onlysublime

so far, the closest thing to a definitive rumor for next Xbox games are Ryse and Forza Motorsport 5.

it was never meant to replace the controller. just provide more gaming options. just like you don't use a hammer for everything. sometimes you need a phillips screwdriver. sometimes you need a flat head screwdriver. as for the lack of releases, a lot of them were pushed to kinect 2.0 for 1) better controls with the new version and 2) to make sure there's software for the new version. crimson dragon is done. they even accidentally released a demo for it. pushed back to launch with kinect 2.0. Ryse was pushed back and it's now a launch title for the next Xbox.

actually, the focus for the next Xbox and PS4 will be on simplifying the learning curve. rich developmental tools, great middleware, and standard PC parts with some accessory processors. developers want to cut down on costs and Microsoft/Sony want to keep their developers amidst the onslaught of more competition from the mobile and PC side of things. to keep them in the fold, you simplify their jobs and make it cheaper for them to develop.

no. the last place of the major chains would be domino's or little caesar's.

I love E3! It was one of the most fun experiences. I got a bunch of free goodies. some really good looking models (who said booth babes are dead?). lots of great pics and vids taken. the funny part is playing games is the hardest part because all the games you really want to play have insanely long lines. I can't believe it's been almost a year now. time sure flies. I will miss the Nintendo booth. last year's was fantastic! yes, E3 is very expensive. but it does bring a lot of publicity and generates a lot of good will among the press and the gamers that attend it. and like they say, that kind of good will is priceless.

if it is Xbox Infinity, how fast do you think the "to infinity... and beyond!!!!" jokes will appear?

http://kotaku.com/nintendo-wont-be-having-an-e3-press-conference-this-ye-480309870 excerpts: Since the dawn of time, E3 has been for many people about one thing. Well, three. The three major press conferences from each platform holder. This year, there won't be three. Nintendo is sitting this one out. Citing the success of its Nintendo Direct events, and a desire to focus its presentations for different sections of the market, boss Satoru Iwata has said at today's investor Q&A that the company will instead hold a number of smaller events, such as one for distributors and one for Western press, which will be behind closed doors. http://business.financialpost.com/2013/04/24/nintendo-profit-misses-analyst-estimates-on-wii-u-software-delays/ excerpts: Although Nintendo was able to swing back to profits for the 2012 fiscal year ended March 31, the company ended up recording only half of its previously forecasted income. Nintendo said a favorable exchange rate from a depreciated yen helped the company out of the red, as the Japanese company exported goods to regions with stronger currency. While the company was able to record a net profit thanks to a favorable exchange rate, operating loss -- which is a better indicator of a company's core operations -- was 36.4 billion yen ($366.0 million) as a result of the negative impact of the Nintendo Wii U launch. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013, the company posted revenues of 635.4 billion yen ($6.4 billion), down 1.9 percent year-over-year, and profits of 7.1 billion yen ($71.4 million), compared to losses of 43.2 billion yen ($434.5 million) year-over-year. Nintendo said a favorable exchange rate from a depreciated yen helped the company out of the red, as the Japanese company exported goods to regions with stronger currency. Notably, these figures missed Nintendo's previous forecast for the year, with revenue down 5.2 percent compared to what the company had estimated, and profits down 49.3 percent, from the previously projected 14 billion yen ($140.7 million). Nintendo posted its second straight annual operating loss, reporting 36.4 billion yen ($366.0 million) of red ink for the fiscal year ended March. Overall, the Nintendo 3DS sold 13.95 million hardware units worldwide during the 2012 fiscal year, meaning that the total number of 3DS handhelds sold is now 31.09 million, and that the handheld sold 1.24 million units in the fourth and final quarter. This also means that Nintendo failed to miss its sales projection of 15 million for the console, despite cutting the estimate down earlier this year. As for the Nintendo Wii U, the publisher says that New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land have sold 2.15 million units and 2.6 million units respectively. The Wii U console has sold 3.45 million hardware units worldwide -- again missing its previous forecast of 4 million units sold for this fiscal year, and down significantly from its original forecast of 5.5 million units sold. This means that just 390,000 Wii U units were sold in the last quarter.

