New Xbox 360 Chips coming this Fall

After months of waiting, Microsoft finally confirmed Xbox 360's will start being manufactured with the new smaller, cooler, and more efficient 65nm chip size beginning this fall.

The news here is that the core is not the only thing getting the 65nm makeover. The GPU (graphics processing unit) is also moving to the smaller 65nm form factor.

Will this mean the end of the Red Ring of Death once and for all?

I love my Xbox 360 and I believe it's the best gaming platform currently on the market as far as the gaming value you get for the money. However, if you're just now considering purchasing your own new Xbox 360 or Elite, I would have to advise you to wait for fall to buy it at this point.

Xbox 360 Laptop - Another Heckendorn UberMod

Ben Heckendorn has done it again. Our favorite modder has made a Xbox 360 Laptop, repleat with Xbox 360 logo and stylish black and green color scheme. The video below shows the 360 Laptop in all it's glory and takes a humorous stab at the PS3.

All I can say is if this thing were available for purchase I'd plunk down $500 right now. It is a thing of beauty.

Way to go Heck! Where do I order?

Will Apple supplant Sony, MS and Nintendo to become the dominant video game console maker in 2015?

With the well documented problems facing Sony in attempting to retain it's market dominance in the video game console space, I got to thinking about past trends in the gaming industry and where we might find ourselves in the not so distant future.

The console industry has always been very cyclical.

If you go back 30 years (has it really been that long?) to 1978, Atari was the dominant game console manufacturer, having replaced Pong as the console of choice for consumers with their Atari 2600. After two generations of hardware, they were defunct as a viable console maker and in 1983 the industry as a whole imploded as a result of willy nilly licensing and a string of monumentally bad titles. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial takes most of the blame for this, but in reality that title was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

In 1985 the industry was resuscitated when Nintendo hit it big with the Nintendo Entertainment System and soon "Nintendo" became as synonymous with Video games as "Coke" is for soda pop. At one point, one in three American homes owned a NES. For over a decade Nintendo ruled the console world through two generations of systems with some mostly light competition from Sega's Genesis.

Sony first entered the console market space in 1988 when they partnered with Nintendo to create a new NES that would feature both NES cartridge functionality and CD-ROM multimedia technology, but after a series of questionable moves by both companies well documented here, the hybird NES was dropped, Sony's now forgotten Play Station (space intentional) was never released and the two companies became eventual rivals instead of partners.

Steve Race, Sony Computer Entertainment Of America's (SCEA) then CEO, stated, "Since the deal with Nintendo didn't come to fruition we decided to put games on a back burner and wait for the next category. Generally, the gaming industry has a seven-year product life-cycle, so we bided our time until we could get in on the next cycle."

In 1994 Sony did release the first "Playstation" in Japan and by the end of 1995 Nintendo had fallen prey to changing market conditions, and some say to it's own hubris, in being usurped by relative newcomer Sony as the king of console gaming.

In 2001 Microsoft released the first Xbox and although Sony overwhelmingly dominated that generation of hardware sales with it's own Playstation 2 which came out a year earlier, Microsoft impressed many gamers and game developers with their hardware and commitment to quality games and the universally praised Xbox Live. Microsoft sold only a fraction of the consoles Sony did, but they made invaluable in-roads and had cemented a place in the console game industry.

Then in 2004 Microsoft dropped a bomb on their competitors when they announced the Xbox 360, catching both Sony and Nintendo completely off guard. With a planned November 2005 Launch in North America and worldwide by the end of December, Microsoft virtually assured themselves of at least a one year headstart on either of their competitors possible Next-Gen offerings.

Which brings us to the present. Despite some hardware issues, Microsoft has done an excellent job selling Xbox 360's around the world, except in Japan where it continues to stagnate. Worldwide, more than 10 Million 360's have been sold. Nintendo's Wii is currently selling out everywhere it is released, and our last Gen leader, Sony is struggling mightily to sell PS3's, which come with a pricetag a full $200 higher than the Xbox 360 Premium system.

So, if things actually remain on course for Microsoft and they parlay their success with the 360 into a true market dominator with an Xbox 720 in the next "Next Generation" due sometime around 2010-2011, who will enter the fray then to dethrone them? History says it will happen. So far NO console manufacturer has managed to dominate beyond two generations.

