July 2007 - Posts

• Analysis of Xbox 360 Price Cut

  Top Reasons Why the Xbox 360 August Price Cut Makes Sense With all the sales flyers and rumors floating around the interweb more or less confirming a Xbox 360 price cut, we wanted to step back and rationalize the reasons why it would make sense... Madden NFL 08 With all three consoles finally available come 'Maddenoliday', this makes perfect sense.  Madden Football gamers are an entirely separate gamer 'clique' (but equally important).  The vast majority of Madden 'ballers' had a PS2 last generation.  These gamers likely waited this year to see how the PS3 and Xbox 360 compared prior to committing to a 'Madden' platform.  The word on the sports message boards is that NCAA Football apparently runs smoother on Xbox 360 (compared to the PS3 version).  This is due to the game running at 60 fps.  Madden 08 has also been reported to run at 60 fps on the Xbox 360 as well.  Microsoft is certainly in a good position to take advantage of this annual 'Maddenoliday' surge in game sales with a well timed price cut.   Follow What Leader? During E3 2003, Sony apparently became aware of a pending Xbox price cut and beat Microsoft to the punch by announcing a Playstation 2 price cut to $179 (from $199) during the week prior to E3.  As planned, Microsoft followed through with their announcement at E3 Wednesday that year.  This year, Sony also announced (prior to Microsoft's press conference) that they would indeed be cutting the price of the PlayStation 3 by $100 (even though this is apparently a temporary 60GB inventory reduction).  Perhaps Microsoft is tiring of these console war games and didn't want to appear to be 'following the leader' as in the previous generation.   $399 for how long? On June 30th, 2007, the Xbox 360 Premium will have been $399 for 645 days.  This is even longer than the time it took the PlayStation 2 to initially reduce its launch price.  Certainly the Playstation 3 launch price influenced this quite a bit, but damn.... that is a long time at $399!         Posted Monday, July 30, 2007 7:29 PM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Gamefly Top Queued Games for the Week of July 23rd

