You’d think that being $50 cheaper than a Wii now would boost Microsoft’s expectations and hopes for its system’s success sky high. Apparently not, as Microsoft’s Senior Vice President of Interactive Enterainment Business, Don Mattrick, told BusinessWeek:

“I’m not at a point where I can say we’re going to beat Nintendo,” Mattrick said, followed closely by a big BUT “We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony.”

Settling for second place? Might it just be a clever rouse to lower expectations and be pleasantly surprised if the system takes over Nintendo’s current lead? While it seems unlikely…who knows what kind of damage the $199 Xbox 360 Arcade unit will do when holiday shoppers this year can’t find themselves a Wii of their own.

Via BusinessWeek

[Image Credit: Horeracing.About.com]

written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: business, BusinessWeek, BUT, Don Mattrick, Enterainment, Interactive, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, place, point, President, Senior, Sky, systme, Vice

This week we take you back to 1984, where Hulk Hogan defeated Iron Sheik to become WWF Champ, Michael Jackson is burned during filming for a Pepsi commercial and McDonald’s made its 50 billionth hamburger. Oh yeah, it also was the year the Summer Olympics took place in good ole Los Angeles, California. What a better way to commemorate this years Summer Olympics than to show you how it was done.

Summer Games is a sports video game developed by Epyx and released by U.S. Gold based on sports featured in the Summer Olympic Games. Released in 1984 for the Commodore 64, it was also eventually ported to the Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari XL/XE and Sega Master System platforms. Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari ST versions were also created for inclusion in compilations. In 2004 it would be “re-released” on the C64 Direct-to-TV.

The game was presented as a virtual multi-sport carnival called the “Epyx Games” (there was no official IOC floppy disk. licensing in place) with up to 8 players each choosing a country to represent, and then taking turns competing in various events to try for a medal. On most versions, world records could be saved to the floppy disks.

written by Juan Perez \\ tags: Atari, California, Champ, EPYX, game, Hogan, Hulk, Iron, LOS ANGELES, McDonald, Michael Jackson, Old, Pepsi, place, School, Sheik, Summer Games, Summer Olympic, Summer Olympics, US, Week, WWF

The packshot for ‘Sacred 2: Fallen Angel’ was released today, so now you know what the box looks like when you are shopping for the game. Sacred 2 is basically a prequel to the original Sacred taking place 2,000 years before the first game’s events. With a new game engine, this game will be in beautiful 3D. The game is scheduled for release on the PC this September. If you aren’t into PC gaming, it will be coming to the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 two months later in November. Click on the images below to see larger views.

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: Angel, aren, Box, D. The, engine, Fallen, game, gaming, Packshot, place, prequel, release, Sacred, September, Sony, Today, Xbox

A recent post by the gents over at Kotaku throws out a rumor that the zombies who once haunted Dead Rising’s Colorado mall, where Frank West mowed them down and dressed up as Mega Man, might have migrated to Las Vegas for the sequel.

As anyone who has ventured to Sin City will know: that place is crowded! It should feel good to take down zombies with broken slot machine levers, put their faces inside roulette spinners, and slam them through the Wheel of Fortune for an immediate jackpot.

All this has yet to be confirmed, of course, and Las Vegas hasn’t been too privy on allowing their city to be recreated piece by piece, but a faux-Sin City would do, no?

Via Kotaku

written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: anyone, Colorado, Dead, Features, Frank West, Home, Kotaku, Las Vegas, machine, mall, man, piece, place, post, roulette, Rumor, sequel, Sin City, slot, Zombies

Bungie’s third Halo game has been regulated to second place in the Xbox 360 online space for a while now by a certain future-proof’ed Call of Duty, but it sure loves its fans.

In a move that Microsoft will likely see as a missed economic opportunity, the remake of the Chill Out map from the Halo 1 days, Cold Storage, will be available for FREE on July 7, according to Bungie.net.

