In keeping with the tradition, a weekend of power shopping fueled by countless irresistible offers follows the Thanksgiving binge on turkey and football. Even as the economy continues to flounder, the videogames industry has been going strong and publishers are counting on big sales numbers this season. Retailers are doing all they can to help by breaking out freebie filled flyers for the perfect retail storm we call Black Friday. So, whether you choose to brave the brick-and-mortar stores or hit Refresh constantly for some online shopping, we want you to find the best prices to save a little green. By scouring all the advertisements we could find and online sources like Cheap ass gamer, we’ve put together a collection of the best deals in hardware and software that you can expect this Friday.
Keep in mind that everything listed here is while supplies last, and for particularly cheap or rare items that’s not going to be very long. Game consoles are arranged by price, so you can find the least expensive deal right at the top of list. We’ll be updating this list regularly throughout the next few days to keep you updated to any new deals we discover. And if you see anything missing please call it out in the comments and we’ll get that included ASAP as well. Happy shopping.
Microsoft Xbox 360
$199.99 - Arcade Holiday Bundle with 20GB HDD and Wireless Controller (Circuit City)
$199.99 - Arcade Holiday Bundle with Rock Band 2 (game only) (Dell)
$199.99 - Arcade Holiday Bundle with Guitar Hero 3 and Wireless Guitar (Wal-Mart)
As it currently stands, Sony’s PlayStation 3 is available in a $499 160GB and $399 80GB setup, each of which packs the functionality of the now-discontinued 40GB package. How or why the console has arrived at these configurations is a matter best left to an accomplished novelist. The important point to note is that, to date, Sony has only officially enacted one price cut for its flagship console, which came in August 07.
Into the new year, however, PS3 pricing may be in for a change. Over the weekend, UK-based gaming site D+Pad reported on a number of Sony-related items allegedly leaked by an attendee of the publisher’s Staff Annual Briefing in London. The conference covered a number of topics that gaming enthusiasts would fall over themselves to know, including a paraphrased quote from Sony Europe president David Reeves that the PS3 “will be getting more competitive in price from March 2009 onwards.”
Microsoft may have officially taken the wraps off of Halo 3: Recon at the Tokyo Game Show last month, but information beyond what GameSpot sleuthed out shortly before this year’s E3 2008 has been in short supply. As reported then, the game will be a spin-off that resembles “a cross between Ghost Recon and Gears of War,” one that reportedly tells a “less cartoony” and “more bloody, violent, and grim” tale of a battle between UNSC forces and the pan-racial religious empire known as the Covenant.
That information was corroborated in part by Microsoft’s reveal at TGS, where the publisher said the game would feature a new hero and campaign. The game will apparently serve as a prologue of sorts, seen from the eyes of a UNSC shock trooper marine who has crash-landed behind enemy lines.
Now, the next wave of substantive information appears to be on the way, courtesy of the December issue of Game Informer. As reported by fan site Halo.Bungie.org, the magazine, which will hit newsstands shortly, has a 10-page spread devoted to the game.
While devoid of actual gameplay footage, the cover story does shed a bit more light on Microsoft’s carefully worded billing of a “new Halo 3 campaign experience.” Namely, Bungie design lead Joe Bertone says the game is “a three to five-hour expansion pack,” with cinematic director Joe Staten saying “we do not view this as a $60 title.” The article also claims that the limited-release Recon Armor will also be available to anyone who completes the Vidmaster Challenge achievement series.
Halo 3: Recon is currently slated to arrive exclusively on the Xbox 360 in fall 2009. For more on the game, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.
Well I promised a follow up and here it is. Following the server rebound I signed in to make sure everything was on the up and up for tomorrow’s release of the expansion. Imagine my surprise when I found out that several of my Auction House posts had disappeared. If anyone plays WoW the way I do, they know that farming is an important part of making the gold you need to purchase those must needed armor pieces and weapons for raiding and questing. Well, when I started a ticket with the game masters for Blizzard, I was hoping to have a sure and swift resolution to this is headache. What I got was a deleted ticket and six hours of hard work lost. I have since sent a second ticket in to hopefully obtain some sort of justice. Whether or not this happens still remains to be seen. I CANNOT stand by and let these so called “game masters” ignore what is a genuine problem because they think maybe this guy is just looking for a gold handout. The truth of the matter is, I would be more than happy to receive the stacks of herbs back to resell on the Auction House. One can only hope that Blizzard, after realizing that their update has messed with countless WoWheads, will do the right thing and send not just me, but all those members that were screwed after this insanity, their deserved payday.
