The Game Druid

Most of yawl have already played this :

Guitar Hero III - XBOX 360

Could it be? An Xbox 360 price drop on July 6? According to this image, the Xbox 360 Pro will drop to $299.99, at least at K-Mart. The little image circulating shows the “Xbox 360 20GB console” with a $299.99 price, but no word on pricing on the Arcade and Elite versions of the console. We had a feeling price cuts would be coming at E3, but it’s entirely possible Microsoft waned to get pricing out of the way before the gaming conference to concentrate on other goodness.

the Xbox 360 DRM License Transfer Tool is finally live. This is a big deal to folks that have suffered through the Red Ring of Death and have not hand their purchased content transferred to their newer box.

It is an online web tool that can transfer the licenses of content that you purchased on another Xbox 360 to a newer one. It should be just the thing if you get a post RRODed box or an upgrade. Until now having your Xbox 360 die on you and then not getting your purchased content to work on the Xbox that you got back has been salt in an already painful wound. This tool is probably the most important peice of software for the Xbox 360 this year.

Analyst Jesse Divnich, in a note to investors following the release of NPD sales data for May, has stated his belief that Microsoft will cut the price of the Xbox 360 in the US at E3 this year.

“With E3 around the corner, we can expect Microsoft to make some type of announcement regarding a hardware price cut, the introductory of a new hardware SKU with new features, or both,” he said.

And he added that if a price cut did happen he would expect Sony to follow suit within a two-month window.

Additionally Divnich expects the PlayStation 3 to continue to outpace the Xbox 360 in terms of sales, as in May, thanks to the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 - a much-anticipated exclusive to the Sony platform.

Meanwhile he notes that Nintendo seems to be doing a better job of meeting demand for the Wii console in the US, with the decline in gray market prices from a 40 per cent mark-up to 10 per cent - although supply for Wii Fit continues to be a problem, with gray market prices for that title averaging around a 62 per cent mark-up.

Is Microsoft going to copy Nintendo’s Mii idea?

Moreover: Did a whole flood of information about the Xbox 360’s lineup of announcements for E3 just flood out onto the Internets?

Some sleuths at NeoGAF have dug up a marketing presentation that purports to spill the details on all manner of different major announcements, from Xbox 360 “Avatars” (right) to new details on Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero World Tour.

And there could even be a video of Silicon Knights’ game for Sega, if all this is true. Oh, it’s just a maelstrom of intriguing tidbits today. Below, I’ll run down the major maybe-megatons. Just take them all with a grain of salt.

* Microsoft will roll out “Avatars”, customizable characters that you create and who represent you when you’re online with Xbox Live.
* The next Tony Hawk game comes with a motion-sensitive stand-on skateboard controller that sounds a lot like the Wii Fit board.
* The big innovation for Guitar Hero World Tour’s guitar controller is a touch-sensitive fretboard that lets you slide up and down for analog solos during songs.
* Forza 3 for Xbox 360 is so gigantic — over 100 cars — that it will be sold as a two-disc game.
* There’s a video for a game called Crucible, which some are speculating is Silicon Knights’ game for Sega, which is rumored to be titled The Crucible: The Evil Within.
* Spider-Man vs. Marvel Zombies is headed to 360, PS3, and Wii.
* The next Call of Duty game is subtitled World at War, has no number attached.
* Disney is bringing out a 360, PS3, and Wii game called Ultimate Band, which will be compatible with Rock Band instruments or played with normal controllers and Wiimote motion sensing. There’s video of this, too.

Goodness! That’s a lot. It’s so much, and so intricately documented with cover artwork and videos, that it really does seem as if a major leak has just occurred. It’ll be interesting to see how the publishers respond.

Ok, so I know the Xbox 360’s been out for over 3 years now…and not like this is a very informative article…but I still get asked the golden question “why should I buy the Xbox 360?”

Well its not so much so as a golden question, but a question nonetheless. With the risk of repeating myself over and over again..i’ll move on now.

