shindakun dot net » Microsoft

Orange-less

steve — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:36:28 +0000

The Orange Box has been out for six days now – and I still don’t have a copy.Ã‚Â Part of the problem I can’t decide what to buy it for.Ã‚Â Should I go with PC or Xbox 360?Ã‚Â At the moment I’m leaning toward the 360 since my computer hasn’t been upgraded in a little while.Ã‚Â Don’t get me wrong, it’s still more then powerful enough to play the games just not with the graphics pushed all the way up.Ã‚Â However, I’ve just learned that there are lag issues when playing Team Fortress 2 over Xbox Live, a title patch is reportedly on the way though.

I need to get on the ball and make a decision.Ã‚Â Of course once I do I then need to tear myself away from Halo 3 in order to play.

360 Warranty Extended (Again)

steve — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:52:34 +0000

Microsoft has finally broken down and extended the Xbox 360′s warranty (yet again).Ã‚Â Peter Moore has posted an open letter on Xbox.com (which basically amounts to acknowledgment of the design flaws) explaining that the warranty was extended to deal with the ‘red ring of death issue’.

Now, if only they would issue a statement lowering the price of the 120 gig hdd.

Via Xbox.com :: Xbox 360 Fanboy

Xbox 360 HDD Saga Continues

steve — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:58:26 +0000

Well, it seems TheSpecialist has come to the communities aid!Â He has released a new version of his Xbox hard drive hacking program with support for the 120gig security sector.Â In order to use it, at the moment, you need to use a Western Digital Scorpio BEVS-LAT laptop hard drive – which I believe is model number WD1200BEVS (can anyone verify this?).Â That is the only drive supported by the software at the moment.Â Hopefully, the software see new revisions that will supports other drives in the future.

Via Joystiq::Xbox-Scene

Xbox 360 120 Gig HDD

steve — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:34:21 +0000

It appears that the 120 Gig hard drive and the Elite are out in the wild. Yesterday Xbox-Scene linked to Llama.com’s tare down of the Elite. The llama’s were nice enough to gut the hard drive shell and reveal that it contained a Fujitsu MHW2120BH laptop hard drive. A quick Google search shows us that those drives are running around $100. That’s a bit cheaper then $179. Microsoft has defended their price by comparing the HDD add-on to self-powered external drives – I’m having trouble swallowing that.

Looking at a tare down AnandTech did of the original 20 Gig drive you can see the simple cable that connects the HDD (a common laptop hard drive) to the 360. Microsoft was kind enough to post the instructions for the HDD’s on their site. Looking closely we can see that the first step of installing or removing the drive is to shut down the console. Think about it this way – imagine your installing a hard drive in your laptop – you’d shut it down first – if you were using a self-powered external drive it would be at least USB so you could just plug it in. Now pretend that you ran a SATA cable out of your case and glued it to the top so you could simply plug in a drive. Starting to see the picture?

What Microsoft has created is simply a proprietary SATA to 360 connector, which is housed in a plastic shell with the hard drive. They then tried to convinced everyone that it’s the equivalent of an actual external hard drive. Which it’s not.

Maybe the extra cost is coming from the “transfer cable”…

Holding back free downloads on Live? Over priced song packs? Over charging for accessories? I’m starting to hate the way this is going…

Major News Coming Tonight?

steve — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:58:55 +0000

Joystiq is reporting that they have some major news regarding one of the next generation consoles. We'll all have to wait till 12:01 AM EST before we'll hear what it is… Maybe Sony is pulling out of the console market…

XNA Game Studio Express Public Beta

steve — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:50:26 +0000

Microsoft has announced that the XNA Game Studio Express public beta is now available from MSDN. So all new devs (and old school devs) got downloaded it and get started on the game you've always wanted to make. This version will only compile for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Once the final build is released developers will be able to purchase a subscription for $99 a year that will give them the ability to compile for the Xbox360.

I've got an idea for a game that I could make. It will feature a hapless blogger wading through press releases and PR sites trying to find something no one else has yet, all while dodging spam and pop ups. Maybe I'll call it blogwars. Heh.

Via TeamXbox::MSDN

*Update* I'm not sure why WordPress keeps butchering this post but hopefully its fixed now.

Massive Inc., and Toyota Launch In Game Ad Campaign

steve — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:08:14 +0000

Massive Inc., creator of the world’s leading video game network and wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp., today announced that it has launched interactive in-video-game ads, allowing advertisers to engage gamers in new and entertaining ways. The first advertiser to utilize the new interactive ad unit is Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc., with a campaign for its new 2007 Yaris sedan in “Anarchy Online,” a top multiplayer online game published by Funcom.

View Press Release

I've never played Anarchy Online but, from looking at some screen shots I'm not sure what the connection between the MMO and Toyota is. I'm sure the ad wizards from Massive have some iron clad "link" between science fiction role playing and the Yaris. There is a 7 day trial so maybe I'll check it out to see just how bad the advertising is. According to the press release the ad campaign is running in several games however, it doesn't state which ones.

Via HardOCP

Free USB Drive From M$

steve — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:21:33 +0000

It seems Bill wants to give away free USB drives (I'm sure he can afford it). All you have to do is answer some questions about the Windows licensing. So go ahead and get your free drive.

Thanks to Brinstar for posting about this and gHacks for the answers (even though the questions are simple).

Xbox Advertising

steve — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 08:11:12 +0000

Over at Aeropause they have a link to the best 360 ad EVER! Check it out! NOW! You probably won’t see this one on TV.

Aeon Flux Iso Released Kinda Sorta

steve — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:19:11 +0000

I just noticed this over at Team Xecuter’s web site:

And we have seen this…..surely a hoax ? Aeon_Flux_USA_XBOX360-SLICE

Funny, ‘Aeon Flux’ isn’t coming out on 360 (as far as I know anyway)… So, I’m going with hoax.