San Jose Mercury News columnist Dean Takahashi, also author of books on the Xbox and Xbox 360, has a new column up saying that a small team of developers within Bungie Studios, led by Jason Jones and Chris Butcher, aren't working on Halo 3. They're working on something else:
Yesterday I responded to Ozymandias' reasons why he couldn't endorse modchipping for adding new functionality, such as that supported by the excellent Xbox Media Center software, because it would harm Microsoft's business model, in which they subsidize the hardware and depend on you buying software and accessories. The assumption here is that every hacker who uses his Xbox for running Linux and XBMC spends less time gaming and buys fewer games. The real allegation there, of course, is that all hackers are really interested in is pirating games.
Ozymandias listed one other reason he thought someone might want to modchip an Xbox, and, not surprisingly, he doesn't condone this one, either.
Click "read more" below from the front page for the entire article.
Yesterday I mentioned Ozymandias' blog entry where he lists several reasons why an Xbox owner might want to modchip his console, as well as why he, in his own personal opinion, apart from being a Microsoft employee, could not approve of such actions.
The first was fairly clean-cut: because it enables piracy. Fair enough. Ozymandias then went a bit off the deep end on the piracy issue, which I commented on yesterday.
Another reason he says an owner might want to install a modchip would be to run other kinds of non-piracy related code on the Xbox. Some people just want to run Linux on an Xbox for the heck of it. Far more people are interested in the free Xbox Media Center software, which makes the media center features of even the newer Xbox 360, coupled with Windows Media Center edition, look like a black and white television with rabbit aerials.
Ozymandias' objection to the homebrew crowd is that it breaks Microsoft's business model. Poor Microsoft!
Click "read more" below from the front page for the entire article.
A lot of things about the console that would become the Xbox 360 were not clear before it was released.
Would it be backwards compatible-- yes or no? The answer ended up being... sort of.
What will the plot of Halo 3 do to the franchise? Is the secret in the novels, the I Love Bees radio drama, or (gasp) in the games themselves?
This series looks at what's happened so far in the Halo universe and what hints it might offer to what's going to happen in the "conclusion to this story arc" they call Halo 3.
Microsoft doesn't want you to modify your Xbox or Xbox 360. It voids your warranty. It might let you pirate games, meaning less revenue for Microsoft and its partners. You might use it to run Linux. Or you might use it to cheat on Xbox Live.
Is it possible for Microsoft to stop modding? Should they try? Or is there a way to engage with the modding community in a way that makes sense for everyone?
At first glance, this story probably will inspire a lot of "duh, so what" responses. After all, modchips are used to do lots of things to your Xbox console, nearly all of which Microsoft doesn't want you to do.
They can let you play illegally copied games. They can let you modify your Xbox in ways that permit cheating on Xbox Live (although for the most part it can't stop them from detecting you). It can also let you run unrelated software on your Xbox, such as the Linux operating system, turning it into a codec-agnostic media player or even a budget PC. Neither of those things generate additional post-sale revenue to Microsoft, and some even make the company look bad (hee, hee! Linux on an Xbox!) or could draw the ire of organizations like the RIAA towards Microsoft if they are seen as contributing to infringement by, say, supporting codecs like DivX which are alleged to be used primarily for pirating video.
So what's not surprising is Ozymandias' latest blog entry where he details the reasons why Xbox owners might mod their box and the reasons why he can't "condone" it. He completely bypasses the cheating issue and never once mentions Xbox Live, so I'll also leave that mostly out of this. He does propose three reasons why he can imagine someone might mod an Xbox:
Nobody reasonable is going to argue that easy access to pirated games is bad for Microsoft, bad for the platform, and bad for deveopers. No one is going to expect Microsoft to condone using a modchip for this purpose.
Where this goes wrong is when Ozymandias decides he needs to pile on the piracy issue and make a lot of the same bogus generalizations that have been thrown around for the better part of two and a half decades now.
Click "read more" below for the entire article.
If you need any more proof that what goes around, comes around-- usually to end up smacking you in the face when you turn around-- read this story at Joystiq alleging that not making Halo 4 would be stupid. I saw the story linked at HBO.
Spong says its sources at Microsoft indicate that a new, non-Halo Bungie game will be announced at X06 very soon:
I have been looking all over the web these days. Not just for sheet music for POTC, but for something else. Search enginges barely do good these days. You must pay money (usually) to have your site appear when a tag is typed in. So I looked the old fashioned way; looking. Few websites that deem themselves "Halo encyclopedias" are just that. It took about an hour. not to easy. But I found it. The script of Halo 3 (or,not script) is long. Very long. I took me two hours to read it, and doesn't battle. It's just the cutscene scripts.
Gravemind is not an easy character to figure out.
From his initial appearance on the scene, as the rumored "big plant thingy" players who downloaded the leaked French copies of Halo 2 reported seeing, to his cliffhanger-inducing interrogation of Cortana, not much was revealed about him.
Some fans can even be forgiven for questioning whether Gravemind is, in fact, related to the Flood at all. Halo 2's cutscenes only strongly suggest this, without actually stating it. The Art of Halo here rescues us, referring to Gravemind as the "Flood hive mind".
What exactly does that imply? What does Gravemind want? Given that all these events have apparently played out in the past, with the result that the Halo system was used and all life eradicated, but with the Flood preserved dormant for the cycle to start all over again thousands of years later, what other outcome can be hoped for?
Click "read more" below from the front page for the entire article.
dork @ ZeroPing – LANapalooza 2006! June 24-25 - 24+ hours - Aurora
The dorkARMY will be returning to do battle alongside our old allies at ZeroPing Events, bringing the dork brand of Xbox gaming to this years upcoming PC LAN party event!
6 Intermediate, 3 Pro H2 & 2 WCG Qualifying tournaments!!
Intermediate & PRO CA$H POT H2 tournaments!
dork @ EXIM CON ’06 – Internet Culture Convention Sat. June 24 - Toronto
Videos | Gaming | Comics | Prizes | Anime | RPGs | Manga | Swag
The dorkARMY will be hosting all the action in the Gaming Room at EXIM CON.
Join the dork crew downtown @ 89 Chestnut St., Toronto on Saturday, June 24th!
Admission is only $10 in advance or $15 @ door (bring a PSP or DS & save $2!)
Games & tournaments to be played include:
There's been a flurry of activity around the backwards compatibility feature of the Xbox 360 lately. Clearly, this has been a tough feature for Microsoft to make, maintain, and to promote. Just under 250 original Xbox games are compatible with the Xbox 360, which is less than a third of all the games available.