Leveled Up News Report 03.19.10: Xbox 360 Slim, Final Fantasy XIII, Gears of War 3, and More!
Posted by Joshua Richey on 03.19.2010
The 360 to support USB flash drives? Is there an Xbox 360 Slim on the way? When is Gears of War 3 coming out? All of that and more in this week's edition of the Leveled Up News Report.
Welcome to the "We Love Rumors" Edition of the Leveled Up News Report. I don't know whether it's because GDC was last week or what, but there is hardly anything for me to cover this week. So what we're going to do is discuss some rumors as if they were fact. My columns are usually compiled of about 95% bullshit anyway, so we might have to up that this week.
USB storage coming to 360?
Documentation obtained by Joystiq – and subsequently confirmed with two separate sources – reveals that "USB Mass Storage Device Support on Xbox 360" will soon be a reality. The document, authored by a senior software development engineer at Microsoft, states that due to "increased market penetration of high-capacity, high throughput USB mass storage devices, a 2010 Xbox 360 system update" will allow consumers to save and load game data from USB devices. The update is purportedly coming in Spring 2010. (via Joystiq)
(First off, massive props to Joystiq for breaking this story.)
For those poor saps out there (like me) that still own Xbox 360's with a 20 GB hard-drive, this story is absolutely a God send. There are so many XBLA games that I've wanted to download but couldn't because of space constraints on my hard-drive. Sure, I could delete them and re-download them, but who wants to do that? It would be so nice to be able to put games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Castle Crashers on a USB stick and not have it require me to delete things off of my 360. The small hard-drive is also why I don't install games; so that too will be fixed with this update.
As for why I don't just go ahead and invest into a larger hard-drive, well...
Xbox 360 Slim coming?
Last week, speculation surrounding a pending announcement of the oft-rumored, slimmed down "Valhalla" model of the Xbox 360 was kicked into high gear, thanks to a Microsoft hiring notice for a motherboard engineer, and Steve Ballmer's reference to "more form factors" for the hardware. Earlier today, a Chinese tech forum purportedly posted a pair of pictures of the newly remodeled motherboard, which has undergone a massive size reduction from the current iteration of Xbox 360 hardware. (via Joystiq)
My 360 has RRoD'ed (how sad is it that that's a verb now that everyone understands?) three times now, and I've still not gotten a new one. I knew there was a reason for it. I used to think that it was my unwillingness to shell out another $300 for an Xbox Elite, but, as it turns out, perhaps there's a part of my brain that held me back in hopes that news like this would come about.
I'm by no means a tech guy, but from what they say, the CPU and GPU on this motherboard have been combined as well as the addition of an extra SATA port and a smaller heatsink. I'll be honest, I have no idea what that means. Hopefully some of you do.
These photos leave us asking two questions:
1.) Are they real and is this in fact an Xbox 360 Slim?
2.) What reasoning will Microsoft give us for why this thing isn't cheaper than the current SKU's $299 price tag?
Gears of War is coming...Spring of 2011
The first teaser trailer for the third person shooter is expected to debut next month on April 8, exactly one year ahead of the game's pencilled in release date. A full reveal is due at E3 in June.
We understand that the game could be completed as early as this year, but that Microsoft is keen to release it during a different window to Halo: Reach – rumoured to be launching in September 2010 – and Natal, which is set to arrive this holiday. (via EDGE)
Yay! Another reason to hate Project Natal!
It's a bit annoying that Gears is going to have to take a backseat to Microsoft's upcoming bastard child, but it does give Epic a little more time to work on it. An April 2011 release will give them over two years of solid development, which is exciting because they've managed to do some amazing things in far less time.
Nobody is buying the PSP GO
Sony had hoped the PSP Go would help it recover from poor sales earlier in 2009 and put its portable gaming business back on track but that didn't happen. Instead of shipping 1 million more units during the fiscal year to March as it originally hoped, Sony has ended up slashing its sales forecast from 15 million units to 10 million units. (via PC World)
Not to sound like a dick, but I don't think that this surprises anyone. The PSP GO was destined to be FUBAR from the very beginning. It's completely understandable to see why Sony wanted to get rid of UMD's, but you can't have both of these devices, the GO and regular PSP, on sale at the same time. Consumers aren't dumb. They're smart enough to look at them both, compare them and see that the regular PSP is the way to go. It's overpriced and there's zero incentive for current PSP owners to make the switch to a GO.