As every WoW player knows, Tuesdays are the bane of our existence. Each Tuesday, the servers go down for their weekly maintenance, usually taking between six and seven hours. This Tuesday, however, when the servers went down, they never came back up. That’s right folks. With less than 13 hours before the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, World of Warcraft has been plagued by server issues no doubt relating to preparing for the launch. According to the in-game message system, the problems began with the mail system and then spread to the PvP system. As of right now, there is no estimated time for the servers to be up again. One can only hope that once these bugs have been alleviated, tonight’s launch will go off without a hitch. Should these problems persist, more updates will come as the information is made public.
Last month, Midway revised its estimated earnings for the July-September quarter, predicting its losses would almost double. Today, the company submitted its final earnings report–which revealed a shortfall even worse than last October’s grim estimate.
For the three months ended September 30, the company posted a deficit of $75.9 million, or $0.83 per share, on revenues of $36.7 million. That’s more than twice the $33.5 million, or $0.37 per share, the Mortal Kombat maker bled out during the same period a year ago. The larger loss includes undisclosed charges related to the cancellation of several unnamed but underperforming games based on licensed IPs.
Matt Booty, the troubled publisher’s recently installed permanent president and CEO, exuded determination in a statement. “During the quarter we executed on a series of strategic and financial moves that reinforce our commitment to developing games that meet clear profitability and scheduling goals. While some of those steps negatively impacted earnings, they were necessary to ensure we are better positioned for long-term success,” he said. “More importantly, we launched three high quality games, and completed the final touches on our highly anticipated fourth quarter releases.”
Midway believes its holiday lineup will slow its financial hemorrhaging. The company expects a per-share loss of $0.20 on $105 million in annual revenue. For the year, that figure increases to a whopping $1.78 per share on $210 million in revenue. If accurate, that annual per-share shortfall will be more than four times the current value of Midway stock, which ended the day at $0.43 on the NASDAQ.
One person who won’t be around to see Midway’s annual report is Shari Redstone. The daughter of medial mogul Sumner Redstone (who partially owns GameSpot parent CBS) resigned on Friday from her position as chairperson of the publisher’s board. She was appointed to the board in 2004, after her father’s company, National Amusements Inc., bought a controlling stake in the publisher.
When Halo 3 arrived in stores last year, Microsoft went all out with the collector’s editions. The publisher prepared three different packages for the game, the most extravagant of which cost $130 and came packed with a scaled-down replica of the Master Chief’s Mjolnir Mark VI helmet.
Microsoft today announced the details of its Halo Wars launch–including a February release window–and the Xbox 360 exclusive’s rollout is planned to be a bit low-key by comparison. The real-time strategy prequel to the first-person shooter franchise will arrive in standard and limited collector’s edition packs that cost $59.99 and $79.99, respectively.
For the extra $20, gamers who pick up the collector’s edition bundle will also get the upcoming Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack add-on of three new multiplayer levels, an extra in-game vehicle (the Honor Guard Wraith), six cards describing the game’s leaders, a “Spirit of Fire” crewmember patch, and the Halo Wars: Genesis graphic novel. Featuring the talents of Phil Noto, Graeme Devine, and Eric Nylund, the graphic novel tells the story of one of the earliest confrontations between humankind and the alien Covenant. Those who preorder either version of the game at select retailers will also receive a code for a downloadable in-game Warthog vehicle sporting flame decals.
Halo Wars is being developed by Age of Empires outfit Ensemble Studios. In September, Microsoft announced that it would be closing the studio after the completion of the project. Some of the core team members will go on to form their own independent studio, the first project of which will be to support Halo Wars after its launch.
Barack Obama to be America’s first black president
Historic victory for African-American senator as networks call election after record turnout at the polls
* Ewen MacAskill and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Mark Tran
* guardian.co.uk,
* Wednesday November 05 2008 04.12 GMT
* Article history
Crowds gathered in Grant Park, Chicago, to await Obama’s speech
Link to this video
Americans tonight entrusted their fate for at least the next four years to Barack Obama, who made history by becoming the first African-American to win the US presidency.
Scenes of jubilation broke out among Democratic supporters as the US TV networks declared that the inexperienced but inspirational Democratic candidate had been elected president at around 4am GMT, after a momentous day that saw voters turn out in huge numbers.
