The Full Circle: 360 News Report 10.19.07

Posted by Mike Minotti on 10.19.2007

Halo 3 sells very well, which means the 360 sells very well. How well? Wii well. Oh yeah. It was that well.



Has everyone been enjoying The Orange Box? I'm sure you've heard its praises sung many times by this point, but it really is a fantastic game. Great value for your dollar. While I wouldn't call any single game in it a Game of the Year contender (although I think it's safe to say that Half-Life 2 was the GotY for 2004), as a compilation it may be the best of its kind ever.

I'll go into some more details further into the column.



Don't forget to visit the Exploding Barrel podcast's site. A new podcast will be up on Saturday. Check out the podcast's site here. As always, I appreciate it.

News

360 Best selling console, Halo 3 best selling game in September..



For the first time, the 360 has outsold the Nintendo Wii. Here's what the console NPDs look like:

September 2007 NPD Hardware Sales

Xbox 360 -- 527,800
Wii -- 501,000
Nintendo DS -- 495,800
PlayStation Portable -- 284,500
PlayStation 2 -- 215,000
PlayStation 3 -- 119,000

While it may not be a huge lead, it is a lead non-the-less. Of course, I think we all know we have Halo to thank for this. Halo 3, by the way, was the best selling game for the month of September with 3.3 million sales, including all three versions of the games. Keep in mind that Halo 3 was also releases pretty late in the month. Hopefully the effects will carry over to October.

Oh, and how about those PS3 numbers?

Xbox 360 Arcade SKU confirmed.



One of the worst kept secrets in gaming history has finally been confirmed. This new SKU comes with a wireless controller and a 256mb memory card. It will be sold for the price of $279.99. That's the same price the Core SKU was.

Also coming with the SKU is a disk containing five Xbox Live Arcade games. Those games are Pac-Man Championship, Uno, Boom-Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, and Luxor 2. The only problem is that we're not sure if these are the full versions of these games, or just the trial versions.

This SKU is obviously trying to be marketed to the casual audience that loves the Wii so much. Will it work? I don't think so. This still looks like a glorified Core SKU, especially if the Arcade games are just trials. Even if they are the full versions, I really don't know how someone who was on the fence about getting a 360 is suddenly going to be persuaded by Pac Man. A very good version of Pac Man, mind you, but still freaking Pac Man.

Street Fighter 2 HD confirmed.



Not coming out this year, I'm afraid. No idea how early in the next year it will be out. On the bright side, Street Fighter 4 has been officially announced by Capcom. No platforms are confirmed, but Capcom has been known to be pretty good to the 360.

BioShock DLC coming?.



Short answer; maybe. Ken Levine, talking to Games for Windows Magazine, said that if BioShock had downloadable content, it would enhance the original game, rather than add to it. That means that we should expect stuff like new plasids and maybe new guns, but we probably be seeing any expansions to the campaign. A shame, but I guess that's what BioShock 2 will be for.

Weekly Releases

I don't know how much enthusiasm I can fabricate for this list.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary – 10/23
An episodic release. I wish there was a normal retail version.

Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation – 10/23
I never got into this series, but I have a friend who swears by it, so it might be worth something.

Conan – 10/23
Sadly, this has nothing to do with the classic Schwarzenegger films.

Weekly Poll



Would you buy a Halo game not made by Bungie?

Never! 18%
Sure, Halo is Halo. 27%
Depends on the developer. 55%

Weekly Trailer



Target Topic: The Orange Box.

Like I said before, I really love The Orange Box. I'm not really surprised. I've been a big fan of the Half-Life series for a long time, and have regarded Half-Life 2 as the best FPS ever made for a long time (BioShock was the only game to come close in recent memory). Still, I am kind of surprised about what I like best about The Orange Box; Portal. Portal is a First Person Puzzle game filled with… well, I'm sure you know what Portal is, so I won't bore you with that. I'll just tell you why it's so great. The puzzles in Portal are infinitely satisfying without being overly frustrating. The game does such a great job teaching you the mechanics that you'll be able to figure out just about everything the game throws at you. Eventually. I had a friend, who is by no means FPS inclined, play Portal. He absolutely loved it. Even more surprisingly, he got the hang of it fairly quickly. This was the same guy who made me want to gouge my own eyes out when I watched him play BioShock.

I'm sure you also have heard about how funny Portal is. Well, it's true. GLaDOS, whose voice I'm sure you've heard in The Orange Box commercials by now, is one of the funniest video game characters in recent memory. She's also a surprisingly effective antagonist. Without spoiling much, I'll say that Portal has a surprisingly good final boss/puzzle. The credits are, quite simply, the best credits in video game history.

Team Fortress 2 is a game I had been looking forward to for a long time. I definitely like what they delivered. Playing 2fort brings back a lot of good memories of the time I had with Team Fortress Classic. The balancing in this game is an improvement over TFC. The removal of class specific grenades actually forces defensive classes to play defensively. I doubt you'll see many medics making flag runs.

Still, I have some complaints. 2fort is the only CTF map, which is practically a sin. Honestly, with only 6 maps, there's not much choice. Some people complain that there aren't customizable options for maps. I don't really agree with that, since Team Fortress maps have always been built with one game mode in mind. The problem is that with so few maps, we only have a few game modes. Adding Canal Zone2 and the Rock2 would definitely help.

I actually haven't gotten to Episode 2 yet. I had opted instead to start with the original HL2. I don't have much to say about it. It's still as great as it ever was, and works very well on the 360. My only complaint is that the vehicle sequences don't control as well as they did on the PC.

Long story short, The Orange Box is awesome. I really doubt anyone could be disappointed by it.

The Other Guys

Nintendophiles' Theo Fraser better share my anger that Little Mac is just a freaking assistant trophy instead of a full fledged real character.

The SIXAXIS' Mark Salmela noticed I was gone last week, suggesting that I skipped to play Halo. Actually, I haven't played very much Halo. I know, and I'm supposed to be the 360 guy. Still, doesn't mean I couldn't whoop Mark's ass in some Snowbound.

By the way, in case anyone is wondering, I missed last week because of a family emergency. Nothing we can't handle, but it is consuming some time. I'm still going to try my best to get this column to you guys. Thanks for understanding.

Game Over

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here; HUGE SUCCESS.