Microsoft's latest update to their Xbox360 console, dubbed NXE (New Xbox Experience), has just gone live today.  What does this mean exactly?  Well, taken at face value, Microsoft has effectively grabbed the best parts from Sony's Online platform (media distribution and sharing) as well as Nintendo's (Avatar and Community Customization) and combined them with LIVE's already stellar multiplayer gaming facilities. 

The new features receiving the most hype are Netflix support, Avatars, a new Party system, and Game Installations. LIVE has already supported video downloads for some time now but adding Netflix support effectively multiplies the amount of titles at your disposable with the possibility of renting instead of buying. Avatars, besides being a shameless rip of Nintendo's Mii's, lets you customize your online identity a little more. The new party system allows you to stay with a group of online friends outside of individual games.  One implementation of this is the ability to watch a rented Netflix video with your party even if only one person has rented it! The latest and greatest feature though is probably Game Installations.  You can now install a game to your Hard Drive which means no more long load times and no more excessively whiny and loud DVD-Rom drives to annoy the crap out of you. There are piracy implications with this one so we will see how it pans out.

The update is currently being rolled out as we speak and is approximately a ~100mb download which means you cheapos with Core or Arcade bundles are SOL unless you upgrade to a larger drive.  If the update is not available to you yet or if you're like me and you are at work without access to an Xbox360, you can read about the Top 10 Things to do When you Get NXE while waiting in anticipation. I'm wondering if Microsoft will let me do a 'Sackboy' avatar =D

Greg Joswiak, the iPhone's marketing guru, would like everyone to know that Apple's iPhone is "the future of gameplay."

"There are already so many games and as we look at it, to us it really seems this is the future of gameplay. Whereas a lot of these devices [Nintendo DS and Sony PSP] are more in the past. And a big part of that is not just the device itself, which is easier to carry, and has the touch display and accelerometer which is great for gameplay, but it’s the electronic distribution of the apps as well." - Joswiak

Bold statements by a bold man.

Is there any validity to his claims? Apple still has to overcome quite a few uphill battles to be taken seriously here, as we've pointed out before...

Even though Tomonobu Itagaki is no longer with Tecmo, his philosophies on boob jiggle physics remain a staple in the company's designing of its games.

Just think, if all game designers just spent a little less time fixing bugs, or testing gameplay, or making levels, and more time on boobie buoyancy, we could have FLAWLESS boob jiggling in every single video game!

This is quite possibly the most suggestive moment in all of video gaming. This scene is from the PS2 RPG Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia. When I first saw this I thought it was just my dirty mind being coincidental. Then I realized the writers in this game were the dirty ones...

I just lost my innocence to a video game. "It's so big." "Insert it like this." "This is my first time..." ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS!? This is why I like games that are pure gameplay (like PONG), so sick ass writers don't perv up the experience for me. If I wanted to read sexual innuendo I would have picked up that trashy romance novel at the checkout counter at Kroger's today. I understand that in this game, you're playing as an androgynous teenage boy who (like the countless teenage boys playing as the androgynous teenage boy) is curious about the hanky panky, but shamelessness like this is more appropriate for a game like Leisure Suit Larry. Besides, you should have learned about the birds and the bees from mom and dad...or at least Suzy Skeezy in the bushes during recess - NOT from a damn video game!

Need more geeky stuff that only people you meet at a comic book store will ask you about? Well with Gears of War 2 at large, it's time to invest in your own Lancer rifle replica. Get your own Gears of War Lancer and you can be like these other GoW2 fanboys. Note that some are easier to look at than others...

May hours of play-hacking (or actually trying to plastic-Lancer hack) your friends ensue.

Bethesda just made an AV Idol out of Fallout 3 by censoring the game in Japan.

The side-quest The Power of the Atom has been changed. Non-playable-character Mr. Burke has been taken out of this side-quest, removing the option of detonating the nuclear bomb. That's not all, the name of a weapon was changed as it was deemed "inappropriate" for Japan.

Without getting too political, this seems like a proactive move by Bethesda. Good for them. But doesn't this ignore the elephant in the room? The whole premise of Fallout wouldn't be Fallout if we weren't talking nuclear bombs, post-apocalyptic society, and the like. I'm not trying to be insensitive, but don't people who are playing the game already understand what's going on in the setting? Why draw the line at a side-quest when the game's freakin' name refers to the "lingering radioactive particles from a nuclear explosion?" It's not like the rest of the world tells Japan to cover its ears when we say the word "atom bomb."

One has to wonder whether Bethesda would have made this move if this game hadn't already been causing controversy worldwide. Fallout 3 was banned in Australia (and since has been unbanned, but requires editing for distribution) - and that was for mere drug use. So instead of risk getting banned in Japan or taking a PR hit, Bethesda did its own editing. It's understandable that they don't want to lose international markets for this game, but it's lame that for many the game won't be played in its truest artistic form.

[kotaku]

[bethesda]

Good friends play Animal Crossing with you. And they'll accept you for your weird taste in furniture.

Did this commercial make anyone else want to put a harp (or is it a lute?) in the living room?

This commercial is also promoting Nintendo's Wii Speak, where other users will be telling you about things like their shell-collecting or neighbor-visiting. What a contrast to Microsoft's XBLA, where other users tell you how much of a faggot you are (or sexually harass you till you disconnect if you're a girl).