Microsoft is beating the drums over hitting the 10 million units sold mark Xbox has had an extra year over Wii and thats not a good sign. Nintendo is going to hit the same mark much faster and Microsoft has certainly laid out a lout more in order to get the as well. It’s costing them big bucks to get to these benchmarks so I guiess they need to toot them up as often as possible.

I love Xbox Live but it’s going to be awhile if ever before Microsoft can claim dominance by any real measure. The Playstation and Wii will both be around for quite some time to come. I think Microsoft should start looking at how to broaden their fan base with more add ons and games for other demographics not including the hardcore gamers. The success of the Wii is certainly not just because every top gamer went out and bought one. The Wii is becoming the family unit and thats whats most dangerous to Microsoft. the true success in the Xbox package is Halo and that may be their biggest problem. Microsoft needs to offer more for the other household members if they want their console to truly dominate.

Xbox 360 sales surpass Wii, PS3 | Reuters

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday its Xbox 360 game machine beat Nintendo Co Ltd’s (7974.OS: Quote, Profile, Research) Wii and Sony Corp’s (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) PlayStation 3 to reach 10 million units in U.S. sales.

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle,” Don Mattrick, a Microsoft senior vice president who heads the company’s Xbox business, said in a statement.

The Xbox 360 was the first of this latest generation of game machines to launch in the United States when it was released in November 2005. The PS3 and Wii were launched in the United States a year later.

The Wii is closing in on the Xbox 360, with 8.8 million units sold as of the end of March, while Sony has totaled 4.1 million PS3 units sold, according to market research firm NPD.

Microsoft also said global membership of its Xbox Live online service reached 12 million members.

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Here is a first look at Games for Zune on video. The Zune makes a great game playuer and moving around even on my old school Zune 30 is pretty smooth. I understand games are much better on the squircle for the Zune 80 and with that much space you can really stuff some musioc and new games on Zune.

Video: XNA Game Running on a Zune

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I’m considering the XNA pacakge so I can install games on my Xbox. I looked into how hard it is and then I realized it’s a pay only feature. It’s $100 for homebrew games on my Xbox and thats a bit much this week. I gotta find out how many games there are and how easy it is to install them. Wheres the best Xbox XNA games place?

Connecting to Your Xbox 360 Console with XNA Game Studio 2.0

This guide assumes you have already installed a supported version of Visual Studio tools and XNA Game Studio. These products must be installed before connecting to an Xbox 360 console. For information about installing these products, see Setup and System Requirements.

* Step 1: Sign In to Xbox LIVE
* Step 2: Download XNA Game Studio Connect
* Step 3: Connect Your Xbox 360 Console and Windows-Based Computer
* Step 4: Create and Deploy an Xbox 360 Project
* What’s Next?

Step 1: Sign In to Xbox LIVE

Turn on your Xbox 360 console and sign in to Xbox LIVE. You will need at least a Silver Xbox LIVE membership, an XNA Creators Club membership, and a hard drive for your Xbox 360 console to be able to develop games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. While you are in XNA Game Studio Connect or playing an XNA Game Studio game, you must remain connected to Xbox LIVE.
Step 2: Download XNA Game Studio Connect

XNA Game Studio Connect must be downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace and installed on the Xbox 360 console. XNA Game Studio Connect is listed on Xbox LIVE Marketplace next to the XNA Creators Club Subscription, which may be found by selecting Game Store, More…, Genres, and then Other.
Step 3: Connect Your Xbox 360 Console and Windows-Based Computer

When you develop games for Xbox 360, you develop them on your Windows-based computer, then transfer them over your local network to your Xbox 360 console. This requires that your Windows-based computer and Xbox 360 console share the same subnet. Most home networking layouts support this configuration. If your console and computer share a router or hub, it is likely that they share the same subnet.

With your computer and console on the same subnet, follow these steps to set up a connection between your computer and your console.

Technorati Tags: zune, xna, zune xna, zune games

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Found another great article on Gamasutra about Xbox Live and XNA but the most interesting quote in the entire article was the one below:
Gamasutra - Connecting Communities, Redefining Xbox Live: Chris Satchell On XNA

It’s interesting. There’s always been the theory that Microsoft was going to do the “X Boy,” but there’s never been any real credibility to that theory, as far as I’m aware. Coupling XNA with Zune is an interesting way to still get into the handheld games space with an existing device and not have it be a potential problem or liability.CS: It is interesting, because Zune was never designed for gaming. I don’t know about you, but I love the way this control input feels, especially…

I’m excited about what can be done with XNA on Zune and I think game development is going to be awesome for Zune. I wrote about the XNA platform when it first came out and I knew then that XNA was a great fit not only for Xbox but for Zune as well and recent announcements have confirmed what I already knew. Microsoft mobile games development will be under the Zune platform more so than Xbox. There is no Xboy coming Zune!

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I realized that I never posted a link to the announcement last month about XNA development on Zune. It’s been a long time coming but we’ll have games for Zune that are designed and developed by members of the Zune community. If anyone is as hyped about developing a game as I am then please contact me so we can get to work on building some games for Zune game players.
XNA Team Blog : Announcing: XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Zune

Announcing: XNA Game Studio 3.0 and ZuneDavid “LetsKillDave” Weller

XNA Evangelist

We could have rested on our laurels by just announcing the new Xbox LIVE community games and XNA Creators Club Online features, but we’re a driven bunch of people here, and we’re passionate about gaming, so let’s lob another amazing treat out there.

