Back to one of Lazy’s favourite topics. Personally I don’t mind if installs are optional but mandatory installs completely defy the object of consoles. Luckily as it stands Microsoft doesn’t seem to have any plans of allowing mandatory installs. The latest comments go some way to prove that. Last Updated: September 11, 2008

Good news for anyone that is interested in the latest zombie bashing survival shooter from Valve. Valve's Gabe Newell has confirmed that a demo will be coming out soon for Xbox 360 and PC. "I don't know what the date is for release [of the demo] though. I think it's going to contain the first part of one of the campaigns. I think it'll probably be Hospital but I'm not sure." says Newell when discussing the topic. Hopefully we will see it before the release of the game in November because if my memory serves me correctly, the demo for Half Life 2 on PC came a good while after the release of the game in stores. So with the demo giving gamers a taste of both single and multiplayer, it should give us enough to decide if its worth our money in the crazy upcoming season of releases.

Bloomberg reports that since Microsoft introduced the price drop to its Xbox 360 console range, sales have doubled compared to that of last weekend. Not only for the Arcade console which now retails at $199.00, but for the Pro and Elite consoles as well. When we previously speculated that the price drop would boost sales, many stated that the price point is not important enough to make a significant difference to consumers purchasing decision. Well the numbers are clearly stating the opposite, with the sales boost being more than significant and also putting a Microsoft console at a lower price point that the Nintendo Wii for the first time. Is the PS3 in trouble? While the Nintendo Wii is still the definite leader in the console wars and ahead by miles, the fight for second place as the best selling HD console still continues between the PS3 and the Xbox 360. If the boost brought about by the price drop continues into the Christmas season, Microsoft can look forward to a whole lot of sales. At the same time the PS3 has been outselling the Xbox 360 for a couple of months now and its lineup is looking incredibly appealing to say the least, not to mention all the families who may be interested in a new Blu-Ray player for the house. The upcoming season is going to be a real fight to the death as the two console manufacturers go head to head for market supremacy.

Ensemble Studios, the developers of Halo Wars and known for the Age of Empires games have announced that they will be shutting down after the release of Halo Wars. Not only that but today they announced that they are giving the axe to all non-essential employees as well as employees not directly related to the Halo Wars project. All the members that will stay onboard are being offered incentives to stay with the studio until the game is complete. More after the jump. What on earth is going on at Ensemble? Why would the studio be shut down so suddenly and why would a studio of this caliber need to be shut down anyway? These are things I don't know and maybe there is a good reason, but we don't know it because there have not been any other official statements or comments released by Microsoft or Ensemble yet. Halo Wars is due for release in the first half of 2009.

When browsing the net this morning I noticed the unfortunate placing of two article on N4G. We could go into a deep social analysis of interpreting why people are still looking for the year of the PS3 (We are looking at you Dynamo) and why, no matter how hard they try, they will never truly find the peace that they …

Oddworld creator Lorne (Lawn) Lanning has been speaking about why he thinks that consoles are a step backwards and not what he was excited about years ago. Lanning has the following to say: "Personally, I think the consoles are a problem. Years ago I was excited about consoles, but anything that makes development more expensive rather than better, faster, cheaper, I think is a step backwards. When I look at what's happening, it's a bit disappointing because the consoles are running into a place where affordable games are having a rough time getting out there." I guess that all the big money and schedules are starting to add more and more pressure to a lot of smaller developers that aren't graced with huge budgets. Is he right though? A lot of us are all gaming fanboys, we love it all but we also love to see technology progress and get better. The main reason that I turned to consoles was because I was tired of having to keep my PC up to date so that I can play the latest games. Now I get home with my shiny new game, pop it in and run it the way that the developers intended. It seems that Lanning is targeting a market that is more interested in customisation and a lot of sharing options, saying: "PC games also allow people to build their game as they chose. There's a big difference between spending $50 or $60 on a game and hoping I love it and buying a game for $5 and then buying additional content for that game, so by the time I have invested $50 in it I really love it and I've personalized it a lot more to what I'm interested in." Hello. Hello. Follow me. Ok. [Who knows where that comes from?]

GamerChip.com has put together a list of the games that they think will be hits this christmas as well as all the games that will fail miserably alongside the hotly anticipated titles coming out at the end of this year. While a decent portion of this list seems spot on I have to say that I disagree with a whole bunch of titles on their list.... So here is the list that they have put up I have highlighted the titles that I think are a little out of place or just plain strange. HITS: Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway LittleBigPlanet Fracture Fallout 3 Fable 2 Dead Space Guitar Hero: World Tour Mortal Kombat vs DC Resistance 2 Gears Of War 2 Warhammer Online Left 4 Dead FAILURES: Spore Too Human S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky Mercenaries 2 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Crysis Warhead Silent Hill Saints Row 2 Bioshock (PS3) Rock Band (Aus release) Mirrors Edge Red Faction: Guerrilla Firstly, I find it quite strange that the creator of this list has decided to use him amazing powers of foresight to predict that games such as Too Human and Mercenaries 2 are not going to be hits after their low review scores have already come out. In fact the games are already out so I wouldn't even have them in the list, unless he expects some of these games to sell well into the holidays. In the hits list I don't fully agree with some of those titles. While Brothers in Arms is looking very decent, I still think that it is going to have a tough time getting its name in front of the new Call of Duty title (strangely not even in the list). Mortal Kombat vs DC is the type of game that we all want to root for, but deep down we know that the possibility of it being a good game and a great success is not very likely.... Even though there are many Warhammer fans out there and even though the game could be looking good, I still don't see any MMO being able to dethrone the King of the MMO genre, World of Warcraft. As far as the fail list is concerned I don't think I could ever agree with titles like Bioshock for PS3 being there. Bioshock was an amazing game and a fantastic experience and I think that any PS3 owner would be more the right to feel a good amount of anticipation for their own version of this creepy, yet incredibly engrossing experience. While Crysis was very popular it did suffer very badly from Piracy, the only reason this game would fail was if all of that nonsense had to happen again. Hopefully this time around the fans will realise that they are damaging the developer and will go out and actually buy it.... Sure its a bit different and a little strange and if you have to choose between it, Gears of War 2, LittleBigPlanet or the new Resistance then I could see it having some issues. I do however think that its new take on the first person genre is something quite fresh and different in an industry heavily flooded with mindless shooters.

  I’ll willing to bet that anybody who reads this will either have experienced an Xbox issue or will know somebody who has. Be it a drive failure or red rings, most people will at one stage have had to exchange their 360’s. I am on my 5th Xbox so dealing with MI Digital has become almost second nature to …