Apple has made it clear they have an interest in gaming with the recent release of games for the Ipod Video. Rumors have floated around for the better part of two years about a possible Apple Handheld gaming console, and now with their Apple TV hardware, they have entered the digital delivery space previously dominated by Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace.

Are these moves the portent to more grandiose Apple gaming plans down the road? In 2015 will we all be playing Apple Igame consoles? Is Sega a sleeping giant waiting for the right time to be awakened? Will someone else emerge from the ether and surprise us all? Or will Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft be the only players in this game for another 10 years?

Microsoft has big plans for Xbox 360 Successor

Microsoft has made no secret of the fact that they are already hard at work on the Xbox 720, or whatever they plan to call the successor to the Xbox 360. A filing to the U.S. Patent Office may reveal what Microsoft has planned for its next gaming platform and it describes a multi-component gaming system that incorporates both handheld devices and console devices by wired and wireless connections.

The patent’s abstract describes the system as a process "to take advantage of another gaming component's processing capabilities and memory capacity, each gaming component is capable of utilizing another gaming component to process gaming applications."

Hardware permitting, each gaming component would be capable of rendering audio and video information provided by another gaming component. Also, any single gaming component is capable of utilizing another gaming component as an adjunct processor to increase system speed. System memory may also be shared among the devices.

In english, if I'm on my Xbox handheld I could use the processing power of my Xbox 720 or PC to make video content, games, or other applications run faster through my handheld. Sounds intriguing.

The fear from early commenters around the net has been that this would cause console developers to have to program to the lowest common denominator as they do currently with PC's. However, if Microsoft does go this route, I would think it more likely that all console software would be made only assuming the power and system specs of the console it is designed for and that anything outside those parameters would be clearly designated as such. In other words, my version of Mass Effect 720 isn't going to look any better than yours just because I have the processor of a more powerful PC to leverage than you.

Of course this whole thing could just be smoke and mirrors intended to throw off the competition and get them chasing shadows or just an opportunity to sew up a possibly lucrative future idea.

Who knows? We'll keep our collective ear to the ground on this one.

Halo 3 Video Leaked

This video features a map based on Halo 2's Zanzibar map. You can tell by the generator in the middle of the map seen in other parts of the leaked video which are available with a little searching.

The shield bubble is looking mouth-wateringly sweet. I did notice quite a bit of texture draw-in when crossing the steel grate flooring, but otherwise the game is shaping up very nicely. Enjoy this video as you can bet it cost (or will cost) someone their job.

Wanna be the "EA Sports, it's in the Game" guy? Learn how here!

Andrew Anthony, the official voice of EA Sports' tagline, presents this short and very enthusiastic tutorial on how to properly say the line, "EA Sports, It's in the game!" Very funny!

The movie voice guy should do something like this next.

Girls Gamers: They exist and are growing

I've noticed over the past year while playing Gears of War and Ghost Recon 2 and even Counter-strike online, I've been meeting a lot more female gamers playing the games traditionally only thought to be enjoyed by guys. These ladies aren't just fodder for sexist comments either, some of them kick some serious jibooty.

Amber Dalton is a member of PMS Clan, a professional gaming clan comprised completely of women that had been competing for over 5 years. In an interview with Steven Wong of GameDaily, Amber shares her insights into competitive gaming, the role women have in gaming and the responsibility girl gamers have to attract more women to gaming.

It is very easy to maintain anonymity while gaming, but that is not the way Amber sees it. When asked how important it is for more female gamers to step out and become known, she had this to say:

(Amber) I say greatly. While some women want to be known as a "gamer" and not a "girl gamer," I do not agree. Until women are common representatives in gaming, we need to represent greater diversity in gaming. We owe it to other women to help blaze a path that will make it easier for future women in gaming to follow. Take pride in who you are, don’t hide it. The same can be said for people like Rafik "Lost Cauze" Bryant, one of the only top African American male gamers in the PC community. To me, he has a greater responsibility than his male counterparts in the fact he needs to provide a good example for minority pro gamers. He seems to take that responsibility very well, and I think he is a wonderful representative for all gamers.

It is a short interview, but it gives some insight into the minds of female gamers. With the numbers of female gamers growing each day, as men playing these games we need to recognize the value women can bring to our gaming experience in terms of skill and community.