I just hope they don't follow the stupid Apple way and call it "the new Xbox." the new iPad really made google searching a pain. I do like the rumors of Xbox Infinity with the infinity sign a play on the number 8 for Windows 8. but then, where do you go after Infinity?

if you ever want to do online co-op like Spartan Ops, let me know! I like the horde-like games more than versus because I don't have that killer competitive drive. I just want to play games and chat. that's why I love Gears horde and Spartan Ops.

yeah, I'm not spending any money on TPA on any platform until it stabilizes. it's just too crazy. congrats on the greenlight! yet another platform which means a small company gets stretched ever thinner...

no kidding. what a waste of money. I bought it because I think the box even said it was meant for games like Descent. the idea was good. but it just didn't have the DPI or sensitivity that it needed for the orb part. I forgot if it was the sensitivity or the lag that was the issue. either way, it didn't help at all and I don't remember how much it cost (I think it was like $30), but it was such a worthless purchase.

the only way I can see how any of this makes sense is Halo 4. most updates on Xbox are really tiny and shouldn't take any more than a few seconds to a few minutes from start to completion. Halo 4 has Spartan Ops which is free episodic DLC (a story-based mode horde-like mode with cutscenes). It doesn't come on the disc and if you want to play Spartan Ops, you have to download it and it's a monster of a download. All the episodes together is a few gigs. It pretty much doubles the size of Halo 4 and was a pleasant surprise how much longer it made the game for the single player or co-op player. But yeah, I can imagine with a 3mb connection, downloading GBs would be a pain. I'd have to boot up the 360 to look up how big but I remember it's massive.

it's funny. I actually wanted to try out one of these games on the Xbox to only find out it's region-locked to Japan... but man, $55 is crazy. and I thought $15 for Final Fantasy 3 on Ouya was crazy... http://kotaku.com/rh...an-as-477471013 excerpts: Since 2005, Namco Bandai's rhythm-tastic Idolmaster ([email protected]) series has been charming Japanese fans (and import gamers) at home and in arcades with its adorable anime style and J-pop music. Today, for the first time ever, there's Idolmaster available on the iPhone and iPad for the U.S., France, South Korea and Hong Kong, but it'll cost you nearly $170 to collect the whole set. An iOS port of The Idolmaster: Shiny Festa for the PlayStation Portable, the franchise's English-speaking debut is split into three different episodes — Harmonic Score, Melodic Disc and Rhythmic Record. Each includes different pop idols to manage, along with unique downloadable items and a 21-minute anime episode, subtitled in English. Each one also costs $54.99. sample from one of the Xbox games: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUdKSY1cyc

I had fun with Homeworld way back when. But I do remember it was hard just because of the design. in fact, I think that's why the mission designs were simplified compared to other RTS games because people had to deal with the weird 3D. It's like how Descent was hard even though it shouldn't have been. with today's controlling devices, maybe these games could definitely made more doable and easier. especially Descent. If Descent was released nowadays, with the dual analog sticks, it'd be easy to control. but way back when, Descent was a #*%&^. with a keyboard, it was hard. with the standard controllers, it was hard. heck, I bought this to play Descent and it was still hard:

