Xbox360 Game Testers Needed

[IkemenTommy]

They are recruiting people who want to test out the new Microsoft Xbox.
"Everyone who wishes to come and join is welcome.."
oh really..

[oyajikun]

Ooh oh memememee meee!!

Where is this at the next game show?

[emperor]

http://assets.xbox.com/ja-jp/lounge/default.htm

looks to be a serious lack of xboxs and lots of crappy lookin sandwiches

[Mulboyne]

Photo: Asahi

[emperor]

[IkemenTommy]

[IkemenTommy]

From /., Microsoft will deliberately create an initial shortage of the XBox360 to artificially jack up the price. Pricks. Things like this is why no one wants to buy XBox in Japan or anywhere.

We reported a while back that signs from retailers indicated that the Xbox 360 console will be in short supply on its 11/22 launch date, and now that information has been semi-confirmed by Microsoft. In addition to quoting various analysts on Microsoft's plans and reasons for limiting the launch date supply, this Reuters piece quotes Microsoft's CFO to the effect that the Xbox 360 won't face the same spike-then-slump phenomenon that plauged Sony's PS2 launch. The idea seems to be that would-be Xbox 360 buyers will be less unhappy with a steady but limited supply of consoles than a massive sell-off followed buy a drought.

[IkemenTommy]

from

Yep I walked by there last night. It's between Shibuya Miyanozaka and Omotesando and it was pretty happening. They served alcohol and they had playable xbox360 and free internet in there as well. I guess their concept was a drunken stuper gaming for everyone. But one thing.. it's like anywhere else in Japan... expect a shit load of people and a long ass waiting line.

[Mulboyne]

It's between Shibuya Miyanozaka and Omotesando

For those who remember, its where the old Kinokuniya supermarket used to be, near the junction of Aoyama Dori and Kotto dori.

[IkemenTommy]

It's between Shibuya Miyanozaka and Omotesando

For those who remember, its where the old Kinokuniya supermarket used to be, near the junction of Aoyama Dori and Kotto dori.

The location is not that bad. For those of you that think Akihabara is a better location, I would refute. The problem with Akihabara is that there is nowhere nearby to go dine unless you consider the oyaji-ridden Kanda a good place to eat. I'm starting to hate the Akihabara ghetto. It's too loud and too much information overload with all the flashy billboards and signs. Omotesando is a better place to chill and settle down, IMO.

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

The problem with Akihabara is that there is nowhere nearby to go dine unless you consider the oyaji-ridden Kanda a good place to eat.

Plenty of places in Kanda if you know where to look, and you'll pay half as much as the rest of Tokyo. Not much merit in Akihabara anymore. The last couple of years it's started to be overrun by "duty free" shops which are complete horse shit anyway. Better off going to your local BIC, Yodabashi with an idea of what you want.

[emperor]

XBOX360 BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH

[IkemenTommy]

The problem with Akihabara is that there is nowhere nearby to go dine unless you consider the oyaji-ridden Kanda a good place to eat.

Plenty of places in Kanda if you know where to look, and you'll pay half as much as the rest of Tokyo. Not much merit in Akihabara anymore. The last couple of years it's started to be overrun by "duty free" shops which are complete horse shit anyway. Better off going to your local BIC, Yodabashi with an idea of what you want.

Exactly. You rarely get to bargain with the stores in Akiba and it seems like all the shops close at around 7. BIC and Yodobashi offers the same deals plus you get the reward points back towards the next purchase. Akiba is just too overly gaijin for me every time I go now.

[Greener]

The problem with Akihabara is that there is nowhere nearby to go dine unless you consider the oyaji-ridden Kanda a good place to eat.

Plenty of places in Kanda if you know where to look, and you'll pay half as much as the rest of Tokyo. Not much merit in Akihabara anymore. The last couple of years it's started to be overrun by "duty free" shops which are complete horse shit anyway. Better off going to your local BIC, Yodabashi with an idea of what you want.

If not then there's always Mister Donut!

