Games Cheats and Reviews

There have been rumors about a Blu-ray drive (both of the internal and external variety) coming to the Xbox 360 a number of times, but that notion was once again shot down by Microsoft’s UK director of Xbox and Entertainment Stephen McGill last week. Asked about the prospect of Blu-ray on 360 in an interview with CVG, McGill said, “We have no plans to adopt Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment started last autumn when Xbox 360 became the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies.”

Speaking about the same subject, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg highlighted the lack of Blu-ray in the Xbox 360 as one of the reasons why the 360 is currently positioned ahead of the PS3. “Sony bet on the physical disc, and there are costs associated with that,” he told Edge. “The fact that we’re able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost.” He also noted that “being $100 cheaper [than PS3] is part of the reason we’re nearly twice their installed base,” a comment he has since clarified on Twitter as being based on NPD data that has the 360’s U.S. install base at 20 million units to the PS3’s 12 million. The same can’t be said about worldwide numbers, especially in Japan (where PS3 leads) and Europe (where the 360’s lead is much smaller than it is in the U.S.).

Greenberg then reiterated what McGill talked about, saying, “For us, our bet was on digital distribution, that was the future — the ability to [play] 1080p movies with no disc, no download required; we have the largest movie and TV library, the largest HD library of any console.”

Although digital distribution has been a sore point for most of the bigger publishers in the industry, independent producers of videogames have praised this method of distribution.

In an interview with IncGamers, Puncher Studios, an independent developer and publisher of videogames, has said that the company would be lost without digital distribution.

DualShockers writes, "Microsoft has told CVG recently that digital distribution will be the future of home entertainment. They remain vigilant in their position, even after developers like Lost Planet 2 producer Jun Takeuchi have made the point that storage space is becoming more and more of an issue for the Xbox 360. Portions of many popular games are being removed, then there’s the whole graphics compression debacle going on with blockbusters like Final Fantasy XIII and the upcoming RAGE. So with all this going on, what’s Microsoft’s thoughts as to what the future will be like for Xbox 360 storage?…"

The PlayStation Network has just hit a massive milestone.  All six major movie studios will start using the PSN video delivery service to deliver HD rental movies.  You may now begin to rent sweet HD movies from the likes of 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment (well DUH!), Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.

It is only up to rentals now, but hopefully this will pave the way for buying in the future.  This is a big win for Sony and the PSN Video service.  Oh wait, you can do all this for free (minus the rental cost).  Xbox live what?

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

Gamer Limit writes: "Until now, indie games that have any chance of making it in the main stream have to be featured on Steam, Impulse, or some other digital distribution platform for gamers to indulge."

DualShockers writes: "Valve’s Steam application is a digital distribution, multiplayer and communications platform widely used throughout the Windows gaming community. With over 1,000 games available, Steam has already surpassed over 25 million active user accounts. Unfortunately, however, those 25 million active user accounts are primarily Windows users as the application has yet to migrate to other well-known operating systems like Mac OS X and Linux. All that, though, might change."

Perfect Dark originally launched for the Nintendo 64 in 2000, and now, ten years later, it’s set to return on the current-generation through the Xbox 360’s Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Developed by 4J Studios – the team behind the conversions of RARE’s Banjo-Kazooie titles – Perfect Dark is easily the most anticipated Xbox LIVE Arcade release of the year, perhaps even since the digital distribution channel launched back in 2005. Priced at 800 Microsoft Points, Perfect Dark will be available from March 17th 2010, and is bound to become one of the most popular games played on the Xbox LIVE online service.

Paradox Interactive is pleased to announce that the development of BL-Logic’s sprawling World War II strategy game, "Arsenal of Democracy", has been completed, and that the game will be released via all major digital distribution outlets on February 23 for $19.99.

Direct2Drive has slashed 50% off of Lazy 8’s acclaimed puzzle game Cogs, going for only $5 now on IGN’s digital distribution service.

CC: EA Games‘ European publishing boss Dr Jens Uwe Intat believes that whilst digital distribution will continue to grow, it will not be the majority of business for the publishing giant for quite some time.