Amazon.

Amazon (in America) have started selling XBLA games on their website.  Why should we care?  Well, refreshingly it means that you’ll now see a real monetary value when considering purchases and it’ll mean no left over points to waste on jungle tables for Texas Hold ‘Em or costumes for Bomberman.

This is a fairly welcome move as you’d hope that Amazon will take a nice chunk out of Microsoft’s profits which would serve them right for utterly spacking up the XBLA service with shit games or good games at shit prices.

XBLA is dead to us*.

*Until Wednesday when MOTHERFUCKING OUTRUN IS OUT FOR 800 M$P!  We love you, Microsoft**!

**Until next week, you Bastards.

Ooer!

That’s the facts apparently.  Okay so they (dunno, can’t be bothered checking) only polled a thousand blokes but two out of three prefer gaming over a bit of sauciness because they their partners were “too hard to please” or “not as much fun”.

More anti-gamer propaganda?  Yeah probably, I mean it’s ridiculous.  After all I know what I was doing late last night eh.. eh.. say no more… wink wink…*

*playing Peggle.

Giving Onechanbara a run for its money.

Well this wasn’t too unexpected.  Microsoft have banned an XNA game that was basically Arkanoid with soft porn in the background.  Homebrew games with porn in them is a tradition that has so far only been enjoyed by sweaty PC gamers and Microsoft are keeping it that way.

Either that or they are saving it for a proper Xbox Live Arcade release.  Which would be ace, if only for the potential achievements.  Oh well, you’ll have to search the seedy world of PC homebrew if you want anything similar but for now let’s all share a chuckle at the cancelled game’s name.  Break One Out.  Phenomenal.

Shitknot more like.

Brace yourselves.  Microsoft have decided to get Xbox Live rocking with their latest Deal of the Week.  You remember the dark days when the Iowa Mission pack for Battlestations: Midway used to cost 400M$P?  Well, get ready for save-o-time because, for one week only, Microsoft are literally slashing the price to a recession-busting 320M$P.

That’s right!  It was £3.40 and now it’s a ludicrously low £2.72.  I don’t own Battlestations: Midway but I’m still buying that DLC because I know a fucking bargain when I see one and I see one right now!  Expect customer confidence to surge and for all the global markets to start getting better.  That 68p saving is getting spent today.  I might even put it towards some gamerpics or a nice theme.  Anyone who says that Microsoft are laughably tight cunts are not welcome here at PEOWW – “officially owned by Microsoft” since 2007.

Ewww...

Resident Evil 5’s producer Jun Takeuchi (one of our favourite Tekken characters also) has reacted to the near-universal criticism that Resi 5 is basically just Resi 4 but not quite as good by stating that “Resident Evil 6 will have to reinvent the series with another full model change or else it won’t be able to keep on going.”

That’s pretty positive news, especially as Capcom have never been afraid to milk a series for loads of similar installments.  As much as we love Resi 4, and rather like Resi 5, it’s surely time for Resident Evil to go back to it’s roots and show the likes of Left 4 Dead exactly how you’re meant to do a zombie game.

Perhaps they’d like to include some horror next time also.

Fucking hell, Angel's let himself go a bit.

Well, we’ve recently had a pop at Microsoft and Sony so, in the interests of fairness, it must be Nintendo’s time.  What can we have a moan about?  Oh, here’s something.  In a reversal of usual console pricing, the Wii (which is over two years old) is actually going up in price.  Despite the fact that it’s sold about a trillion units since yesterday.

The Wii is going to cost retailers an extra £22 now and it is up to them if they want to add that to their prices.  What do you reckon?  They are blaming the exchange rate between the pound and yen, even though Nintendo still think that England is simply a level in a platforming game somewhere.  Greedy pricks.

Also, in unrelated and uninteresting news, Nintendo have ceased supplying white and silver DS Lites.  Shame really as a white DS Lite is a thing of sleek beauty.  Even if most of the games on it are dogshit.  Nintendo are all about the red, black, green and turquoise ones apparently.

Anyway, here’s hoping that Nintendo’s fanbase carry themselves with a lot more dignity than Killzone 2’s.  We don’t want to go through that again in a hurry.

Want.

So, thanks to Microsoft’s ridiculous pricing polices, XBLA is dead to most of us old-time supporters of the service but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from hyping up their new ‘Days of Arcade’ release schedule.

They did something similar last year with the ‘Summer of Arcade’ but that was mostly horseshit with a lovely bit of Braid thrown in.  These days everything is fucked on XBLA though.  1600M$P for Watchmen?  An episode of Watchmen in fact.  Spit on my balls, Microsoft.

Anyway, it kicks of on March 18th with Hasbro Family Games which appears to be an overall game engine that then allows you to play Hasbro board games on it.  Of course, these board games are set to cost 800M$P each and that includes Connect 4.

It’s followed by Outrun Online Arcade (win!), Lode Runner (better be 400M$P but won’t be), Capcom’s Flock (interesting until you recall Capcom’s last few efforts on XBLA), The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (expect to pay through the fucking nose) and Uno Rush (Uno Gash).

And in FAILY NEWS, Microsoft have announced a temporary price cut for a year’s Xbox Live subs.  They’ll cost £34.99.  I paid less than thirty for thirteen months but anyway…

Seriously, has anyone been stupid enough to pay full price for Live in the last two years?  Really?  REALLY?

True that.

Sadly not this Stringer.  He’d sort them out, all business-like.  But no, some fat guy who looks like he’s having a stroke is in charge of them now. Will this mean they’ll stop acting like fucks and finally start being the Sony we used to quite like ten years ago? Probably not.

Still, whilst I’m using a thin Wire reference to make a news story here’s some more info about Sony. Rock Band is coming to the PSP (for no discernable reason), Playstation joypads give you rashes and apparently PSN revenues total $180m, Xbox Live revenues total over $1bn. Blah.

Sometimes £39.99 just isn't enough.

Fucking hell.  DLC is going crazy right now.  We’ve reviewed individual things but we’re going to struggle to keep up so here’s the latest on all this DLC bollocks.

Unreal Tournament 3:  The latest rather blaverage sequel to the best ever FPS gets the ‘Titan’ pack which offers new maps, characters, vehicles and modes and is COMPLETELY FREE.  Win!  The game’s a bit duff but even so, FREE!!!

Fifa 09:  The new ‘Ultimate Team’ mode is apparently some sort of collect up the players/fantasy football thing.  It sounds intriguing and adds ten new achievements (hopefully fixing the fucking awful 10v10 one).  Expect a cost.  Expect 800 M$P (guess).

SKATE 2:  New challenges, new levels and new achievements.  Sounds good.  Sounded even better when the DLC hit and it was 400 M$P.  However that only covers SOME of the new achievements.  It looks like two more packs at 400 M$P are on the way.  That’s on top of the 800 M$P video pack that makes video replays better or something.  Fuck off, EA.

Mirror’s Edge:  800 M$P buys you seven new time trial maps.

Tomb Raider:  This gets a new ‘Beneath The Ashes’ pack which is 800 M$P and adds 125 gamerscore (expect another pack then).  Whatever.

Ah well, it looks like EA have reverted to their usual tricks and are looking like early contenders for ‘Biggest Twats of 09’.  I wonder what Namco have got up their sleeves?