox Live Spring Update hits tomorrow morning at 5am PST. Did you know microsoft has it's own Messenger program? Well, now you do and it will be on your Xbox 360.

All kinds of other exciting things in the update, ok maybe not exactly exciting, but updates nonetheless. You can now tell your 360 to shut down when downloads are completed. You will be able to see what game is in your console without having to get off your duff to actually, you know, open the disc tray. Also is support for H.264 video and the ability to fast forward, rewind and chapter skip while downloading marketplace content. WHOOPDEEDOO!

NPD online gaming report shows Solitaire still dominates WOW and Xbox Live is King!

The NPD Group has released Online Gaming 2007: The Virtual Landscape, which is a marketing report containing statistics pertinent to the growing field of online gaming. It is a statistical breakdown of who's playing what online when and on what devices. The information contained in the report is of vital importance to game, console and PC developers who will use the information for formulating future strategies for maximizing revenues.

For gamers it is interesting to see exactly what types of games are the most popular online and it might reveal some interesting future online gaming trends.

Their research indicates that 62% of all gamers play online games. You may have expected MMO's like World of Warcraft to be the number one genre of online game, but the fact is MMO's are not even second. The top dog of internet games is still casual card, puzzle, arcade, and word games, which represented 44% of the online games available across all platforms. Meanwhile, family oriented games made up 25% of the share while MMO games of all types held only 19%.

According to the NPD's research, 42% of all online gamers are female, which may account for the high popularity of casual games genres. In addition, the report also reveals that the majority of online gamers fall within the bracket of middle income ($35,000~$75,000) households.

In terms of the most popular gaming consoles, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has solitary control over the top spot, with the highest percentage of actual online use at 54%. However, owners of the Nintendo Wii may be the most internet savvy, as 76% of Wii owners surveyed are connected to the internet. The percentage of connectivity for the other two next-gen consoles hovers at around 70%.

While Nintendo Wii owners may have the highest percentage of internet connections, they aren't spending most of their time online with their Wii's. According to NPD's data, Xbox 360 users spend the most amount of time online, with an average of approximately 7.1 hours per week. The PS3 came in second at 6.1 hours a week, while PC/Mac users spent about 5.8. All other connected consoles amounted to less than four hours a week of online playing time.

If you think about it, none of this seems very surprising to me except maybe the amount of Wii owners with an internet connection. Otherwise, I would always expect casual games to dominate the online PC gaming space. People have a lot more opportunities for playing those types of games during the work week than they do to sit down and waste 4 or 5 hours playing WOW. Xbox Live is the best console online gaming platform available so it dominates the Console online space.

Skate video interview

To follow up the Skate story below, here is a video interview showing some of the beautiful graphics of the game. Now you can see why I've been so excited about this game.

EA shows off "Flick it" controls in Skate

EA's Skate has been one of my games to watch for the past several months. It looks great visually and now seems to be taking the final steps to dethroning Tony Hawk as the top skating game with the introduction of it's new "flick it" control scheme.

Using the right analog stick to pull off moves looks very intuitive. Watch the video and you be the judge. Is there a new skateboarding king coming to town?

First Person Shooter opens in San Francisco

Last night in San Francisco, Aaron Loeb, who works at Planet Moon Studios (Armed and Dangerous and Infected) premiered his play First Person Shooter at the San Francisco Playhouse. The guys over at GayGamer.net attended a preview friday night and have a review up on their site. The story follows a successful fictional company known for making violent video games. Things go wrong at the company when they are blamed for a schoolyard shooting and the young CEO of the company has to deal with the lawsuit which follows and the parents of the victims.

The SF Playhouse says, "Aaron [Loeb], who now develops videogames, worked as a journalist covering the world of videogames at the time of Littleton, Colorado shootings and 'wanted to write a play about the people caught in the echo chamber of the debate. What must it be like for the people actually accused of making a game that turns kids into killers? What about the parents of the victims? Their children are dead and the news is jam packed with talk of something so trivial as videogames!'"

The play premieres to the public tonight and runs until June 9 at the San Francisco Playhouse. Ticket information is available at the playhouse's website. If you live in the San Francisco area go check it out and let me know what you think. Hopefully after the play's run they'll make a three camera video of it. Sure, it kinda defeats the purpose of seeing it live, but not everyone that wants to see it can make it out to San Fran and it sounds like a good play.

Source: Joystiq

World of Warcraft Credit Card...priceless!

A new form of e-currency is almost upon us with the announcement from Blizzard that they are offering World of Warcraft themed Visa cards that turn your real world spending into WOW virtual world game time. The card will take 1% of what you charge and turn it into minutes that you can use to visit Azeroth. So, if you want to rack up a lot of time, hand this to your mom/wife/sister when she makes her next mall run.

This comes on the heels of The Sims credit card, which will likely be something similar. MAKE magazine predicted something of this ilk a year ago, and it looks like they were on the money. Now if they can turn our real world purchases into WOW money you can get that uber cool sword that costs a bajillion WOW dollars. Have fun storming the castle!

Xbox Live... Where is everyone?

Recent visits online to Xbox Live have revealed a disturbing problem, there hardly seems to be anyone playing online. Is it just me or are there no people online? Is it part of the matchmaking that I don't see other opponents? Or are people just waiting for the spring dashboard update? Or is the dashboard update being implemented and clogging up the works?

I tried several games, Gears of War, Ghost Recon 2, MLB2K7 and DOA3 online and the result was the same across all of these games...where there are normally dozens and dozens of games to join, there were only two or three to join this weekend. Clearly something is amiss.

I have emailed Epic and Microsoft for an explanation. When and if I get a reply, I'll let you know.

Until then, anyone want to meet me for a game of Baseball?