Blu-ray player for Xbox 360 to arrive in May?

By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com
Published: February 18, 2008, 8:43 AM EST

With the Toshiba-backed HD DVD format reportedly on the verge of conceding defeat to the competing Blu-ray technology backed by Sony, yet more rumors have now surfaced suggesting that a new Blu-ray add-on for the Xbox 360 could be on retail shelves as soon as May.

According to a SmartHouse article, citing some unnamed Microsoft insiders, the new standalone player is ready and the company is just organizing their sales and marketing teams before releasing the peripheral. In addition, the same sources said that Microsoft has also been working on a new iteration of the 360 with an internal Blu-ray drive.

You should probably take this rumor with a large grain of salt considering it comes from the same site that also told claimed Microsoft and Toshiba would be rolling out an Xbox 360 with built-in HD DVD drive. Nevertheless, Microsoft has previously said that they’d be prepared to release a Blu-ray player if it was what consumers demanded, and following HD DVD’s apparent death, it’s now looking more likely indeed.

Microsoft working on new Xbox Live?

Phil Elliott 16:00 (BST) 18/02/2008

Job posting alludes to "next release" which will aim at "mainstream audiences"

Rumours have surfaced that Microsoft has begun work in earnest on a new, or additional, iteration of its tremendously successful Xbox Live platform.

The wind that's fanning the flames is a job posting on Microsoft's US careers site for the role of a program manager to work in the Xbox department.

What will interest people the most, however, is the wording of the posting:
"Want to be involved in the next release of Xbox? Join the server-backed games team, part of the Xbox Live team that's responsible for creating a completely new way for mainstream audiences to enjoy the Xbox and Live," says the ad.

"We're building the games, the console interface and logic, and the server support for a totally new Live experience. Both the games and the dashboard experience will be deeply paired with dynamic server support to create a compelling, fresh scenario each time.

"We are looking for a passionate games producer to help implement our first generation games that will run in this new environment."

No additional information on the project, or comment on the job ad was available at time of publishing.

GDC '08: Microsoft casually crossing over onto Live?

Microsoft's Chris Early promises tomorrow's keynote will contain "an announcement" about casual games and "asynchronous play" between Microsoft mobile platforms and Xbox 360 and PC games.

By Tor Thorsen, Emma Boyes, GameSpot
Posted Feb 19, 2008 12:32 pm PT

SAN FRANCISCO--Today, Chris Early, general manager of Microsoft's casual-games program, delivered the keynote at the Casual Games Summit. In the course of doing so, he may have partially revealed a surprise that will be delivered tomorrow in his colleague John Schappert's own keynote at the concurrently running Game Developers Conference.

Toward the end of his presentation, Early talked about how excited he was at the prospect of combining casual and hardcore gameplay in "asynchronous play." "I can't wait for this bridge to happen between hardcore and casual games, especially when they're separated in time," he declared before referencing a well-know minigame. "I'd love to stand in line at the bank and play that BioShock flow game. Then come home and say, 'Ha! Take that!' I'd love to take that good casual game I played home and have that be successful there as well."

Early's comments sound reminiscent of Live Anywhere's gaming aspect, an ambitious program that would allow minigames and other aspects from Xbox 360 and Vista games to be played on Windows Mobile-enabled phones and the Zune multimedia handheld. Though Microsoft's plans for gaming via Live Anywhere were unveiled with great fanfare at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo by Bill Gates himself, little has since been heard about the crossover functionality on handhelds.

That may change tomorrow. Early heavily hinted that some sort of announcement relating to a crossover between casual games on handhelds and hardcore platform games will be made during the keynote from Schappert, who is Microsoft's corporate VP of Live software.

"If you like that sort of thing, I would strongly recommend you go to Microsoft's keynote opening GDC, where you'll see a little bit of this announced for the first time," said Early. However, he did not go into further detail. "I think I've kept it vague enough not to get into trouble," he concluded.

Early's comments came just hours after Microsoft posted--and then quickly removed--a job listing promising a totally new Live experience. The listing hinted at a new effort by Microsoft to go after the mass market, which has embraced casual games. "Join the server-backed games team, part of the Xbox LIVE team that's responsible for creating a completely new way for mainstream audiences to enjoy the Xbox and LIVE," it urged.

The potentially explosive revelation came as part of Early's keynote, which was titled "The Changing Face of Casual Games." The speech's thrust was about how things such as asynchronous cross-platform play could break down the barrier between the hardcore and casual gamer. Early feels this is important, considering the rapid growth of the casual-gaming market. "It's not just soccer moms now [that play casual games]," he declared. "It's as broad as people. Well, people who sit in front of a computer."

He also dismissed the notion that games were a new concept, saying, "Games have always been there over history--the consistent factors are people and fun. The game platforms have changed. The first platforms were sticks and stones and whatever you could grab with your hands, and then there was Pong and the advent of electronic games."

Early also discussed how the very first games that Microsoft bundled with Windows, such as Minesweeper and Solitaire, were to show people how to use the operating system's then-new graphical interface. "When Microsoft first looked at games, it wasn't about gaming, it was about training to use a mouse," he explained. "Minesweeper was about using point-and-click, and Solitaire drag-and-drop... They were spurred by education."

Early then talked about some of the games that he believes have recently offered great innovations. One of these is Webkinz, a children's game in which wannabe gamers have to buy a cuddly toy in stores to get a code to "adopt" that animal online. "That's innovative because you actually buy something physical and get digital content online along with it," he said.

He also praised Facebook and MySpace games such as Zombie that let people play whether or not their friends are online at the same time as them. However, "I have more value in the game if I invite my friends," he concluded. Puzzle Quest is another recent game that Early loved, because, "Each one of these minigames is a win for me. In fact, each time you match three is a win. There's that feeling of constantly winning, winning, winning in that gamespace."

Rumor: Canada getting a $50 Xbox 360 price drop
Posted Feb 20th 2008 11:00AM by Dustin Burg



The rumorous crew over at Joystiq received an anonymous tip from a FutureShop employee who sent photographic proof of an upcoming Xbox 360 price drop starting this Friday.

The FutureShop employee got his hands on an upcoming sales ad that lists all Xbox 360 models at $50 cheaper than normal retail. So, that puts the Pro system at $349 and the Elite at $449. Now the only question is whether or not this $50 Canadian discount is a one week, FutureShop only sale or a Microsoft backed price cut for all of Canada. Maybe announced today at GDC? And a country wide price cut wouldn't be all that crazy, seeing that the U.S. dollar and Canadian dollar are nearly equal and a $50 price drop would make the console's price the same. If you're a Canadian in the market for an Xbox 360, you should definitely hold off until Friday. Hopefully we'll know more by then as a $50 savings is nothing to take lightly.