Category Archives: CES 2009

Microsoft’s American mouthpiece, Aaron Greenberg said at last week’s CES 09 that the company aren’t thinking about launching a new console any time soon.

“I think we absolutely have a very long life ahead of us. I think what we’re seeing this generation is that we have a console that is no longer limited by hardware.” the Xbox 360 product manager told G4TV.

“We’re delivering Hi-Definition experiences. We have storage. We have high-speed connectivity. So you know we’re not limited by the hardware at all.

“We see a very, very long future ahead of us as we think about the platform and we’re not even thinking about the next generation at this point,” he added.

Greenberg goes on to say that NXE has given the console a whole new lease of life: “I think that what we did with the New Xbox Experience, and many people said that it was essentially like launching a new console and we did that through the power of software.

“When we designed the Xbox 360 the strategy was, ‘What if we could make a console that we could continuously update over time?’” he offered.

“Last generation we couldn’t do that because we only had 10 percent of our owners connected to Live. But now the majority of people that own a console are connected. We’ve got 17 million people connected. We can always add new features and new functionality and so we’ll continue to do that without requiring them to buy new hardware.”

Full interview through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Xbox 360 product manager Aaron Greenberg told Joystiq at last week’s CES 09 in Las Vegas that there are plans afoot to increase your Live friends limit to beyond its current maximum of 100.

“I can’t commit to when that will happen, but that is something we want to do,” said Greenberg. “It’s definitely something we’re looking at expanding and, as this social network grows, we’ve absolutely heard the pleas for that. It’s on the list.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

In response to Sony’s earlier claim that Microsoft and Nintendo continue are just “peddling add-ons,” 360 product manager Aaron Greenberg has told Kotaku at CES 09 that MS would “absolutely not want to trade places” with its rival.

“First, I would say we absolutely would not want to trade places with Sony,” said Greenberg. “We feel like being half the price of the PS3 served us quite well this holiday.”

“The fact that we’re doing this at half the price of their platform, we feel confident that we’re delivering great value,” he added.

“I believe that we deliver more value for games and entertainment than any other platform on the market.”

As for the price comparison table Sony offered in the release, Greenberg offered: “I don’t think people take comparison grids into retail stores.”

“I would rather talk about why you should buy our console than why you shouldn’t buy the competitor’s system.”

By Mike Bowden

Speaking at last week’s CES 09, Activision CEO Mike Griffith said that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock became the first single game ever to make more than $1 billion in sales.

That’s an awful lot of money.

Citing data from research group Nielsen, Griffith went on to say that “download sales for artists appearing on Guitar Hero have risen 15-843 percent,” writes Edge.

The CEO also added that Guitar Hero downloads are currently at 21 million units.

That’s an awful lot of units.

By Mike Bowden

As you’ve probably realised, the Consumer Electronics Show was held in Las Vegas this week and we’ve done our level best to capture everything that we felt was newsworthy.

However, these all stories are scattered randomly around the site which simply won’t do, as we’re sure you’ll agree.

What we’d thought we’d do is put everything in one place to make it easier for everybody as we know clicking a mouse and using a scroll wheel is really hard work.

So, after the break you’ll find every CES 09 story ever published on videogaming247.com ever.

By Mike Bowden

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Not content with giving us new Street Fighter IV, Dead Rising Wii and Resident Evil 5 media, Capcom has released a new trailer (after the link) and 25 new screenshots of its XBLA/PSN title, Flock.

Wanna make some crop circles and herd some sheep? Then Flock is for you.

Out next month. Check it all out.

By Mike Bowden

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Speaking at the Sony keynote at CES 09 yesterday, CEO Howard Stringer said that PlayStation 3 and PSP now have an accumulated userbase of over 61 million units.

Stringer then gave the mic to Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai who proclaimed that $1m dollars of gumpf has been sold through Sony Home.

You can watch all of Stringer’s speech here.

By Mike Bowden

Watch every second as maestros like CEO Howard Stringer and CEA president and CEO, Gary Shapiro, talk about the economy, Sony’s ‘Innovation Checklist’, PlayStation 3 and Home at CES 09 after the break.

Oh, and there’s Tom Hanks and Reggie Jackson as well.

After the break.

By Mike Bowden

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In what can only be described as a CES 09 Killzone 2 media blowout, five new gameplay trailers for the Guerilla super-shooter have crept their way off the show floor and onto the internets.

Amongst gunplay and cut scenes, you can even see a whole building completely collapse (4th video down) as just as we told you when we played it at last year’s Expo.

In fact, to use the more everyday colloquial vernacular, this game looks bloody stunning and we can’t bloomin’ wait for it.

