>> From gamescentral.com: [QUOTE] So the "next gen" format war is upon us with two sides lined up, ready to take your money for your fourth version of Full Metal Jacket (I can't believe that you actually got it on Laser Disk...what were you thinking). If you are like most people, you are wondering a couple of things, the first being why would I want to buy another version of Full Metal Jacket, and is the $200 add on drive for the 360 worth the money, especially if I already have the PS3? More importantly, which one of the two (the PS3 or 360 HD DVD drive )looks and performs better. This article will attempt to answer these questions with background and information, as well as present evidence to why the ultimate conclusion was reached.
Overall this test was to see what next gen game system player is superior, and based on these tests, I would have to say that the 360 add on is the clear winner. Movies on the Blu Ray do look great, but with color levels that are more even allowing for greater levels of clarity, HD DVD just looks better, even over component cables. [/QUOTE]
>> HSDEMONZ wrote a review of Team Xtender's XCM 360 Replacement Cases for the Xbox 360 console. For the review he tested 1 case of each type: the Blue one for the translucent type, the Black Knight with X-shape cutout + LEDs for the plain color type and the Chrome one for the metallic type. Many other colors are available however, check resellers (Divineo, Extreme-mods, Decalgirl, ModchipStore).
Here's the intro of the review: [QUOTE] Months ago, I had the opportunity to install, test, and review 3 of the XCM line of 360 Case Replacements made by TeamXtender.com. I had received the Chrome Case, the Black Knight with Blue LED cutout window, and the Blue Translucent Case. All of the cases came well packaged, in large cardboard boxes, and virtually all of the parts came with a plastic lining that protected the exposed surfaces of many of the components to help prevent unseemly scratches during shipping. Kudos for thinking of that, especially for the Chrome unit. Nothing is worse that buying something that is a cosmetic mod and having it arrive damaged. TeamXtender clearly has learned from past experiences with damaged units (a la the PSP faceplates)
We would have posted the review sooner, however there were parts to the case review that demand that we take our time, and later in this review you'll see why.
>> The 'overall' awards aren't in yet (will be announced on Friday, January 12th 2007), but here are the 2006 IGN awards for the Xbox (1st) and Xbox360 (2nd) platform. * Best Action Game: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent | Gears of War * Best First-Person Shooter: Call of Duty 3 | Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas * Best Racing/Driving Game: TOCA Race Driver 3 | Burnout Revenge * Best RPG: n/a | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion * Best Sports Game: FIFA Soccer 07 | Fight Night Round 3 * Best Xbox Live Arcade Game: n/a | Assault Heroes * Best Graphics Technology: Black | Gears of War * Best Artistic Design: Far Cry Instincts Evolution | Viva Pinata * Best Original Score: Hitman: Blood Money | Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent * Best Licensed Soundtrack: FIFA Soccer 07 | FIFA Soccer 07 * Best Use of Sound: Black | F.E.A.R. * Best Story: Tomb Raider: Legend | Tomb Raider: Legend * Best Offline Multiplayer Game: LEGO Star wars II: The Original Trilogy | Fight Night Round 3 * Best Xbox Live Game: Splinter Cell Double Agent | Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas * Best Downloadable Content: n/a | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion * Most Innovative Design: Crusty Demons | Dead Rising * Best Game No One Played: FlatOut 2 | Viva Pinata * Biggest Surprise: Halo 2 Maps go 360 | EA Partners with Valve, Half-Life 2 Package Hits Consoles * Best Developer: EA Canada | Epic Games
Under the 'gears' category, the awards go to: * Best New Console: Sony PlayStation 3 * Best Gaming Peripheral: Xbox 360 HD-DVD Add-on * Best HDTV (Panel): Sony BRAVIA KDL-46XBR2 LCD * Best HDTV (Projector): Panasonic PA-AX100U
>> From xbox360fanboy.com: [QUOTE] Officially, we don't know why the outage occurred. 360 Fanboy reader, Eric, noticed that the Shadowrun beta officially began last night. A post on the Shadowrun community forums presents and interesting twist on the outage theories: "There are currently some issues propping the beta build to the production servers. We are trying to get the beta out tonight but it may be delayed somewhat. More information will go here as soon as it is available."
The question is, did the beta cause the Live crash, or is it just a coincidence? This is the first time a public beta has been put on Xbox Live -- and Shadowrun is the first game to utilize Live Anywhere -- so it is conceivable that it could cause unforeseen problems. [/QUOTE]
Japan: Another 17k Last Week - WorldWide: Over 9mln?
