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.”

GameBrit writes: "The Nintendo Wii has shown the masses that motion controls are popular. Not just for those who already class gaming as a hobby, but also for people who have never even played or enjoyed a games console before. This has led to the Wii being the current leader in sales followed by the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Naturally both Microsoft and Sony have seen this success and now want a piece of the motion based pie. This has culminated in Project Natal, a camera based option, and the PlayStation Move combination from Sony, featuring a camera alongside Wiimote and Nunchuck style devices. So with both vying for the crown of the motion controlled world, which one has what it takes to topple the Wii? My money is on Sony’s offering, and this is why."

Aaron Greenberg clarifies the comment he made during an interview with Edge about the Xbox 360 having twice the installed base of the Playstation 3.

Strategy Analytics predicts the Sony PlayStation 3 console will outsell the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii-within the next four years.

From Eurogamer.net: Metro 2033 is far busier and far more accomplished than I expected it to be, and it’s also one of the best-looking games – at least in a few very special scenes – on the Xbox 360.

Combine these technical achievements with a game that has been carefully written, and lavishly imagined, and you start to get close to a sort of negative image of BioShock. While everything in Rapture is lurid and fantastical, here there is only grit, and blood, and suffocation.

Not too long ago you had to shell out $700-$800 for a PS3. 4 years later, the PS3 is now on par with the other consoles in terms of price, at $299 for the base model.

CVG: Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg has claimed that Xbox 360 has "nearly twice" PS3’s worldwide installed base – partly because its lack of a Blu-Ray drive allows it to be sold at a more attractive price point.

GB writes:"Crysis 2 is definitely one of the games that we are looking forward to in 2010. Coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC later this year, Crysis 2 should be able to set a new benchmark in the visuals department again. So does the game match up with Killzone 2? We decided to do a high definition screen shot comparison of both the games, so check it out. The first screen is from Crysis 2 and the second one is from Killzone 2."

The fact that FFXIII has this week claimed the top spot in the ELSPA GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40 is of absolutely no shock – but onlookers will be far more interested to see how sales were shared across PS3 and Xbox 360.

This Sunday Xbox Live’s Major Nelson released his weekly podcast. One of his guests this week was Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling. In the interview Bowling addressed Modern Warfare 2’s recent achievement of 25 million unique users claiming that the "the majority of these users are from Xbox Live". This could give some insight as to why the Xbox 360 players might get access to the upcoming downloadable content ahead of gamers on other platforms.