Well, in the mail today I received my latest copy of the Official Xbox Magazine. They do a great cover story on The Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion. They also have a lot of info on the soon to be released 360. Here is a rundown of what they reported:

First off it looks like November 15th will be the official release date (though no official date has been announced yet). This would be 4 years to the day that the Xbox was released. There is a strong possibility however that this date could be pushed back a few weeks.

Games for the 360 are going to sell retail at $59.99-$69.99 in price. (OUCH) Don’t be suprised if you see some games selling for $74.99 as well.

Still not a whole lot on backwards compatibility. It looks like though that when the 360 launchs only 5-20 games will be supported for this feature. They might already be on the hard drive. It looks like you will have to download off of Xbox live to support the rest of the games.

There is talk that awhile after the original launch there will be a new version of the 360 released which will come with more controllers, a bigger hard drive, and a ton of games pre installed on the hard drive.

All that being said and my wife constantly trying to thwart my plans at buying the 360, I might just wait awhile. There are a ton of games that are coming out for the Xbox that look like they can keep me occupied until I can further convince my wife. Among the games coming out soon: Fable The Lost Chapters. 30% more gameplay than the original with tons of new levels, characters, missions, etc. Guess what, it only will sell for $19.99. There is also Half Life 2, Brothers in Arms 2, Stubbs the Zombie, X-Men Legends 2, and a plethora of other games that will be less than $50.

I will keep you guys posted. My wife did say however that if I get her pregnant than I can get the 360. Those of you with kids, is this a trap? If we have a baby and a 360 will I be able to give my attention to both? Or will one have to suffer?

Hot diggity - the Halopalooza awaits! This end-of-the-summer Halo-a-thon is on Friday, Sept 23, starting at 6pm. For those of you lucky enough to receive an invitation, remember you must RSVP to secure your seat. We get more people than we can handle every time, so the earlier you RSVP, the better.

WHAT TO BRING:
~Every Xbox component you have, including the power cable - got that Diablo?
~Halo 2
~A TV OR Projector + screen
~Network cable
~Network hub if you have one (please email me if you do)
~$5 for pizza, if you want some

Post any questions/comments/ideas you have about this gathering in this article.

Want an invitation? Contact me directly, and I’ll see if there’s still space. Thanks!

I just read the USA Today, and I read the online version and they had this to report about the Xbox 360.

So the question is which one is everyone going to get? The $399 version, or the $299 version. I know which one my wife will want me to get.

It looks like the $399 is the better value with everything that you get. If you get the $299 and then want to upgrade, the wireless controller is $49, the hard drive is $99, etc.

Still no official word on the backwards compatibility but the article does mention that you will need the hard drive to do it.

There should be an announcement in the next couple weeks as to when the Xbox 360 will be released.

I just got this article today in my IGN update. At first I was under the impression that “Prey” was only going to be available for the PC. Then I went to gametrailers.com to see if I could find any more gameplay footage (because, man, was I intrigued). I didn’t find any extra footage but I did discover that it will be published for PC and 360! Woot! Check out the article and the movies (you will need a pretty fast connection to do so).

Finally, a ground breaking game built on the Doom3 engine. The combat looks fast paced and tight, the story sounds very intriguing, the graphics are breathtaking and the gameplay is totally unique. Prey is definitely on my list. Wow.

I just read an article about another video game that has politicians stepping in and trying to prevent it from being released. The New York Senator, Charles Schumer, wants to ban the upcoming game “25 to Life�.

For those not familiar with this game you have the ability to choose either a gang and recruit people, or you could choose to be the police. When you are with the gang you go around doing whatever it is that gangs do. Namely robbing, looting, and killing police officers that stand in your way. On the police officer side you defend the city and stop the gangs from doing their evil deeds, arresting them, using excessive force, killing if necessary.
So what is the problem? Sounds like it could be a fun game. Well apparently the Senator doesn’t like the idea of people being able to kill cops in a video game. He says that if the game is released people are going to just start killing cops in real life because they saw it in the game. He goes on to say that the cop killing gameplay is “sickening� and “offends all sensibilities�

Two things, one, doesn’t the Senator have more important matters to attend to? Two, if the Senator did his homework the game just isn’t about killing cops. You can be the cops to stop the gangs. Why aren’t police stations everywhere worried about their job enrollment going up? We all know that everyone who plays the game from the viewpoint of the cops is going to go out and join the local police force and start taking the law into their own hands (that last part was sarcasm, incase you missed it).

