Xbox Living

Brace yourself for some shocking news. Are you ready for this?

Grand Theft Auto IV is selling well.

Yeah. I didn’t see that coming either.

So how well is it selling? Lets take a look at some initial data:

• 6 million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV have been sold in the first week since the launch.
• Over half of those (3.6 million) were sold on launch day.
• The game has raked in over 500 million dollars in sales.
• In North America, 60% of GTA IV copies sold are for the Xbox 360 platform, over the PS3. In Europe, the Xbox 360 claims about 55% of the sold copies.
• Grand Theft Auto IV has overtaken Call of Duty 4 as the #1 game on Xbox Live (for now, at least)

It all comes down to this: the release of Grand Theft Auto is now the biggest entertainment launch in history.

As for the console wars, Microsoft was quick to declare its own victory in the number of Xbox 360 copies sold over the PlayStation 3.

The fact that downloadable content will be Xbox-exclusive may have helped Microsoft take the lead in GTA IV sales. The company arranged a $50-million U.S. deal to ensure that GTA IV downloads will only appear on the Xbox Live service. However, Sony PlayStation boss David Reeves spoke out this week, claiming that DLC for the game probably will make its way to the PS3, eventually.

At any rate, Grand Theft Auto will probably reign for quite some time: I’m all hyped out for now.

Call of Duty 4 has sold over 9 million copies worldwide according to analysts at NDP Group.

Some big sales number is to be expected, as CoD4 has consistently been topping the charts in terms of online play. Here’s another shocker: over 1 million copies of the new map pack have also been downloaded.

Infinity Ward and Activision are also reporting that over 30 million game sessions have gone on since the map pack was released.

Congrats to them for the huge success on this title. I have to wonder, though, why they’re risking the Call of Duty brand with the fifth installment? Reports have been inconsistent, but word has been that the game will switch developers again, and that its going back to World War II.

That seems a little soon. Don’t let us down, Activision (or Activision Blizzard, as we’ll soon have to call you).

DICE and EA have announced that the paid weapons and other content that was planned to appear in their upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company have been dropped. Until now, the companies had been planning to allow players to add new weapons and upgrades to their games via micro-transactions.

I’m happy to hear about this move.  There’s been talk on many community sites about boycotting this game because of the whole micro-transaction thing.  I’m a fan of Battlefield games, but I wasn’t loving this either.

Karl Magnus, the producer of Bad Company had this to say:

“DICE is built upon the multiplayer community, and we do listen to what people say out there … we just decided that all weapons will be free in the game, and that’s how it is now.”

Battlefield: Bad Company is currently in beta on Xbox Live. I had a chance to take a shot at the beta and I’m impressed. The game style differs significantly from previous Battlefield titles, which was disappointing at first.  The beta, at least, has less reliance on vehicles and a lot more close-quarters action.

My favourite part about Battlefield games was that they were different from the sometimes random frenzy that occurs in games like Halo or Call of Duty.  Although I do enjoy those games, Battlefield allowed a more calculated, strategic approach and offered a nice change of pace.

But innovative changes, including the game’s destructible environments, definitely change the standard shooter dynamic.  Calculated and strategic will still be important in Bad Company, but you’re going to have to be quite a bit faster.

Bad Company is due out this June in North America and Europe.

MTV has reported that a new controller has been in the works for the Xbox 360 — a Microsoft version of the Nintendo Wii controller (or Wii-mote).

Microsoft-owned studio Rare is reportedly behind the controller. Like the Wii-mote, the Microsoft controller will feature motion sensing and pointing abilities. The controller will use an analog stick rather than a D-pad, says MTV.

Reportedly, the controller has been in the works since last summer. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were plans on the table well before that. Peter Moore, who was then a Microsoft VP, hinted at the prospect of a new Xbox 360 controller back in the Summer of 2006.

I can only imagine what an Xbox 360 version of the Wii-mote would look like… but here’s a stab at it:

Ok, they did provide a sketch in the article, but I like mine better.

If it’s real, the controller could be aimed at attracting developers of Wii games by making it easier to port Wii games to the Xbox 360.

Of course, Microsoft’s (probably wise) policy of declining to comment on rumors means that we won’t have confirmation until they decide to announce the hardware — assuming its real, and they take it to market.

This is the kind of thing I would have assumed to be an April Fool’s gag, had it not been a little late.  It’s a bit hard to believe that Microsoft would go for something so blatant — the sketch isn’t much different than my mockup.  I can’t imagine them not getting sued if they do this, but then again — they are Microsoft.  We’ll have to wait and see if MTV’s “source” is credible.

According to a recent statement, Remedy Entertainment is still hard at work on Alan Wake, the psychological thriller that was announced back in 2006.

Since the game’s announcement, very little has been revealed about the game, aside from a few screenshots on the game’s site showing off the impressive detail of the title. There has been occasional speculation that the game was going to be canceled, but every now and then Remedy or Microsoft, the game’s publisher, has stepped in to say its still coming.