Jack Thompson blames Bill Gates for VT Massacre

Jack Thompson wrote an open letter to Bill Gates yesterday, blaming him for the Virginia Tech Massacre. I don't find it necessary to debunk Mr. Thompson's "reasoning", I think his letter says plenty about his state of mind and motivation.

Below is a copy of Thompson’s letter to Mr. Gates.

April 18, 2007

Bill Gates

Microsoft

1 Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

Via Fax and e-mail

Dear Mr. Gates:

On Monday, April 16, at 3:10 pm, I was a guest, as I often have been in the past, on the Fox News Channel. News anchor Bill Hemmer asked me to profile the Virginia Tech rampage killer. I did so, noting that until that day the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike. I mentioned your company’s game by name. I explained that the rehearsal for such a massacre is key to being able to pull it off, as efficiently as Cho, whose name we didn’t even know at the time. Cho and Steinhaeuser were able to do what they did the first time because it was not the first time. This is why the military uses this same virtual reality simulation to train soldiers to want to kill and how to kill calmly, as the witnesses of Cho said he did.

Sure enough, last night I was doing a west coast radio interview when the host said to me, "Mr. Thompson, you are right. The Washington Post is reporting right now the following:
‘Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.’"

I thus went back on the Fox News Channel, and Bill Hemmer and I explained not only that I was right about your game figuring in the Virginia Tech massacre but also that the Washington Post excised the above excerpt from the story this morning. That is yet another story. The bad news for the Post however is that you can still get the excised excerpt at [hyperlink removed, Washington Post has since removed the article]. Thus, the cat is out of the bag, and his paw prints are still on the bag. Is this a great Internet, or what?

As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC’s Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo. NBC reported that three months later, and it was part of the criminal trial of Malvo.
Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill. You knew five years ago that your on-line game, Counterstrike, so clearly figured in the massacre by a student in Erfurt that the event and the game impacted the race for Chancellor in Germany at the time!

Yet, here you are, five years after "Erfurt," still marketing Counterstrike. having done nothing to disable the server(s) for this mass murder simulator, and it looks like "Virginia Tech" is a consequence. There’s more going on in the world than Vista. Just ask the bereaved Virginia Tech families.

Mr. Gates, pull the plug on Counterstrike today, or do we need more dead to convince you? "Virginia Tech" was the 9-11 of school shootings, and it appears Microsoft is in the middle of it, in more ways than one.

Regards, Jack Thompson

Howard Stern smarter than Jack Thompson and Dr. Phil?

With his family counseling show, Dr. Phil is the latest media darling to come from no where and invade our group conciousness. Jack Thompson is the attorney loved by Fox news and anti-gaming politicians everywhere for his ludicrous and boisterous attacks on our favorite past-time. Howard Stern is an over the top shock jock widely seen as a pariah by the mainstream media but loved by tens of millions of listeners that tune into his sirius radio show every day.

Now, if you had a serious subject to discuss such as the possible causes of the tragic Virginia Tech massacre, would you trust the judgment of the Attorney, the Family Therapist or the Shock Jock?

I'll take the Shock Jock, thank you very much!

Jack Thompson wrote an open letter to Microsoft founder Bill Gates this week calling for Microsoft to put an end to one of the most popular online video games on the planet, Counterstrike. He blamed the Virginia Tech massacre on Mr. Gates and Microsoft for not shutting down the servers for what Thompson calls a "killing simulator".

Unfortunately for Mr. Thompson, he doesn't understand the industry he would so dearly love to legislate well enough to even know that he wrote his sarcastically toned and poorly reasoned letter to the wrong person. Microsoft only published the Xbox version of Counter-strike back in 2003. Valve Software originally developed Counter-strike and Vivendi Universal handles the publication of the game on the PC, which is the only version that’s played on a large scale these days. So, even if he were right, which I STRONGLY disagree with, Thompson was wasting his ink on a letter to someone who had zero influence on the future of Counter-strike.

Monday night Dr. Phil made the following statement on Larry King Live on CNN about the connection between video games and the VT tragedy:

“The problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me - common sense tells you - that if these people are playing video games where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath, or someone suffering from mental illness, add in a dose of rage, the suggestability is just too high. And we’re going to have to start dealing with that. We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murderers of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.”

