Gaming

Hoping to end Nintendo's reign atop the console rankings, Microsoft has announced it will be slashing the price of its Xbox 360 console in North America. As of Friday, September 5th, the system famous for Halo 3, Gears of War, and Project Gotham ... Racing will slide as low as $199. The move comes not long after the company announced it would be cutting prices in Japan, arguably the Xbox 360's weakest market. That wasn't very surprising to most North American gamers and game experts, who for a long time have watched Microsoft struggle to rope in PlayStation and Wii-friendly Japanese players. The ... (view more)

The good news for Nintendo just keeps on coming. Earlier this year, we reported that the company's Wii console fueled record sales for the video game industry; today, another impressive stat: the Wii has sold one million units in Canada, a country ... whose total population was last marked at just over 33 million. Despite being late out of the gate (a couple weeks after Sony's PlayStation 3 in November, 2006 and a year behind Microsoft's Xbox 360), the Wii has completely hammered the sales of its two primary competitors. Actual figures for Nintendo's console north of the border sit around 1,060, ... (view more)

The video games industry has been holding its major trade show, E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) this week. We've been reporting in-depth on some of the newsworthy events , but here's a summary of the biggest announcements from the big three ... major console manufacturers, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Microsoft is revamping the user interface of its Xbox 360, specifically the way they interact with other players around the world. There'll be a customisable avatar of the type seen in virtual world games such as Second Life. The firm is also ditching its 20GB hard drive for a 60GB version ... (view more)

It's been a year and a half now since the Nintendo Wii launched and the little white console that could is showing no signs it's about to slow down. Competitor Microsoft, makers of the considerably successful Xbox 360, have decided the best way to ... match Nintendo's prowess in the marketplace is to simply mirror their strategy: rope in the casual gamer. Nintendo's approach has been fairly simple: use easy-to-learn games, along with cutting-edge motion-sensitive technology, to convince people who wouldn't normally play video games that such activity can be accessible to the not-so-hardcore gamer ... (view more)

Netflix and Microsoft have struck a deal to allow Xbox 360 owners to legally stream movies to their TV sets. The service, which launches this fall, will be free with any subscription to the Netflix rental-by-mail service. Although a couple of ... dedicated media streaming boxes already carry licensed Netflix content, this is the first time a games console has had the ability. Netflix already lets subscribers on all but its cheapest subscription package watch unlimited movies on-demand through their PC. However, copy protection means PC users can only stream movies to their television sets at a ... (view more)

Taking its cue from the popular time-sucker Second Life, Google has announced it will be launching its own life simulator, "Lively". Users of Google's mail or other web-based applications will be able to create their own virtual character simply by ... using their login. After users create their avatars -- representations of themselves, however accurate -- they'll be able to enter wild environments in order to interact with other Lively folk. It's expected users will devise their own, unique ways for interacting with one another, but preliminary reports users are still figuring out Lively's ... (view more)

Thought your old friend Diablo, the "Lord of Terror" was dead? Think again. Just when gamers figured it was actually possible to kill Blizzard Entertainment's most fiendish devil, the company has announced it will be releasing a new version of the ... hyper-popular action-Role Playing Game (RPG) in September, 2009. It's been seven years since the last time gamers embarked upon that most terrifying quest of vanquishing Diablo and his brothers. Not since the June, 2001 release of the Diablo II expansion set "Lord of Destruction" has anyone heard word on the series. Many gamers, this one ... (view more)

Lawyers may have kicked up a stink over explicit scenes in a previous edition of Grand Theft Auto (GTA), but the game-playing public doesn't seem particularly concerned. This week, lawyers revealed that just 2,676 people filed claims; that may sound ... like a large number, but it's a tiny proportion of the 21.5 million people who'd bought the game at last count -- particularly as the settlement pretty much guaranteed free money for anyone who could be bothered feigning offence. It's all particularly interesting news given the popularity of this most recent release of GTA, Grand Theft Auto 4. ... (view more)

Across the web, the hype surrounding the Nintendo Wii is reaching a fever pitch. To be sure, the console has been popular from the get-go in November, 2006, but with the introduction of 'Wii Fit' -- a game that recently made CNET refer to the Wii as ... the only 'ethical' purchase -- fanfare is off the charts. According to reports, Wii Fit -- which promises all the exercise of a workout without -- gasp! -- stepping outdoors, has sold out across the United States within one week of becoming available to the wider public. Like the console for which it was made, the game is becoming very hard to ... (view more)

We're well aware that Rock Band and Guitar Hero have raked in plenty of cash for their makers, Electronic Arts and Activision, respectively. But, how have the artists whose music has appeared in those games fared after taking part in such a ... phenomenon? There certainly have been many rockers willing to take a chance on either game. Between three versions of Guitar Hero and a single (but very successful) Rock Band, a few hundred songs have been available at purchase, with access to even more through download (from Microsoft's Xbox Live or PlayStation 3's online service). Heck, there was even a ... (view more)