>> The new M-Create numbers are in for the week of December 18-24. The Xbox 360 sold 17213 units in Japan (45 more than a week earlier). Blue Dragon is already out of the Top-50 software sales, but a new Xbox 360 title entered the list on the 28th place: Capcom's Lost Planet.
The Sony PS3 sold 76882 units (70942 last week), the Nintendo Wii sold 279277 units (108237 last week) and the Xbox360 is beaten by the PS2 again with its 46209 units sold (37730 last week). If my calculations are right this bring the installment base of the Xbox 360 to ~247.2k, PS3 to ~385.7k and Wii to ~800.5k in Japan.
On a WorldWide scale it's much harder to get numbers. However, we'll share the nexgenwars.com and vgcharts.org with you. These numbers are only ESTIMATES and in no way official. The difference between the 2 tracking sites indicates the error margin is probably pretty large ... Xbox 360: 9.23m (nexgenwars.com) | 7.74m (vgcharts.org) PS3: 0.82m (nexgenwars.com) | 1.18m (vgcharts.org) Wii: 2.03m (nexgenwars.com) | 3.19m (vgcharts.org)
>> KaYa released a new version of XBGM#(info) - an open-source multi-OS game manager for Xbox using Avalaunch(info), UnleashX(info) and XboxMediaCenter(info) dashboard features. [QUOTE] What's new/fixed (since v0.9.0.7): * XBGM# look a little more polished, new functionnality. * Add/Fix a Save Manager. * Add/Fix Textmod version. * Add support for dashboard like Avalaunch, XBMC and UnleashX. * The top toolbar (shutdown/restart/launch) work with any dashboard. * BOOST mode work with UnleashX (upper V0.36.0620A Build 499). * Show free space with any dashboard (Avalaunch, XBMC and UnleashX). * Show extract icon from XBE before uploading a game. * Fix bug when extracting some xISO. * Fix bug showing free space on G drive. * Fix Number overflow error. * Fix error "Name is empty" when extracting locally. * Add time remaining field to Progress dialog. * All dialog (MainWindow, Preferences, DirectoryUpload, ProgressDirectory, ProgressxISO) are made with Glade. * Allow progress window minimize/hide. * New SaveAs dialog for append filename extension automatically. * Add dialog to select the export colunm you wish. * Add XISO <= v1.10 support. * Many other fix/add.
The XBMC launch button allow you to run any xbe specify in the configuration dialog. When using XBMC dashboard, you can also run any script, as long as you specify full path. The save manager allow to list all save game on your xbox and to backup it in a zip format, and it is working with all dashboard. I remind you than XBGM# can extract xbox 360 iso. This release is in debug mode, so it redirect the output to a file, 'debug.txt', send it to me please. Since it is a development version, i am open to any change. Please feedback any bug so i could fixed it. [/QUOTE]
>> From engadget.com: [QUOTE] Can it be? Is Hollywood's new DRM posterchild AACS (Advanced Access Content System, see more here) actually quite breakable? According to a post on our favoritest of forums (Doom9) by DRM hacker du jour muslix64, his new BackupHDDVD tool decrypts and dismantles AACS on a Windows PC. Just feed the small utility a crypto key [none released with application, more about it in FAQ], and it'll dump the video right off the disc onto your hard drive, supposedly playable in any HD DVD compatible player. If true, this would instantly become the DeCSS of high def optical, as AACS is the copy protection scheme used not only by HD DVD, but by Blu-ray as well. [/QUOTE]
Full Story: engadget.com and forum.doom9.org Download: n/a (probably illegal under DMCA/EUCD) You can read the FAQ released with the application here
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
Xbox LIVE Online Gaming Down? *Update2: Services Back Online*
>> There are currently no real details yet, but it looks like Xbox LIVE is having some problems right now making online play impossible. Marketplace seems to work fine however. There are tons of reports of people unable to play their games online on the official Xbox forums.
