176w ago - Recently old XBox 360 XDK's have been hitting the China market, in case any 360 Devs were interested in grabbing one.

After Microsoft released the new XNA, all XBox developers are entitled to get a free upgrade from their old one.

Where do the old ones go? Microsoft will pass them along to labs to destroy them before being thrown away.

The labs, however, often just breaks all the ports and front panel and then sends them on to China to be melted down. Instead of just melting them down, people there actually rework them and are beginning to resell them now.

If you know people who live in China or via the Internet, it's a good chance to get an XDK considerably cheaper!

186w ago - Today Gowans007 on NeoGAF has reported that Microsoft is now giving XBox 360 Devs the ability to stop guide party chat from within online games.

Currently, players have the option of forming a private chat with players, but that will soon change.

To quote: "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will force players to decide whether or not they'll play the game and join the game chat, or choose to stay in a private chat and not play in the multiplayer game.

With titles like Gears of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: World at War, and many other online based multiplayer titles, the private chat feature became a way of telling other players of enemy locations after being killed."

245w ago - Three key devs behind Nintendo's Metroid Prime series have formed a new studio called Armature, under the publishing flag of Electronic Arts.

What does that mean for us gamers, exactly? It means the prime (hah) talents behind Metroid are now free to develop games for non-Nintendo platforms.

The devs heading Armature Studios - Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Jack Matthews, (who were the former Game Director, Art Director, and Principal Tech Engineer of the Metroid franchise, respectively) - have expressed interest in the PS3 and 360. Says Pacini:

From my stand point, I've never worked on any other console. I've always made games for Nintendo. I'm reinvigorated. I'm really excited about what other opportunities are out there. How can we use Xbox Live? How can we use the power of the PS3?

I think it really opens it up. I'm not saying it was by any means restrictive working for Nintendo. We had this palette to work on, the Wii and the DS, but now we have everything.

Personally I'm looking forward to see what they have in store for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Not that I don't think the Wii is a capable platform, but it lacks the processing power its competition has. I'd like to see what the devs can do with that extra power.

Does this...