Halo 3 for Xbox 360 has gone Gold! That means we delivered a final version to our internal certification group that passed all the tests and is now being whisked away to top secret manufacturing locations to be turned into retail versions of the game – and eventually packaged and sent to stores in various cases, tins and cat-helmets. We can’t wait to share it with you guys on September 25th and 26th, but we have to say thanks.

We have to say thanks to everyone at Bungie who worked so hard to make this the best game we've ever made. We have to say thanks to everyone at Microsoft who helped us make it the best game we ever made. We have to say thanks to our tireless team of artists, designers, engineers, musicians, technicians, writers, directors, producers, thinkers, administrators, ninjas, specialists, gorillas, webmasters and pimps. We’re a family and we made this game for you, our extended family. We hope you like it. Nobody deserves any more recognition than anyone else, but an extra special thanks goes out anyway, to the test team who got it to this stage, in a pool of their own sweat, tears and blood.

And of course, we wouldn't be here today without the tireless devotion of our fan community - we thank you all as well for supporting Bungie Studios in our never ending quest for World Domination and we look forward to sharing another billion+ hours together on Xbox Live when Halo 3 lands in just a few short weeks. The wait is almost over.

We Finished our Fight. Your fight begins in 27 days.

Are you ready?

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Development on Halo 3 is winding down. While there’s still a considerable amount of dudes here on site, playing through the game, testing the game, filing bugs and fixing bugs, the game is roughly 99.9% complete. That last .1% percent is pretty important, however. Right now, some testing is being done in a controlled retail environment via our Halo 3 Epsilon. You’ve probably seen reports online or even folks on your friends’ list playing it, so here’s the scoop:

The Epsilon is a closed, final phase testing for Halo 3. We won’t be making the Epsilon available for public consumption, so while that's immensely disappointing for folks hoping that Friends and Family invites would be extended for the Epsilon, just know that each day you wait in agony is another day closer to September 25.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Mac users are still waiting two months after game maker Electronic Arts promised to increase its development efforts for the Mac OS X platform.

Executives from the world's largest games developer promised simultaneous launches on Windows and OS X platforms at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference last June.

They specifically mentioned the launch of Madden NFL 08, but no OS X version was available when the game went on sale on 14 August.

The launch included versions for Sony's PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, Microsoft's Xbox, Xbox 360 and Windows, and Nintendo's Wii and GameCube.

Labels: Mac, Video games

In a bid to revive sagging sales of its beleaguered Xbox 360 video game console, Microsoft will drop the price of the device by $20 to 50 in the US this week, depending on model. The move comes just a month after rival Sony cut the cost of its expensive PlayStation 3 console by $100. Both Microsoft and Sony are under pressure to jumpstart sales of their consoles after an unexpectedly strong start from Nintendo, whose low-price Wii console is decimating the Xbox 360 and PS3 in sales.

The low-end Xbox 360 Core, which does not include a hard drive, is falling by $20 to $280. The mainstream Xbox 360, which includes a 20 GB hard drive, will see the biggest price cut, $50, to $350. The high-end Xbox 360 Elite, which features a unique black design and a 120 GB hard drive, falls by $30 to $450. The price cuts go into effect tomorrow, August 8, in the US only. Microsoft has not confirmed whether it will cut prices similarly in other markets.

Microsoft recently dropped the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive from $199 to $179, but this represents the first price cut for the Xbox 360 console, which entered the market in November 2005, about a year before the PS3 and Wii.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

The Microsoft Corp. executive in charge of the Xbox video-game console sold $6.2 million worth of company stock during a period when technical issues with the product were becoming a major concern, according to regulatory filings.

Microsoft said July 5 that it will take a charge of up to $1.15 billion to its fourth-quarter earnings to address what it called an "unacceptable" number of Xbox repairs.

"In the last couple of months, we started to see significant increases in repair requests ... and significant attention from people," Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices unit that includes the Xbox, said during a conference call with analysts at the time. "So we geared up to respond to that."

According to a review of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bach sold $6.2 million in stock in the period between May 2 and last week's announcement. That followed an eight-month period when he sold no company shares, according to filings.

Bach's most recent insider sales came between May 25 and May 30.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Microsoft Game Studios unveiled plans to bring “Gears of War” to Windows XP and Windows Vista gamers this year as Games for Windows branded titles with LIVE support.

