Eurogamer Interview : Microsoft's Shane Kim
Shane Kim talks motion control rumors and more
From what I've heard the "Newton" and "Lips" projects were going through quality assurance electronics testing. If it were just research and development it would not be tested as such.

Japan Sales: Wii Continues Top 10 Domination
It will be interesting to see how the Wii's run away success affects development of future Japanese games,

Analyst: Don't expect a PS3 price cut this year

Sony post 4Q profit, smaller PlayStation 3 loss

Nintendo: No Such Thing As 'Casual' Gaming
Back in the 1980s there was no term of Casual gaming. It was all causal gaming in the arcades.

Sony releases PS3 "stability" update
Hopefully this will address the locking issues that the Playstation 3 version of GTA IV was crippled by.

Sega, Platinum Games Partner Up
Hopefully they can help Sega make a 3d Sonic game that might not suck.

Researcher: Violent Video Games Do Not Lead to Criminal Behavior

Demo: Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit
I heard that the power levels in this Xbox Live Demo go up to NINNEE THOUSANNNDDDD!!!!!

Folks at Microsoft's Gamerday 2008 sat down with Microsoft Game Studios Corporate Vice President Shane Kim, they asked him about "Lips" and "Newton". With all due respect he was totally bluffing.

Interview Shane Kim 14-May-2008 Microsoft Game Studios boss
360 boss: "I've never heard of a motion controller"
Kim "confident" 360 will last 7 years
Shane Kim Clueless About Xbox 360 Newton

"What is this 'Lips'I keep hearing about?"
"Well, the stock answer is that we don't comment on rumors and speculation. But I will say, look, we have a lot of research and development going on all over the place, in Live and in Hardware and we have a ton of success in the accessory business - and that's probably a story that doesn't get told enough. From a commercial perspective and also in terms of critical acclaim."
"We're going to continue to look at new ways we can introduce different things - the third parties are doing this as well with the music controllers. So there's opportunities for us there too. We're an R and D company at heart."
"I agree with you. But I've never heard of a motion sensing controller... I don't know what you are talking about..." - Microsoft Game Studios Corporate Vice President Shane Kim

Next week I am going to the Vancouver Game Summit and Shane Kim is giving a keynote there. I am trying to get an interview with him.

Here is the link round up of coverage of "Lips". I am sorry that I got the timing of the unveiling wrong, when I saw that they had place holders for "Lips" on that website I thought it was time to open my mouth and say what I knew. No pun intended.

Microsoft Source: Read my Lips, new Xbox 360 accessory tomorrow
Xbox 360 "Lips" Getting Announced Tomorrow?
Rumor: Microsoft's 'Lips' is an Xbox accessory
Rumor: 'Lips' isn't a game, it's a new accessory
Confirmed: Xbox 360 "Lips" Getting Announced Tomorrow
Microsofts store hemmelighet Hva ligger bak det mystiske kodenavnet «Lips»?
Loose Lips: Microsoft Opening Up Lips (And More) Tomorrow?

"Wow, 8bitjoystick seems to have a lot of inside info there. I don't think anyone would have guessed Lips could have to do with Voice input." - Kotaku commentator

Microsoft is pretty stoked that they almost have sold 10 million Xbox 360s in the US and a world wide total of 19 million.

Xbox 360 First Gaming System to Reach 10 Million in U.S. Console Sales This Generation
REDMOND, Wash. -- May 14, 2008 -- Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system has sold over 10 million units in the U.S., making it the first current-generation gaming console to break the 10 million mark in the U.S. The U.S. install base contributes to global sales of over 19 million, more than any other current-generation console.
"This year will be the largest in the history of the video game industry, with Xbox 360 leading the charge in the U.S. and abroad," said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. "History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry."

Other stuff :

XBMC Turns Your Mac into the Ultimate Media Center
Wow Xbox Media Center ported to the Macintosh! That is the media center program that was made for hacked Xbox ones. How could I not check that out?

