Modchips are evil and are the main reason that the game developers are making less money than they should. This is the number one argument against modchips brought forth by a phalanx of game developers, Industry lobbyists and government officials. The question remains if this holds true or if there are other motives behind using modchips on video game systems.
50 million for exclusive GTA4 content
The news has been out for some days that Microsoft secured the exclusive rights to provide additional content for the upcoming blockbuster Grand Theft Auto 4 paying a total of $50 million for that content alone. The two episodic content packages which haven been bought for $25 million dollar each will both be released in 2008 exclusively for the Xbox 360.
I personally think that this is a huge sum that Microsoft paid for these exclusive rights. I’m wondering how much it would have cost Microsoft to purchase the whole company instead and add it to their gaming empire. There are no information available about the contents of those episodic content packages but I suppose that it will probably have at least the size of a decent add-on.
So, who is winning the HD war ?
I’m not that interested in the HD format war because I do not have a television that is HD Ready and do not plan to buy one in the near future. Maybe that is one of the reasons why I feel a little bit lost about the success or failure of HD-DVD and Blue-Ray players and movies.
I thought that I’m going to discuss it with each of you. What are your thoughts about both formats ? Do you think that Blue-Ray is in the lead, maybe because of the boost after the release of the Playstation 3 by Sony ? Or is it the HD-DVD format that you think will win this war.
Is Microsoft banning modified Xbox 360 consoles from Live ?
The first news about Microsoft possibly banning modified Xbox 360 consoles from the Xbox Live service started to emerge yesterday in some known Xbox 360 forums. It is possible to modify the firmware of the Xbox 360 drive to be able to play backups which of course includes pirated games. There has been no official confirmation from Microsoft about this issue but the frequency of the posts can only lead to the conclusion that Microsoft is actually banning Xbox 360 systems with modded firmwares.
Replaced Xbox 360 Troubles
Every now and then a shiny Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming system will stop working and has to be send in for repair and eventual replacement. Replacing the old Xbox 360 with a new one sounds great on first glance but you have to consider something before you make up your mind on this. If you did download arcade games and other stuff from the Xbox 360 Marketplace you are in for a nasty surprise.
Wii outselling PS3 in Japan Three to One
Media Create published up to date figures for hardware sales in Japan and the figures demonstrate a astounding success for the Nintendo Wii in Japan. Nintendo sold 1.041.975 Wii systems this year while Sony managed to sell 353.823 Playstation 3 gaming systems. Not to forget Microsoft with 79.013 in this year with their Xbox 360. It should be noted that Sony is loosing money with every system produced and sold while Nintendo gains money.
Play Divx Movies on your Xbox 360
One of the flaws of the Xbox 360 is the inablity to playback divx movies on it. Microsoft might have left it out intenionally to push their own wmv format or avoid that the Xbox 360 would be used as the universal media center like the orginal Xbox with the (unofficial) Xbox media center was able to do.