The XNA Community Games Platform team is delighted to offer you a sneak peek at our first major feature for XNA Game Studio 3.0: The ability to build games for the Zune platform! This will let you write one game and deploy it to all three platforms that XNA Game Studio 3.0 will support: the Xbox 360, Windows, and now the Zune. While the Zune lacks the 3D graphics horsepower to drive high-end games like you can on the Xbox 360, we’ve taken extreme steps in making sure that you will have the broadest access to the XNA Framework APIs possible, allowing you to create fun Zune games while still letting you integrate carefully with the overall Zune media experience. That means that XNA Game Studio 3.0 integration includes discoverability/access to the user’s music – allowing the user to customize background soundtracks or create real-time visualizations at their discretion. In addition, the XNA Community Games Platform team has announced the ability to have multiple Zunes wirelessly engage in an ad-hoc gaming experience (think of the possibilities!).

Our current planning is to offer a preview release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 in the Spring 2008 timeframe, with a final release scheduled for the holiday 2008 season. We look forward to your feedback and seeing what kind of amazing games you can create for the Zune!

Read more about this at http://creators.xna.com/whatsnew.aspx

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Microsoft’s, Chris Lewis, stated that their main focus with the Zune phone was to allow people to connect and share music. The Zune and XBOX are integrated, so people can connect their Zune phone to it and play games. Although, games in the device itself are something they are considering. With the Zune phones 2 Mbps streaming, being able to game on it would be especially nice. Without that cool feature, the Zune phone would be just another MP3 player.

There are some people out there thinking that the Zune phone’s small physique wouldn’t be suitable for gaming. Well, that all depends on the person. Some people may enjoy its compact style. With the excellent streaming it provides, you would be sure to have a great gaming experience.

Microsoft isn’t foreign when it comes to video games since they have a team that works on PC games. Peter Moore, also with Zune, said they there should be games for the Zune within the next 18 months. This will definitely bring it up to par with the iPod, Microsoft’s well known rival. By this time, the iPod will have more than likely upgraded to its sixth generation.

With all of the great features the Zune us rumored to have, it would be great to add games onto the list. All of us have a fetish for them whether it be Pac Man, Tetris, Sims, or Halo. I really don’t think the Zune would make much of a first person shooting game, especially since a lot of controller buttons would be missing, but I say, “The more features the better.”

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In a statement, Microsoft said that rumours about Xbox Live accounts being hijacked are false.

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If you havent escaped to Piata Island yet, now is the time. The official Viva Piata demo has arrived on Xbox Live Marketplace and is waiting for you!

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Today, the XNA Game Studio Express Challenge teams unveiled their completed games to the public at the Game Developers Conference.

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Following up on our rumor from yesterday with some more Zune game player speculation today we have an article from Arstechnica on the announcement at GDC by AMD of their development of a suite of tools which allow developers to produce gaming content for their next generation mobile graphics products.

AMD has a new line of processors developed for mobile applications named Imageon which has support for 3D and 2D graphics, audio processing, digital still and video cameras, TV out, video recording with image stabilization, video transcoding, and various other multimedia features. The Arstechnica article speculates on a use for the new processor. They feel the Imageon chip would be the great match for a Microsoft portable game player and would be just what you need for a Zune gaming device. Of course this does not mean it will end up in any gaming device from Microsoft but just the fact people are mentioning it as a use may means there is interest in the player. Let’s hope Microsoft is paying attention and the rumored development of the Zune game player is on track. A holiday release date for a Zune 2.0 player and crossover with the existing Xbox fan base is just what Zune needs to kick start the social.

AMD brings Xbox 360 tech to handhelds

At GDC today, AMD announced a suite of tools for developing handheld gaming content for the company’s next-generation mobile graphics parts. The suite includes Rendermonkey 1.7, a shader tool that will let game developers write graphics code for a range of devices that support the OpenVG 1.0, OpenGL 2.0, and Unified Shader Architecture technologies. ATI’s Unified Shader Architecture in particular is one of the main selling points of the Xbox 360, and AMD will offer support for unified shaders on its next generation of mobile parts.

Rendermonkey is already widely used by PC and console developers, so the fact that the latest version makes it easier to author mobile gaming content should help foster porting and the development of original titles for handheld devices containing the AMD’s forthcoming Imageon processors.

The Imageon processor line, announced by AMD last month, is essentially a “GPU” for mobile devices. Imageon is more flexible than a desktop GPU, of course, since with a mobile device you want to save on cost and battery life by cramming as much of the phone onto one piece of silicon as you possibly can. So Imageon has support for 3D and 2D graphics, audio processing, digital still and video cameras, TV out, video recording with image stabilization, video transcoding, and various other multimedia features. All of this stuff is on a single chip that’s separate from the phone’s radio chip, so that the handset maker can upgrade to a new version of Imageon without having to go through the process of FCC qualification each time they add features.
A portable Microsoft gaming device?

Read more here:

AMD brings Xbox 360 tech to handhelds

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