We also announced that three top third-party publishers – Eidos, THQ and SEGA – are planning to release titles that take advantage of our online gaming service, Games for Windows – LIVE. This is just the start – we expect a dozen LIVE-enabled games on shelves by the end of this year. Anyone who loves first person shooters will be excited to hear that one of the bestselling Xbox 360 games of 2006, “Gears of War,” is coming to Windows with full support for Games for Windows – LIVE along with five brand new campaign chapters.

Those who enjoy first person shooters can’t wait for the action and stunning DirectX 10 graphics of “Crysis” and “Gears of War.”

Labels: Video games

Shoppers may have bought as many as 700,000 units over the weekend, Goldman Sachs Inc. analyst David Bailey said, twice his projection of 350,000. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster pegged sales at about 500,000, more than twice his original 200,000 estimate.

Apple Inc. sold about 525,000 iPhones at Apple and AT&T Inc. stores in the first weekend since its June 29 launch, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, citing an analyst.

According to a Global Equities analyst, Apple sold 200,000 iPhones on launch, which if we average the price between the 4GB and the 8GB models, comes to a tidy $110 million, double the $47.2 million box office of Pixar's Ratatouille over the same weekend. Granted, the iPhone costs a little more than a movie ticket, but if the figures are accurate (Apple has yet to release official numbers) it's a box-office smash for Apple.

This month's launch of Halo 2 was the biggest video game event of all time: In its first day of availability, Microsoft made over $135 million on Halo 2, far more than the opening weekend draw of any Hollywood blockbuster in movie history.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, Video games

Howard Stringer, the Sony chairman, promised Thursday to shift the struggling electronics giant from recovery to growth and to strengthen the PlayStation 3 games lineup, calling the console a crucial profit driver despite its bungled rollout.

Sony expects at least 380 new PlayStation 3 games to hit the market this business year, and it says that should speed up demand for the console that has so far lost out to Nintendo's highly popular Wii.

There are about 150 games available now for the PS3, including online titles.

Sony's game division posted an operating loss of $1.88 billion, in the past business year because of high start-up costs of the PS3 ... Nintendo's Wii game console has been outselling the PS3 by three to one in Japan and more than two to one in the United States so far this year.

Sony shipped 5.5 million PS3 machines in the fiscal year through March. The company's target was 6 million. Nintendo shipped 5.84 million Wii machines during the same period.

Labels: Video games

The countdown has begun for the biggest entertainment event of 2007 with the close of Bungie Studios’ massively successful “Halo 3” multiplayer beta. A first for the acclaimed “Halo” franchise, the limited public beta was an overwhelming success, seeing more than 820,000 unique participants and more than 12 million hours of online gameplay in its short test period, equivalent to more than 1,400 years of continuous play by one person.

Now that the beta has closed, consumers worldwide can gear up for the game’s release.

“The participation in the ‘Halo 3’ beta was staggering,” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. “Witnessing such a great reaction to a small portion of the game has been inspiring. It’s a testament to the fervor and anticipation that surrounds ‘Halo 3.’ We’re confident that on Sept. 25 Halo 3 will drive an unprecedented wave of new gamers to the Xbox 360 platform and Xbox LIVE.”

Labels: Video games

Last Friday Ben Rudolph, Parallel's Director of Corporate Communications, posted some screenshots of Halflife 2 running in Parallels 3.0 on his MacBook Pro. Parallels, for those who might not know, is virtualization software that lets you run a variety of OSes within OS X including Windows. Pictures sure are pretty, but the proof is in the video (a great man once said that), and so Ben has posted a video of Quake 4 running on a Mac in Parallels (I am going to assume he used his MacBook Pro for this as well, but he never mentions it so it could be running on a Mac Pro).

Labels: Mac, Video games

Many players of the Halo 3 multiplayer beta have felt the graphics are somewhat poor.

Bungie's Frank O'Conner says gamers should wait until they see the single-player game to judge the visuals on offer, as the multiplayer game is optimised for slick gameplay rather than eye-candy.

"Multiplayer is by necessity a more sterile iteration of our graphical style and will always be tuned for performance and elegance rather than jamming the screen full of pixels," O'Connor explained. "We think that the final aesthetic look of our game will be judged at launch in September and in part based on the more intense single player spaces. We’re also focused on maintaining the Halo character and atmosphere in our visual design – we’re competing with ourselves, and not simply trying to match the aesthetic of other games. We think that folks will be happy with Halo 3’s graphical polish come September.”

