New Xbox 720 Rumors

With the next Xbox coming up, people have been anxious to hear when the 720 is coming out with what features. Eventually, a document was discovered online consisting of 56 pages of information about the next-gen Xbox, to believe or not believe?

The "Xbox 720" in the document is said to be launched sometime in 2013 with a price tag of only $299. With that price tag, it will also include the second version of the Kinect, "Kinect V2." More features will include Blu-Ray as well as visuals that are said to be 4-6 times better than the current 360. A codename called "Fortaleza," appears in the document, showing "Augmented Reality" glasses that is said to be in development by Microsoft and to be used with the 720. Although, the glasses won't be coming out after the release of the 720 until sometime in 2014. A ton of other information is available through the document, please view in full screen for maximum pleasure.

UPDATE: The document has been removed, ordered by law firm Covington & Burling, who advises Microsoft. :(

XBox 720-9-24 Checkpoint Draft 1

  

Don't get too happy, as this document was released back in 2010! Some details that were revealed in the document have already been announced by Microsoft such as "Smart Glass," which was unveiled during E3 2012. Is this a fake? Maybe...maybe not. What do you think?

[GameInformer]

[Joystiq]

Read More

Pre-Order Bonuses For Resident Evil 6

Pre-order bonuses have been revealed for the next upcoming Resident Evil game, as details are revealed in a post at the Capcom Unity Blog. Customers who pre-order the game will receive a Mercenaries mode map if they order from either Best Buy, GameStop, or Amazon. The Mercenaries mode is where players fight off enemies wave by wave in a certain time limit, trying to earn high scores.

Catacombs

Although, each of those retailers will have a special bonus too, as orders from Gamestop will receive The Catacombs map, which features "booby traps ready to ensnare you around every corner."

High Seas Fortress

Orders from Amazon will receive the High Seas Fortress map which takes place on an aircraft carrier, as players will have the ability to explore the ship inside and out.

Rail Yard

Orders from Best Buy will receive the Rail Yard map, where the location is in a subway, as battles can change scenes throughout the subway.

The release date for Resident Evil 6 is October 2nd on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as the PC version will be released at a later date.

[IGN]

[Capcom-Unity]

Read More

Credit Card Data In Xbox 360 Hard Drives

A group at Drexel University conducting a research says that the hard drives in the Microsoft Xbox 360 video game system retain credit card data even after they have been reformatted and sold again, so is your credit card at risk?

In a response, Microsoft said they will be conducting tests on how the researchers managed to get info out, but have not yet been able to replicate what the group did. In a statement by Jim Alkove, who is the general manager of Microsoft's security of interactive entertainment business, told Joystiq

"We are conducting a thorough investigation into the researchers' claims. We have requested information that will allow us to investigate the console in question and have still not received the information needed to replicate the researchers' claims.

Xbox is not designed to store credit card data locally on the console, and as such seems unlikely credit card data was recovered by the method described. Additionally, when Microsoft refurbishes used consoles we have processes in place to wipe the local hard drives of any other user data. We can assure Xbox owners we take the privacy and security of their personal data very seriously."

Although Microsoft claims that this doesn't seem possible at all that the systems could still retain the data after being reformatted. The researchers at Drexel said that modders can pull the numbers out by just using the common hacking tools found. 

This is quite scary for many, as similar mishaps also happened to other companies as their information of customers was taken without any permission. One thing that potential console sellers should do is to just keep their system for now, until Microsoft has found a fix to this mess.

[IGN]

[Kotaku]

[Joystiq]

Read More

Minecraft Reaches The $80 Million Mark

As of today, Minecraft has made $80 million since the "official" release of the sandbox game back in October! Mojang has seen success with their release, as of 25 million who downloaded Minecraft, 5 million actually purchased it.

And with surprise, Mojang's chief executive, Carl Manneh said that they were given an idea to make a television show based off of Minecraft. I wonder how that would turn out...opinions?

Manneh said, "We've been approached by a number of high-profile Hollywood producers and asked to do TV shows." he continues, "We may do that. It's hard when you don't have any experience and someone comes to throw these ideas around. We have so much to focus on with just the game development and growing the business..."

To you Xbox 360 junkies, Minecraft will be available on the Xbox Live Arcade on May 9, so hold tight!

-----

Additional news, yesterday I was browsing through Tom's Hardware and I saw this article. It was about this 16 year old boy who made a working scientific calculator in Minecraft, yes Minecraft! This huge piece of machinery actually does functions such as cosine, tangent, and much much more. Additionally, the calculator also works as a graphing calculator, freaking amazing! Here's the Youtube clip of it in action.

My jaw absolutely dropped when I saw this, I wondered how long it took him to make this fine piece of work. I was going through the comments and I saw some pretty nice comments.

- jaquith 03/25/2012 3:10 PM

This 16 year old is astonishingly brilliant, for his application to MIT all he needs to do is email a YouTube link. It's simply unbelievable that's all I can say. 

-rothmal 03/25/2012 2:11 PM

but can it divide by zero

-fracture 03/26/2012 8:36 PM

But can Minecraft make Crysis?

You also have to read the Youtube comments, a lot of good laughs.
I'm still waiting for someone to top this design, this kid is a genius!

[GameInformer]

[Tom's Hardware]

Read More

Minecraft Xbox 360 Split-Screen

Well, we all know what Minecraft is, and it has been on the 360 for quite some time. Recently, a new feature has been added, which is split screen multiplayer (No official screenshots yet).

Also, there has been speculation how the 360 version of Minecraft struggled to keep up with the updates that are made by Mojang. Currently, the live DLC certification takes time and can not be released for free. A solution has been found by Microsoft where updates will be released to all players as title updates that are free. Title updates have been usually kept for fixes and patches, not for new content, but this approach is new.

Consequently, the PC version of Minecraft will always be most up to date than the 360 version, due to the certification that is required on the 360, which is much longer than the PC. 

To me, the split screen multiplayer is a good addition to the console, as it allows friends that are with you full flexibility to join in. As for the updates, the new approach seems pretty good to me.

More wallpaper for your desktop!!

[Kotaku] 

Read More