E3 is, finally, right around the corner and us games journalist types are getting antsy. Because the show is slated to bring back the glitz and glam of the E3s of yore, we might finally be spared another Giant Enemy Crab or Ravi Drums incident. Of course, bringing back booth babes doesn’t necessarily mean that the games that will be unveiled this year will be anything to get excited over. Because my soul is torn between hopeful optimism and jaded pessimism, I will offer here my predictions on what the best and worst possibilities of this year’s E3 might have in store for us.
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A few days ago, Major Nelson gave us word of a new tool that Xbox owners could use to regain licenses for their downloaded content such as Arcade games and add-ons. The Microsoft DRM has been a point of considerable debate, as users can only use their content on one registered console without being connected to the Internet. This was exacerbated by the fact that the Xbox 360 has a less-than-exemplary hardware reliability and so many users who had to get their consoles replaced (including myself) found the content that we had paid for crippled due to the games not being played on the console with which they were originally downloaded. Until this new DRM management tool was released, Xbox users had no way of transferring their licenses. Have I lost you?

Hit the jump for more details on what is possibly the most inept remedy I’ve ever seen.
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If you happened to pick up this month’s issue of popular gaming magazine and Microsoft fanboy required reading, OXM, I’m sure that you did so based on their exclusive coverage of Bethesda’s upcoming massive RPG, Fallout 3. And, if you so happened to purchase the magazine (or receive it free due to a GameFly subscription that you happened to cancel months ago), I’m sure that you noticed the picture of a certain Fallout 3 town on page 45. The town, constructed solely out of scattered parts of a “downed airliner,” is aptly named Megaton.

I realize what you’re thinking; this is just some subtle coincidence. Megaton is a fairly common word that has everything to do with nuclear holocausts and whatnot. However, based on our love for Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and our controversial hate for Southpeak’s Oblivion-clone, Two Worlds, I cannot dismiss Bethesda’s inclusion of a town named Megaton as anything less than a tribute to our great and powerful site, MEGATONik. Yes, Bethesda loves us, and we love them back. So … how about a complimentary flight out to Cali to celebrate our love of Bethesda with an early look at Fallout 3? Pretty please?

And Rockstar, remember that time when we loved you? Naming a burrough of Liberty City after MEGATONik (I’d call it MegaSKANKik) would fit quite nicely, I do believe.

I’m not going to pretend I really understand what any of this means but here we go anyway. Rumor has it that the XBox 360 will be getting two more motherboard/chipsets code named “Opus” and “Valhalla.” Put those together and you’ve got something that sounds like a really epic opera, “The Valhalla Opus.” We already have the Xenon, which was the original chipset, the Zephyr, which came in that fancy Elite you picked up, and the Falcon (Punch!), which is in the current systems with a 65 nm CPU. Plus there is the Jasper, which has both a 65 nm CPU and a 65 nm GP together, but isn’t in systems yet. Put those together and you get Jasper’s Xenon Zephyr Falcon, which is a strange bird that can breathe fire.

Digressing from sticking together 360 chipset names and figuring out what they are, these two new chipsets look to pretty much clean up on their predecessors. In fact the Opus will literally do this as it is a Falcon generation motherboard designed to fit in a Xenon case, sporting a 90 nm GPU and a 65 nm CPU. This is a bit less powerful then the other chipsets and so would probably be used simply to refurbish old or busted 360’s, which is good for the environment and for no longer having to worry about RRoD.

The Valhalla on the other hand cleans up in every other way. It is basically the unified Jasper but more powerful, more energy efficient, more reliable and cheaper. It will also do your homework, walk the dog and if you’re really desperate perform oral sex. The Valhalla seems to be the dream 360 chipset, incorporating everything you’ve been wanting and booting out everything you hated, plus allowing for a cheaper selling price. Too bad you’ll have to wait to get it, as they won’t be coming out till 2010. This really makes the Jasper, rumored to be coming out next year, look bad. It has a lame name and is in second place even before it comes out.

