Doom on Xbox Live, Jackson Making Halo Game

Microsoft is pulling out all the stops in its X06 Keynote today in Barcelona. The announcements are flying fast and furious: Ensemble studios is making a Halo RTS, and Peter Jackson is making a new Halo game (unrelated to Halo 3 or the RTS). The HD-DVD will be $200 in the U.S. with a release aimed at November of this year. They've got a good deal of 360 exclusive content including the next Splinter Cell and GTA IV Episodes, and (initially) Bioshock. Bioshock will also be on Windows, of course. Windows is also the platform on which Microsoft is announcing a new Massively Multiplayer game from Cryptic Studios, a new super-hero MMOG based on Marvel Comics' IP: Marvel Universe Online.

Doom, still going to cost you.a bit.

[kinglink]

Doom costs 800 points.. that's 10 dollars for those of us who don't remember the conversion.

Seriously XBLA used to be a place to get cheap legacy games, and interesting unique games, now with every game coming out at 800 points it's sad. I'm probably going to end up buying doom at some point, but while it was a impulse buy at 400 (1.25 per episode, 4 episodes) I'm going to have to consider it now.

Any game that's older than 10 years needs to either have significantly new gameplay (not just co-op, time pilot, but you were 400 points so I love you more) for a 10 dollar investment.

There is actually a story to Halo

[jchenx]

There is actually quite a bit of story in Halo and Halo 2, and certainly more than your typical FPS. There's enough in the "Halo universe" to spawn a few books as well, not to mention the Halo movie that Peter Jackson is working on.

I'm not a Bungie cultist myself (although I have a friend that works there), but I think there is definately enough to like in the Halo universe, if you're a general sci-fi fan like I am. And if you don't, there's nothing wrong with avoiding what you don't like.

As for people yelling at MS to be more original, and to stop milking the franchise for all it's worth, you can easily say the same for Nintendo's games. How many Zelda, Metroid, and Mario games have there been? And how many of them have been good? Plenty. Franchises != the suck.

Re:What about a 360 MMORPG?!?

[elrous0]

Yeah, with a "USB Keyboard and Mouse." What's the point? They already have a console with a mouse and keyboard that can play a wide selection of MMORPGS. It's called a "PC".

Seriously, when are developers going to realize that you don't need a keyboard for chat channels when you can have ACTUAL CHAT. When you're chatting around the water cooler with your friends at work do you need a fucking keyboard?!?! The 360 has built in voice chat--USE IT!!!

-Eric

Re:"Leak"

[drzhivago]

Microsoft has a monopoly in the personal computer space. They do not have a monopoly in the home video game console space.

Exclusive titles did not start with Microsoft - it did not start with Sony, either - and it's nothing to get all atwitter about.

Re:And Sony is too expensive?

[Control Group]

Don't think of it as being about Blu-Ray, necessarily. It's not. Really, it's about the price. $600 (or $580, if you count the 20% of production that will be priced at $500) is, to many people too much money. It's really that simple.

Blu-Ray is something that many people aren't excited about that also drives the price up and the production quantity down - this makes it the obvious target for people who don't want/aren't willing/can't afford to shell out $580 for a game console before purchasing even a single game (much less any of the usual hardware accessories).

Had the DS been sold at $500, with the only obvious thing that might account for its far-above-the-competition price the second screen, then yes, you would have heard similar complaints about it. If the Wii was priced at $500 because of problems with the Wiimote, then you'd be hearing similar complaints about that.

Say what you want about how great Blu-Ray is, or how it's actually for games, not for pushing Sony's pet format, or whatever else you want to say about it. But what it comes down to is that, for (seemingly) a lot of people, $580 is just too damn much money. And it doesn't matter how cool Blu-Ray is if the price is more than people are willing to pay.