  Mario Strikers Charged for the Nintendo Wii takes the top spot of the Gamefly Top Ten 'Most Queued' list.  Overlord is at the top of the Xbox 360 list, while PlayStation 3 gamers can't wait to get Lair in their mailbox. Queue up the complete Gamefly Top 10 most requested list:   Most Popular Games Cross-Platform: Rank Title Platform Category Publisher 1 Mario Strikers Charged Wii Sports Nintendo 2 Overlord Xbox 360 RPG Codemasters 3 Darkness Xbox 360 Shooter Take Two 4 Transformers: The Game Xbox 360 Action Adventure Activision 5 NCAA Football 08 Xbox 360 Sports Electronic Arts 6 All-Pro Football 2K8 Xbox 360 Sports Take Two 7 Two Worlds Xbox 360 RPG South Peak Interactive 8 Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's PlayStation 2 Arcade/Puzzle Activision 9 NASCAR 08 Xbox 360 Racing Electronic Arts 10 Madden NFL 08 Xbox 360 Sports Electronic Arts   Xbox 360 Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Overlord RPG Codemasters 2 Darkness Shooter Take Two 3 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 4 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 5 All-Pro Football 2K8 Sports Take Two 6 Two Worlds RPG South Peak Interactive 7 NASCAR 08 Racing Electronic Arts 8 Madden NFL 08 Sports Electronic Arts 9 DiRT Racing Codemasters 10 Bioshock Shooter Take Two   Nintendo Wii Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Mario Strikers Charged Sports Nintendo 2 Resident Evil 4 Action Adventure Capcom 3 Mario Party 8 Arcade/Puzzle Nintendo 4 Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Arcade/Puzzle Nintendo 5 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Action Adventure Electronic Arts 6 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 7 Super Paper Mario Action Adventure Nintendo 8 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Shooter Nintendo 9 The Bigs Sports Take Two 10 Super Smash Bros. Brawl Fighting Nintendo   PlayStation 3 Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Lair Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 2 Ninja Gaiden Sigma Action Adventure Tecmo 3 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 4 Darkness Shooter Take Two 5 NASCAR 08 Racing Electronic Arts 6 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 7 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Shooter Ubisoft 8 All-Pro Football 2K8 Sports Take Two 9 Heavenly Sword Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 10 John Woo presents Stranglehold Action Adventure Midway   PlayStation 2 Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's Arcade/Puzzle Activision 2 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 3 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 4 God of War II Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 5 NASCAR 08 Racing Electronic Arts 6 Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 Fighting Namco 7 Bully Action Adventure Take Two 8 Madden NFL 08 Sports Electronic Arts 9 Persona 3 RPG Atlus 10 The Bigs Sports Take Two   Xbox Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 2 Halo 2 Shooter Microsoft 3 Madden NFL 08 Sports Electronic Arts 4 Ninja Gaiden Black Action Adventure Tecmo 5 Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: RPG LucasArts 6 Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction Action Adventure LucasArts 7 Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Action Adventure LucasArts 8 Half-Life 2 Shooter Electronic Arts 9 Black Shooter Electronic Arts 10 Star Wars: Republic Commando Shooter LucasArts   Nintendo DS Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Picross Arcade/Puzzle Nintendo 2 Pokemon Pearl Strategy/Sim Nintendo 3 Pokemon Diamond Strategy/Sim Nintendo 4 Deal or No Deal Strategy/Sim DSI Games 5 Transformers: Autobots Action Adventure Activision 6 New Super Mario Bros. Action Adventure Nintendo 7 Sim City DS Strategy/Sim Electronic Arts 8 Transformers: Decepticons Action Adventure Activision 9 The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass RPG Nintendo 10 Final Fantasy III RPG Square Enix   PlayStation Portable Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Final Fantasy II RPG Square Enix 2 Dungeons & Dragons Tactics RPG Atari 3 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 4 Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology RPG Namco 5 Final Fantasy RPG Square Enix 6 PaRappa the Rapper Strategy/Sim Sony Computer Entertainment 7 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Shooter Ubisoft 8 Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions RPG Square Enix 9 Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 10 300: March to Glory Action Adventure Eidos   GameCube Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Action Adventure Nintendo 2 Ratatouille Kids/Family THQ 3 Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness Action Adventure Nintendo 4 Super Smash Bros. Melee Fighting Nintendo 5 Mario Kart: Double Dash Racing Nintendo 6 Mario Party 7 Kids/Family Nintendo 7 Pokemon Colosseum Action Adventure Nintendo 8 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Action Adventure Nintendo 9 Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Shooter Nintendo 10 Super Mario Strikers Sports Nintendo   Game Boy Advance Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Pokemon Emerald Action Adventure Nintendo 2 Pokemon Fire Red Strategy/Sim Nintendo 3 Pokemon Leaf Green Strategy/Sim Nintendo 4 Pokemon: Ruby RPG Nintendo 5 Pokemon: Sapphire RPG Nintendo 6 Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap RPG Nintendo 7 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Action Adventure Electronic Arts 8 Dogz 2 Strategy/Sim Ubisoft 9 Final Fantasy VI Advance RPG Nintendo 10 Super Mario Advance 4 Action Adventure Nintendo   Posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 7:46 PM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Has Microsoft Lost its Mojo?

