Activision will release a limited “Cybertron Edition” of Transformers: The Game through GameStop and EB Games. Among the extra features of the Xbox 360 release are two bonus levels, one each for the Autobots and Decepticons; a bonus content disc containing interviews with Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) and Frank Welker (Megatron); features documenting the making of the game; trailers for the movie; and a comic book telling the story behind the Autobots and Decepticons. Available for Xbox 360, Transformers: The Game — Cybertron Edition will have unique packaging and retail for $69.99.

Source: Game Daily

Some Xbox LIVE members might experience some changes when downloading Marketplace content, as Microsoft strengthens the territory controls on the service with the Spring Update coming this week.

Over the past few months, Xbox LIVE Marketplace has seen considerable growth, with additional gaming and entertainment content, as well as a number of new partners; however, not all content is available for use in all countries. For example, as indicated in Microsoft’s Terms of Use, the movies and TV shows available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace are available for use in the United States alone.

Some of Microsoft’s contracts and agreements with content partners restrict the countries in which the company can make certain content available. There are a number of reasons for these restrictions, including legal rights and regulations. In addition, various countries, such as Germany, have regulations when it comes to what content is acceptable for distribution to their residents. As a digital distributor of content, Microsoft is responsible and accountable to comply with those government regulations and the licensing agreements they have with their partners.

So what does this mean to you? If you have an account that matches the country where you’re located, then you’ll probably notice little to no difference. However, if you’ve set up an account that doesn’t match the country where you’re located, you’ll find these new security measures will only allow you to purchase and download content licensed in the country where you’re located.

For example, if you’re not located in the US, but have created a US Xbox LIVE account, you won’t be able to download TV shows and movies available for use only in the U.S.

If you’re located in the U.S. and have any issue downloading content after applying the Spring Update, call 1-800-4MY-XBOX.

Source: Gamerscore

Does your mother love you less because she bought you a PlayStation? Is technology is creating a generation of lonely children who struggle to make friends? Two new articles published online explore some of the concerns society has about video and computer games.

In the first, Janine Wood, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, says mothers despise video games and then asks, “Why does every boy in her neighborhood own one?” Read Wood’s article here.

After that, check out an article about a new study that claims youngsters are spending so much time on solitary pursuits such as computer games, surfing the Internet and listening to MP3 players that they’re failing to develop social skills. Alas, the brief article explores just one side of the issue.

What are your thoughts? Discuss below.

Data Design Interactive has secured rights to publish and develop the Nintendo Wii version of the PC game, Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars, a 3D RPG action game set in a fantasy world developed by Quotix Software, a games developer based in Serbia and Montenegro. Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars for Wii is due for release in fourth quarter 2007. The PC version of this game is due to ship in June, 2007. More on the official Web site.

Can a game developer get any respect? TIME Magazine asked who you thought should be on the list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Shigeru Miyamoto, the successful creator of Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, whose new platform, the Wii, is the top-selling game console, landed at number nine with 130,000 votes. Before you get too excited, that’s six places and more than 50,000 votes behind maligned former American Idol contestant, Sanjaya Malakar, but it’s a start. Check out the entire list here.

With the most recent firmware update for the PS3, Sony opened the door for the long-heralded backward compatibility. The good news for old school game fans is that 10 of the downloadable classic titles for the PSP can now be played on the PS3, too. The 10 games now playable on both the PSP and the PS3 are Crash Bandicoot, 2Xtreme, Syphon Filter, Tekken 2, Destruction Derby, Jumping Flash, Jet Moto, MediEvil, Rally Cross, and WipeOut. Sony has also restored the multiplayer modes to Rally Cross, Jet Moto, Tekken 2, and 2Xtreme, which were all single-player offerings on the PSP.

Source: Games Dog

Disney Interactive is re-releasing two classic Tron games for the Xbox 360′s Live Arcade. The games will feature high-definition visuals and re-mastered sound to take full advantage of the 360′s high-end gaming capabilities. According to the press release, “Each game includes the original version as well as an enhanced version with new graphics and audio features. Through Xbox LIVE Arcade, players can also compete in both games against another player in four online modes.”

Source: Cinema Blend

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, says the Xbox will turn profit for the first time in 2008: “It’s a business that will be profitable next year – we’ll make money next year and that will be the first time, which is pretty exciting,” he told eWeek.

Following financial losses reported for its console division for the quarter ending March 31, 2007, Bach said the turnaround would come from three main sources in the near future, including games, Xbox Live and peripheral sales: “There are three ways to make money on an Xbox. Generally it’s not on the hardware itself; we’ll probably be gross margin neutral on that over the life cycle of the product and try to break even on that.

“The second thing you try to do is you make money on the games themselves, and there are two models there. One is first-party games that Microsoft produces. The other is games that Electronic Arts or an Activision produces, and we get paid a royalty on those games.

“The third place you make money is on Live, and where we actually have a very nice service that’s scaling very well, and that is a business model that’s subscription, ad-based, and download-based. It kind of has the full gamut of business models associated with it, and I think you’re going to continue to see that grow.