As one state after another fell into the Democratic column, Obama clinched a transformational election, comparable to Franklin D Roosevelt’s in 1932, John F Kennedy’s in 1960 and Bill Clinton’s in 1992.
In an early blow to John McCain’s hopes, US television networks projected that Obama would win Pennsylvania, where the Republican badly needed to win to stand a chance of capturing the White House.
In another big setback for McCain, the Fox News network projected that Obama would win Ohio, the state that ultimately decided the 2004 race between George Bush and John Kerry.
No Republican has won the White House without Ohio. With Ohio and Pennsylvania in his pocket, Obama would be well on his way towards an overall majority.
Piling on the humiliation for the Republicans, Obama was projected to win Virginia by Fox News, the first time the state has voted for a Democrat in a presidential race since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson took the state.
Obama was projected to hold on to all the states the Democrats took in 2004, and win half a dozen or more of the battleground states that had been held by the Republicans.
The Democrat was also projected to win New Hampshire, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
McCain was projected to win Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina.
Despite the encouraging early results, the Obama campaign team urged caution, fearful that a late surge of voters casting their ballots on their way home might yet cause upsets in key states, as happened to the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, in 2004.
Fears that many white voters would fail, in the privacy of the polling booth, to vote for a black candidate appeared to be unfounded, suggesting that race is becoming less of an issue in the US.
Americans voted in record numbers throughout the day as they finally got the chance to turn their backs on eight years of George Bush and choose a new president after America’s longest and costliest election campaign.
From the eastern shores of Virginia, across the industrial heartland of Ohio, and on to the Rocky mountain states of Colorado and New Mexico and beyond, poll workers and voters reported long lines and waits of several hours in the most eagerly anticipated US election for half a century.
Turnout was at levels not seen since women were first given the vote in 1920. Election officials predicted turnout would come close to 90% in Virginia and Colorado, and 80% in Ohio and Missouri.
Exit polls gave Obama double-digit leads in states that had been bitterly contested, and on which the outcome depended. The odds had been stacked against McCain from the start, linked, as he was, to President George Bush, with his near-record low popularity ratings, hostility towards the Iraq war and an impending recession.
But McCain managed to hold his own until mid-September, when the Wall Street crash saw Obama open up a commanding lead.
The next president will inherit horrendous economic problems that will limit the scope of his ambitions. Obama, in his final rallies, was already tempering his early promise of change with warnings about how he would have to curb some of his more ambitious plans, trying to lower expectations that he would be able to move quickly on health care and education reform.
The stock market experienced its biggest election day rally in 24 years on expectation of an Obama victory as the Dow Jones industrial averages surged 300 points, or 3%, to close at 9,625.28 points.
Exit polls nationwide provided an early suggestion that it was going to be Obama’s night showing that the top concern of 62% of voters was the economy, the issue on which voters said they trusted him more than McCain and blame much of the financial crisis on the Bush administration.
Other early exit poll figures also appeared to be good indicators for Obama, with 57% saying they felt Obama was more in touch with them than the 40% who said the same about McCain.
Reflecting the intensity of the campaign, Obama and McCain put in a final burst of campaigning after casting their own votes. Obama made a final dash from his home in Chicago to neighbouring Indiana, which was Republican in 2004.
Reporters travelling with him reported that the candidate was in a subdued rather than celebratory mood, perhaps reflecting the news of the death of his grandmother on Monday. Obama told them that whatever happened, the campaign, the costliest in US history at over $1bn (£629m) as well as the longest, had been “extraordinary”.
Early expectations were of record turnout levels, with the morning bringing long lines at polling stations. However, exit polls later in the day saw voters under 30, the target demographic of the Obama camp, voting at about the same levels as in 2004.
That would be a disappointment for the Obama camp which had been hoping that young voters would buck the tradition of showing enthusiasm for a candidate and then failing to turn out on the day.
Exit polls did chart a rise in African-American turn-out.
CNN, based on the exit polls, projected that Obama would win Vermont, no great surprise as it is traditionally Democrat
Independent election monitors reported sporadic instances of delayed openings of polling stations, broken voting machines, ballot shortages, voter confusion and occasional abuse in a number of battleground states including Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The McCain camp raised separate its own charges of irregularities accusing Black Panther activists holding night sticks of standing outside Philadelphia polling stations in an attempt to intimidate white voters.