  Has Microsoft Lost its Mojo? In the pursuit to topple the Playstation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 seemed to be on the right course.  A full one year head start combined with some killer games lifted the Xbox 360 quickly into the #1 next generation console slot.  Gears of War proved to be the 2006 holiday hit that hardcore gamers craved, but since then a string of bad news have stung the software giant from Redmond.  The Big Three include: Xbox 360 Hardware Failures A chorus of gamer polls and angry message board posts came to a head when one week prior to E3, Microsoft admitted that the Xbox 360 hardware was failing at unacceptable levels and announced a 3 year warranty extension for the dreaded 3 red lights hardware message.  This news alone could be the tipping point that causes Microsoft to lose it's lead against Sony this generation.  It appears that Microsoft's experience in software and services (not hardware) is clearly showing, compared to both Sony and Nintendo. E3 2007 Good games releasing this year were shown but the Resident Evil 5 re-announcement, Scene-it trivia game, and special edition Halo 3 Console announcements fell flat.  No price cut to match Sony's (albeit a limited $100 60GB version inventory move) was announced. Peter Moore bolts to head up the EA Sports division The figure head that Xbox 360 fan boys and Xbox division employees loved to rally around has left the building.  Yes, the man with that lead the Sega Dreamcast to a valiant fight against Sony has decided to move on and remove a few tattoos.  Interestingly enough, Peter worked directly with Visual Concepts (as Sega owned them at the time), and now will directly compete against their efforts at EA Sports. Casual Gamer Missteps: Microsoft was the first to digitally distribute casual games via a game console with Xbox LIVE Arcade.  The initial batch of Xbox 360's even bundled a simple remote with game play buttons (think Wii Remote without motion) that seemed to signal  serious thought and investment was being put towards the casual games market.  Unfortunately, the casual gamer doesn't typically have a networked home (at this point), and they don't typically spring for a $399 game console during the early adopter phase of a console's lifecycle.  What about the $299 Core model you say?  Well, remember you can't get online or save any of these casual games without a memory card or hard drive.  Other problems with Xbox LIVE Arcade included the initial menu system, which was a step above using DOS to find things, and is still a very clunky interface.  Casual gamers are apparently gravitating toward a simpler approach with the $250 Nintendo Wii.  As everyone knows, the Wii has innovative casual games (namely Wii Sports) that do not require an internet connection.  It has an innovative yet simple remote, and is in the impulse buy price range of $250 (if you can find one).   Certainly Sony has taken it's lumps this generation, but with an assault by Sony for the hard core gamers and Nintendo for casual and younger gamers, will Microsoft be able to regain its 'mojo' and compete for the number one slot this generation?     Posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:57 PM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Rock Band Pre-orders Rocket onto Best Seller List

  Rock Band pre-orders were made available yesterday, and the $199 Rock Band Collection has already made an appearance on the Amazon Top Sellers list! The Rock Band Collection comes with the game, guitar, microphone, and drum kit and is retailing for $199.99.  Amazon and other retailers also have each component individually priced as follows: Drums - $79.99 Wireless Guitar - $79.99 (Xbox 360), $59.99 (PS3) Microphone - $29.99 Game - $59.99 Check it out:  Amazon Best Sellers List     Posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007 5:27 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Price Drop - Pirates of the Caribbean

  FYI...  Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End has dropped in price.  $39.99 (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) $29.99 (PS2, PSP) $19.99 (DS, PC) Check it out:  Amazon - Pirates of the Caribbean     Posted Saturday, July 21, 2007 6:04 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Gamefly Top 10 for the Week (July 19, 2007)

