Time-altering shooter now available in playable form.

The original version of TimeShift was reportedly just a handful of bug fixes away from release, but when Sierra came on board as the title’s publisher, Saber Interactive was granted the opportunity to rewind its development back to the planning stages and swap the initial steampunk-inspired designs for Gears of War-style grittiness and realism.

Now, Xbox 360 owners have the opportunity to check out the revised shooter via a single-player demo added yesterday to the Xbox Live Marketplace. The 582MB download allows players to experience the games main hook — the ability to pause, rewind, or slow down time to get a jump on enemies or reverse an unfortunate outcome.

TimeShift is expected to ship for the Xbox 360 and PC in late October, with a PlayStation 3 version to follow in December.
Source: gametab.com

- ‘Bourne’ is the only thing the video game ‘adaptation’ borrows from ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ movie

In case no one broke it to you, “The Bourne Ultimatum,” starring Matt Damon, grossed $69.3 million in its first weekend, delivering the biggest August opening ever, according to Nz.entertainment.yahoo.com. Wikipedia says something about $70.2 million, but given that the numbers are pretty close, I think it’s safe to say that it’s almost record breaking. Whenever this happens with a movie, game developers become restless and want to do a game based on that movie (naturally). No one seems to be “rushing” into this one though…

Except Vivendi Games that is… But as I said, they’re not rushing into doing the movie adaptation, but actually a game going by almost the same name, with a totally
different plot. According to the previously mentioned website, “…the one that Vivendi Games has up its sleeve for a mid-2008 release on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 is no ‘movie game,’ its developers insist.” (more…)

Hardware shifting at the house of Microsoft continues, as Shacknews confirmed with Microsoft emerging Internet reports that Xbox 360 Premium SKUs sitting on shelves right now have HDMI ports in them. There appears to be no indication of the HDMI addition on the box, but retailers are replacing the updated hardware as the old units are moved out — the recent “price break” is probably helping that out.

“Yes, we are offering an HDMI port for Xbox 360 simply as another choice in Xbox 360 owners’ games and entertainment experience,” a Microsoft representative told the website. “Retailers are gradually introducing HDMI-enabled Xbox 360s into the channel to meet demand.”
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Last night’s announcement shouldn’t have been a surprise.

To anyone following Capcom (or the industry), last night’s revelation that Devil May Cry 4 is no longer a PlayStation 3 exclusive came with little shock. And yet, the announcement’s spawned message board threads spanning dozens and dozens of pages — half filled with celebratory remarks, the other damning Sony for losing the game. Others went so far as to accuse Capcom of dumbing the game down in the endless pursuit of money.

Thus far at least, Capcom offers little allegiance to any platform this generation. Dead Rising and Lost Planet both seemed to arrive on Xbox 360 because Capcom was willing to take a risk with Microsoft on jumping into the next-generation pool early. Even then, their zombie thriller didn’t show up until nine months after the machine launched in the US. The risks have paid off for companies like Capcom and Ubisoft (see: Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter). And, as of January, Dead Rising had sold over a million copies and talk’s already underway for sequel.

Rumors puttered about in EGM that Sony was surprised at Dead Rising’s success and working with Capcom to secure a PS3-exclusive sequel. To date, that’s not come to fruition and DMC4 makes it all the more unlikely. Lost Planet found similar success when it launched in January, allegedly pushing more than a million copies across Europe and North America combined. The NPD Group numbers put sales for the adventure across the frozen tundra at 329,000 in January — still mighty impressive. (more…)

Gears of War and Halo 3 rule, and with no help from any naked girls

In a ceremony on Wednesday 14th March, the Official Xbox Magazine team announced their games of the year for 2007. The ceremony was a triple celebration, also marking the fifth
year since the launch of Xbox and the fourth birthday of Xbox Live. Hey, the PS3 has its own magazine now, did you know? Yeah, only their magazine has an almost naked girl sitting on the toilet with her panties down and flushing the water.
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Nintendo highlights hardware sales with DS and Wii system sales while Crackdown takes the month’s software crown.

The industry-tracking NPD Group released its February tallies for the US gaming market Thursday evening, and the numbers show significant growth in both hardware and software sales year-over-year.

Game sales were up nearly 28 percent from $345 million to $441 million, while hardware sales nearly doubled. For February 2006, gaming hardware accounted for $203 million in the US, while last month’s system sales added up to $402 million. Combining those numbers with accessory sales, the industry as a whole was up more than 53 percent, from $639 million to $978 million. (more…)

With fatal beauties like Christie from Tekken 5, they still choose the typical big-eyed Japanese characters

Japan’s Game Spark had the wonderful idea of organizing a voting contest to find out what female characters are the most popular in Xbox 360 titles. 1,500 Japanese gamers input their preferences during the course of two weeks. Can you guess who the winner was? The obvious choice of most gamers made Miki Hoshii from THE IDOLM@STER the undisputed winner with some
565 votes. The runner up didn’t even come close, with a mere 221 votes.

So, why is Miki Hoshii so popular? THE IDOLMASTER is an arcade game released only in Japan by Namco Bandai. The game follows the career of a producer who has to work for one of nine prospective pop idols (one of them is a pair of identical twins). The Idolmaster has also been credited with making Japan’s ratio of Xbox Live sign-ups to the number of consoles sold the highest in the world. Over four times as many Microsoft points were sold on the date of The Idolmaster 360 release as on the date before it. (more…)

Confusing comment, to say the least, coming from Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer

It’s true that every console had a price drop or several price drops in its lifetime and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is expected to have one as well. Or, isn’t it? According to Steve Ballmer, CEO at Microsoft “every console has had a price decrease
in the first few years,” emphasizing on these words twice but not saying anything concrete about their console:

“I think every console in the world has had a price decrease sometime in the first few years. I don’t know whether we’ll have a price decrease in the first few years, and I don’t want to comment on that, but I will highlight for you that every console has had a price decrease in the first few years.”
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Car junkies, get out your drool rags. The Forza Motorsport 2 team today revealed the first list of cars scheduled to appear in the upcoming Xbox 360 racer. Part one of the six-part series concentrates on European exotics, with rides from Porsche, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Ferrari.

Developer Turn 10 and publisher Microsoft Game Studios also announced the European release date of the game. Like its North American counterpart, Forza 2 Motorsport will hit Europe in May 2007 because the team “felt it was only right for Forza Motorsport 2’s online community…to release the game on a global level simultaneously.”
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Only adds Hard and Super difficulties, but doesn’t cost a thing.

We still don’t know when Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Blue Dragon will end up on our shores (summer’s a safe bet), but Microsoft and Mistwalker have rolled out the first round of downloadable content on Xbox Live today, says Joystiq.
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