The long awaited new chipset, codenamed “Jasper,” has finally been confirmed by Microsoft as shipped in Arcades and unleashed on store shelves near you. Jasper, a larger and cheaper 65nm GPU chip differs from its predecessor, the Falcon chip, in that it allows the 360 to run much cooler and quieter. The easiest way to spot one? Look for Arcade 360s without the memory cards, as they are preloaded with 256MB internal memory storage. So, for those of you who either crapped out on your current 360, or haven’t had the gale to purchase one as of yet, you might want to keep that in mind while you’re doing your Christmas holiday shopping.
-Chris Weng
Source: Xbox360Fanboy.com
While Microsoft is suing DHL for the “train accident” that destroyed their beloved Xbox 360, another group of people decided to take matters on the famous Red Ring of Death into their own hands. A few days ago a lawsuit was filed against Microsoft for knowingly launching the 30% defective Xbox 360 to the public, the reason being that since the beginning the Xbox 360 has had serious manufacture problems like overheating, malfunctions, problems with the DVD drive and our “favorite” the terrible Red Ring of Death (RRoD) which practically makes your Xbox 360 useless.
The lawsuit filed in the Sacramento County Superior Court under California’s consumer protection statutes claims that Microsoft knew about the initial problems of the Xbox 360, and even knowing about the defective product they ignored the warnings and decided to leave it as a “minor problem” which they thought they could be fix with an update or patch. They were wrong. Years passed and people started returning their 360s to Microsoft due to problems with the system (RRoD), Microsoft then giving back a refurbished system which after a period of time suffered the same fate. In fact, in a report it’s said that at least half of the first production of the consoles were defective.
The lawsuit tries to make a program to “disgorge all profits attributable” to Microsoft for selling the defective product. Microsoft thought that their extended warranty extension plan would help but it cost them over $1 billion dollars to implement this plan, and yet we still suffered the rage of the RRoD…
Hope after this Microsoft decides to take care of the products we consumers buy from them, because it’s damn annoying to wait every 3 months for our new defective consoles to be shipped back so we can play our tower of “new” games, waiting to be opened…
Sources: Reghardware.co.uk, ComputerandVideoGames.com
On October 21, 2007, one of DHL’s trains going from McAllen, Texas, to Long Beach, California derailed and as a consequence 21,600 Xbox 360 consoles got “destroyed” in the accident. Those consoles were going to be shipped to Flextronics Industrial Co. in Honk Kong, China who were the intended recipient. A year later Microsoft has decided to sue DHL for $2 Million dollars due to “impact damage, wetting, pilfering and shortage” that the consoles suffered during the accident. Not only that, but DHL has refused to compensate Microsoft for the lost even thought they “negligently breached its duties as a common carrier, handler, bailee, warehouseman, agent, or in other capabilities.” the court says. DHL has not yet commented about the suit. No wonder why many people complain about broken 360’s.
Well right now I can’t say it’s been confirmed, but based on the fact that box art has been released for Halo 3: Recon, I think the game may not be a downloadable expansion at all for the popular FPS. Is it going to be a stand alone title, or is this just being released for those who don’t have access to the internet? I guess we’ll just have to keep listening for more details.
The big f!@#ing atom bomb news was dropped today that Microsoft made millions of Halo addicts take a collective s!@# announced a new title in the Halo franchise, Halo 3 Recon, during their TGS 2008 press conference. The only details that were provided is that the title will be a prequel to Halo 3 and the player will be in the perspective of an ODST recon soldier. No other details have been announced other than that will be coming out in Fall 2009.
-Chris Weng
Source: Major Nelson
Over at N4G a website that is written all in German has apparently leaked the list of playable games from Microsoft during the Tokyo Game Show. One of the most surprising additions to the list was Star Ocean 4 which is known for being a Playstation Exclusive. It man not be a big shock to you, but I found it somewhat odd. Hit the jump for the full list of games.
Playable:
* Star Ocean 4 The Last Hope (Square Enix)
* Last Remnant (Square Enix)
* Banjo to Kazooie no Daibouken: Garage Daisakusen (Microsoft)
* FIFA 09 (Electronic Arts)
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Now there’s one thing I cannot deny. The guys who do the Zombie maps for World at War are awesome. They’re challenging, they’re fun, and if you grab some buddies it’s almost as good as say….another zombie kill fest.
The 3 maps will be called “Battery” “Revolution” and “Breach” with the Zombie Map Pack being called “Der Riese”
Personally my favorite zombie map was map pack 2 but I guess we’ll have to wait and see if this 3rd map pack can hold it’s own. It’s lookin pretty good to me at this point so keep an out the August when they’re released and enjoy some Zombie killin.