  Overlord for Xbox 360 takes the top spot of the Gamefly Top Ten 'Most Queued' list.  Mario Striker's Charged is at the top of the Nintendo Wii list, while PlayStation 3 gamers can't wait to get Lair in their mailbox. Queue up the complete Gamefly Top 10 most requested list: Most Popular Games Cross-Platform: Rank Title Platform Category Publisher 1 Overlord Xbox 360 RPG Codemasters 2 Darkness Xbox 360 Shooter Take Two 3 Transformers: The Game Xbox 360 Action Adventure Activision 4 NCAA Football 08 Xbox 360 Sports Electronic Arts 5 All-Pro Football 2K8 Xbox 360 Sports Take Two 6 Vampire Rain Xbox 360 Action Adventure Microsoft 7 DiRT Xbox 360 Racing Codemasters 8 Mario Strikers Charged Wii Sports Nintendo 9 Halo 3 Xbox 360 Shooter Microsoft 10 The Bigs Xbox 360 Sports Take Two   Xbox 360 Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Overlord RPG Codemasters 2 Darkness Shooter Take Two 3 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 4 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 5 All-Pro Football 2K8 Sports Take Two 6 Vampire Rain Action Adventure Microsoft 7 DiRT Racing Codemasters 8 Halo 3 Shooter Microsoft 9 The Bigs Sports Take Two 10 Bioshock Shooter Take Two   Nintendo Wii Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Mario Strikers Charged Sports Nintendo 2 Resident Evil 4 Action Adventure Capcom 3 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Action Adventure Electronic Arts 4 Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Arcade/Puzzle Nintendo 5 Super Mario Galaxy Action Adventure Nintendo 6 Mario Party 8 Arcade/Puzzle Nintendo 7 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Shooter Nintendo 8 The Bigs Sports Take Two 9 Super Paper Mario Action Adventure Nintendo 10 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision   PlayStation 3 Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Lair Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 2 Ninja Gaiden Sigma Action Adventure Tecmo 3 Darkness Shooter Take Two 4 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 5 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 6 All-Pro Football 2K8 Sports Take Two 7 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Shooter Ubisoft 8 Heavenly Sword Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 9 NASCAR 08 Racing Electronic Arts 10 John Woo presents Stranglehold Action Adventure Midway   PlayStation 2 Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 2 Guitar Hero: Rock the 80's Arcade/Puzzle Activision 3 God of War II Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 4 NASCAR 08 Racing Electronic Arts 5 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 6 Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 Fighting Namco 7 Hot Shots Tennis Sports Sony Computer Entertainment 8 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Action Adventure Electronic Arts 9 The Bigs Sports Take Two 10 Bully Action Adventure Take Two   Xbox Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 NCAA Football 08 Sports Electronic Arts 2 Halo 2 Shooter Microsoft 3 Ninja Gaiden Black Action Adventure Tecmo 4 Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Action Adventure LucasArts 5 Scarface: The World Is Yours Action Adventure Vivendi Universal 6 Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords RPG LucasArts 7 Madden NFL 08 Sports Electronic Arts 8 Star Wars: Republic Commando Shooter LucasArts 9 Fable RPG Microsoft 10 Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse Action Adventure Aspyr   Nintendo DS Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Pokemon Diamond Strategy/Sim Nintendo 2 Pokemon Pearl Strategy/Sim Nintendo 3 Naruto: Ninja Council 3 Fighting D3P 4 Sim City DS Strategy/Sim Electronic Arts 5 Transformers: Autobots Action Adventure Activision 6 Transformers: Decepticons Action Adventure Activision 7 Brothers in Arms DS Shooter Ubisoft 8 New Super Mario Bros. Action Adventure Nintendo 9 Mario Kart DS Racing Nintendo 10 Deal or No Deal Strategy/Sim DSI Games   PlayStation Portable Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Transformers: The Game Action Adventure Activision 2 Final Fantasy RPG Square Enix 3 Final Fantasy II RPG Square Enix 4 The Bigs Sports Take Two 5 Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters Action Adventure Sony Computer Entertainment 6 Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology RPG Namco 7 Riviera: The Promised Land RPG Atlus 8 Dungeons & Dragons Tactics RPG Atari 9 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Shooter Ubisoft 10 Lumines: Puzzle Fusion Arcade/Puzzle Ubisoft   GameCube Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Action Adventure Nintendo 2 Ratatouille Kids/Family THQ 3 Mario Party 7 Kids/Family Nintendo 4 Super Smash Bros. Melee Fighting Nintendo 5 Mario Kart: Double Dash Racing Nintendo 6 Mario Superstar Baseball Sports Nintendo 7 Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness Action Adventure Nintendo 8 Super Mario Strikers Sports Nintendo 9 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Action Adventure Nintendo 10 Surf's Up Kids/Family Ubisoft   Game Boy Advance Most Popular Games: Rank Title Category Publisher 1 Pokemon Emerald Action Adventure Nintendo 2 Pokemon Fire Red Strategy/Sim Nintendo 3 Pokemon: Sapphire RPG Nintendo 4 Pokemon Leaf Green Strategy/Sim Nintendo 5 Pokemon: Ruby RPG Nintendo 6 Dogz 2 Strategy/Sim Ubisoft 7 Final Fantasy VI Advance RPG Nintendo 8 Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap RPG Nintendo 9 Super Mario Advance 4 Action Adventure Nintendo 10 Spiderman 3 Action Adventure Activision   Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007 5:59 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Vote for the Best Games of E3 2007!

