Well, a few minutes ago, the Flash countdown at origenxbox360.com reached zero (at least on my screen). Nothing else seems to have happened. There's been no change in the page's source code, no new clickable items have appeared, no other flash files have loaded. Looks like a dud, or else whatever is happening doesn't work on a Mac.
BetaNews has put up twelve screenshots of the Xbox 360's user interface, showing various features such as the Games blade (Zorro the Games Blade?), the Xbox Live blade, the Xbox Live Marketplace, video messages (there's a bad id
MCV has a story quoting a Microsoft rep as saying a Halo 2-sized media blitz for the upcoming Xbox 360 title Perfect Dark Zero will begin in October. The parallel even extends to the Special Edition of PD0 in a chrome tin. Thanks Kotaku.
Wideload's Stubbs the Zombie gets the limelight this week in GameCore, the gaming column by William Vitka at CBS News, pointing out the game's humorous angle and nostalgia-driven soundtrack:
Frankie's second report from the Tokyo Game Show has Kameo and cosplayers, Koei and yaoi (sort of), Chrome Hounds and Dynasty Warriors, five Resident Evils and Ninety-Nine Nights. Not to mention a list of things you can't put in a locker in Japan, which makes me wonder what Frankie is doing over there in his free time.
Halo gets mentioned once, sort of.
Joe "Dyslexia" Renaud has posted a writeup of the MLG Seattle tournament, som by IGS. Seattle was the last major qualifying MLG event before the Championship Series begins.
Thanks Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.
Frankie filed the Weekly What's Update this week from the floor of the Tokyo Game Show, after getting blitzed on martinis. Wait, that's not right.
Frankie was there just to catch up on other Microsoft games and stuff he likes-- he mentions Phantagram's Ninety Nine Nights (as a lot of people are doing this week)
In Bungie-related news, the move to Kirkland is complete and Bungie held their Summer Pentathlon-- those events will get written up (hopefully) in next week's Update.
The Tokyo Game Show, going on right now, is where Microsoft is beginning its efforts to try and prove to Japanese audiences that the Xbox is a console worth buying. Major Nelson has put the keynote address including Microsoft's Robbie Bach into his blogcast this week (as usual, in MP3 and WMA formats).
Next Generation quotes Jonathan Hayes of Microsoft as saying that manufacture of the Xbox 360 console began on last Wednesday, September 7.
In June 2005, The Chicagoist interviewed Alex Seropian, the founder of Wideload Games, about his new company, as well as the connections between himself, Wideload, and the Chicago area.
Halo 2 trickster extraordinaire Vernon "vshields ash" Shields has spent an enormous amount of time-- literally hundreds of hours-- exploring the depths of the infinite enemies scenario at the end of the level Regret, to try and see if anything different happens. So far, he's seen quite a bit. Through object overload, he's made Regret disappear (as well as other enemies, visual effects, and bits of furniture) as well as made over a hundred of the Prophet's chairs appear out of thin air.
Buried in the news about Microsoft's global launch of the Xbox 360 console starting this November was the revelation that unlike the controversial two-tiered pricing system in the US, where the unit without the hard drive is $300, and the unit with the hard drive and some extras is $400, the Japanese market will get a single configuration-- fully loaded, with the hard drive, for less than $350.
Microsoft's "simultaneous" worldwide release has morphed into a more logistically manageable sequence of three staggered launches: November 22 in North America, December 2 in Europe, and December 10 in Japan. The New York Times has the story. (Use the username/password rampancy/rampant if you don't have an account--Ed.)
The BBC has a story up on how Microsoft is trying to protect their next console platform against would-be modders and hackers. (Insert Microsoft security joke here--Ed.)