Go watch.

By Mike Bowden

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After the break. Although many people think an RTS can’t be adequately done on a console, we must say, this does look rather special.

Ensemble Studios’ swansong goes on sale Feb 27 in Europe with a demo due February 5.

By Mike Bowden

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MTV and Sony announced at CES 09 last night that they have struck a deal which will facilitate PlayStation 3 owners to be able to watch certain MTV programs via PSN.

Shows such as The City, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels will be available from February.

More shows “as they become available,” says the release.

No price as of yet.

Full thing after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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Right, this is the last Halo Wars release date story we’re doing – well, this week, anyway.

It appears that Robbie’s Bach’s announcement that Halo Wars will ship in the US on February 28 was a mistake. The game wil ship at its original date of March 3, whilst the UK and Europe get theirs on Feb 27.

The demo, to be released on February 5, will be released in both regions, a Microsoft rep confirmed for us yesterday.

There.

Thanks, Kotaku.

By Mike Bowden

In an interview with techflash, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, said that due to cost and compatibility, said that the Redwood giant has “no plans” to embrace Sony high def format, Blu Ray.

“It’s not a feature we get a ton of requests for. We really don’t,” began Bach.

“When you ask people the list of things they want to see us spending time creating in Xbox, Blu-ray is way, way down on the list.

“The second thing is, from a technical perspective, it doesn’t help us in the core of what Xbox does, which is in gaming. We can’t have publishers produce games on Blu-ray disc. Because then they won’t play on the 28 million Xboxes we’ve already shipped. So it doesn’t help us in the core gaming space,” he went on.

“The third thing, and this maps to all three of those, is that it costs a lot of money. And so the scenario is, OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.”

Bach added that MS has it’s own high definition movie content to shift:

“I have an even better way for you to get high-definition content straight to your TV, between the combination of what we’re doing with Netflix, what we’re doing with (video on demand), we have a great Xbox Live solution. In a way it’s a little bit of a technology looking for an answer. We just have no plans in that space.”

Full interview through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Don’t believe us? Then click on this IGN link and see for yourself. We like guns, we like explosions and we like zombies, and Resident Evil 5 seems to have the lot.

Capcom’s zombie romp is out March 13 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

By Mike Bowden

Capcom has put out a bunch of awesome looking Street Fighter IV screenshots and we implore you to stop, reading, head over to IGN and have a look.

Capcom released its Q1 09 release schedule this week confirmed the SF IV hit the shops on February 20.

Video after break.

By Mike Bowden

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Have a gander at Sony Bend Studios’ new PSP shooter Resistance Retribution after the break.

We got wind from Sony Europe yesterday that this should be ready for download on PlayStation Network on March 19.

Now go watch.

By Mike Bowden

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EA has announced at CES 09 that it will launch the EA Sports Complex in PlayStation Home marking the software giant’s first venture into Sony’s lifestyle space.

The service will allow Home users to play “exclusive new EA Sports multiplayer games, meet EA Sports fans, check leaderboards and watch EA Sports trailers,” writes PSBlog.

“And better yet, EA is currently working with Sony with further PlayStation Home support, with announcements coming in the future.”

Whilst you wait for those future announcements, you can watch a video tour of the EA Sports Complex after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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After the break. Watch as the ‘actual 12 year old girl’, Sparrow, help Robbie Bach along with Kodu, Microsoft’s new game-creating game revealed yesterday.

To top it off, IGN has some screenshots for you.

What more could you want from your Friday?

By Mike Bowden

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Looks like the LittleBig world isn’t ending after all. During Sony’s CES conference, Kaz Hirai let the news that LittleBigPlanet has sold 1.3 million copies worldwide slip through his satisfied grin. Diehard creators, however, only make up a small portion of Sony’s sack squad, with a total of 300,000 levels created.

In addition, Hirai also revealed that 17 million users now board the Internet through PSN’s gates – 2.1 million of whom joined in December alone.

Unsurprisingly, PSN users work their wallets on a regular basis, growing the PlayStation Store’s download total to 330 million.

So, any chance that a downloadable LittleBigPlanet is on the way?

Thanks, Kotaku.

By Nathan Grayson

After the break you can see a gameplay walkthrough from producer Morgan Gray for Capcom’s new action adventure game, Dark Void.

It’s a third-person, duck and cover shooter by the looks of things, but if done right, that’s no bad thing at all.

If that wasn’t enough, Gamespot‘s got loads of new images for you to gawp at too.

Dark Void is pencilled in for “2009″ for PC, 360 and PS3.

By Mike Bowden

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