I can’t even get into how many games there are where you play as the good guy upholding the law and bad guys try to kill you. That is the element in every game. Good versus evil. Someone has to win. Maybe the Senator would like a game where the two sides could sit down together and talk and negotiate. If they came out with that Senator Charles Schumer would be the first in line at midnight waiting for his copy of the game.

This post is about the Halo Movie Project. I put it here in the General Section since we are talking about a movie, not a game.

I just got the new Official Xbox Magazine and they had an article on the Halo Movie. Talks and negotiations are moving along slowly. There are very few details, here is what we know:

Unfortunately not a lot of movie studios are excited about the project. Here are Microsoft’s demands according to the June 10th New York Times. Microsoft demanded $10 million for the rights to the film, cast and director approval, 15% of gross box office, a production budget of no less than $75 million (that’s before hiring a director and actors), and they want creative control over filming, topped off with 60 first class plane tickets to shuttle Microsoft representitives to the film’s premiere.

On June 6th Microsoft sent out actors dressed in full Master Chief gear to deliver movie scripts to all of the movie studios. While the studio executives read the scripts the Master Chiefs stood there watching the executives every movements. When they were done reading the Master Chiefs took back the scripts and then left in place a movie proposal. Could you imagine that, reading a script nervously as a group of Master Chiefs stares at you. After all of that only Fox and Universal are interested in the project and now everyone is in the negotiating talks.

Microsoft says that they want to be so involved because they do not want the movie to suck. They do not want the movie to be a different idea than what they have already put in place through the games. By being involved they can be assured that the movie will be what they and all of the fans want.

So, who wrote the scipt for the Halo Movie? None other than Alex Garland. He was rumored to be paid around $1 Million to write it. So, who is Alex Garland? Well, he was born in London, England in 1970. He is a writer and on the Internet Movie Database website he currently has five films to his name: The Beach, 28 Days Later, The Tesseract, Sunshine, and then Halo. I don’t know about you but I haven’t seen any of these movies so I don’t know how good of a job he might do.

As for the Official Xbox Magazine, they put together a list of people who they could see as being Master Chief. Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Viggo Mortensen. I will leave that discussion up to someone else for a different time.

Well, it happened again. Yesterday lightning killed one Boy Scout and it injured three others while they slept in a shelter at a mountain scout camp in Utah, just East of Salt Lake City.

In case you didn’t know this is another in the long line of Boy Scout deaths this year. Last Thursday a Scout Master and a 13 year old scout were killed by lightning in the California Sequoia National Park.
On July 24th four Scout Leaders were electrocuted in front of all of their Scouts at the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Virginia, when the tent pole they were using to pitch their tent accidently fell and hit a power line. That’s not all folks, the day before at the Jamboree a Scout Master died of an apparent heart attack.
The best moment at the Jamboree had to be everyone waiting outside in the scorching heat for President Bush to arrive to address the scouts. But wait he postponed his visit because of the threat of thunderstorms. So what of all those scouts waiting for the President. Well, sun-sick Scouts began collapsing and more than 300 people were treated for heat-related illnesses.

I know that this is a sad matter at the Jamboree but what was everyone thinking? I thought their motto was “Be Prepared”. There are going to be a lot of law suits filed against the Boy Scout Organization, namely for putting tents under power lines (which I remember from my days as a Scout is a big NO-NO), and not keeping everyone properly hydrated.

I use to think that Scouting was a safe and postive activity. I am starting to worry when I have kids and what will happen to them when they go out to Scout Camp.