But a recent statement announces that the media “blackout” around the game won’t last much longer, and Alan Wake will soon come into the light. Some sites had previously predicted a Fall 2008 release, but Remedy has since dismissed that rumor.  Hopefully we’ll get an indication of the actual date when they bring attention back to this game.  I’ll keep you posted!

A Gears of War movie is in the works, based on the blockbuster Xbox 360 game from Epic Games. The film’s producers are aiming for a release in two years’ time.

The rights to the film are owned by New Line Cinema, while Temple Hill Entertainment are producing the film. Wyck Godfrey, a producer at Temple Hill, told Comingsoon.net that the script has been written and they’re finalizing the director now. “We’ll hopefully make that early next year for the summer of 2010.”

The script for Gears of War is being written by Stuart Beattie, who also wrote 30 Days of Night and the first Pirates of the Carribean film. Cliff Bleszinski, who designed the game at Epic, will oversee the project as executive producer. Reportedly, the film will be highly stylized, not unlike the 2007 adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300.

Naturally, the concept of films based on video games makes me a little nervous. This has the potential to be really cool, or really awful. Lets hope for the former.

The Heroic Map Pack, which had been selling for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Marketplace is now available for free. The change was made at 2:00 pm Pacific Time today.

The good news for those who already paid for the maps is that (a) there will be more games on these maps, and (b) you got a head start on finding your way around them. (Yes, I feel a little cheated too.)

The next set of maps, the Legendary Map Pack, will be released on April 15. This one won’t be free — at least, not at release time. Expect to pay 800 Microsoft Points if you want to play on the new maps.

Just a few doses of Xbox 360 news today:

• Jade Empire and Conker: Live and Reloaded have been announced as upcoming Xbox Originals that can be downloaded on Xbox Live
• Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 will be out in Europe on March 21, the same day as its intended North American release
• Call of Duty 4 will get new downloadable maps this spring. The new maps will bring more “variety” to the hugely-popular online gameplay.
• Although rumors were rampant yesterday about Gears of War 2, Epic has made it clear that they have never announced that this game exists. (But of course, why wouldn’t they make a sequel given the success of the first one?)  [[Update: This game has since been confirmed.]]

Happy gaming.

Microsoft has announced that it will be giving the Xbox Live Arcade game Undertow away for free to any Xbox Live members that want it. Consider it a “thank you” from Microsoft for being a loyal subscriber to their online service.

Actually, the free game is a quiet “we’re sorry” — an apology for the network difficulties that Xbox Live had over the holiday season. They announced at the beginning of the year that they would be giving us a free game, and this is it.

I was kind of hoping we’d have our pick of games to download for a limited time, but I suppose this will do. Undertow looks pretty cool, so it’s worth downloading to try. It’s an underwater shooter-style game that has some pretty impressive 3D visuals for one of the Xbox Live Arcade titles (which are normally much simpler).

The game will go live for free at 10am GMT this Wednesday, January 23 and will stay up for free until 8am GMT on Sunday, January 27. Both Silver and Gold members are able to download the game for free.

Oh, this just keeps getting better. And by “better”, I of course mean “worse”.

First, a quick recap: during the holiday season in December, Xbox Live experienced a few hiccups in its service, and for a while gamers would randomly get disconnected or would have trouble connecting and finding games. (This is the first “major” performance/availability issue in Xbox Live’s 5-year history.) On January 4, Microsoft came forward and apologized for the network issues, explaining that the increase in subscribers over Christmas was even greater than expected. They promised a free Xbox Live Arcade game to every Xbox Live user. A few days later, a lawsuit was filed by a group demanding $5 million U.S. in compensation for the downtime.

So, yesterday, Major Nelson (aka Larry Hyrb, Xbox Live’s director of programming) said on a webcast that he can no longer provide Xbox Live members with updates about the network issues because of the lawsuit. Naturally, commenting on the reasons for the outage could effect the pending litigation, so they have to keep everything quiet until the suit is resolved.

Annoying, to say the least. The issues seem to be mostly, if not completely, resolved already (at least on my end things are running great). But this is almost certainly going to delay the free game we’ve been promised — and in the unlikely scenario that the group suing Microsoft wins, or gets a decent settlement, I’m probably not going to see any of that money. So what good is any of this to me, an average Xbox Live customer?

I’ve seen a lot of complaints online in forums and on blogs that Microsoft “must have expected” a rush in traffic and should have been more prepared. Aside from the fact that Microsoft admitted its own disappointment, you have to consider that the system jumped from 8 million users in November to over 10 million during the holidays. Microsoft says they’ve weren’t expecting to cross the ten-million mark for another 6 months. An error, yes — but since when are you an expert, Mr. Random Forum Troll?

So much fuss over so little. If these lawyers are so hungry for a lawsuit they can come up North and go after my cable company… at least they’ve had real, unexplained downtime and consistent signal degradation on HD channels — and they charge way more than Xbox Live does.