Microsoft’s High Hopes Holiday Lineup

This year Microsoft believes they’ve got a heavy hitter lineup of titles starting around now until the end of the year including: Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2 and Fallout 3. They’re also looking at Lips, their karaoke title with a casual appeal to bring on the sales figures this season.

What about the PlayStation 3? Some of these titles, such as Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 are not exclusives so both consoles have their chance, right? Microsoft’s looking at historical data on trends from Madden 2009 and see the 360 console out-selling the game even though it’s a shared franchise title.

Strong sales on the Xbox 360 suggest we’ll see those same sales this holiday season. Sure, the PlayStation 3 will get some big numbers thrown up but they may not compete on the same level as the Xbox 360.

All-in-all, Microsoft wants to toss up the one-million game units sold for the holidays, not including consoles we believe. That’s a strong holiday sales cycle if they can pull it off.

Even with economic downturns and financial markets doing poorly, entertainment tends to be something people are willing to invest. Will they pull it off? Will PlayStation 3 keep up?

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Users Pwn MetaCritic Review SubmissionsUsers Pwn MetaCritic Review Submissions

Although we’ve found Metacritic a userful resource for game reviews, many folks have gone on a user submission rampage to discredit games that haven’t even launched yet. Their first attack was on LittleBigPlanet followed by Resistance 2, now their hitting Gears of War 2.

While Gears of War 2 has a Metacritic score of 94/100 the user’s have reviewed it to be a 3.5 out of 10, with a bright red box around the user review due to its low nature we’re sure. Although users are free to give their own honest representation of the game from their perspective, Gears of War 2, as of the review dates, hasn’t been released yet – these reviews are bogus.

This style of attack was popularized in Spore, when Amazon got nailed with poor reviews of the game because Spore’s “Draconic” DRM made people angry. However, it’s more reasonable for people to voice their opinion on a known issue with a game; Gears of War 2 review spamming is just mean.

We use Metacritic as guidance when we do our gaming podcast to understand what games are rated in the industry, but we don’t use user reviews as our main guide. There are plenty of folks out there that may utilize these reviews in more seriousness because they may feel journalists reviews are tainted by advertisers or “the man” and want the common gamers opinion.

The common gamer cannot possibility be reviewing Gears of War 2 before the title has arrived. This is bogus. Metacritic has this to say:

“My advice for our faithful users is to focus your attention on the Metascore for this game and not the thousands of user votes, most of which have been submitted before said users have played the game. This is a gaming community, and if people want to stuff the ballot box, there’s not much I can do at this point. When we upgrade the registration requirements for participation on the site in the near future, this type of thing won’t happen. We’ll post the full legitimate user reviews upon the game’s release. As always, thanks for using the site.” (1up)

So, to those looking for holiday gaming gifts, keep this in mind while you start hunting down games you’ll want to buy.

Xbox 360 Kicking PlayStation 3 Two-to-One In EuropeXbox 360 Kicking PlayStation 3 Two-to-One In Europe

Xbox 360‘s been seeing success in Europe, but nothing compares to the success they’ve seen since the recent price cuts. Sales for the 360 are up 214% which is pushing them past the two-to-one sales ratio against the more expensive PlayStation 3.

We’re assuming this 214% increase is due to the cheaper price combined with a large selection of great game titles. No doubt Microsoft is happy to hear the news that their price cut went over so well in all countries. Unfortunately, we’re not so sure a straight PlayStation 3 price cut would drastically change the sales ratio because the PS3 still has very few exciting games when compared to the Xbox 360 which has a year head start on its bigger competitor.

Microsoft’s new to console success, being the odd duck last generation. They’ve learned a lot and has kicked up the competitive nature of console gaming, giving PlayStation 3 a run for its money. Competition is wonderful and is probably making Sony’s exec’s wonder what tactic to chooes next.

Of course, the Wii is a sales rampage and has been for a few years now. At this point, it’s not even fair to compare the two. However, we’re sure Microsoft will eventually come out and boast their recent European victories as sales figures solidify and become “official.”

Can Sony put up any Resistance to this market domination?

Read on for more press release information from ChartTrack.

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Episode 607: PC and xCloudEpisode 607: PC and xCloud

This week’s episode is double-sized, because the previous week’s episode was… pretty bad. Who knows? Maybe we’ll air it some week when we’re unable to post a new episode.

This week’s news includes:

  • Xbox Cloud Gaming for PC beta invites sent out
  • Rumor: Battlefield 6 not coming to Xbox One or PS4
  • BioShock 4 job listings appear to confirm an open world and sidequests
  • Civilization 6’s final free game update adds three new units, two new maps, and more
  • Nintendo says it will focus on more original game series in the future

All this and listener feedback. Post your own feedback here at Facebook.