  The Booth Babes may be gone, but the games have not! Did Killzone 2 live up to the hype?  Did Call of Duty 4 own the show?  Does Super Mario Galaxy rock your world?  (did I just write that???) Vote for what games you feel had the best E3 2007 Showing!  Simply vote up or down and this dynamic list will add your vote!  If your favorite moves up or down, you can even re-vote!  We'll report on the results in a week or two... Posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007 1:50 PM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Happy Football-oliday!

  Happy Football-oliday! With the release of All Pro Football 2K8 and NCAA Football 08, we wanted to wish you a happy football-oliday! - Your good buddies at the GamerDeals.net Network   Posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007 5:59 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Vote for Who Won E3!

  Vote for Who Had the Best E3 2007 Showing!  E3 has been toned down a bit this year, but the press events, demos and impressions from across the interweb still dominate the news.  Vote for who you feel has had the best E3 2007 Showing!  Simply vote up or down and this dynamic list will add your vote!  If your favorite moves up or down, you can even re-vote! Posted Friday, July 13, 2007 4:04 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• PS3 $100 Price Drop Confirmed!

  As confirmed by Sony this morning (July 9, 2007), the PS3 60GB will see a reduction in price to $499 (from $599). Sony should start to see a significant increase in consoles sales given this price drop, combined with the 5 free Blu-Ray movies deal. Stay tuned today as we will be monitoring and posting the best deals combined with this price drop! Check it out:  5 free Blu-Ray movies deal   Posted Monday, July 09, 2007 7:26 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Will Microsoft Beat Sony to a Price Cut Announcement?

  With the recent rumors of a pending PS3 price cut, is Microsoft thinking of taking the plunge also?  According to Joystiq, on June 15th, 2007, the Xbox 360 Premium will have been $399 for 600 days.  This is even longer than the time it took the PlayStation 2 to initially reduce its launch price. Even with the emergence of the Nintendo Wii, Sony is still the primary rival and target for Microsoft's Xbox division.  History shows that Microsoft and Sony always try to out-trump the other come E3, the industry's largest convention.  During E3 2003, Sony apparently became aware of a pending Xbox price cut and beat Microsoft to the punch by announcing a Playstation 2 price cut to $179 (from $199) during the week prior to E3.  As planned, Microsoft followed through with their announcement at E3 Wednesday that year. So, do you think Microsoft will return the favor this year by trumping Sony's expected price cut at E3 this Wednesday? Posted Sunday, July 08, 2007 8:51 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• Happy 7/7/07!!!

  Happy July 7th, 2007 (aka 7/7/07)! ...  Otherwise known as the luckiest day ever created! This meaningless news post brought to you by your good buddies at the GamerDeals Network!       Posted Saturday, July 07, 2007 5:56 AM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments

• PS3 $100 Price Drop Dated - July 12th

  As reported by Gamedaily, it appears that the Sony Playstation 3 will see a $100 price drop on July 12th.  This has not been confirmed by Sony, but it is expected that this will be officially announced during E3. Sony should start to see a significant increase in consoles sales given this price drop, combined with the 5 free Blu-Ray movies deal. Stay tuned for Microsoft's (and perhaps Nintendo's) response...   Posted Thursday, July 05, 2007 7:57 PM from Cheap Xbox 360 - Gamer News | 0 Comments