Xbox 360 now the same price as Wii in Australia

Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox 360 is to receive a price cut down under in Australia, which now means the Xbox 360 core system is now at the same price as the Wii. And there is some futher good news to be had for Australian gamers as new Premium units will be shipping with a HDMI port.

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Xbox regional director for Australia and New Zealand David McLean says reduced manufacturing costs was the key reason for dropping the Xbox 360's price. McLean says the price drop positions the 360's Pro system favourably against the A$1000 PlayStation 3 in Australia, while the A$399 price point for the Core allows the 360 to compete in the casual market the Wii has cornered.

McLean also confirmed that 360 Pro units with HDMI slots would soon be making their way to Australia, although he declined to give a specific timeframe. "We'll start to see the same thing in Australia. We're just reviewing our inventory position and when that will start to flow into the market. No specific details to give you on it, but what's happening in other regions in the world will certainly happen in Australia," he said.

News Source: Gamespot.com

New Wii system update released

A new Wii system updated has rolled out but it appears to be nothing to get overly excited about. This update prevents your Wii from 'locking up' which can happen when using the Internet Channel should you press reset and it also corrects some internet connection stablity issues when utilizing the LAN adapter.

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There's a new Wii system update released but it doesn't seem to be half as interesting as the last one was. This one appears to prevent your Wii console from locking up, which can occur when using the Internet Channel if you press reset on either your Wii console or within the Home Menu and it also corrects some Internet connection stability issues when using the Wii LAN Adapter from Nintendo. It's nice to see Nintendo are still hard at work fixing some of their mistakes.

News Source: Vooks.net

Halo 3 looking to surpase Spiderman 3's $151 million opening weekend record

According to Variety, Microsoft wants to reach $155 million worth of Halo 3 sales on launch day, toppling the $151 million achieved by Spiderman 3 during its opening weekend, which happens to be the current record holder for a movie at the box office.

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The summer of threequels is winding down, but there's still one more juggernaut third installment everyone will have their eyes on this year. Just don't look for it in theaters.

The videogame "Halo 3" hits store shelves Sept. 25, and Microsoft is positioning it to be the most successful debut of any entertainment property ever with an extensive multiplatform advertising blitz geared to generate debut grosses topping even the biggest of summer tentpole pics.

In its first 24 hours of release in 2004, the second installment of the sci-fi shooter earned $125 million. That number forced many nongamers to take the vidgame biz seriously for the first time.

With "Halo 3," Microsoft's Xbox unit wants not only to top the 2004 figure but to reach $155 million in a single day -- besting the $151 million opening weekend for "Spider-Man 3," the current record holder for a pic at the box office.

Officially, of course, the software giant is hedging its bets.

News Source: Variety.com

Home abusers can be turned off and banned, warns Sony

The director of Sony's Home platform has revealed that users who are found to be constantly abusing the upcoming Home service face the possibility of their machine being banned and being disabled from being able to go online.

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In an admittedly radical but possible step, Edward noted that a serious abuser would "have to move house and buy a new PS3 before they could get online again."

Edward was discussing supervising the Home environment, although Sony doesn't intend to become a "virtual police" force. Instead, it will be providing different areas within Home depending on the age of the user, helping to apply appropriate non-game branding for products such as cigarettes and alcohol.

"Ultimately we know a users details, we know machine details and we know where they live," said Edward

News Source: Gamesindustry.biz

Microsoft confirm 360 MMO's allowed to require a hard drive

Microsoft has confirmed that its studios are working on server based titles for the Xbox 360 which are allowed to request the use of a hard drive in order to run. This comes as something of a surprise, as an executive commented some weeks back that they would never take such a move.

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In an unsurprising move (and already a precedent set by Final Fantasy XI, but ignored since), Microsoft confirmed at its Gamefest 2007 that studios working on server-based titles for Xbox 360 are allowed to require the hard drive for their games to run. Games allowed to participate in server-based's "bent rules" is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Microsoft will be asking developers to come up with a set amount of hard drive space to set aside for each game. For example, if World of Warcraft came to Xbox 360, Blizzard would have to tell Microsoft "the game's going to need 4GB of space," even if the game won't necessary install 4GB of content at the start.

"We can't guess how much space you're going to need for your updates, and, if anything's going to keep you from expanding indefinitely, it won't be us, as much as market forces," said Ian Lewis, software design engineer at Microsoft. "Feel free to require 30GB for your game; that's just going to make your potential audience a lot smaller."

News Source: 1UP

Sony brag about successful PS3 stress test - it just kept on going and going

David Karraker of Sony has blogged up the success of a PS3 stress test in which fans failed to break the PS3 throug means such as freezing the console and putting it in a sauna at 120 degrees for up to 64 hours while running games on it. Karraker smugly remarks that just like an Energizer Bunny, the PS3 just keeps going, and going and going.

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A lot of noise has been made recently about the reliability issues of one of our competitor’s systems. So, not surprisingly, some of our more ambitious PlayStation faithfuls decided to run their own stress test on the PlayStation 3. They put it in a freezer at zero degrees for up to 108 hours and they put it in a sauna at 120 degrees for up to 64 hours — all the while running games and Blu-ray Disc movies on it. Did it fail? Nope. Like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going. Probably not something you want to try at home, but our thanks to the guys at PS3 Vault for putting our system through the ringer. Check out their full report.

News Source: Playstation.com

Nintendo: Games should feel just like... Games!

Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto has called out that games don't have to be difficult and vastly complete in order to provide a good time. Essentially, Miyamoto is calling for publishers to release a greater propensity of games which actually feel like games. Miyamoto drawed on Super Mario Galaxy to demonstrate that the title is fun for all types of gamers and entails in fun right from the word go.

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Miyamoto said that Nintendo has created a game in Super Mario Galaxy that is accessible for vets and casuals and is fun right off the bat. Miyamoto said he and the development team have worked on making the camera as automatic as possible and to make the Wii controls intuitive.

He said, “We need to release more games which feel like games. It is important that people who are playing them feel that the games are indeed fun to play… Now there is this concept I always focus on, which is you have to feel the fun of a game by only trying it, and that concerns Super Mario Galaxy, of course. Should it be fun by only playing it a short time, this indicates already it has a big value as a product… It is very important that the full fun of the game is being felt in the first stage 1-1.”

News Source: Next-Gen.biz