So before jumping into why you need to buy a 360, you need to know what are the types of Xbox consoles out there:

The three types are:

Xbox 360 Arcade, Xbox 360 core and Xbox 360 elite. Each of them come with their differences.

Here’s a comparison:

ontents	Xbox 360 Arcade	Xbox 360	Xbox 360 Elite
Xbox 360 Console			BLACK
Wireless Controller			BLACK
Storage
Headset	SOLD SEPARATELY		BLACK
Network Cable	SOLD SEPARATELY
AV Cable	STANDARD	STANDARD/HD	STANDARD/HD
HDMI Digital AV Cable	SOLD SEPARATELY	SOLD SEPARATELY
Xbox LIVE	SILVER MEMBERSHIP	SILVER MEMBERSHIP	SILVER MEMBERSHIP
Game Compatibility	ALL XBOX 360 GAMES	ALL XBOX 360 GAMES + OVER 300 XBOX GAMES	ALL XBOX 360 GAMES + OVER 300 XBOX GAMES

Price                      $280                $350                 $450

Simply put, buy the best and most expensive 360 you can afford.

Well this was expected wasn’t it. Unfortunately I don’t have access to my old posts, but I distinctly remember a debate of sorts that was happening about which console will be the most selling by June 2008. Most of my readers voted for the 360.

In spite of PlayStation 3 sales that are surging, Microsoft is still the first to claim rights to the “10 million sold” crown in the U.S.

Xbox boss Don Mattrick crowed over the high water mark and predicted the sales tally would presage total console dominance. “History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry,” Mattrick said.

Another milestone reached is the 12 million global membership tally in Xbox Live. The spike in membership is attributed to the recent release of Grand Theft Auto IV and GTA gamers looking for a little multiplayer mayhem on the closed network. Total worldwide sales, says Microsoft, is 19 million.

Cajoling industry analyst Billy Pidgeon into lending his thoughts on the milestone, the analyst added to Mattrick’s remarks, saying in a statement, “Reaching an installed base of 10 million consoles in the U.S. is a significant achievement and an essential milestone on the road to market leadership, [but] perhaps more important is the Xbox 360 worldwide online base–12 million Xbox Live gamers is the largest community in the connected console games sector, which represents the greatest growth opportunity in the console market and where Microsoft has been the leader for two generations.”

Through March, total sales worldwide of current gen consoles is 24.45 million Nintendo Wii units, 19 million Xbox 360s, and 12.85 million PlayStation 3 units.

It’s also worthwhile noting that the Xbox 360 has been on sale for over a year longer than the PlayStation 3 and Wii, and that in the U.S. PlayStation 3 sales are picking up–for the first time since launching, the PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360 (NPD figures for the first three months of the year, through March 2008).

As Microsoft’s senior vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, Shane Kim is quick to point out that the gaming industry is “a hits-drive business.” With one look at Microsoft Game Studios’ upcoming lineup, it’s easy to see that the first-party publisher is playing it safe, relying heavily on new installments in tried-and-true franchises.

Sequels were in abundance at Microsoft Game Studios’ Spring Showcase yesterday, with the publisher showing off follow-ups to Epic Games’ Gears of War, Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden, Lionhead’s Fable, and Rare’s Viva Pinata. However, there were a handful of new properties on hand as well, such as Silicon Knights’ long-delayed, just-dated action role-playing game Too Human.

So how will Microsoft’s strategy pan out against the competition, and what is the publisher doing to keep the Xbox 360 on top? GameSpot asked Microsoft’s Shane Kim just those questions at yesterday’s event.

For all of Microsoft’s denial, the Xbox 360 Blu-ray console rumors just will not die. In fact, they are getting more and more specific. The Chinese language Economic Daily News is reporting that Pegatron, an OEM subsidiary of ASUS, has won the order from Microsoft to assemble the Xbox 360 with Blu-ray Disc ROM drive – shipments are expected to being in Q3 of this year. Now come on Microsoft, just come clean on the matter, we won’t tell anyone.