The only some-what official information we found comes from a pinned topic on the xbox.com forums: [QUOTE] The team is aware of the issue and is investigating. Please try connecting again later. Thanks. [/QUOTE]
UPDATE1: More confirmation/details from Major Nelson (Microsoft's Xbox Live Director of Programming): [QUOTE] Yup...we know If you're having some issues connecting to Xbox Live, or getting into a game (matchmaking) the operations team is aware of the issues and are working on it. I'll post an update when I have one. In the meantime, hit the single player campaign of your choice while the team takes care of business. [/QUOTE]
UPDATE2: Major Nelson informs us it's all back online - no details yet about what happened: [QUOTE] The team has informed me that everything is back online. Thank you for your patience. I just heard from the Ops team...and we are all set now. They are debriefing now...so I'll see if I can get anything out of e to share on my show this week. [/QUOTE]
>> From cheapassgamer forums: [QUOTE] There's an ad for Crackdown in this months Gamepro and in the lower right hand corner it says that if you buy Crackdown you get an invite to the Halo 3 beta. It says specially marked boxes and for a limited time only.
[/QUOTE]
$60 Crackdown with free Halo3 Beta Invitation, or $60 Halo3 Beta Invitation with free Crackdown? News-Source: cheapassgamer forums
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
Suzuki Integrates Xbox 360 on Concept Car's Dashboard
>> From teamxbox.com: [QUOTE] Suzuki unveiled today its full-line of cars and SUVs at the 2006 San Diego International Auto Show. Its 2007 line-up includes the all-new XL7 midsize crossover SUV and the SX4 compact X-over.
The car manufacturer also has on display the SXBox, one of the company's all-new "Suzuki LIVE Series" brand-dedicated concept vehicles based on the 2007 SX4 that are specially designed for life enthusiasts, adventurers and thrill-seekers.
The SXBox is equipped with a dashboard-integrated Xbox 360 video game system, coupled with a close proximity digital projection system to display games or watch a HD DVD movie on the interior of the vehicle's retractable hood, which can be enabled by the push of a button.
>> Dan released a new version of Encode360(info) - an application which will convert virtually any video format to high quality WMV's which can be played by the Xbox 360 or the Microsoft Zune device. What's new/fixed: Added: * Automatic correction for Non-Square-Pixel videos. This should resolve most Aspect Ratio issues * OGM File Support (Except for subtitles, although someone could probably build an PPS like the MKV one?) * Added DVR-MS as a filetype (may or may not work. I can't find a codec that works with this) * Ability to set additional settings through Encode360.Exe.XML -Video Buffer Size (Bitrate Modes Only - Default 3000) -Video Buffer Max (Peak Bitrate Mode Only - Default 5000) -Video Image Sharpness (Quality Based VBR Mode Only - Default 100) -Video Keyframe Distance (Default 2000) * Can move processed files to the Recycle Bin by specifying "RECYCLE BIN" as the move path * PostProcessing Scriptlets * If a PreProcessing Scriptlet exists, the filetype it's for gets added to the supported format list Changed: * Major Major Change - No more FFMPEG! Now uses MediaInfo 0.7.4.3 Libraries -This has a lot of knock-on effects and is likely to have fixed a lot of reported bugs, but maybe caused new ones * Fail-over to No Progress if MediaInfo can't determine the source duration * Selecting Output to Zune or Zune Bitrate now auto enables 2 channel downmix as well as setting all other Zune defaults * Numerous failsafes implemented to prevent encodes from failing * Expanded out the abilities of PreProcessing Scriptlets * If using the MKV Subtitle PPS, you'll need to re-download from here Fixed: * Arithmetic error in timerPercentComplete_Tick would occur if WME couldn't determine the source duration * Default settings for 802.11b in an unconfigured environment were too high * Numerous cosmetic and logging bugs
UPDATE: Encode360 v2.0 beta5a has been released with a few fixes: * Frame rate was sometimes calculated incorrectly which caused encoding to fail * Percentage Complete was way off. Hopefully I've sorted this out now. * Duration was always reported in seconds. Should now be reported in H/M/S. * Output resolution said "N/A" when not autoscaling. It now correctly says the same as the Input resolution
GDXL 4th Biggest News Story of 2006: Xbox 360 is NOT Dreamcast!
>> From gamedailyxl.com: [QUOTE] When Xbox 360 hit store shelves, some websites made very interesting comparisons between Microsoft's new consoles and Sega's doomed Dreamcast system. 2006 was the year the comparisons stopped at "they have round logos" as Xbox 360 proves it has more than enough to compete with the new next-gen competition from Sony and Nintendo.
