Going Green With New Video Game Cases
Dec/09BC
Source:IGN
Those who recently purchased some of this holiday’s biggest titles for Xbox 360, such as Left 4 Dead 2 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, probably noticed something a little different about their game cases. The circular-style holes behind game discs and instruction manuals are not production errors. It’s a new effort by companies to become more environmentally friendly by reducing excess packaging materials.
Hong Kong-based case manufacturer Viva Group recently rolled style the new style of casing dubbed the ‘Eco-Box’ which significantly reduces CO2 production emissions. The Eco-Box is already being used by movie studios for DVDs, but now it has begun appearing in the videogames industry.
recently spoke with Kyle Sheppard, Manager of Business Development at Viva. He says this initiative to reduce packaging was actually driven by retailers and not game publishers.
“We have had success over the past two years converting the movie studios to the Eco-Box on a large scale and are now working with the various gaming platforms and game publishers on a similar transition for the games market,” Sheppard told IGN. “Retailers are demanding that the entertainment industry and product manufacturers reduce or eliminate the large and wasteful packaging that has become the standard over the last twenty years.’
“Wal-Mart even introduced a packaging scorecard with certain criteria that must be met, including reducing all packaging by 5% by 2013,” Sheppard added. “The Eco-Box already exceeds this goal for the entertainment industry.”
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Wave of bans hits Xbox Live
Nov/09BC
Source: Yahoo!
As many as 600,000 Xbox 360s were banned from the Xbox Live service this week in the latest in a series of crackdowns by Microsoft on illegally modified consoles.
The banned machines — a “small percentage” of the millions of Xbox 360s around the world — are alleged to have been modified in ways that violate Xbox Live’s terms of service, but Microsoft won’t say exactly how they can tell, nor exactly how many users were affected. Banned consoles can still play games, but can’t connect to the Xbox Live service for multiplayer gaming, content downloads or software updates.
“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal, and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs, violates the Xbox LIVE terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live,” Microsoft said in a statement today.
The bans were apparently timed to coincide with yesterday’s release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, expected to be by far the biggest gaming event of the year. One affected Call of Duty fan, a self-confessed software pirate called “Raz,” told the BBC about his disappointment.
“It was a big day yesterday, the latest game we’ve been waiting months and months for. We’ve played the whole series and this one’s come out, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2…I sign in online and next thing I see, ‘Your console has been banned from Xbox’…now I don’t know what to do,” he told the BBC’s Newsbeat.
Most law-abiding gamers will have little sympathy for Raz — but at least one banned Xbox owner claims to have been targeted by accident, and that Microsoft won’t listen to his excuses.
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Molyneux confirms Natal support in Fable 3
Oct/09BC
Source: Joystiq.com
Shocking absolutely no one, Peter Molyneux has confirmed that Fable will support Project Natal in some fashion. The confirmation came during a lecture at BAFTA in London. The news was confirmed by Eurogamer’s Johnny Minkley, who tweeted the info during the event itself. Molyneux also reportedly showed off Milo and proved that Natal is capable of scanning objects (people, presumably) in bad lighting.
Molyneux himself hinted at the possible inclusion of Natal in Fable 3 as recently as two weeks ago, though he neglected to confirm it for fear of a quick, sniper-borne death.
So that’s that then: Fable 3 will use Project Natal. Of course, we don’t speak for everyone, but we can’t wait to pretend to fart in front of a crowd of adoring, virtual townsfolk.