Enter the voice of reason, Howard Stern. Wait, Howard Stern as the voice of reason? I know I know, sounds ludicrous, but it's true.

On his sirius radio show this morning, Stern lambasted Dr. Phil for his comments and said, "he's a f***ing ***hole!"

Stern ridiculed the idea that video games could have caused the VT shootings, pointing out that plenty of the world’s greatest tragedies happened in environments devoid of video games, sarcastically suggesting that “Hitler played Donkey Kong” and “Osama Bin Laden played Grand Theft Auto.”

Stern went on to explain why he thinks so lowly of Dr. Phil saying, “You know the reason why Dr. Phil is an ***hole? Because whenever something like this happens he wants to play the blame game.”

Stern commented that he has either played or knows people who play video games “all day and all night” and do not act out violently. He pointed out that blame is always put on “the movies or something” and finished the conversation expressing the sentiment that most gamers have known all along:

“This is so stupid.”

Amen brother, amen!

*Complete transcript of Dr. Phil's appearance on CNN.

More PS3 Woes: Sony cutting jobs in struggling games division

Amid intense competition in the video game console market, Sony is planning a restructuring of its games division that will include job cuts in Europe and possibly in Japan and the U.S.

Sony used to welcome competition when it came from the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast. However, with financial behemoth Microsoft steadily growing their Xbox brand and a resurgent Nintendo printing money with their Wii, Sony is feeling the pressure from stagnant PS3 sales worldwide and the latest result is the elimination of 160 jobs, which translates to roughly 10% of their entire European workforce.

According to Forbes, a Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) spokeswoman said the job cuts in Europe are under negotiation with employees and she declined to confirm numbers.

“In order to maintain our healthy business operation, we need to make structural changes,” she said, adding that it is needed to better reflect the convergence of different forms of content.
She said the business model would be very different from that for the previous two generations of its PlayStation games console, she said.

The move follows the reorganization of the executive team at the game division last November which saw Kaz Hirai, former president and chief executive of the Sony’s American gaming unit, replace Ken Kutaragi, the father of the Playstation, as president of the international group. Kutaragi was named chief executive and chairman of the unit, allowing him to save face while essentially stripping him of any real decision making power in regards to the Playstation brand's future direction.

Anyone who thought Sony was going to repeat the success of the PS2 and walk all over Microsoft and Nintendo in this generation of console hardware was sadly mistaken. Sony has made one mistake after another so far with the PS3; from marketing blunders to supply chain issues and a lack of games for launch. At the same time, Microsoft and Nintendo have both capitalized by making great strides with their own gaming divisions. Nintendo has deep pockets thanks to it's overwhelming domination of the handheld market and Microsoft continues to work the three step plan they've touted ever since they entered the market with the original Xbox. Step one was get in the door even if it meant losing money. Step two was making a profit while increasing market share, which they've done with the Xbox 360. Step three is to dominate the market in the 3rd generation which will begin in or around 2010-2012.

So, what will Sony do now to spur sales of the PS3? A price cut is the obvious quick answer, but with the amount of money Sony has gambled trojan horsing Blu-Ray players in the PS3 they can hardly afford to cut the price and take on even larger losses. Unless of course they offered a PS3 model without Blu-Ray. They would have to restructure some game manufacturing processes to allow for such a move, but it is not impossible.

Sony’s chief executive, Howard Stringer, told reporters this week that it has sold close to 800,000 units of the machines in Europe since its release in March, but the company has yet to confirm whether it met its target for global sales of 6 million units by the end of the fiscal year in March. Stringer's silence is as good as an admission that they have not met that goal. Global sales figures seem to indicate they are no where NEAR 6 million units sold.

I wouldn't count out Sony or the PS3 as dead in the water...yet. But clearly, they need to make some major moves to convince gamers to buy into the PS3 and it's games in a big way before they dig a hole so big they can't climb out. With Bioshock, Mass Effect and Forza Motorsports 2 right around the bend, Microsoft isn't going to stop to let them catch up. Things will come to a head this holiday season when Halo 3 hits. Sony will have to have one of their BIG guns like Metal Gear Solid 4 loaded and ready to counter it or this could very well be the end of a long era of Sony console domination.