McCain also accused out-of-state Obama volunteers of casting votes in Florida, and of voters casting multiple ballots in Florida.
In the battle for Congress, the Democrats picked up four seats to increase their majority in the Senate to 55 out of 100 seats. Democrats were hoping to win a Senate majority of 60, the magic number to override blocking tactics by Republicans. In the House, the Democrats were looking to tighten their majority to 261-174, from 235-199.
This November, the Xbox 360 will turn three. So far, it’s been a profitable and successful system for Microsoft, capturing the attention of developers, snatching exclusives away from the PlayStation 3 and gaining lots of street cred from hardcore gamers.
But in spite of this success, Microsoft has chosen to make an aggressive, totally unprecedented step. They’re completely overhauling the Xbox 360 firmware with a free update called the New Xbox Experience (NXE) that hits consoles on November 19th. Functionally, it’s hiding at least one killer app. Visually, it’s a bigger jump than Windows XP to Windows Vista. Given that NXE is a mandatory update for anyone on Xbox Live, it’s a good thing we really, really liked it.
Navigation
The NXE Dashboard looks entirely different from the old sliding blade system. In fact, it looks a lot more Apple than Microsoft, with sharp image-based navigation and a subtle icon reflection on the Cover Flow-esque surface where 360 content sits.
And you’ll notice immediately, it’s fast. Animations are very smooth as you flick through content, with little to no noticeable caching. Those occasional hiccups from the old blade interface have been burped out.
You might not understand how to get around NXE at first glance, but after a moment the system sinks in. Despite all those pretty icons on the right, the primary folder navigation can be seen on the upper left. It’s a simple vertical list. Up and down changes your folder. Right and left selects the content from that folder.
• My Xbox is your home base, leading to your games, profiles, media libraries and settings.
• Friends shows all of your friends and their avatars.
• Inside Xbox links you to Microsoft-sponsored 360 videos, games and previews, from gaming tips to movie trailers.
• Events houses all of the scheduled 360 online events, like family play nights, “Gamerchix” girl nights and game-specific marathon play fests.
• Welcome introduces you to the main features of NXE, and it can be removed when you’re done with it. It’s the only folder that can be removed on NXE.
• Spotlight is sort of a mix of My Xbox and Inside Xbox. It’s actually completely superfluous given the other categories, as well as misleading because it looks so much like My Xbox with your avatar there. And yes, icon two is a Subway commercial—or any ad Team Xbox wants to serve up.
Get ready to once again plunge into the world of Azeroth with the soon to arrive second expansion for World of Warcraft! The improvements as appear in the beta are massive. Here are a couple of quick points:
The most famous weapon in Azeroth, the Ashbringer, has its story continue in the Death Knight opening sequence. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come.
Most agree that certain key elements of the Burning Crusade lore were at times, fairly ludicrous. Based on the beta, putting the action back into Azeroth’s backstory has been instrumental in adding to the lore that was sadly lacking. Further exploring the mysteries surrounding the Kirin Tor, Dalaran, the fallen Nerubian empire, avenging blue dragon Malygos, and Ner’zhul himself is a lot more captivating than killing eels for mushroom men in a purple swamp!
Changes in itemization include the merging of spell critical and haste boosts with their physical counterparts. A lot of nice options are now available for the few classes capable of meaningful actions in both catagories. Death Knights, Shamans, and Paladins have the increased ability to take advantage of all of their class features now that focusing on one aspect of their abilities in talents and gear is less damaging to their other facets. This, however, could have PvP balance implications at higher levels.
Developers say they intend for Warriors, Druids, Paladins, and Death Knights to be fully capable to be main tanks, with only minor advantages among them for certain encounters. This helps raiders, as only the highest-end guilds have the ability to precisely pick their class loadout for any given raid.
Healers and offensive spellcasters will be taking a second look at their gear due to the consolidation of the attirbutes that grant additional spell damage and healing into a single bonus. With this change, playstyles for healing classes have opened up. Dedicated healers will have a much easier time soloing and assisting the damage-dealers in PvP combat. Now a healing-capable player can choose to focus on firepower with his talents and gear in order to throw down some reasonably effective heals in a pinch. The danger in this, however, is that hybrids like elemental Shaman and balance Druids could get a little bit too powerful in PvP. Its a little too early to tell, but for now it is a great boon to primary healers in that soloing and farming is vastly less painful.
