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Archive for the ‘rumor’ Category
It seems like Microsoft had an ace up their sleeves all the time while at E3, TGS and LGC this year, but they chose to show their hand only at a Gaming Night organized in Delhi this past weekend. Two Indian gaming blogs have been reporting that Microsoft India “revealed” the rumored Xbox 360 Slim (among other things) at the above mentioned gaming night, while all E3 got was a confirmation on Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360.
While we were present at the event and reported about the new bundle, we strangely never ran across any official (or unofficial) revelation of the slim avatar being in development or even a hint of hitting the shelves any time soon. We got in touch with Microsoft India, who made it clear that no such announcements were made. Below is an excerpt from the press release addressing the Xbox 360 Slim rumour:
What started of as a leaked scan of a K-mart ad followed by another similar report, the rumor of the Xbox 360 Pro model seeing a price drop to 299.99$ seems to be gaining more ground by the minute.
Our contact in Redington has passed on this little piece of information that mentioned, among other things, that the Xbox 360 Pro model will be seeing a price cut in India that will take it price down to INR 12,000 which seems to gel well with the 299.99$ price-point mentioned in the other reports. The move apparently is to provide a stiff competition to Sony’s PS2 market that is still showing strong growth in India. With the price cut, Microsoft hopes to entice potential buyers away from PS2 towards Xbox 360.
The source in Redington also mentioned the fact that Microsoft will be coming up with a 20Gb and a 60Gb version of the console, besides a host of new accessories. Could they be the new Wii-like controller and LIPS that we have been hearing so much about? Our best bet will be E3 2008 announcement by Microsoft that will either confirm the price-cut and the accessories or kill the rumor for good.
Redington-India has been the sole distributor of Xbox 360 in India from Day 1, besides being responsible for the distribution of Microsoft first-party and EA titles.
Editor’s Note: Microsoft India has rubbished all reports of a potential price cut being on the cards.
About a week ago, Xbox 360 Fanboy reported info regarding the next Forza Motorsport - thanks to a leaked survey from Intellisponse - and that the acclaimed racing series could possibly be shipped on 2 Dual-Layered DVDs - thanks to the bevy of new stuff likely being added (400 cars! 100 tracks! Driving Assist!). Well, one of our sources – thanks to a bit of snooping around Dhruva Interactive – claims that this may not necessarily happen in the long run.
For all those who were worried about the Xbox 360 camp closing shop and moving on to greener pastures, stop panicking and running around circles like you just saw a totally harmless garden snake. After news broke that Microsoft was winding down operations across a number of cities, thanks to abysmal sales, rampant piracy, horrid customer service and solar flares, we figured that the best thing to do would be to contact Microsoft themselves to get the real story. I mean, they’re not going to lie to us, right?
When we contacted the Microsoft execs about the news and yakked on for the better part of an hour, they categorically denied that the division is in any trouble and that the console itself is performing on par with expectations. In fact, Ashimm Das Mathur, who was reported to be “abandoning ship” after the previous country manager, Mohit Anand, left the company recently, has himself set the issue straight at the GamingIndians forums, saying:
All I can say is that this is all rubbish.
Microsoft is completely committed to the market and Xbox 360 is doing exceptionally well in the country.
We’re not sure where these rumors started, but with Alan Bowman being in the country right now for his usual management review, someone may have put two and two together and ended up with five million. We’ve also been told that the PR team is putting together an official statement from the Microsoft India Entertainment & Devices Division and senior MS honchos including Robbie Bach and Alan Bowman, so please wait for it before you start firing your rumor engines.
In the meantime, all the Fox Mulders are more than welcome to start huddling together in dark corners and speak in hushed tones about the Great Microsoft Conspiracy. The rest of us will just continue waiting for Ninja Gaiden II.
In case you didn’t know that Grand Theft Auto IV had Russian Connection, thanks to Mashkov, it now has an Indian Connection as well, thanks to late Amrish Puri. The rumor goes that the character of the main protagonist of GTA IV is based upon… Mugambo. Well, even if it’s a remote possibility, the uncanny resemblance is surely remarkable. I myself got the cooties looking at it. I’m not sure where it all started, but I found the link in the replies at the Kotaku thread I have mentioned above.
For all those who have been following the Indian gaming scene, Mohit Anand’s departure from Microsoft India came as quite a shocker. The news of him stepping down from his post of Country Manager for Microsoft India’s Entertainment and Devices Division was completely out of the blue and caught everyone by surprise. In the ensuing confusion, quite a lot of news sites came out with their take on the circumstances that led to the event, which frankly, seemed to be quite a study in contrast with what we have known about the relationship of Mohit Anand and Microsoft India. So, to set the record set, we decided to talk with the man himself and clear out some of the rumors that have been swirling around on the World Wide Web.
After having finished the fight last September, rabid fans of the Halo franchise had to be content with sticking their friends with grenades online and waiting for the next game set in the Haloverse, the first RTS in the series - Halo Wars. Though the continuation of the story (or rather, the prequel) was expected long before Halo 3 wrapped up (or not) the Master Chief saga, few expected it to take the form of a real time strategy game that Bungie, in collaboration with Age of Empires legend Ensemble Studios are expected to spring on us later this year. RTS games on the Xbox 360, like Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars before it, have always been iffy, what with the level of control and freedom that a conventional keyboard-mouse combination offers, but Ensemble Studios, like every other console RTS dev before them, have claimed to have worked out the nuances of controlling the game using a standard Xbox 360 controller without frustration levels peaking into the red-zone.
While we wait for the official demo of the game to check out the control scheme for ourselves and speculate on the possibility of wreaking havoc with the Covenant war machine, one of our friends over at Microsoft, like many of us from time to time, developed a case of verbal diarrhoea and slipped us some really interesting information. Now, while we are never in the habit of starting rumors, this one comes from someone on the inside who swears on its authenticity on pain of death, and we’ve been sitting on this one for almost a couple of weeks now, trying to verify it before we say anything about it.