He went on to say that the visuals will improve by September and there's plenty of work left to do.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) announced today availability of the latest version of the PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) firmware. Version 1.80 features upscaling of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games, and DVD movies up to full 1080p HD resolution when viewed on a compatible HD TV set.

The capability to upscale DVDs to HD quality is a feature normally only associated with top range DVD players, and its inclusion in the latest firmware upgrade now allows PS3 owners with an existing DVD collection to dramatically enhance the viewing pleasure of their DVD collection when viewed through a compatible HD TV set1. Not only can DVD movies be enhanced to full 1080p HD quality but so too will PlayStation 2 and PlayStation games be upscaled to provide much improved gaming pleasure.

In a comprehensive update to PS3’s already impressive capabilities, Version 1.80 also allows users to enjoy Remote Play on their PSP across the internet, allowing them to access their PS3 anywhere in the world where a broadband internet connection is available2.

Version 1.80 also allows users on a home network to seamlessly view and play rich media content such as images, music and video on their PS3, that is stored on their DLNA3 enabled devices such as PCs and laptops elsewhere in the house, reinforcing PS3’s credentials as a home entertainment hub that truly deserves pride of place in the Living Room.

A host of other enhancements include the ability to print photo images stored on PS3’s hard disk or inserted storage media to a selection of Epson printers.

Labels: Video games

Steam, an online distribution platform for videogame content, has signed up more than 13 million users, the system's owners Valve has said.

More than 150 PC games can be downloaded via Steam and the system has also been used to automate more than 2,500 updates to existing games.

Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve, said: "In Steam's case, we have millions of customers who are gamers and dozens of customers who are developers and publishers.

"In the past year, we've added over 100 new titles from third parties, grown to over 13 million active accounts."

Steam was developed as a way to auto-update Valve's multiplayer games but now has evolved into a platform used by many leading publishers and developers.

Labels: PC, Video games

This is the big one, folks. For gamers, the Halo franchise is like Windows Vista, the Godfather movies, and the Kennedy assassination all rolled up into one: Endlessly fascinating to fans of these games, Halo 3 is the latest and, some say, last entry in the vaunted Halo series, and it's coming out on September 25, 2007. But this week, we got the next best thing: A semi-public beta of three Halo 3 multiplayer maps. These maps showcase new graphics capabilities, weapons, and other game features, and they're only available for a short time. Depending on your take on this beta, your reaction is either a very muted, "well, that looks an awful lot like Halo 2 to me" or a decidedly less muted, "OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD!!!" Frankly, it's really just somewhere between those two extremes, but far more positive than negative.

If there's a serious problem with the multiplayer beta, it's that we can only play the game temporarily: The beta is set to end June 10. I better keep going then. Highly recommended.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Microsoft Corp.'s public test of its upcoming "Halo 3" video game got off to a rocky start on Wednesday after many users found they were unable to try out the science fiction-themed shooter.

Owners of Microsoft's Xbox 360 console were supposed to be able to participate in the public test, or beta, of the game by downloading a code included with "Crackdown," another Xbox 360 game published by Microsoft in February.

The public test began on Wednesday, but many users reported trouble downloading the code to join, prompting "Halo 3" developer Bungie Studios to say it was working with Microsoft's Xbox Live online gaming service to fix the trouble.

Microsoft said the problem was not due to "Crackdown" or the beta itself, but declined to offer more details.

"We know that we have a lot of fans that have been waiting for the beta for months, and even took time off of work to start early today. We really appreciate their enthusiasm, and we hope the small delay won't dampen everyone's enjoyment of the game," the company said in a statement.

A counter on Bungie's site said more than 8,000 people were playing "Halo 3" on Wednesday afternoon and that more than 51,000 people had played the game in the last 24 hours.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Yes, we've heard it before, but after spending time with the Wii now two independent developer sources claim the GameCube 1.5 moniker is mostly accurate, and a dev support person from Nintendo even admitted that the chipset is like a GameCube with added memory.

Microsoft's Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division, recently fanned the flames when he told eWeek that the Wii doesn't even have the graphics horsepower that Xbox 1 had.

