230w ago - According to an insider, Team XBox has the scoop that the first wave of Microsoft job cuts will hit the Entertainment and Devices division, including Xbox, Zune and Windows mobile.

But as they point out, its a bit surprising as the division experienced good revenue growth last quarter.

To quote: Yesterday, we told you that Microsoft will cut 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, with 1,400 of those being cut as early as this month.

I'm hearing from my sources that the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) unit -- the group that is responsible for Xbox, Zune and Windows Mobile -- is being hit with the bulk of the immediate 1,400-person cuts. (I have no specifics about how this will affect Microsoft's product roadmap, but stay tuned.)

This comes as a surprise, considering that the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) revenue grew 3% driven by strong holiday demand for Xbox 360 consoles with a record 6 million units sold in the quarter.

239w ago - What happens when people are reluctant to spend money? Well, they're reluctant to buy a $400 games machine, that's what.

Blu-ray predictions are down due to the struggling economy. PS3 sales should also be affected, an obvious conclusion made by analyst Piers Harding-Rolls.

"At the top end, the PS3 with its high price is arguably more likely to be impacted by a recession than the other platforms. This may prompt consumers to consider other consoles or wait for the PS3 price to drop."

But, sluggish sales of the PS3 won't be the only outcome of a recession economy. Credit has dried up in many areas, meaning developers of games may be forced to cancel or stall projects, before funds become more readily available.

"Where I do see an impact is with regards to access to credit for publishers that look to borrow to invest in content production. Obviously credit is less available generally so this may result in cost cutting and some projects being canceled and put on hold."

Of course, when developers and publishers can't try something new, you know what they turn to: less original IPs as investors become increasingly wary of games with ambiguous potential.

253w ago - From the beginning of time, Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers have been dueling about who's console is the more graphically powerful. In these skirmishes, terms like CPU, GPU, and RAM have been thrown around, but now those folks on the PS3 side of the fray have another weapon in their arsenal: disc format.

You may think that disc size has absolutely nothing to do with graphical quality of games. It all has to do with the raw power of the console's CPU, RAM, etc., you might say; the discs are just used to store the data that is pushed through the processors. Yes, but no. Let me explain.

The Xbox 360 version of the upcoming first person shooter Rage will be shipping on two DVDs. The PS3 version, however, will fit on one Blu-ray disc. Developer id Software's John Carmack says that the PS3 version of the game will look much better. Why? Because of the limitations of the DVD.

Apparently, the company will be using a "different type of compression" on the Xbox 360 version of the title to keep the game on two discs, so they don't have to pay high royalty costs for a third disc. This "compression" will make Rage on the Xbox 360 graphically inferior to Rage on the PS3

Up until now, there has been very few disadvantages to buying a game that comes on multiple discs. Sure...

258w ago - If you live in Europe, you should be really concerned right about now. A small group of MEPs are trying to sneak in a law that could punish you even if you're innocent.

When it goes through, if anyone in your household has been determined to be file-sharing by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) three times, they'll blacklist your IP for life!

There's less than one day to stop this from being passed. It was slipped in right before the legislators broke for the summer, hidden within a huge package of telecom legislation, so most of them won't even get a chance to read it before they vote!





Hugh Hancock, Johnnie Ingram, and Matt Kelland decided to do something about it by creating a machinima to warn everyone. If you would like to know more about what's going on, check out the Strange Company Web site, where they outline what you can do to help.

263w ago - A Qore introduction video is available below, and Sony rep amurphy has already responded to some of the angry comments on its US Blog about its monthly lifestyle gaming program 'Qore'.

One comment asked if demos were going to be exclusive to Qore from now on, or if they will still be free. Sony replied: "If you purchase Qore, you will have access to exclusive content that would not be available otherwise - it does not impact the availability of the great content found on PSN, nor does it change our free play model."

The response probably won't mean much to most people who feel they are basically taking stuff that would have been free normally and charging for it.