Nintendo still rules the roost

WE LIKE OUR gaming, in fact we quite like a bit of World of Warcraft on the side, but not enough to necessitate a setup such as this setup discovered by Engadget courtesy of core77.com.

The setup apparently includes 47 pcs and seven monitors - 23 each for the owner, 23 for his girlfriend, and one which acts as a server. We're not sure Al Gore would approve of the energy bill.

Edge magazine brought out the mags list of 100 top games of all time this week, and it makes interesting reading. There's a few surprises in there, but we don't disagree with the number one - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time.

Xbox 360
Microsoft has pledged to extend the warranties to three years from date of purchase for those who suffer from broken Xbox 360s, and will reimburse those who already paid to have it fixed. Considering the 360 hasn't even been out for two years, that means everyone is covered.

Xbox exec Peter Moore published an open letter to the "Xbox Community" addressing hardware failure and promising "policy changes intended to keep you in the game, worry-free." It continued: "If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience."

As previously reported by the INQ, this new policy will cost Microsoft in the region of $1.05 to $1.15 billion (US).

Following this announcement, a conference call was held with Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment & Devices Division, and other Microsoft executives. Joystiq managed to jot down the whole lot, which makes further interesting reading.

Gamepoltics goes a step further and attempts to put the announcement and rumours together to formulate some estimation of the actual failure rate. The site considers the 33% figure being banded about in the press, not so far from the truth.

With Microsoft dealing with a deluge of investigations and press coverage regarding the 360's red ring of death, 1up.com discovered that Forza Motorsport 2 seems to be bricking consoles.

Threads on FM.net discussing the situation had apparently been deleted/moved which some suspected implied some kind of cover-up.

Community Manager Che Chou responded to the accusations in his ' Weekly Pitpass Report':

"We've gone and tested Forza 2 extensively against the hardware and have confirmed that the game itself does not brick Xbox 360 consoles. Although it might seem like the number of instances is high, especially if you go by forum reactions, it's actually a very small percentage that it's happening to and we acknowledge that it's very frustrating. In other words, there isn't really a software solution here."

Considering the amount of units Microsoft has been needing to replace, it's surprising the company didn't reach it's target of 12 million consoles shipped by June 30th - missing the target by some 400,000 systems.

Even better news for 360 owners come from Electronics Arts.EA's Madden NFL 08 and NCAA Football 2008 and 2K Sports' All-Pro Football 2K8 -- will run at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360 and 30 frames per second on the PS3. The move represents a jump from previous Madden games, which ran at 30 frames per second on all platforms, including the Xbox 360 and PS3.

PS3/PSP
The DS may still be outselling all other consoles put together in Japan, but sales of Sony's consoles were up last week according to the latest figures from Media Create.

During the week ending July 1, Playstation Portable sales rose by 5000 units to reach 38,305, while 16,316 PS2s were shifted - an increase of 26 per cent.

These aren't the only good numbers relating to Sony.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced (via Gamesindustry.biz) a huge increase in European Blu-ray disc sales - attributing the rise to the release of Playstation 3.

As reported by Tech Digest, more than 180,000 SPHE films have now been sold in Europe. According to Sony, sales have soared by over 1000% since the PS3 launched in March.

After seeing the PS3 losing many exclusives to Microsoft's Xbox 360, SCEA boss Jack Tretton has criticised what he described as the "different approach" of rival platform holders, stating that Sony won't "bribe" developers to make PS3 exclusives.

"We don't buy exclusivity. We don't fund development. We don't, for lack of a better term, bribe somebody to only do a game on our platform."

Speaking to Reuters, a Sega Sammy executive has said that Sony may need to reduce the cost of PS3 by 2008 in order to increase demand of the console.

"Name brand, price and software are what count," Sega Corp. corporate director Masanao Maeda said. "Since it's getting difficult to make software availability a differentiating factor, superior marketing and pricing strategy will be the key for Sony."

The Sony brand has taken a battering lately and the firm just can help itself. Take the price-cut shenanigans.

After several selected US stores leaked information that the PS3 was to sell at $499, Sony denied it.

But Joystiq still detailed the week's events and even Slashdot got in on the act. Finally, today, Sony announced that the price cut was official. The company also confirmed that an 80GB hard drive-equipped model will launch in the States in August.

The latest firmware update for the PlayStation Portable has been found to include an ISO loader which would allow users to play games stored on Memory Stick.

The np9660.prx file was discovered by coders in the v3.50 and v3.51 updates released last month, which also unlock the PSP's full 333MHz processing power - some time after hackers unlocked it.

With an ISO loader, PSP owners will be able to play games without the need for a UMD. However, Sony has yet to confirm what this means for the console.

Wii/DS
Nintendo's Wii game console outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 by a ratio of over 6 to 1 in June in Japan, a game magazine publisher said to Reuters, solidifying Nintendo's leading position.

Nintendo sold 270,974 units of the Wii in the four weeks ended June 24, compared with 41,628 units for the PS3 and 17,616 units for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, according to data from Enterbrain.

The Wii's lead against the PS3 was 4 to 1 in April and 5 to 1 in May.

This explains some of the stock problems Nintendo is still facing. It's been more than seven months since Nintendo launched the Wii, but the consoles are still selling so well that supply still hasn't caught up with demand, so CNN reports.

Considering Sony's reluctance to offer exclusivity deals (see PS3/PSP section above), the rumour that BeautifulKatamari has dropped the PS3 in favour of the Wii, may not come as a huge surprise.

Nintendo has also released the date of the launch of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS, in the US - October the 1st. It was recently launched in Japan to a near perfect score in Famitsu. We still can't wait.

If this isn't a killer app for you, maybe you'll appreciate the announced camera add-on for the DS instead.

Don't forget to check out Eurogamer's weekly Wii Virtual Console round-up. µ

See also
Further Xbox 360 production problems
Xbox 360 CPU efused bypassed
Nintendo dominates the world
Slim PSP rumours surface