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Out with the old rumors, in with the new
Just after these things were all taken care of, here we go again with more completely unsubstantiated rumors. Found on a gaming forum (always a reliable source of information) the post goes on to say that an old "college roommate" hooked him up with some key details to the future of the Xbox 360. They are: "Sometime around november 2006, MS is launching a complete media service on the marketplace. This will range from 99 cent songs, to 3.99 streaming movies." "AT next E3, MS will announce a parternship with Blizzard that will bring World of Warcraft exclusively to 360." "Halo 3 will be out before X'mas 2006. Exact words were Quarter 4 of 2006." " There will be over 50 Sega dremcast games on the xbox live arcade within 2 years. Launched a handfull at a time, he said the first game will be Bonks adverture, which should be out in September 2006." In a word: bullspit. The horrible grammar and spelling are enough to clue you in to the fact that this couldn't have been written by a college graduate (at least not an English-speaking one). Second big clue is that the seminal platformer, Bonk's Adventure, was not only not a Dreamcast game, but it wasn't even a Sega Genesis game. It was a Turbo-Grafx title! Some simple Google-action should have cleared that up. Regardless of the veracity of the claims, do you think Microsoft should be exploring these options? I think WoW on the 360 would definitely be a killer-app. [Thanks, The_Solidshadow]
Rumors squashed! MS debunks top 10 360 rumors
Microsoft's Cesar Menendez has decided to take out the trash, tossing the top 10 Xbox 360 rumors out. Here's his list: 10. Kameo is a kid's game: Not true. It's got a T rating. You can impale baddies with the spikes on your own back. Impale! 9. Xbox 360 is being recalled: There is no recall. Period. Return rates are actually lower than consumer electronics (CE) industry averages. 8. Microsoft is intentionally withholding product so as to build artificially high demand: Seriously. Think of the revenue hit we'd take if we actually did that. 7. Halo 3 is finished, and just sitting in a warehouse somewhere (in Poughkeepsie): See #8. Actually, come to think of it: we haven't announced anything about anything of which you claim we've announced or finished, as it were. 6. ____(insert name)___ is an alien/getting fired/fighting with _______ (Robbie Bach, Brian Lee, Peter Moore, J Allard, etc.): Nope. Peter's my boss' boss' boss, and I just want to say, in case you're reading this: "you're great!" 5. Everyone at Xbox is evil (or a robot, or is money grubbing, etc.): Dude - we're gamers. We're just trying to make a better games and entertainment than the other guy. 4. We stopped working on backwards compatibility: Still going. 3. We chose Barbie's Horse Adventure first, because we didn't want PGR2 to be BackCompat: Nope, some titles are just bonus because other titles work. 2. Sony will launch a broadband service better than Xbox Live: A big, bold claim. Two words: Emotion Engine. 1. Bungie has no plans to take over the world: Not true. Just look at their seven step plan. I have to agree with just about every one of these, except the Kameo one (which I didn't care for). Though it may not explicitly be a children's game, the reality is that it's not sure what it is. It looks like a children's game, but you impale enemies. It's not a rumor per se, but a misinterpretation due to a lack of focus or direction. Can't blame him for trying though.
Halo 3: speculation roundup
Bungie have been remaining notoriously tight-lipped over any details surrounding Halo 3, which means that any tidbits of information end up spreading like wildfire. Earlier this month Engadget's interview with Bill Gates revealed that Microsoft weren't planning to push Halo 3 out in time for the PS3 release, and our interview with Peter Moore backed this up. So what speculation is there to satisfy our thirst for second-guessing Bungie? Firstly, tipster m3mnoch writes in with an interesting interpretation of Bungie's last weekly update. The update focuses on the UI design process, throwing up some questions -- if their next project is Halo 3, why so urgent a need to input text, and why isn't multiplayer a given? m3mnoch's speculation: a Halo MMOFPS. Nice. Another tipster, untitled, points us to this (quite frankly, absurd) news snippet: Halo 3 is ready at the mastering plant, simply awaiting the green light for launch. This contradicts everything we expect from Bungie, from intricate marketing schemes to their attention to detail (no software company has a product ready to ship months before the marketing has begun). Still, given the lack of real information to go on, snatching at straws is all we can do at this stage.[Update: fixed typo.]
Halo 3 available for preorders, retailers laugh all the way to bank
Not content with all the money they've raked in selling you Xbox 360 consoles they didn't have to sell, some major game retailers have begun taking preorders for the upcoming mega-hit Halo 3. Keep in mind that speculation, aided by some info from Bill G. himself, has the title launching concurrently with the North American release of the PlayStation 3. Apparently all they need to take your money is an idea of when a title is going to be released. Then again, Gamstop had Halo 3 available for preorder over six months ago! If you think you need to pay $60 (especially when first-party 360 games have been retailing for $50) ten months ahead of time to secure yourself a copy, you're either stupid or insane. This isn't hardware; there will be plenty of copies to go around. Please don't simply hand your cash over to these companies to invest as they please while you get nothing in return. We all know their promise isn't worth much.[Thanks, Jan]
