Xbox 360 Hard Drive Transfer Kit Now Sold Separately. 120GB Off The Shelves In Europe.

There you are with your 20GB Xbox 360 HDD. And it’s filling up rapidly lately with all the downloadable content that is coming out lately. O and Microsoft know about it. So what to do? Well Microsoft’s solution is: Let’s pull the 120GB HDD off the shelves and leave everyone with the 60GB Starters kit. Why? Well, the 120 had a free Xbox360 Data Migration kit along with it and cost +/- 100 Euro. But the 60 version (that has NO Xbox360 Data Migration kit and comes along with a free headset (that you already have), a 3 month live gold card (that most also already have), and an internet cable (that you also already have)) costs 80 Euro and you have to buy a transfer unit for it that is priced at 20 Euro incl shipping cost.

This does sound like Microsoft is trying to dump their goods on the marked while making profit and scr** us over while at it. So what did we do? We asked Microsoft if they could send over a transfer unit and we send it back after use. They said no.. Ok, so we looked for a transfer unit but there is something you need to know there too! A 120GB Xbox360 Data Migration Kit doesn’t work on a 60GB transfer unit! And we are not quite there yet. Since we can transfer data with a UMD too. But we had trouble with doing that sinds our account got stuck in limbo several times and then you need to delete the account first and recover it again by the recovery system. Problem is if you have your UMD still in your 360 you will lose also all your safe files..

Thank you Microsoft

Little sum up:
1 360 60 GB HDD (80 Euro) contains
1 60 GB HDD (worth 35 Euro)
1 Headset (worth 20 Euro)
1 3 month live gold cart (worth 21 Euro)
1 Internet cable (worth 4 Euro)

And you need another 20 euro for the Xbox360 Data Migration Kit. That is the same price as the 120GB remember? This is NOT stated on the package of the 60GB Starter Kid. And we don’t have another option here!

Uploader Gets A Fine Of $1.5 Million For Uploading NSMB Wii

This person was allegedly the first to upload New Super Mario Bros. Wii to the internet, doing so on November 6, one week before the game was released (an act that facilitated creative works in addition to piracy).

Not only is this bad news for this one guy, it should also serve as a warning to other would-be pirates. “Upon the game being uploaded to the Internet, Nintendo was able to employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics to identify the individual responsible for illegally copying the file and making it available for further distribution,” Nintendo said in a press release. “On 23 November, 2009, Nintendo obtained a Federal Court search order in respect of the individual’s residential premises. This led to the seizure of property from those premises in order to gain further evidence against the individual.”

Seriously, guys, do not duplicate that disc.

Rumors of Project Natal interaction in Halo:Reach denied

Bungie has shot down the idea of Project Natal involvement with their upcoming release, Halo:Reach. A faulty screen shot has caused much of the controversy when the cross hair of the player was aimed to the far left of the screen.

The idea was shut down when one of the employee’s of Bungie denied these claims:
“Halo: Reach is NOT a Natal title and is being developed expressly with the traditional Xbox 360 controller in mind.”

I suppose that we can cross off Halo:Reach as a Natal game.

What Is The Xbox 360 And Windows Live Game Room? Well Let’s See.

Ever wanted to play the good old classics again? The good old classics that we used to play back in the early 80’s? Well just look at this and see your dreams come true!

Xbox 360 Elite 120GB Model Out Of Date?

The 120GB model of the Elite is getting harder and harder to find all over the world and several online shops don’t have them for sale any more. Others even sell it now incl a litle bonus just to get it out of the door.

So what is going on here?

Why the rush to get Elite consoles out the door? Well, if you look on GameStop’s site, the regular Elite bundle is “Currently Not Available Online”. It’s not available at Best Buy, either (only the holiday bundle is). Same with Walmart. According to Kotaku. Here in Europe it isn’t note-able up to now although the high amount of bundles does catch our attention.  Just maybe the previously limited edition, 250GB “Super Elite” Xbox 360 is about to replace the regular 120GB model of the Elite.

Microsoft has not replied to any of these speculations up to now. so only time will tell if it is going to happen.

Microsoft EMG Research found more ways to control your game

Ever found yourself wondering why there isn’t something that you can put down fast enough to pick up the phone? Ever wanted to play a game without a controller? Well this might be an answer in the future. Although this does resemble the Power Glove from Nintendo as seen here:

I know it was not wireless and it didn’t really do its job but still its not so far off.

Analysis: Matt Matthews says Xbox 360 Software Leads as Nintendo Falters

Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews looks at the changing U.S. software landscape as part of their November NPD analysis, finding that Xbox 360 software is surging into the sales gap left by a declining Nintendo market.

According to Michael Pachter, an industry analyst for Wedbush Securities, Wii software revenue in November 2009 declined 18 percent from the same time in 2008. The only systems to see more dramatic decreases were Sony’s PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable (PSP), which were down 69 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

But that’s not all,

After 12 months, the picture has shifted dramatically. As the following figure shows, software revenue from the Wii now accounts for under 30% of the market. Combined with the share from DS software, Nintendo now holds only around 40% of the market – a drop of 7 points from the previous year.

Be sure to read the whole article on Gamasutra.com if you’re interested. I sure found it an interesting development.

Think twice before you buy a second hand 360

We have been reporting about microsofts ban hammer for a while now. As it started of with Capcom’s cheaters problem. Now the Ban hammer did its job and 600.000 to 1.000.000 xboxes can’t be used any more on xbox live and have been blocked from all forms of warranty from microsoft.

Now hundreds even thousands of 360’s start to hit sites like Ebay second hand sellers and sites alike as so called “AS-IS” consoles. They are much cheaper and often broken and since it is a modded console you do not have any form of warranty! Nor can you get online or play some games that have updates on it that will brick the modded xbox!

So do yourself a favor and don’t buy a modded console. You won’t have any form of warranty and the chances are that the console will brick on you are much higher than with a legal console.

Xbox Live Breaks Records

Today, Xbox Live had a record breaking day.  Two million people were connected to Xbox Live service at one time today. We are sure a lot of those people were playing Modern Warfare 2, but that is still impressive.  The announcement was made by Major Nelson through a tweet.

Electronic Arts closing in for the kill

Giants rise and giants fall and Electronic Arts is turning in the biggest giant of them all. Years ago when Electronic Arts was nothing more than a publisher. Originally, Electronic Arts (EA) was a home computing game publisher. Growing fast over the past years, Electronic Arts is a company we cant imagine without anymore. With a huge amount of sports games on their list Electronic Arts has become the biggest thirt party publisher out there. Eventually buying smaller developers to. And by doing that Electronic Arts came closer and closer to their goal of becoming a developer them self to. The company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s as the buying out of developers continued and even almost took on obsessive behavior. After Trip Hawkins left EA to found the now defunct 3DO company, Electronic Arts changed the focus seemed to shift from being a publisher to in being a pure developer. Now we see games like Medal of honor, SSX series, Burnout, Mirror’s Edge and many many more. Read more

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