The Full Circle: 360 News Report 11.06.09
Posted by Dan Owen on 11.06.2009
Microsoft goes on the offensive against pirates and cheaters, so beware! A new Xbox Live Rewards Program has also been introduced, see what you could be earning just for using your 360. Finally, a montage of trailers dedicated to the upcoming release of Modern Warfare 2 and more!
Welcome back to 411mania.com's #1 Friday Xbox 360 news column, I would be your ever faithful host Dan Owen. This week is the Sticking-It-To-Those-Who-Stick-It-To-The-Man edition of The Full Circle, and for more information on that you'll have to read this week's top headline. For those of you who care about my personal life, which I'm sure is exactly none of you, I've spent the last week listening to the new Wolfmother album, Cosmic Egg, every chance I get. I'm a major classic rock fan and more specifically a Led Head which means that Wolfmother's style tickles me in all the right places (man that didn't sound as good as I thought it would). Beyond that, my beloved Gophers finally got things turned around a bit to beat Michigan State on Halloween night. Oh, and then there's the Vikes, who halfway through the season look like the second best team in the NFC (Once we get our Pro Bowl cornerback back our defense should look better, too). After winning in GB the Vikings are clearly in control of the NFC North. I'd love to hear from some of you Brett Favre naysayers, cause I've been saying he'd be a great fit all along. Anyway, this is a game column, so let's get to some actual gaming news.
Headlines
Microsoft Continuing Their War On Piracy
Over the past week or so Microsoft has stepped up their offensive against gamers who play pirated games, as has been touched on a few times in recent weeks. It's now becoming apparent that this effort has been even more far reaching than thought as many gamers are reporting that their Xbox Live accounts have been suspended due to having a modded console. Microsoft reiterated that these bannings are the result of a standing policy to suspend pirates (not the Jack Sparrow kind, the illegal downloading kind). "All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox LIVE terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox LIVE. The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive from manufacturers, retailers, and the third parties that support them."
Like I said, the suspension of pirate-ers isn't new news in this column, nor are my feelings about them. I was out of the loop for quite a while but this seems to me like a fairly new effort by Microsoft. After reading through some things on the forums out there, though, there are some things worth discussing about this story. One is if these bannings are at all related to the recent third party hard drive issues. I honestly don't know the answer to this question, but if it is tied directly to people using third party hard drives not all of the people banned were pirating games, I'm sure. Who knows, though, there aren't a ton of specifics in the story.
Rewards Program Begins For Xbox Live Users
The rumored Xbox Live Rewards Program is starting up in its trial phase now. Gamers who were preselected to participate in the program will now be treated to free Microsoft Points for doing various activities related to the live service. For instance, renewing a Gold Live subscription for a year gives the gamer 200 free MS Points, as does subscribing to Netflix. For a full list of rewards, see the picture below.
This rewards program isn't everything it could be, in my opinion, but I think it's a decent first effort. I'd like to see some things that have more to do with actual gaming rather than, essential, giving money to Microsoft. However, I think they can use this to figure out how to run the program and get interest up. However, from a pure gamer's point of view I feel like Microsoft is just trying to get me to pay them more of my money.
Microsoft Providing Developers The Option To Turn Off Private Chat
Microsoft is now giving game developers with the option to turn off the private chat feature for their games, essentially providing gamers with the option to either keep chatting or play the game, but not both. This feature will be seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as gamers will not be allowed to private chat during the online multiplayer portion of the game. This has likely been prompted by groups of gamers who will use the private chat to communicate enemy location once the player has died in games such as Call of Duty: World at War.
I have to fess up here, the group of guys I played World at War with did this, though it was not primarily to cheat. Our main reason was for the convenience of it. It would get pretty annoying when we tried to talk strategy or just have some idle chatter going and another teammate would screech into the microphone or make lots of annoying noise. It's also courteous to private chat so that other gamers don't have to listen to our plans for the weekend or things like that. However, we did use the private chat to help serve as a second pair of eyes for our teammates once one of us had died (this is relevant for games like Search and Destroy, for example, where you do not respawn until the end of the round). If the developer really wants to focus on the integrity of the gameplay online, this is the right things to do. Unfortunately, though, it will have some unfortunate side effects.
Walmart Has A Big Sale On 360's
Walmart is advertising a one-day-only sale for Saturday, November 7 that includes a great deal on an Xbox 360 Arcade. You can pick up the console for just $199 and as a bonus pick up a $100 gift card to Walmart. Keep your eyes open, too, since word on the street is that similar deals will be taking place throughout the month leading up to the big Black Friday day. The reason? Walmart would like to try to spread the wealth out a bit instead of having all of their shoppers come in on one day.
Whether or not this will work is still up in the air, but it should mean good deals on consoles and probably games as well for the rest of the month. Keep your eyes open, because another deal should be coming right around the corner.
Rapid Fire
Someone apparently stumbled upon the IGN review score being posted early, even having a screen shot showing a 9.5. This has to be taken with a grain of salt since it could just be a photoshopped screenshot, but it looked legit and the score is certainly believable for that caliber of game.
The Official Xbox Magazine of UK has the first review of Assassin's Creed II up, giving the game a 9 out of 10. According to the comments, the gameplay catches up with the rest of the game to create a game that can best be summed up by the word "Killer".
Infinity Ward officials have stated that they plan to reset Modern Warfare 2's leaderboard and player levels just before the release of the game so that people who got an early copy don't have an unfair advantage.
Last week I decided to take a stab at a bold prediction, saying that the clue about Grand Theft Auto V's location might point to Seattle. Well, that prediction (which was a half joke) appears to be falling apart. This week I ran across another clue that shows the picture of the in the corner of the guide superimposed over a map of France. Well guess what, it fits perfectly over the northwest corner of the country. My new guess as to what this means? The game will be played in both England and France!
A patch has been released for Borderlands which fixes many of the glitches that plagued the game upon release.
Modern Warfare 2 preorders have hit 2.4 million in America, with the 360 taking more than 1.7 million of them.
According to rumors, the game Alan Wake's game developers are discussing leaving the ending out of discs released early to the press. I feel like I've been hearing about this game for a long time, but I'm still intrigued by what it might bring to the table. This tidbit only has me more intrigued.
In a third quarter financial call with Activision's CFO, it was announced that in 2010 gamers can expect games coming from several different franchises, including Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Spiderman, and Shrek. This will be in addition to a few new franchises they hope to introduce.
There will be no Assassin's Creed II demo, just like there was no Assassin's Creed demo.
It has been hinted at by the developers that there could be a sequel in the works for Batman: Arkham Asylum. One developer was quoted as saying, "There are definitely lots of exciting stories to tell in Batman's world."
Trailer Park
The upcoming week is all about the Modern Warfare 2 release, and as such I'm going to dedicate all of this week's trailers to the most anticipated game of the year. Up first is a look at the hype machine that has surrounded MW2.
