Greetings and welcome to a new feature we will be hosting at the Red Sector. Once a week, we will be gathering a bunch of gaming news for our readers to see in one place. We will try to make this a Wednesday article, but for now, the this being a new feature, the date may not be finalized just yet.
In any case, welcome to the news and commentary. Enjoy!
Extra Life news: According to the main page, we once again broke records in the 24 hour gaming marathon known as Extra Life! As of the time of writing, we have raised collectively $1.9 MILLION for kids and the hospitals helping them! And while the main marathon occurred last weekend, the charity is still accepting donations since some people had to take the backup weekend.
When is the backup weekend? Why it’s this one coming up! So please, if you had plans to support this worthy cause, donate! It’s not too late, and we are currently about $90K from hitting the big 2 Million! Come make this happen!
Xbox 360 subscription plan coming to local retailers: Well shit. I wrote about this previously when Microsoft first cooked up this bullshit pricing scheme. In fact, I called it out as turning the 360 into a cellphone. Apparently, xbots have proven they really are willing to pay for anything, because Microsoft has made enough money in the experimental stage, they are ready to open this plan up to be bought at your local retailer! In the next few weeks Microsoft is planning to allow customers at Wal-Mart and Toys’R’Us to buy an Xbox 360 wiith 250 gigs of internal memory for $99… so long as they agree to a contract to pay $14.99 a month for 2 years for their Xbox Live subscription. Further trying to sweeten the deal, they are also offering the same monthly deal on a 360 with Kinect for $149.
Fans of the 360… please… I’m begging you… please for the love of God, do NOT let this remain successful. Seriously, Microsoft is already talking about selling their next console the same way, which was exactly what I was talking about them doing in my previous article. Do not give them the excuse… or by watching them sap their audience for even more subscription fees then ever before, give Sony or maybe even Nintendo ideas on turning their consoles into cellphone gaming rigs, too.
To all gamers who have balked at PC gaming for collections going digital, you can’t let this happen. You made fun of us for “not really owning our games,” but if you support this, you are being hypocritical as hell. You have no grounds to make fun of one audience who takes their games via download as a convenience on such when you have to pay monthly TO OWN YOUR HARDWARE TO RUN YOUR GAMES ON. Doing so will only show your true colors, and they wont be pretty.
And to everyone else, selfishly, I’m begging you… don’t let this become the new standard. It can be nothing but bad for all of us.
And Microsoft… for even giving such a plan a foothold in gaming, go fuck yourself with a pepper-sprayed spiked club….. that’s on fire.
Square Enix buys License for Unreal Engine 4: Not a lot to say about this but Technology is finally marching forward. And the first company to publicly buy a long-term license to the new tech is none other then the minds behind the Final Fantasy franchise. All I can speculate on this is that this puts pressure on the console makers to put out their next generation before one of the biggest publishers are making games that can work only on PC due to power limitations. The clock is now officially ticking.
Microsoft launches Smartglass… as part of Windows 8: So much for using hardware you already have. The app to use smartglass is going to debute on Windows 8 Tablets on October 26th… and Windows 8 phones on the 29th. The problem with the claims of using the tablet/smart phone you already own… is that these are the days the Windows 8 hardware will become available to buy. In short you don’t have what you need to play with this new feature. If you want it to work on the stuff you have, you have to wait till next year.
Personally, I think this was a rush-job that was meant to get in before Nintendo unleashes the already sold out WiiU, but like most rush jobs, it will leave their audience feeling cold… and in this case left out.
Yes! Another pattent troll loses!: Impulse Technology, known for trying to sue Nintendo for all their Wii controllers and MS over Kinect, has lost at least one of their lawsuits. They have dropped their suit on Nintendo! I don’t care how you feel about the big N, but as a gamer, you have to feel good seeing losers like this… well… lose.
Hey, MegaByte. This is Crimson. Actually, I do it on my own, with a friend of mine. So yeah, I'm not paid by them; in fact, soon I will be reviewing the GameFly service itself, and your link will indeed be referenced. Thanks for the info. Right now, working on my own WordPress blog for the games I review.
ReplyDeletehttp://gameflyhunter.wordpress.com/
You are most welcome! That article was my own writing. I was with FrontTowardsGamer until recently as a PC game reviewer (hobby job only). I basically left because there were at least 3 others covering PC games, and console coverage for multiplatforms made my little additions kinda redundant.
DeleteWhile writing that reply I went back to Direct2Drive's facebook page for the first time since publishing that... and almost had to laugh at people still commenting about missing games. But for my own personal experience, I deleted the application and gave up on my account at about that time.
Feel free to use the reference! As far as Im concerned, the more know how Gamefly behaves, the better.
Hey, Megabyte. It is interesting about that, and like I said, that article WILL show up in my eventual Service Review, but I'll warn you; I don't review PC games, mostly because my own system is a work machine, so it doesn't have the specs for a lot of newer titles. I only review console games, even if both LordShadow and I cover the trio of this generation. So while I will comment on your article and how it reflects on GameFly as a whole, and the similarities with their console rental system, well... what you pointed out isn't totally my thing, you know? However, I do invite you to look over my reviews; just posted one today. Since I'm still working on the setup of my blog, I've been posting them on my DeviantArt account.
Deletehttp://rowlphhowl.deviantart.com/gallery/
Hope you enjoy them!