At its fireworks-free Consumer Electronics Show keynote, Microsoft announced that a demo for Halo Wars will be available on February 5th.
Further to that, American gamers were happily told by Robbie Bach† that the US release date for the game has been shuffled forwards five days to February 28th (a Saturday, oddly), bringing it more in line with the rest of the world.
Another Halo-related point of interest was the fact that the series has sold 25 million games worldwide and that the average Halo player has spent 150 hours playing online.
Furthermore, it was reiterated that Halo 3: ODST (yes, it was once Halo 3: Recon) will be out in Autumn.
The keynote was, by and large, a downbeat affair as far as gaming goes. A few other nuggets of interest did sneak out, though.
Xbox Live Primetime, which was due in October but stalled, will be rolled out this Spring.
This month, software will be rolled out that enables Windows Mobile users to queue up Netflix movies for their 360 on the go.
Microsoft also used the occasion to pimp the success of music games on the 360. "We're winning in that space", Bach uttered, going on to state that some 60 million tracks from Lips, American Idol, the Rock Band franchise and the Guitar Hero series have been downloaded via Xbox Live. He said that publishers of those games have told Microsoft that 80% of downloaded tracks have been grabbed via the 360. Given that publishers weren't named and Microsoft itself publishes one of those titles, however, take that with a pinch of salt.
Also demonstrated was Kodu, a game/piece of software (formally called Boku) aimed at enabling the technologically inept to put together games. LittleBigXbox anybody?
On a less game-y but still relevant note, it was revealed that the beta of Windows 7, Microsoft's next operating system, is available now for MSDN, TechBeta and TechNet users and will be available to download on January 9th for other customers here. It doesn't look like much has been shown by way of bells and whistles for gamers so far, however.
So there you have it. No Xbox 720, no Xbox on-the-go, no fancy-pants new games. But hey! Halo Wars demo coming soon...
†President of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division
Sources:
Microsoft
Gamasutra
GameSpot
Further to that, American gamers were happily told by Robbie Bach† that the US release date for the game has been shuffled forwards five days to February 28th (a Saturday, oddly), bringing it more in line with the rest of the world.
Another Halo-related point of interest was the fact that the series has sold 25 million games worldwide and that the average Halo player has spent 150 hours playing online.
Furthermore, it was reiterated that Halo 3: ODST (yes, it was once Halo 3: Recon) will be out in Autumn.
The keynote was, by and large, a downbeat affair as far as gaming goes. A few other nuggets of interest did sneak out, though.
Xbox Live Primetime, which was due in October but stalled, will be rolled out this Spring.
This month, software will be rolled out that enables Windows Mobile users to queue up Netflix movies for their 360 on the go.
Microsoft also used the occasion to pimp the success of music games on the 360. "We're winning in that space", Bach uttered, going on to state that some 60 million tracks from Lips, American Idol, the Rock Band franchise and the Guitar Hero series have been downloaded via Xbox Live. He said that publishers of those games have told Microsoft that 80% of downloaded tracks have been grabbed via the 360. Given that publishers weren't named and Microsoft itself publishes one of those titles, however, take that with a pinch of salt.
Also demonstrated was Kodu, a game/piece of software (formally called Boku) aimed at enabling the technologically inept to put together games. LittleBigXbox anybody?
On a less game-y but still relevant note, it was revealed that the beta of Windows 7, Microsoft's next operating system, is available now for MSDN, TechBeta and TechNet users and will be available to download on January 9th for other customers here. It doesn't look like much has been shown by way of bells and whistles for gamers so far, however.
So there you have it. No Xbox 720, no Xbox on-the-go, no fancy-pants new games. But hey! Halo Wars demo coming soon...
†President of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division
Sources:
Microsoft
Gamasutra
GameSpot
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Comments
Raaj 8 Jan 2009 19:30
1/1
Kool so the demo is coming out, I wonder how much better to Command and Conqueor it will be...