According to Kotaku.com.au (the Australian version of Kotaku, for those unware of what a “.au” on the end of something means) Microsoft is refusing to take back $10 million worth of faulty XBox 360s. This information comes from a Kotaku reader who spoke with an associate of his that works in a high position at EB. The reader’s associate told Kotaku that Microsoft is forcing the company to take responsibilty for the situation that their failing consoles have caused, leaving EB up a proverbial creek without a proverbial paddle.

The Kotaku reader relayed a transcript that he had received from his associate which was full of information about EB Australia taking a major blow thanks to Microsoft’s faulty systems. In response to Microsoft’s refusal to take back any of their faulty consoles EB Australia has stopped stocking any new 360 consoles and started selling only used 360s, also hoping that this will recoup some of their losses. 

I don’t have the time or the money to call an Australian EB to find out if this is true, but the guys at Kotaku say that they called around and couldn’t find any 360s “in stock.” It seems a bit strange for the entire country of Austrlia to not have a single new 360 in in stock, don’t you think?

Sounds like this will be a really big problem for Microsoft if it’s true.

Speaking of the inventors of the RROD, Microsoft has responded to this with a lovely quote:

We’re not going to comment on this.

Wow, Microsoft, way to be consumer friendly there.

 Update: Looks like it could all just be a big rumor. Still a bit strange that Microsoft was being so tight lipped.

It seems that the massive outages and problems that we’ve been facing as a gaming community on Xbox Live have finally landed the massive corporation into a bit of legal trouble.

According to an article from CNET News, three Texas residents have filed a lawsuit on their behalf and others who have had issues with Xbox Live in the excess of 5 million dollars.

From the arcticle:

In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Microsoft should have known strong holiday sales would tax its servers. “Microsoft knew the increase in subscriptions would increase game-play on its servers, yet failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers.”

It sounds like they might actually have a case against Microsoft. What makes me wonder is why there hasn’t been a class-action lawsuit brought up for everyone who’s upset about this inconvenience.

In an attempt to appease the Xbox Live members and to save face from their latest fiasco Microsoft has told the community that it would allow Xbox subscribers a free game to download.  Though what that game is and when we can download it remains a mystery.

View the full complaint here.

[Via CNET News]

I was having a really hard week about two weeks ago. The constant schedule of a day job mixed with the yearning to be somewhere else and a dash of missing the significant other all culminated into a black cloud hanging over my head. All of the collective “blehs” ended the moment I got home from work and found that my beautiful and awesome wife had picked up the game that I had been longing for all week long, Mass Effect.

I could hardly contain myself; I couldn’t wait to rip open the packaging and take a whiff of that new-game-smell (you know the one). I finally had the game in my hands, the one game that I had been waiting impatiently for months until its release. I had the bare minimum pre-order from my local GameStore branch since September, but I was unable to pick it up because of the staggering cost of the Rock Band box set.

I put the game into my Xbox 360 and proceeded to lose the next week of my life to the sheer addictiveness of this game. I couldn’t be bothered to customize my character. I wanted to get right in on the action. I took the reigns as Commander John Shepherd (the sole surviving member of Alliance mission that had gone horribly awry early on in his service) and started my grand adventures across the mysterious regions of the Milky Way galaxy.

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This year’s Xbox 360 fall update will officially be coming December 4th, a little over a week from now. In past seasonal updates, Microsoft had released many neat and useful features; however, this update will do nothing of the sort. This year’s fall update will allow you to see your friends’ friends lists and … not much else. Additionally, as reported earlier, you will be able to download such Xbox Originals as Halo: Combat Evolved, Fable and Crimson Skies among others.

However, Microsoft plans to announce other updates at a later date. For now, I’ll have to go ahead and say that Microsoft is copping out early with this season’s update.

Hit that sexy button below to read the full press release.

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I can’t believe it, but Halo 3 sales were actually beaten this week. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box sold 348,049 copies on its first week, while Halo 3 sold 285,860 units this week. Seems like Microsoft’s most anticipated title for the Xbox 360 could be dying down…this week at least. I’m sure Halo 3 will top the charts next week, while Orange Box will bump down to second place.

In somewhat related news, Orange Box seems to be doing pretty poor on Xbox Live. According to Major Nelson, Orange Box is the 9th top played online title of the week, while Halo 3 is still number 1.