Tagged News: microsoft

It seems the format wars that pitted HD-DVD against Blu-ray are over. Microsoft threw in the towel on the console side today when it announced that it would discontinue its HD-DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360. This follows the news that Toshiba - who make the HD-DVD - have ceded the victory to Sony's Blu-ray.

Microsoft said it is looking at how the HD DVD technology it has developed, such as HDi, which adds interactive features to DVDs, and its VC-1 video encoding technology, can be applied to other platforms.

The software maker, based in Redmond, Wash., said the decision to stop selling HD DVD players won't have a material impact on its video game business.

Read more here.

Marvel Universe Online is officially no longer in development, according to an interview with Microsoft Game Studios head Shane Kim with MTV Multiplayer. Kim cited problems with potential business models and said that the separation between Microsoft and Marvel was amicable. They did not mention Cryptic Studios, who had been slated to develop the game.

Cue the natural follow-up: What went wrong?

"I don't think it's necessarily a case of what went wrong," Kim told me. "I don't know that that's the right way to put it. For us we look at our priorities and all of the things we have to do. It's a tough space. It's a very competitive space. And it's a space that's changing quite a bit. ...When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of 'Marvel Universe Online,' we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there's basically one that's successful and everything else wouldn't meet our level or definition of commercial success. And then you have to look [and say]: 'Can we change the business model for that? Is that really viable given how far we are in development? And so forth. Does Marvel want to do that?' There's a whole bunch of factors."

Read more there.

Microsoft sold 4.3 million Xbox 360 consoles from the end of September through the end of the year, which brings the console's total sales to 17.7 million units. While rivals Nintendo and Sony has not yet released figures, this raises the very real possibility that Microsoft will retake the console war lead from the popular Wii. Nintendo had sales of 13.2 million at the end of September.

All was not rosy for Microsoft though. As a result of the increased sales, their Xbox Live online service somewhat buckled under the pressure. Today, they promised free games to members to make up for it.

A total of 17.7 million Xbox 360s had been sold worldwide since it first went on sale in late 2005, Microsoft said. Earlier sales data from the software giant showed 13.4 million consoles sold by the end of September.

"Holiday 2007 was a blockbuster season for the gaming industry," Microsoft said, adding that the Xbox 360 has kept its lead over rivals in terms of total dollars spent on hardware and software.

Read more here.

Every week in our newsletter, we ask you all what you think about a specific topic. This week, we want to know more about the fabled phenomenon known as DirectX 10.

Games like Age of Conan, EVE Online and Lord of the Rings Online have been planning on the eventual shift from DirectX9 to DirectX10, but is this a shift you see in your realistic future? For many it means new video cards, new operating systems and a lot of time. Is the switch worth it? When do you plan to make it, if at all?

As usual, we want to hear your thoughts on the forums.

After a one month hiccup while Microsoft and the newly launched Halo 3 lorded over the console hardware sales market, Nintendo has regained its perch. In September, 519,000 Wiis were sold in North America compared to 366,000 Xbox 360s. Despite the increased sales that followed their price cut, Sony continued to trail in their first full month of lower prices and moved only 121,000 units.

The PS3's price dropped by $100 to $499 in mid-October, and a $399 model was launched in early November. Microsoft dropped its lowest-end Xbox 360 by $20 to $280, but the Xbox still remains pricier than the Wii at $249.

Retailers have reported that Wii units sell out within a few days, even though Nintendo has said it increased production for the holiday season. Some observers have said that Nintendo appears to be increasing supply slowly, so as not to cause a glut.

Read it all here.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has a new toy coming for Christmas: advanced parental controls. The update allows parents to set time limits on play and the system will turn itself off when that limit is reached.

The article doesn't go into detail, but unless it saves the game first, I expect parents to stop using the auto timer for a more traditional "turn that off and do your homework!" after the first temper tantrum when little Johnny looses his progress on the last level of game X.

Read it here.

The release of Microsoft's Halo 3 has increased sales of the Xbox 360 by 100% and given Microsoft a profitable quarter for its gaming division. Microsoft sold $180 million worth of Xbox 360s, up from $90 million in the same period last year.

The difference, Microsoft said, is Halo 3 -- a sci-fi based first-person shooter game starring the plasma-ray packing Master Chief. The game, which can only be played on the Xbox 360, launched in September and rang up $330 million in sales during the first quarter.

Read more here.

Thanks to Halo 3, Wedbush Morgan analyst, the appropriately named Michael Patcher, predicts that the Xbox 360 will narrowly outsell the Nintendo Wii in September. The Wii has been a sensation since its launch last year, while the 360 has held on thanks to its early launch. Obviously, Halo inflates the numbers for Microsoft, but that cannot be anything other than good news for the Seattle software giants.

On the home console hardware front, Pachter predicts that Microsoft shifted 450,000 Xbox 360 units during September, in comparison to 425,000 Wii consoles and 150,000 PS3s, and forecasts growth throughout the holiday period.

Read more here.

Microsoft has decided to give Windows XP an extra six months of sales time, a deviation from their original intention to halt the popular operating system in January. The company notes that people likely want more time before they make any move towards Windows Vista.

Al Gillen, system software analyst with IDC, told the Seattle Times that Microsoft's decision to extend XP sales is not an indicator of the success or failure of Vista.

"If Windows Vista was selling really well and people were just falling all over themselves to get on it, there would still be customers that couldn't, for whatever reason, ... make the move in the short term," Gillen told the paper.

Read the full story.

An article on Yahoo! News looks at Microsoft's next big hurdle, now that Halo 3 has cemented the console among the hardcore crowd, and it's casual games. The article rightly points out that Xbox Live already serves this niche, but seems to indicate they're not doing a great job of telling people.

The huge buzz around games like "Halo 3" obscures the fact that Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade has about 100 games available for download. These range from arcade classics like "Pac-Man" to popular card games like "Texas Hold'em."

"They need to take their lowest-priced model and push it with a combination of games they have with Xbox Live. It's not games coming out of Activision (ATVI.O) or EA (ERTS.O), it's the $5 to $10 games on Live," Greenwald said.

For more, check out the original piece.