Valve distances themselves from PS3 development
Valve: "We're not PS3 developers"
"Even though you broke my heart and killed me, and tore me to pieces, and threw every piece into a fire."- GLaDOS

Microsoft unofficially shoots down rumors of the slim "Xbox 540", They did not deny future revisions to the Xbox 360 motherboards, like "Valhalla".

Gaming: Microsoft Denies Slimmer Xbox 360

"While we don't normally comment on rumors like this, we can tell you that we have no plans to release a new console in 2009." - MS PR source

Major Nelson and Gamerscore blog let the word out that Stubs the Zombie was headed for sale on Xbox Live as an Xbox Originals on May 19th. Stubbs is a great game that has been hard to find as of late. It was built on the Halo engine but it is not as easy to find as Halo. This is great news and I can't think of a game that I would like to see as an Xbox Original. Stubbs is a ZOMBASTIC game!

Here is my previous review of Stubbs The Zombie : Rebel Without a Pulse:

Review : Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse for Xbox

Stubbs the Zombie for Xbox

Stubbs the Zombie is a third person action game staring a voiceless zombie in a ripped suit gaping flesh wounds and a cigarette. Stubbs pops out of the ground and back to life in the retro futuristic city of Punchbowl in the late 1950s. You stagger through town eating the brains of the living and take over the city with a giant zombie horde one delicious brain at at time. Punchbowl is full of hover cars with tail fins and mad scientists with ray guns, It is sort of Leave it to Beaver meets Flash Gordon. A dark sarcastic humorous look at Americana permeates through the game and gives it a very unique tone not unlike Destroy All Humans

After a few smacks to a human they will stupor a bit and then you have a chance to grab their head and munch out their juicy juicy living brains in a huge splatter of particle based fleshy blood spray and screaming. The brains also make you stronger and the corpse will turn into a mindless zombie faster. The mindless zombie horde with follow you around and seek out humans to fight and eat. using the horde is necessary to fight large crowds of heavily armed humans. You can push your zombies into the humans and use them as shields from their firearms. Fights go quickly from having no zombies to help you to having the tide swing in your favor as the majority of humans turn. Now Stubbs can not run very fast since he is undead so you have to hold in account that the humans are quicker than you. Stubs can also rip out an organ and throw it as a grenade, bowl his exploding head, fart poison clouds and rip off his hand and have it crawl on the ground and posses a living human by grabbing the back of their head. This is actually the deadliest weapon and if you take over a human with a powerful ray-gun they can take out humans.

The Halo engine can handle huge environments, semi-intelligent crowds and vehicles and it is very refreshing to see it used on something besides a first person shooter. This game works like a charm on the Xbox 360 since the Backwards Compatibility team made damn sure that Halo worked and it was also released on Macintosh and PC. It is a pretty rare cult game and that is too bad because it is probably the most Zombastic game out there besides Dead Rising.

There is some really great soundtrack song of the 1950s and 1960s being done by hipster bands like The Flaming Lips, Phantom Planet, Ben Kweller, The Raveonettes, and Death Cab For Cutie but they are only at certain parts of the game and most of the game has no music but the rhythmic cries of the undead moaning BRAINS!!!"

There was a bit of controversy when everybody favorite anti-videogame Jowl-clad senator Joe Lieberman (I - Naboo) said that this game encouraged cannibalism in children. Of course the game is rated M for Mature and can't be purchased by kids and since Stubbs is a zombie eating human brains is not technically cannibalism. The game developers wrote a sarcastic statement saying that Joe Lieberman discriminates against the undead.

This game can be found for twenty bucks and it is a blast to play. It is not the most in depth epic game in the world but it can be a lot of zombastic brain-eating fun. One would think that a brain-eating based combat system would get boring but the every bite of the flesh of the living is as tasty as the first.

Some people have wondered why Microsoft would be designing a new accessory called Lips when they already have a wired and wireless headset on the market.

I suspect the biggest reason is that the current headsets do not provide enough audio data to be a good controller in an audio singing game and probably for voice recognition commands. I can barley pass a song using the Xbox microphones on RockBand but get almost perfect scores using the USB mic.

Microsoft has put a lot of research into voice recognition over the years and even came close to putting it in Office.