There's no doubt that digital devices are the future, but Sony didn't execute it properly.
Sony starts Move advertising; disses Wii and Natal
Say what you will, fanboys, but you've got to admit that it's pretty funny. The Kevin Butler character has been brilliant for Sony. I'm surprised ABC hasn't made a sitcom based off of him yet.
Jamie Foxx to play Lynch
Being one of the few people that enjoyed Kane & Lynch, I was pretty excited about the idea of a Kane & Lynch movie. The excitement kind of went into overdrive when Bruce Willis was cast as Kane.
It was a case of perfect casting, I thought. Today the film's screenwriter, Kyle Ward, announced on his Twitter: ""Done deal… Jamie Foxx is in!"
Now Jamie Foxx is a great actor, but who was he going to play? Oh, he's playing Lynch? That's weird. Why? Well…
This is Lynch...
...this is Jamie Foxx.
This is Lynch...
...this is Jamie Foxx.
This is Lynch...
...this is Jamie Foxx.
There's a pretty obvious difference between the two. Can you spot it? No? Well Jamie Foxx doesn't have nearly a large enough bald spot to play Lynch. This is an outrage. What I've been playing...
Final Fantasy XIII (360)
If only you knew how big of a deal this was for me. I'm not an RPG guy, I'm got a Final Fantasy guy, and I'm not a big fan of eastern made games. I've not played a Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy 7 was released and all the kids at school were like "OMG! YOU GOTTA PLAY THIS!" I'll have you know that I didn't even finish that game. Hell, I never even got to the second disc. My stance hasn't changed, either. I was at work on Wednesday and got a package from 411mania. I opened it up and it was a copy of Final Fantasy XIII. I had to laugh about it. I cannot think of a worse person to review a Final Fantasy title than me.
I'm currently about 2 1/2 hours into the game, and...(gulp) I can't believe I'm about to say this...I'm actually enjoying it.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
I'm slowly but surely getting more and more into this game. The single player is tough and full of things that piss me off. You're slowly approaching an enemy camp. You're trying your best to be stealthy about it. You're crouched and out of sight. Then, when you're about 50 yards away from the camp, the bad guys somehow notice you and open fire. This is irritating enough, but the bad guys are also expert marksmen. If you're taking cover behind a wall or something, they'll still somehow hit your ass. Oh, and as for your three A.I. partners, don't worry about them. They're all standing safely 100 yards back DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Sadly this happens far too often.If it weren't for the amazing multiplayer and the fact that blowing up houses is still fun, I'd have thrown this game out the window already. It's just relentless. If you get shot in Call of Duty, you've got that "OH SHIT!" time period to get your ass to cover. You don't have that in Bad Company 2. You take a shot and your ass is as good as dead.
...or maybe I just suck at it. Richey Rants on: Split Second
I don't really have anything to rant about this week; so instead I'm going to pimp the hell out of Split Second. Now I'm not into racing games. Aside from the occasional Burnout session while I'm high, I stay away from them. However, Split Second is a game that I cannot wait for. It's obviously beautiful, but you can use the environments to take out your opponents. In theory that sounds cool, but to see it in action is almost poetic.
In closing
That'll do it for another edition of the Leveled Up News Report. I've got less than a week to review Final Fantasy XIII, which means my weekend is already pretty much planned for me. I'm also hoping to spend some time with the new Splinter Cell: Conviction demo.
Oh! Do any of you use Gamefly? I used their service back in 2006 but canceled it after a few months because they only had one distribution center -- which was on the other side of the country. It would take me a week to get the game in the mail, and another week for them to receive it. By the time all was said and done I was only playing one game a month; so I canceled. Now Gamefly has four distribution centers and I'm wondering if any of you use it. If you do, would you recommend it? I'll usually buy two games a month, but there have been quite a few games that I've still not got around to playing (Darksiders, Borderlands, etc..) and was hoping that Gamefly was a suitable option. Please let me know!