While Dreamcast struggled to gain a foothold once PlayStation 2 hit the market, the momentum is with Xbox 360. Ten million consoles projected to sell by the end of 2006 with over four million Xbox Live members as of October, and ten million members projected by summer 2007. This coupled with the fact that Sony and Nintendo seem downright clueless about an online strategy shows Xbox 360 is positioned as the strongest player this holiday. [/QUOTE]
>> [QUOTE] Leaf is a software application that makes it easy for you to fully utilize your always-on broadband connection to your home network. Setup and installation is easy! -- download the latest version of Leaf 2006:
* Create your own private network with your friends * Our file sharing is like no other file sharing, it is actually disk sharing. * You can always stay connected to your media no matter where you are. * Easily stream music directly to your friend's digital media receiver. * Play XBOX head-on-head with your friends no matter where they are. [/QUOTE]
>> From digitimes.com: [QUOTE] According to industry sources, plans to produce CPUs for the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console on 65nm at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing will be pushed back until the middle of 2007, at least one quarter behind the original schedule.
Microsoft Taiwan declined to comment on the news, while Chartered also declined to comment, stating it did not comment on the production schedule of any of its customers. [/QUOTE]
Xtreme firmware 5.1A,5.1B,5.1C,5.1D for TS-H943 Xbox 360
>> A new Toshiba-samsung firmware for the xbox360 has been released!
(v5.1) Open Tray errors fixed (PFI and SS read routines updated) (v5.1) 5.1c (Dual speed, default fast) and 5.1d (Dual speed default quiet\slow) read speed (Originals unaffected). Both toggle with original Xbox1/360 disc (V5.1) Xbox1 DDE errors caused by firmware, patched (V5.1) Possible Xbox1/360 DDE errors caused by firmware, patched (V5.1) Single Layer DVD disc support(+/-RW) for both Xbox1 and 360 (v5.1) New easier batch file "Make Xtreme firmware.cmd" to make all firmwares.
*Open tray errors now fixed for good, but "Open Tray" is still a valid status for disc insertions when the drive cannot recognize the disc. *Dual speed firmwares C (default fast) and D (default quite/slow) return. Both toggle with original Xbox1/360 disc. Originals unaffected. *Added patch to routines that specifically targeted Xbox 1 discs with read errors *Added patch to a routine that may have caused read errors on Xbox1/360 discs. *Added support for -/+RW discs for both Xbox1 and 360 discs. *Added easier batch file to create firmwares "Make Xtreme firmware.cmd".
Single layer disks are supported for both Xbox1 and 360 (360 Single layer is supported, but not yet able to be reproduced correctly). For Xbox 1 the disks can be in either the same normal raw dump method or in XBOX file ISO format. This fully works with Xbox 1 using the new(not released yet) Qwix(info) or gdfimage created ISO. The default.xbe must be unmodified and still be signed (If in doubt , copy from original). Use xbefix to check if your xbe has been modified and needs to be unpatched.
360 file ISO is still in development. The exact structure for the 360 disc is being developed and a new Qwix will support the creation of these disks.
Official Site: n/a (By Commodore4eva) Download: n/a (may be illegal under DMCA/EUCD) News-Source: xbins.org
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
>> A new version of TVersity Media Server(info) has been released. TVersity allows you to stream pretty much any media (music/pictures and video) format to your Xbox 360 (with on-the-fly transconding to WMV for videos) from a Windows 2000/XP machine (MCE not required). What's new/fixed: * RSS Feeds - The FLV media inside SWF URLs from YouTube RSS feeds is now automatically detected. This means that adding a YouTube RSS feed to TVersity will now work as expected, with all the enclosed media listed and ready to play. - When scanning the header of media files enclosed in RSS feeds, the user agent is now "TVersity Mediabot". The "TVersity Media Server" user agent is still used when doing a full download (either due to a new subscription or playback of an item that was not previously downloaded). - Add support for RSS feeds that are using encodings other than UTF8 or Latin1. * Transcoding - Add support for transcoding audio to PCM and use this with the Xbox 360 instead of MP3. This way media encoded in lossless formats will have no quality degradation when streamed to the 360. - Adjust the video resolution when transcoding to WMV to insure that the Xbox 360 can upscale it to the resolution of the TV using integer multiplication. This eliminates display artifacts that used to occur when the video resolution was not conforming to this criterion. - Take into account the pixel aspect ratio of videos (that is for videos with non square pixels) when transcoding. This means that 16:9 and 4:3 DVDs will look as they are supposed to when transcoded. - The "Disable decoding clock" on