Source: Next Generation

David Jaffe has done something a lot of game developers have probably wanted to do after reading a negative review of their latest project: ripped the Web site that published the review a new one. Jaffe, who has three Twisted Metal games and God of War on his resume, tore into an unnamed Web site after it expressed dampened enthusiasm for this new game, Calling All Cars, a cops-and-robbers offering for PS3 due soon from Sony. Here’s an edited version of his comments, published through his blog:

“TO THE LAME XXX WEBSITE THAT SHALL GO UNNAMED – XXXX you guys. Go XXXX yourselves. What other developer makes a XXXXing change to a game when a review has a good, valid point and is willing to open the XXXXing code up at the risk of more bugs to make the game better? Amazing. But hey, you guys are great, you guys rock. I hope Kotaku XXXXing puts your XXX out of business, wanna be XXXXtards. And if you were actual journalists, you would have read the XXXXXXXXXXing quote I posted on NEOGAF where I said because of the two bugs we needed to fix (not because I was afraid of the bargain bin), we had a window of opportunity to fix the magnet problem. XXXholes…total XXXXing XXXholes.”

Yikes! Jaffe can publish whatever he wants on his blog, but should he have kept his comments to himself? What other thoughts do you have? Discuss below.

THQ has entered into a development agreement with Big Huge Games for a new role-playing game scheduled for release on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in 2009. Ken Rolston, whose most recent projects include Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Elder Scrolls III; Morrowind, is a 25-year RPG design veteran. He began his career with the pen and paper RPG’s Paranoia and Rune Quest, and went on to create RPG games across every relevant gaming platform.

Note: NVIDIA has released new version 158.22 ForceWare Windows XP and Media Center Edition drivers. Download them here.

NVIDIA yesterday introduced the GeForce 8800 Ultra. Graphics cards equipped with the GPU and 768MB of video memory will be available at retailers worldwide by May 15th. Graphics card launch partners include Asus, BFG, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision, Leadtek, MSI, PNY, Point of View, Sparkle and XFX. Prices will start at $829 and go up from there.

The GeForce 8 Series GPUs are the first shipping DirectX 10 GPUs. Upcoming DirectX 10 titles include Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Crysis, Age of Conan, Hellgate: London, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, World in Conflict, BioShock, PT Boats, and Cryostasis.

For more information, visit nvidia.com or listen to the NVIDIA podcast located here.

THQ today announced the open-world action game Saints Row for Xbox 360 has been added to the Xbox 360 Platinum Hits series, nine months after its release. Beginning today, Saints Row will be available for the suggested retail price of $29.99 at outlets throughout North America. In Saints Row, you start as a member of the 3rd Street Saints. Under constant threat from rival gangs and corrupt officials, you must conquer the city of Stillwater one district at a time. Saints Row features character and vehicle customization as well as the freedom to progress through the game any way you choose. Saints Row also features online multiplayer, allowing players to battle rival gangs. The game will eventually support 12 players on Xbox Live.

LucasArts and development partner Day 1 Studios today announced Fracture, a game for PS3 and Xbox 360 in which players reshape the battlefields in a futuristic war. The struggle fought on American soil pits cybernetically enhanced soldiers against warriors augmented by advanced genetic engineering.

Fracture advances players to the year 2161, where ecological and seismological disasters have altered the planet’s landscape, and a clash in ideologies places society on the threshold of war. Players set foot on the frontlines of this battle in the role of Mason Briggs, a demolitions expert fighting for the Atlantic Alliance, the side that relies on cybernetic enhancement.

Pitted against the genetically enhanced soldiers of the Pacifican army, players will be equipped with an arsenal of futuristic weaponry than can reshape the game world. When Briggs throws a tectonic grenade on a level battlefield, for example, the ground blasts upward to provide access to an otherwise unreachable area. Moving on, when he comes across what appears to be an impenetrable structure, Briggs can utilize the alt-fire functionality on his rocket launcher to create craters to burrow underneath the wall. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, Briggs can heave a vortex grenade, creating a swirling tornado-like mass of dirt and debris to dispatch his foes.

More information about the game can be found at the official Fracture website.

There was a time when almost everyone with an eye on the video game industry — from the geekiest fan to stern-browed analysts — thought Nintendo was finished as a game machine maker. Like Sega, which bowed out of the console wars after the Dreamcast failed to excite consumers, people assumed Nintendo would devolve into a game developer and publisher.

But that was before the Wii hit the global market like a firestorm. Now, with the machine moving more units worldwide than the more expensive Xbox 360 from Microsoft and PS3 from Sony, fans and pundits alike are changing their tune. Case in point: UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter, who thinks the Wii will be number one by 2010.

In a 92-page report on the video game industry, Schachter predicts the Wii will outsell the PS3 worldwide 51.9 million to 47.2 million, Game Daily editor James Brightman reports. The 360 will come in third globally with 38.9 million.

The keys for Nintendo: content and playability. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 are crammed with technical gee-wizardry, the Wii is not only more affordable, it’s attracting consumers who typically haven’t bought a console, let alone played video games.

Just because Nintendo is climbing to the top of the heap again doesn’t spell doom for Sony and Microsoft, however. Although the PS3 won’t dominate globally like the PS2 Schachter believes Sony will sell about 46 million PS3′s worldwide by 2010, with Microsoft coming in a close second with close to 35 million Xbox 360′s.

Source: Game Daily

Sony will begin beta testing its virtual world for PS3 users this summer, the electronics giant has announced. Sony insiders are getting a look at the game, which has been compared to Second Life for the PC, now. The public will get its chance this summer. Sony hasn’t announced a specific launch date, so keep your eyes on the official Home Web site for your chance to participate.