this is just amazing... http://arstechnica.c...gest-videogame/ excerpts (there's tons to the article so go read the full thing!!!): How one professor and his team ported Pong to a 29-story office building Even if you don't normally play video games, it's a sure bet that you've heard of Atari's 1972 arcade hit Pong. You've probably even played it, either in one of its many ports or in one of those arcades that also sells beer. But you've probably never seen it quite like this. A crowd of well over 100 gathered near the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday, despite rising winds and the looming threat of a thunderstorm. We were all there to play (and to watch) Pong, but not on an arcade cabinet—the version we'd be playing would be played out on the programmable LED lights lining the side of Philadelphia's Cira Centre, a 29-story office building across the Schuylkill River from the museum. The lights, normally used to display static images or simple looping patterns, had been transformed into a fully interactive game of Pong by Drexel computer science professor (and Co-Founder and Co-Director of Drexel's game design program) Frank Lee and his team in just a few short months. It's being billed by the event organizers as the "world's largest video game." All of the code for the game itself (as well as the associated code we mentioned) was stored on a MacBook Pro, which was hooked up to an off-the-shelf X-Arcade Dual Joystick via USB—this same control panel, which holds two joysticks and eight buttons for each, is commonly used in custom-built MAME arcade cabinets for those who don't want to build their own custom control panel. The laptop was connected to the Internet through an AT&T 4G hotspot and then connected through a VPN tunnel to the private network for the Cira Centre's lights. The Cira Centre's LED lights are on a private network, and each light has its own IP address. They're controlled by a system from Philips—in this way, they're not entirely unlike the Philips Hue lights we reviewed a few months ago. Each LED can be lit or unlit, and can turn a wide variety of colors. The team's first task was to figure out how to hack this system—to make something built to display static images into something interactive. "If I could figure out what the commands, the packets, were that were being fed to the lights," said Lee, "then I could interactively turn them on and off, which is basically the basis for any game." Luckily for the team, the data being fed to the lights was unencrypted, and they were able to work through this problem relatively quickly. Holder obtained from the Cira Centre an XML file that contained the IP addresses of all the lights, Barrowclift told Ars. He then created a script that would parse that file, and map out a virtual image of what the lights on the building were currently displaying—Barrowclift sent us a few images of the code alongside the virtual image (above) to demonstrate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnIK54dCbqI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XaRXP4TgBmg here's a vid...

you haven't kept up with the rumors? latest rumor are to not block used games or be online-required.

did you guys see this? pretty cool! http://sega-addicts....ic.com/?p=37725 excerpts: A former Sega console engineer has shown off a previously unheard of prototype console named the Sega Pluto. The machine, pictured above, is a Sega Saturn with a built in NetLink 28.8k dial-up modem module allowing for online play. It’s fully functional and is also a region locked, USA NTSC model. The Sega Pluto is only one of two working prototypes. The pictured console is Sega Pluto No. 2 and the current whereabouts of Sega Pluto No. 1 are unknown. The Sega Pluto has the following features: Dial-up modem for online play Two controller ports Flip top drive bay Cartridge slot Power and reset buttons Lots of vents Very heavy This is an absolutely amazing piece of Sega history. And to think that Sega may have released the very first online console (bar the NetLink adaptor) before the Dreamcast. It even suggests that Sega had plans for even more NetLink compatible games aside from the small handful that already exist. little more background info — as most of you know, Sega is a company with a history of turmoil. Employee turnover is a sad theme, and the Sonic Reaper (as we call him) strikes all too frequently. As such, the past gets forgotten quickly — treasures from the previous generation are quickly cast aside, as a new regime tries to make a name for themselves (or justify their existence). As such, some of said treasures get left on laid-off-peoples’ desks. And in a beautiful twist of fate, this beauty ended up finding its way to my desk, and then in a box with the rest of my stuff when I left Sega. I was told that only two of these prototypes were made — and this is #2. This thing is a beast, and definitely the heaviest console I’ve ever held in my hands. The front features two controller ports, and on top you have a flip-top drive bay, a cart slot, a Power button, and the venerable Reset button. Note that the logo still says Saturn, so I’m guessing the Pluto codename was simply that, and they were thinking of branding it with the Saturn name. (The logo is printed on production-style though, so I’m guessing they were fairly serious about this one.) The left and right sides feature beautiful-and-exotic vents, while the back is standard Saturn, save for the Netlink ports. The bottom has nothing of note except for the “PLUTO-02″ sticker (which is, of course, of note). But does it work? I honestly never tried to fire it up until now. Yesterday I picked up a power cable from Akihabara (I’m based in Japan these days), and with a little trepidation, I pressed the POWER button… … and it lives! We’re dealing with a straight-up USA NTSC Saturn here (NTSC-4-V1.00a, for those keeping score), which is sadly region locked, so my copy of Policenauts doesn’t get any love. I don’t have any US titles on hand, so I’m unfortunately not able to test a disc booting. Can’t even imagine how I’d go about testing the Netlink part of this device (no landline here). I haven’t had the guts to open it up and see if there’s anything special inside, as I’m the kind of guy who tends to break wires and lose screws. I’m also not sure of the whereabouts of the Pluto-1 — I’m guessing someone from the pre-Dreamcast days has it, though. Anyway, I just wanted to share a bit of rare Sega history with the few people in this world who might still care, and see if anyone else has any knowledge about this bad boy. I think it’s an interesting piece, and it hearkens back to a time when Sega was brave, and would try just about anything. Ah, how I miss that Sega…