Luke Smith also talks a bit about an interesting throwback wrench being thrown into Halo 3’s online game play on Bungie Day:

“Beginning on July 7, there will be a 48-hour long seven-player FFA playlist in Halo 3’s Matchmaking where you can turn the calendar back to 2001 and control l Rockets, Invis and Snipe.”

Via Bungie.net

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written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: Bungie, call, Chill, free, game, Halo, Hits, July, Live, Luke Smith, Online, place, Remake, space, while, Xbox

Tomorrow’s PS3 Update will include the addition of trophies.  This will basically be Sony’s version of Microsoft Achievements.  While I know many people are excited about this, I could honestly care less.  It’s a cheap marketing ploy just like the system Microsoft has in place.  If you think gamerscore and achievements mean a lot, you probably have an inflated gaming ego anyway.  It has been my opinion for a long time that achievements actually tend to ruin the fun in games, particularly online achievements.  Many gamers are inclined to change the way they play just to obtain these fake credentials.  The simple fact is that achievements and trophies are designed to get players to buy more games and play the games they have longer than they normally would.  Some developers are also inclined to include easily obtained achievements to sell a game that normally wouldn’t sell at all…

Via Gaming Today

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written by Will Snizek \\ tags: Achievements, addition, gaming, marketing, Microsoft, New, place, ploy, Sony, system, Trophy, update, version, video

This year’s Toronto Game Jam (ToJAM) took place between May 9 and May 11, 2008. During this time, 34 games were created by various developers and visual artists. All 34 games are now available for download on their website. This may not be a big deal for some gamers, but I find that it’s extremely important to support indie gaming whenever possible. With names like ‘Cheese is WAR’ and ‘MoonCheeseMoney’, how could you possibly go wrong?

Our personal favorite game from the event was ‘Seas Of Cheese’, despite the fact that it finished in 3rd place.

Check out their site and download some of the games!!!

ToJAM Website

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: AVAILABLE, Cheese, deal, download, game, gaming, Indie, Jam, May, place, ToJAM, Toronto, War, Website, year

Hot Dogs, 4th of July and ice cold lemonades… Summer is the best time of year to enjoy the great weather and live it up with your close friends and family. In America, the Olympics are our olde past time. We now have MLB, NFL, and the NBA as our main sport attractions. I feel the Summer Olympics bring us, the world, closer since we all send our best athletes for 3 weeks and compete as to who is the best from each country.

Above: The five mascots for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games include cartoon renditions of, from left, swallow, a panda, the Olympic flame, a Tibetan antelope and a fish, with each one the color of one of the Olympic rings.

Continue reading »

written by Juan Perez \\ tags: America, August, Beijing, Beijing 2008, China, close, Family, Home, hot, ice, July, MLB, NBA, NFL, Olympic, place, Ray, summer, Summer Olympics, time, weather, year

I’ve seen some unfortunate landings during my time in Liberty City but the above crash certainly outdoes the typical blunder.  When taking short cuts in Liberty City, you honestly never know what random event will take place.  Many people love the GTA series for the outlandish humor and violence, but I continue playing for the random sequences of events that you control.  Even when you think everything is going your way, something crazy will happen.  This is what the author of the video has to say about the events:

I just completed a mission and was driving back when I thought I would make a short cut. Turns out I couldn’t of picked the worst place to cut through.

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: blunder, Crash, event, everything, Grand theft auto, GTA, GTA-IV, humor, Landing, Liberty City, place, series, something, time, Unlucky, video, violence, way

I have no idea why anyone on the planet still uses Internet Explorer, but I guess there has to be some legitimate reason.  Anyway, I discovered this image today when I was sifting through stories on reddit:

If we install everything proposed by Internet Explorer…

The real question should be “Why would you install Internet Explorer in the first place?”

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: anyone, day, everything, Explorer, idea, image, Internet, place, PLANET, question, reason, reddit, Today