the transcoder section of the settings tab is now meaningful when transcoding to WMV. This means that Xbox 360 users that wish to avoid 100% CPU usage when the video does not require it, can turn this flag off. * Media Librray - Added a new index for songs: "Release Year / Artist / Album" - List under the "Song" folder of the Xbox 360 all audio URLs as well as all local audio files, this way it is no longer necessary to place URLs inside playlists to see them on the 360 menus. - Add support for long title strings, which are essentially titles that include the name of their parents. This is to allow users of the Xbox 360 to navigate their long list of videos. This feature is turned off by default (since devices other than the Xbox 360 do not need it). When turning it on (from the settings tab in the GUI) one needs to reconstruct the media library for this to take effect. * Windows Vista compatibility - All executables now have manifests to request admin privileges on Vista (this should allow them to run even with UAC enabled as long as the user grants them the permission to run as admins). - The Sharing service is installed on Vista without the "Allow interaction with desktop" feature since Vista does not support this (on XP/2K we keep using this feature as before since it allows codec icons to appear in the tray when they are used during transcoding). * Bug fixes and more - Fix issues related to premature termination when transcoding to WMV (this should solve the famous termination problem with the Xbox 360). - Add support for short URLs, this will allow devices that trim long URLs (like the Xbox 360 and the Sony PSP) to accept content from TVersity disregarding the length of the URL of that content. - Add support for friendly file names in short URLs, so that devices that download content to their local storage (like the Sony PSP) will give a friendly name to content downloaded from TVersity. - Fix a crash that occurs when scanning a corrupt MP3 file. - The installer no longer overrides user definitions to the TVersity sharing service (that is it is no longer necessary to reconfigure a log-on account after each installation). - The TVersity audio and video feeds are no longer included, users can still get them by adding (or dragging and dropping) the URLs: here and here. - Fixed the CNN Radio and Ministry of sound TV URLs in the TVersity Guides. - Icons of audio and video RSS feeds are now properly displayed in the web interface. - Eliminate "insane" duration values displayed for some videos. Videos from which we cannot retrieve the duration, will now not have a value at all. - Fix a GUI bug related to using the keyboard in the sharing tab and having the keystrokes propagate to the library tab. - The right click menu can now be used on items in the sharing tab and it works as expected (previously it sopped working once the tray icon menu was invoked - a seemingly unrelated action had some, unaccounted for, side effects).
>> T3CH released a new SVN compile of XboxMediaCenter(info), the 4th since the v2.0.1 point-release. This T3CH-compile is a complete snapshot of what is in SVN at the time the build was compiled, with just a few small additions.
Special Notes and Noteworthy/XML/Script changes: * Happy Holidays to everyone in the world! See the new Xmas splash screen made by Smokehead.
* Since I haven't seen any newer version of AMT than 0.93.5, I applied the fix floating around so atleast it works now. * I also tweaked the win32 'run_me_first.bat' so it runs and then unmounts the virtual drives when you exit. * I'm also including the 'XBMC Win32 PC environment' .exe that is meant for skinners & python developers, read more about the concept here. It was built using Microsoft DirectX Summer 2004 SDK.
Here's the added stuff since the 2006-12-17 SVN Rev7377 Build: * added: Merged new multiple view code support from the multiview branch (r7408->7422), and added saving of view/sort information per-folder. * added: Splash.pngs * added: debug logging to CacheSubtitles to track how long it takes. * added: [1598351] "GetSkinSetting" function to HTTP API For the full changelog (fixed/changed/updated stuff) click here.
Keep in mind this is a SVN snapshot of the current development tree. It's not an official (stable) point release. Use only if you know what you are doing.
Admin Staff: HSDEMONZ (myself),Syrus, and the big cheese himself XanTium.
... without all of the hard work and dedication of the staff listed above, Xbox-Scene and PS3Scene would not be the greatest forum on the net for what we do. They keep this ship steering in the right direction.
I'd also like to thank the membership who daily teach me new things about this great scene we love. Without you, there would be no need for us. :)
XS and PS3Scene is ever growing, and as such I am looking for new staff for the PS3 Forums and for the 360 forums. anyone interested in becoming a moderator should have the following qualifications: be active, be polite, and be helpful.
In January I will be adding ALOT of new staff, so if you want to get noticed, the time is now.