Is Bach right? According to a couple of anonymous "technical experts at third-party publishers" who are familiar with the Wii's architecture, Bach isn't far off. Speaking with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, the two sources indicated that the Wii is actually not a very flexible system, and Nintendo even admitted that its architecture is basically "GameCube 1.5."

The "GameCube 1.5" label isn't necessarily an indictment of the console. Gamers will still see graphical improvements thanks to increased memory and memory clock speed.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

An update to the PS3 system software was released on April 19, 2007. If you update your PS3 system, the system software will be version 1.70.

The PlayStation 3 system software version 1.70 update includes the following:

- A feature has been added for playing downloaded PlayStation® format software. A feature has been added for downloading PlayStation format software from PlayStation Store and then playing the downloaded software on the PS3 system. Some titles can be played on both PS3 and PSP (PlayStation Portable) systems. (Downloadable PlayStation format software compatible with the PS3 system will be available soon from PlayStation Store.

- You can now use the force feedback function of some accessories for use with PlayStation 2 format software.

- You can now use saved data from PlayStation® format software on both PS3 and PSP systems.

Labels: Video games

Roger Ehrenberg, a financial analyst and the president and CEO of Monitor 110, Inc., says that Microsoft may very well have created the ultimate video game machine with its Xbox 360. But that can't hide the fact that the Xbox 360, like its predecessor, has been a financial disaster for the company. And maybe it's time that Microsoft stopped hemorrhaging cash and looked to other markets that would be more rewarding to the company and its shareholders.

"Gaming has been a disastrous endeavor for Microsoft, particularly from an investment perspective," Ehrenberg reported in a recent blog posting. "After five years and over $21 billion invested all they've got to show for it is $5.4 billion of cumulative operating losses, and Xbox 360 doesn't appear to be the silver bullet to turn things around."

And there are other problems with the Xbox 360, of course. Reliability of the console is so abysmal that Microsoft has had to update its warranty at least twice in order to appease customers. The Xbox 360 runs so hot and is so loud that it's almost completely unsuitable for use in living rooms, and these issues no doubt contribute to the device's horrid reliability. Furthermore, Xbox 360s are physically mangling game discs in a variety of situations, a condition to which Microsoft has yet to officially admit, 18 months after the release of the console.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360

Sony has hit the off button on the 20-Gbyte PlayStation 3 in North America, saying consumers and retailers favored the more expensive 60-Gbyte version 10 to 1.

The Japanese consumer electronics maker on Wednesday said it would continue to sell the $499 20-Gbyte model until supplies are depleted. Consumers who bought the machine will still receive full support and services, since all PS3s have the same basic architecture.

"Basically, the consumers spoke and they prefer the advanced features found on the 60-Gbyte model," Dave Karraker, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an e-mail.

Consumer preference for the more expensive PS3 points to a market for high-end game consoles, Karraker said. "I suppose one could surmise that this also supports the notion that consumers are willing to pay more for advanced technology in a gaming console," he said. In addition to the larger hard drive, the 60-Gbyte PS3 features storage media slots and built-in Wi-Fi not found in the 20-Gbyte system.

Labels: Video games

The Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta will go live on May 16th at 12:00 AM PDT and run through June 6 th at 11:59 PM PDT. That means that folks who purchased specially marked copies of Crackdown, or won a spot in the Beta through the “Rule of Three” or other regional promotions, will be able to log into their Xbox Live Gold accounts, download and play the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta and enjoy an early peek at the multiplayer aspect of the game.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence, and are interested, you can still enter the Beta by picking up a specially marked copy of Crackdown, which would ordinarily be a chore, but thankfully Crackdown is an awesome action game which might ironically distract you from the Beta I’m pimping here. Bungie is also giving out a few Friends and Family spots to valued community members, but those are few and far between, so it’s safer to assume you’re not getting in that way.

Now, I will say this again and again – the game you’re going to play one month from now, is Beta software – and while it will look somewhat close to the final game, it IS Beta – and will contain quirks, a couple of roughedges and all that jazz. But we’re pretty confident you’ll find it a dynamic and exciting taste of what’s to come in Fall.

The Beta itself consists of three maps – Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound – graphically improved since our first MP screenshots – and all three will be playable in Matchmaking only (that is after all, what we’re Beta testing here). All three maps are suitable for a wide variety of gameplay types, and you will have the chance to try all manner of game types, familiar and new.

Labels: Video games, Xbox 360