Of course what you neglect to mention about the 360's "support" for USB Mass Storage Devices is that it's gimped to 16GB and a maximum of 2 devices at any one time. So okay, you could in theory have 32GB to play with but that's it.
Once again MS shaft consumers yet it's paraded as a "good thing".
Of course MS' competition allow their consumers to use any 5400rpm laptop HDD rather than having to pay for over-priced proprietry HDD's.
Once again MS do "just enough" and that's it. :-(
Posted By: Spank (Guest) on March 19, 2010 at 09:37 AM
Whether you love Sony or hate them you must admit those commercials have been awesome so far (The FPS one & the girlfriend one being the best to date)
Posted By: M:-X (Guest) on March 19, 2010 at 01:19 PM
I use Gamefly. It speed has increased. One of the new features they have is that when you send it off and it hits a Post Office and gets scanned it, Gamefly is notified that you've sent the title back, and goes ahead and sends out the next one. Doin one at a time though will still result in 2-3 days of wait time, unless you are near the distribution station. They've also added the GF store, and give you 10% off purchases from there, and coupons every 3 months. I'd give it another try if I were you.
Posted By: Swami (Guest) on March 19, 2010 at 05:44 PM
Of course what you neglect to mention about the 360's "support" for USB Mass Storage Devices is that it's gimped to 16GB and a maximum of 2 devices at any one time. So okay, you could in theory have 32GB to play with but that's it.
Once again MS shaft consumers yet it's paraded as a "good thing".
Of course MS' competition allow their consumers to use any 5400rpm laptop HDD rather than having to pay for over-priced proprietry HDD's.
Once again MS do "just enough" and that's it. :-(
Posted By: Spank (Guest) on March 19, 2010 at 09:37 AM
Fanboys are always going to find the pettiest crap to bitch about when it comes to the other company trying to do something right
Posted By: Guest#2266 (Guest) on March 19, 2010 at 09:44 PM
Gamefly has improved, but they're still pretty slow and they usually have a decent wait time for the more popular games. It seems like you have a lot on your plate gaming wise with Final Fantasy and all, so I'd wait a bit.
Gamefly is not bad, but it's not completely necessary and can be frustrating sometimes. So there's some good and bad with it.
Love the blog!
Posted By: SmartShooter (Guest) on March 20, 2010 at 02:00 AM
Fanboys are always going to find the pettiest crap to bitch about when it comes to the other company trying to do something right
Posted By: Guest#2266 (Guest) on March 19, 2010 at 09:44 PM
"Fanboys" are those who excuse anti-consumer practices. For the record, I'm a 20GB 360 owner so whilst on one hand this news is welcome, it's frustrating that MS are gimping this facility.
How anyone can think the gimping is a good thing is beyond me.
If I'm a fanboy for not drinking the MS kool-aid then so be it. Better that than a fanboy who's willing to bend over and grab their ankles for MS again.
Posted By: Spank (Guest) on March 22, 2010 at 10:15 AM
You know the 'gimping' is probably due to the USB stick having to be formatted to FATX, same as the Memory Units are - right?
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on March 23, 2010 at 01:24 AM
You know the 'gimping' is probably due to the USB stick having to be formatted to FATX, same as the Memory Units are - right?
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on March 23, 2010 at 01:24 AM
Xbox HDD's also use FATX and they're not gimped to 16GB as I'm sure any Elite owner can tell you.
Posted By: Spank (Guest) on March 23, 2010 at 03:02 PM
I think it's the sector size that's different between the two though - MU were, I think, 128-based so there's a hard upper limit of ~16GB for them. I don't think Microsoft really anticipated needing anything more than maybe a 128 Mb MU. It's been a long time since I read anything about the storage formats for the systems though.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on March 23, 2010 at 09:05 PM
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