Tag: Xbox

Gearbox Working on Halo 4 for Next Xbox?!

Gearbox Logo

One of the industry’s best upcoming FPS studios, Gearbox Software has been long rumoured to be working on a secret project that is “bigger” than anything they’ve ever tried. Since this is the team that made the entire Brothers in Arms series, the Halo PC port and many awesome expansions of Half-Life, this is something.

Rumour has it that they’re working on nothing but a Halo 4. Apparently the fight isn’t quite finished. Supposedly, the game is in development for a next-generation Xbox console. It should be noted that while we don’t have any announcements of a new console generation, we haven’t even heard talks about anything like that.

The rumour comes from the Official XBox Magazine, and there doesn’t seem to be any hard verification. Still, it doesn’t seem unbelievable or contradictory. Gearbox only has one product on their plate, Borderlands and Bungie announced that they’re done with the Halo franchise.

In any case, Microsoft milking out the Halo franchise definitely isn’t news, what will all that promotion during Halo 3‘s launch. What is news is the weird, outlandish rumour. So is Microsoft working on a next-gen Xbox? How powerful is it? Is Gearbox actually working on a sequel to Halo 3? Will it come anytime before 2015? Questions galore.

We have no doubt that Microsoft has an answer to them all. ‘Microsoft does not respond to rumors’ or some such.

Blizzard Exec: Microsoft not doing enough for PC Gaming

Rob Pardo

It’s great that there’s a resurgence of PC gaming, or at least PC game development. Valve is already doing fantastic with promising stuff in Steam Cloud. Blizzard show their respect for the venerable platform by making pretty much all their games PC-exclusive (and they’re all big hits, too). I mention this because I believe that Blizzard has every authority of accusing Microsoft for not doing anything for Windows and gaming.

Ever since Microsoft dipped its feet into the console world, it’s never come back, devoting all of its gaming attention to the Xbox and Xbox 360. This is with good reason, as Blizzard COO Paul Sams notes, because it is where Microsoft Games’ bread and butter is, and it is their system, after all.

But they just can’t continue to ignore Windows.“Certainly they have a lot in Windows. And Windows is a system that supports all the business applications as well as games.” he says. That’s true: active participation from Microsoft is what is necessary to bring forth the PC as a gaming platform. Windows is easily the most widespread platform right now, with more copies of Windows in this world than every other console combined.

Take heed, Microsoft, and mend your ways!

Don’t lie to me – you’re playing games on that computer!

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New York based NPD Group, a provider of consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries reported April 2nd that overall American participation in gaming rose in 2007 to 72 percent of the population from 64 percent last year.  Of these, more than half say they play games online.

In its “Online Gaming 2008,” which analyzes the online gaming landscape and focuses specifically on consumer behavior, time and money spent in this market, the PC platform continues to be the driving force in online gaming, with 90 percent of online gamers stating they use a PC to play games online, 19 percent claiming they use a video game system (console or portable) and 3 percent claiming they use a cell phone. 

Four out of 10 online gamers are ages 2-17, driven heavily by kids ages 6-12.  Kids ages 2 to 12 are driving more than 25 percent of online gaming, while 18-24 year olds only represent 10 percent of online gaming.

2 years old??!! I was still learning to use the potty at age 2 and today kids are playing games online???????

At this point in the lifecycle of today’s video game consoles, multiple console ownership is low, with only 3 percent reporting that they own two of the three “next-gen” systems and only 2 percent claiming to own all three systems.

Among those who use a video game system for online gaming, Xbox 360 is the top system used, with 50 percent stating they play games online via that system.  On average, Xbox 360 owners spend the most time per week using their 360s to play games online, followed by PC and PS3 owners using these respective systems for online game play.

According to the report, 13 percent of online gamers spend 20 hours or more per week on online gaming.  Per platform, 33 percent of portable online gamers, 29 percent of console online gamers and 13 percent of PC online gamers are in this heaviest online gaming group.

“Despite the buzz in the industry regarding online gaming, it is still relatively small compared to offline gaming,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group.  “There is still a large, untapped market for gaming in general and online gaming in particular.”