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Microsoft responds to PS3 news, plus more on Viva Piñata
In this interview with the UK's Official Xbox Magazine, Xbox General Manager Shane Kim holds forth on the upcoming title Viva Piñata while casually dropping in a few words on the PS3's November launch. Kim believes Viva Piñata to be a killer title for the 360, saying that he thinks "that families will buy an Xbox 360 because they want to play [it]", also saying that Microsoft will talk about future Halo plans "at the right time".On the PS3 launch, Kim was clear: "For us, it doesn’t change anything. We’ve had a very clear strategy for a long time now and we’re not going to change that. We’re not going to react to anything that they do." Entirely in line with a second official reaction over at Microsoft's gamerscore blog which claims that the "announcement certainly doesn’t change any of our plans."A lot of reassurances that things are the same as ever over in Xbox land, then; perhaps Nintendo will follow the crowd and post their entirely bland canned response to a competitor's plans next.
Halo 3 no more -- meet Forerunner
An Xbox.com forum poster, DM Duo Maxwell, is claiming to have reproduced, in its entirety, an exclusive Game Informer article from the upcoming April issue that reveals details about Bungie's next project—Duo Maxwell did not supply an actual scan because Xbox.com does not permit images that violate copyright laws. According to the post, Bungie's next project will be a Halo game for the Xbox 360, currently codenamed, Forerunner. In Halo lore, the Forerunners are a technologically advanced race that mysteriously vanished from the universe.The source reports that the game will feature "huge persistent worlds" using a modified Halo 2 engine. The main campaign will still feature Master Chief and will showcase 4-player co-op. The missions, however, will not be linear, nor will objectives been required. For example, if players are tasked with capturing a weapons depot, but decide to forego the assignment, then they will loose the opportunity to seize the additional weaponry and, in effect, will hand these weapons over to the enemy.For now, we have to write this off as pure speculation (read: April Fool's gag). But these new details are certainly tantalizing and in line with Bungie's method of revealing a game piece by piece, until the puzzle is complete. Look to E3 for a major announcement.
Halo 3 possibly back in PS3 launch frame, says analyst
With all the PS3 delay news flying around lately, it seems that a certain big sequel for the Xbox 360 may have creeped back onto the 2006 release window.According to Next Generation, a "lead analyst" from Tokyo is claiming that "big-hitting titles" for the first-moving 360 could be targeted at the PS3 launch "just to sabotage it." He stated that the release of Halo 3 ("timed to PS3") would be "quite damaging for Sony" as well.Well, a preemptive launch of Halo 3 would certainly serve as a distraction to Sony's next-gen launch plans, but people who really want a PS3 probably won't be deterred by Microsoft's premiere FPS appearing around the same time their favorite console does. Gears of War most likely won't stop PS3 fanboys, either. An unexpectedly early release (of either title) would certainly prove to be a perfect holiday present for 360 owners, however. Competition is grand.See also: Halo 3 could be released in '06 according to MS Game Studios GM Halo 3: speculation roundup PS3 worldwide in November Breaking News: PS3 delayed until November!
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.]