eneloops are the best. can't say enough good things about them.

LOL. I apologize to the grammar gods and the typing gods! sometimes my brain gets twisted. mea culpa!

looks like flame bait to me... if you think it doesn't have anything to offer. don't get it. If you feel that it'll have something to offer next year, then get it next year. it's like like the Wii U will die tomorrow so there's no need to rush to any kind of decision. are you hoping that someone will persuade you to think otherwise? there are enough opinions in multiple threads here that people have said enough for you to know. it seems like you set up a set of rhetorical questions that no one can possibly answer to your satisfaction.

my friend loves Zuma Blitz and she can squeeze a lot out of her "virtual quarters". she figured that's why they were tweaking the game so that there were limits to how long you could play. by making it more difficult, it would shorten her play time and force her to buy turns. reminds me of the days I would search out the machines that I could last forever on a quarter. heck, I think that was the draw of SF2. once you were good, you could last forever on a quarter.

new trailer looks awesome!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5ec_rPApKCA oh, right... there's a game... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zvq5CIh0bg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28C1xhtb0Gc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYM-ktiUiTQ

Facebook does have F2P (and by extension, P2P). my friend was complaining that EA was tightening up Zuma Blitz which means she would have to pay to get more turns. the model they're going for in that game is like the old arcades. put in a quarter, get a play.

alright, we all know EA's reputation for terminating games very early, some not even making it to the ripe age of 1 year old. but now they're terminating games that still have 1+ million gamers??? http://arstechnica.c...facebook-games/ excerpts: When EA paid over $300 million for social gaming powerhouse Playfish in late 2009, it probably seemed like a good investment in the future of gaming. After all, games like FarmVille were attracting tens of millions of players daily and seemed poised to upend the market for traditional pay-to-play gaming that had endured for decades. Just over three years later, the investment looks a lot less prescient. EA has announced it will be shutting down three of its once-popular social games—SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society—on June 14. In addition, EA will also shutter the social extensions of its popular sports game brands Madden NFL SuperStars and NHL Superstars on May 14. By this summer, there won't be a single active Playfish game available on Facebook. Pet Society has been running since August 2008, which is practically geological time in the short history of social games, and it still manages to attract a million monthly players to this day. Still, that's a big drop-off for a game that was once selling 90 million virtual goods every day. Similarly, The Sims Social rocketed to over 65 million monthly players just after its launch in 2011, only to drop to just over five million monthly players today, according to AppData. SimCity Social seems to have peaked at 10 million monthly players and has managed to hold on to just over one million of them less than a year after its launch. Despite these declines, it's a bit surprising to learn that EA doesn't consider it worthwhile to continue operating servers for games that still have millions of players. The decision is easier to understand, though, when you consider that only one to three percent of social game players actually spend any money on those titles. When 97 percent (or more) of your players are free-to-play moochers, you need an extremely large player base (along with a few "whales") to keep the revenue machine rolling, which explains why social games are so eager for you to spam your friends.