Tomorrow I will be faxing through my forms to MI Digital to have my broken Xbox 360 replaced. While you always hear about the RROD, the Xbox 360 still seems to have quite a lot of other issues that go fairly unnoticed. When I get a swapped out console back from MI Digital I won’t be on my second, or …

Colin MacDonald of Realtime Worlds effectively killed the rumour that Ruffian was developing Crackdown 2. In a message sent to Videogamer247, he stated that there were ongoing discussions between Microsoft and RTW regarding the development of the sequel to Crackdown. However, nothing is set in stone given RTW are very busy with All-Points Bulletin and another project that has yet …

On Saturday, we posted up an article about a price increase for the Xbox 360 and it’s software that will come into effect in January 2009. Local gamers are fuming and everybody is cringing or complaining over the concept of paying a thousand Rand for triple A titles. We got on the phone with Microsoft’s Product and Marketing Manager, John …

We received a press release this week from Microsoft notifying us that they are going to be embarking on a bit of a journey around the country throughout the summer. Microsoft are going to be traveling to to many of the popular holiday spots, beginning at the Boogaloos skate park at Bright Water Commons in Johannesburg and then moving its …

There is a story doing the rounds at the moment that apparently Microsoft are more supportive of creative staff than Sony, the story is based on an interview of Kudo Tsunoda by kikizo.com but in all honesty I just don’t believe it. While reading through the interview I get the distinct impression that Kudo thinks very highly of himself, which …

Black Friday, if you didn’t know, is the biggest shopping day of the year over in the States. It’s they day that people leave their brains at the door and run riot through the shops trying to get the best bargains for Christmas. It is also a very nice indicator on how the silly season will progress and this year …

[ Dramatic Re-enaction of the staff meeting that birthed the ideas behind Ninja Blade ] Hey, what was the name of that game that sold really well again? God of what? Oh, God of War, cool thanks. Hey what was the name of that other game that's pretty popular on that other console? Ninja Gaiden? Oh that was cool as well. Hey... I bet that if we took those two games and mashed them together that we would get, like, a ton of sales. We can call it the God of Ninja Blaiden or is that too much? Ok, let's just call it Ninja Blade then, that's catchy right? Oh man, we are gonna be rolling in it with this one. --------------------- Seriously, I took one look at this video and wondered how Ninja Gaiden and God of War actually managed to pro-create, considering that they are video games and don't even come equipped with the correct tools to do the nasty. For all I know, this game may prove to be a lot of fun but I cannot deny that it looks like a real rip-off of some good sellers. I have checked the google-machine to see if Itagaki (the creator of Ninja Gaiden that just recently left TECMO) is involved with the production but have so far come up with nothing. Thoughts Anyone?

While the console race has been a close and interesting one to follow, it seems like Microsoft may be whipping a card out of it's sleeve that may just give them a big advantage. The sickening thing about this whole story is that it's an advantage that is going to be obtained by making their console reach a standard of quality that should have already been there all along. Is there a bright future ahead for the Xbox 360, or are we just being setup for even more disappointments from Microsoft? The problem is obviously that Microsoft released a console that was flawed from the start and even though they were in the knowledge of those flaws, decided to release it anyway. It was good to see that Microsoft landed up paying for their underhanded tricks in the long run, with the need to extend RROD warranties for a problem that really shouldn't have been there from the start. Usually I don't enjoy seeing anyone suffer for no reason but they deserved it because at the end of the day it was always the consumer paying the price for a lazy design job and some underhanded business tactics. Many of the issues with the Xbox 360 may now be coming to an end with the latest batch of Xbox 360's to leave the factory and if a decent job was actually done this time around, we may see the era of problematic Xbox 360 consoles actually come to an end.... The new consoles have had their internal memory pushed up from 16MB to 256MB, meaning that the console will now be able to store the NXE dashboard without the use of a hard drive.... The internal memory, while not of much use for other functions is at least big enough that it can now carry the NXE and still have a little bit of space left for a few small Xbox Live Arcade games.

...While the change isn't entirely revolutionary it is a welcome addition for all of the consumers who are going to be looking at buying an Arcade unit.... According to a recent article on Neoseeker , the latest batch of Xbox 360's to come out of the factories are now packing what is called the "Jasper" chipset, which now has a reduced 65nm graphics chip as well as what has now also been revealed as a lower power requirement.... All consoles produced after October 23, 2008 now have this new chipset and if all goes well with the new design then we may see the end of the Red Ring of Death as we know it.

While many of you may already be clued in about the Jasper, a new piece of information has come to light with regards to identifying if an Xbox 360 console is a Jasper or not.

...Will the new chipset mean that consumers in future will no longer need to deal with the terrible woes that have plagued so many gamers in the last two years or are we only being set up for even more disappointment from a lazy design team? Time will have to tell on this one but if Microsoft have actually done a decent job then them and us could possibly looking at a much smoother future for the console and one that should have been there from the start.