Lips could be something as simple as a USB Microphone but as complex as a voice recognition SDK for future games. I can type pretty fast at a keyboard but I could see how voice commands on a game would work if your hands were busy with a controller.

I doubt it is a new wired or wireless headset. They don't really need any new hardware for VoIP communication.

Music games are a huge business with Rock Band, Karaoke Revolution, Boogie, Guitar Hero IV, SingStar, and High School Musical all using additional hardware to play them. Currently they don't have any Microsoft branded accessories to play those games. However there is a big market for music games for casual game players

Music games are a big market, Xbox accessories is a huge market for Microsoft. This might be two great tastes coming together like peanut butter and chocolate. I guess we will have to wait for E3.

Microsoft's Gamerday 2008 event is wrapping up and it looks like they are not going to show off either the "Newton" or "Lips" accessories at this event.

They are still coming. They are real hardware projects that the engineering team at Xbox is working on. I don't know when they are going to officially announce them. Yesterday seems like a pretty good time since they found a mention of "Lips" on that Microsoft PR website.

It looks like they are going to save all new hardware announcements for their media event before this years E3 media expo.

Oh I will have my day. I will drink your milkshake!

Well played Microsoft... well played indeed!

Today Microsoft kicked off the Gamerday 2008 media event in San Francisco. I am not down there but I'll bring you updates as soon as they come down the internet wire. So far this morning there is no sign or word about the Lips accessory or Newton controller. They might show them off later on in the day or they might want to save all hardware announcements until the E3 expo.

Today they are showing off the games:
Gears of War 2 (Coming out November)
Banjo Kazooie - Nuts and Bolts (Coming out 2008)
Viva Piñata - Trouble in Paradise (Coming out November)
Too Human (Coming out in August)
Fable 2 (Coming out 2008)
Ninja Gaiden 2 (Coming out June)
and
Penny Arcade Adventures (coming out May 21)

Press Release goodness is as follows

Video Media Alert - Tuesday May 13th, 2008

Microsoft Game Studios Unveils Gears of War 2 Gameplay and Showcases 2008 Blockbuster Lineup
"Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise" Set to Burst Onto Store Shelves This Fall

continue reading

TG Daily wrote an article today that stated that they think that the Valhalla Xbox 360 motherboard is going to be integrated into a new case design and form factor. They threw around the slang term "the Xbox 540".

I do not see how this is going to be the case and here are my reasons why :

1. Microsoft has never redesigned the case of an Xbox product. I have never heard anything about them changing the form-factor in the middle of a platform's generation.

2. Their entire idea is to put out a better cheaper Xbox 360 each year and they are not going to make a cheaper system by developing a new case. Their hardware strategy for Xbox is about building a better and cheaper Xbox on the inside that will reduce the significant manufacturing costs.

3. Microsoft is selling plenty of accessories that use the current design : The wireless adapter, the external movie drives (HD-DVD and probably Blu-ray), the memory units, face plates and the 20-Gig Hard Drive, 60-Gig Hard Drive (it is coming soon) and the 120-Gig Hard Drive.

4. They sacrificed the stability and reliability of the Xbox 360 in favor of a smaller sexier form factor launching in fall of 2005 that was established before the Xenon motherboard was designed. The current Xbox 360 had enough airflow heating problems and they are not going to make it harder for them by shrinking the form factor.

5. Sony had planned on keeping the thin PSTwo around while they sold the PlayStation 3 on a ten year life cycle. I doubt that Microsoft is going to keep selling the Xbox 360 once their third generation Xbox is on the market. A new Xbox 360 case would be overkill if they are going to have a third Xbox platform in a few years after the Valhalla motherboard.

6. They are putting all their effort into making an Xbox 360 that was reliable and cost effective to produce.

7. Just combining the CPU and GPU into a new unified chip set with a new cooling system is going to require a total redesign of the motherboard, to build that chip set and make it work reliably is not going going to be easy.

Update : I think a more realistic goal for the Valhalla Xbox 360 team would be to integrate that ginormious power supply brick into inside 360 form factor. That would shave off a few bucks in manufacturing costs but I don't see it being very likely.