The Full Circle: 360 News Report 08.22.08

Posted by Joe Roche on 08.22.2008

It's the wedding bells are sounding edition of The Full Circle. We are officially one day away from the TFC Wedding and unfortunately that means that the column is shorter then usual. We do have some big news on Liberty City, Duke Nukem, The Force Unleashed and further confirmation that a price cut is in the works. It's all inside the final bachelor edition of The Full Circle.

The fact that this edition of The Full Circle is going to be one of the worst articles that I've posted here at 411Games is beside the point. The thing that we all should be focused on is that when you are reading this I will be at the rehearsal for my wedding. That's right boys and – well lets not kid ourselves, just boys I am writing this column even though a mere 72 hours from now I will attending not just a wedding, but MY wedding. Needless to say my soon to be mother in law would love for me to be doing something much more productive with my time, but I have a responsibility to provide lackluster jokes and insignificant news items to a handful of loyal readers and by god I'm going to do just that. So without further ado let's go ahead with the final bachelor edition of The Full Circle.

Liberty City Update

I think we can all agree that if you're hearing news from Germany that concerns a Russian it must be good news right?

Well as long as the news is coming out of the Leipzig Games Convention and involves Niko Bellic. It seems that even without making a press conference splash in Germany Microsoft has managed to get me excited about the fall as they've started to tease the first DLC episode coming exclusively to the Xbox 360 for GTA IV. I don't want to overstate the importance of this DLC that may not officially be hitting before the New Year, but if the exclusive DLC for the Xbox 360 does well – that's a very good thing, and a positive sign that exclusive DLC is for real and will stick around. However, if people don't purchase the new episode for Grand Theft Auto then developers will realize that there is more money in cross platform downloadable content (just like they've now realized it's too expensive to release a game exclusive to one console). So I would just like to throw this out to our resident 360 fanboys, if you want to keep having the exclusive DLC to rub PS3 owners nose in then make sure that you've got the Microsoft points to purchase episode one when it drops – whenever that happens.

That Price Cut Rumor



Look kids it is more advertisements hinting at an across the board price cut to the 360. In this Radio Shack ad we've got a $199 Arcade, $299 60GB Elite, and $399 Elite. I would have to say that as the number of advertisements showing this across the board price cut continues to increase I get more and more confident that we're actually going to see these prices come true. I guess if you're thinking about buying a new Xbox 360 you might want to wait a few months and pick up one of the cheaper, sexier units when the price drop becomes officially official.

What to Do This Weekend

If you're not getting married this weekend like a certain Full Circle writer then you might be looking for someone game related to do this weekend – you'd also be in luck because that long rumored The Force Unleashed demo has hit the Xbox Live Marketplace. If you've got 904MB left on your HDD then you can test drive the highly anticipated game from Lucas.

Tecmo President Resigns

Yoshimi Yasuda has joined the parade of executives out the door at Tecmo. Amidst the Team Ninja drama and lawsuits against Tecmo it appears that the company President has decided to step down for "personal reasons." If you're a janitor at the Tecmo building right now you might want to make sure you don't show up late for work next week because by the end of this whole ordeal you might be the CEO.

Duke Nukem Official

Well after every single hint in the history of mankind was dropped about Duke Nukem being offered on the Xbox Live Arcade we now have confirmation that "sometimes in September" the game will become available. The game will contain minimal graphical updates much like the Doom XBLA release but I'm going to assume that won't stop a single person from getting the game. Duke Nukem is one of those games that as a child I always got a kick out of, and I'll absolutely download the XBLA release and then I'll be underwhelmed because things that were once great never live up to that expectation.

THE HOT BUTTON

I told you this would be a short version of The Full Circle.

I apologize for how poorly I've been holding up my end of the bargain with 411Games lately as it seems that combining two major life events (taking the bar, getting married) into a one month window might not have been the most efficient thing for my duties to this website. However, I do want to thank everyone at 411Games for being so understanding, and especially Ramon Aranda who has had to deal with me disappearing for stretches of time and/or completely forgetting my deadline during this whole ordeal.

Looking back at that last paragraph doesn't it seem like I should be following this whole thing up with a – I've had a great time writing for 411Games but my time has finally come to an end? Well for those of you holding out hope that I'm about to step down from my post here you unfortunately will be disappointed here today. I don't plan on going anywhere, other then on a cruise with my at that time wife for a week to recharge my batteries.

In the long and short term what that means is that even though this has been the shortest column that I've ever written here it will still be longer then next week's Full Circle which will not exist. I've written a column two days before the Mass Bar, and I've now posted a column one day before my wedding but I refuse to sit at my laptop during my honeymoon to write this column, I like this gig but not that much.

So with all of that in mind I bid you all a fond farewell – for a week – and I promise that when I come back I'll be fully returned and dialed in to writing the same poor jokes and run on sentences that you've become accustomed to from The Full Circle under my reign.