[Taro Toporific]

from

Microsoft Xbox 360 Japan sales slow: study
Tue Dec 13, 6:57 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) sold less than half of the estimated 159,000
Xbox 360 consoles that were available in stores in Japan in its first weekend of sales, a survey showed on Tuesday....more...

[Naniwan Kid]

I don't understand....with NFL's Madden 2006 and NBA Basketball 2006 at the release, why weren't the Japanese scooping them up like goldfish at a festival?

[IkemenTommy]

from

Microsoft Xbox 360 Japan sales slow: study
Tue Dec 13, 6:57 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) sold less than half of the estimated 159,000
Xbox 360 consoles that were available in stores in Japan in its first weekend of sales, a survey showed on Tuesday....more...

And they needed a study to confirm this? Everyone predicted that Xbox360 is going to suck like they did with the original Xbox

[emperor]

Sex for an Xbox 360?

Craigslist ad purported to be from two female gamers who would do anything to get the next-gen console.

How far would you go to get an Xbox 360? Well, if one Craigslist.org ad were to be believed, two Boston-area women would do just about anything to get their hands on the next-gen console. Under the headline "trade sex for an xbox 360," a person claiming to be a 22-year-old woman said "Me and my roommate are totally hard core gamers, but our desperate (sic) attempts to get an Xbox 360 have gotten us nothing so far." The poster told responders to "send me a photo of you holding the system, and tell me what I have to do to get it." She did not mention any particular lewd acts but said her roommate was also willing to join in, despite being "really shy." But while the poster was apparently willing to debase herself to get an Xbox 360, she still had standards. "I'm looking for the PREMIUM system, not the ****ty watered down one," she said. Was the ad for real? We'll never know. Inquiries sent to the e-mail address went unanswered, and the posting has since been removed by the ever-vigilant Craigslist Community.

By Tor Thorsen -- GameSpot
Posted Dec 14, 2005 2:00 pm PT

[IkemenTommy]

[Big Booger]

I don't understand....with NFL's Madden 2006 and NBA Basketball 2006 at the release, why weren't the Japanese scooping them up like goldfish at a festival?

Because American Football is not ingrained in Japanese minds... now FIFA 2006, MLB 2006, and some NBA 2006 might do it...

Also for the pron freaks, some hentai games, tentacle porn, and so on... that attracts the typical j-dweeb to a game console.

Also there are very few RPG, turn based and strategy games that Japanese gamers love...

The games make the system. Microsoft tries to impress with a nice looking console and a few titles... Japanese like odd shit, and Microsoft is not good at odd shit... they want to use the American model, game titles and so on to push a system in an area that is dominated by homegrown shit...

Sports titles get very little attraction here.. Everytime I head to the local game center, it's always some wacky ass game that gets all the play.. or some car drifting game... music game or something like that...

And anime fans have very little on XBox360 to get all creamy in their pants about.

[IkemenTommy]

Madonna admits throwing away 360

I received my FREE Xbox 360 yesterday! Too bad though. The thing over-heated and doesn't work. I was going to play a game with my friends in Japan, but it crashed on us. The power supply on this device is HUGE! At least I know why they called it the Xbox 360 and not the Xbox 2. The damn thing gets up to about 360 DEGREES!!!! It's frightening!

Oh well. My Xbox 360 is in a Japanese dumpster. I just don't have time to fool with getting it replaced. I'm not much into TV or video games anyways. My children aren't allowed to play them either. I guess they were dumb to give me one knowing that I don't really have any use for them. I know they gave them to other celebrities as well. Paris Hilton got one. Barf. That's even more reason to trash the glitchy console!

[IkemenTommy]

[IkemenTommy]

Microsoft may have leaked non-secure Xbox 360 media to retailers
By Scott M. Fulton, III
Published Monday 2nd January 2006 19:04 GMT

The Netherlands - Reports from a game console enthusiast site, apparently verified by independent members of its forum just before Christmas, state that Microsoft distributed to retailers who display Xbox 360 consoles in their store kiosks, a self-booting playable demo disc without incorporating the company's usual security protection. As a result, .ISO binary images of the disc can be made, redistributed, burned to CD-R media, and played from those replicated discs.

While such an inadvertent release poses no immediate threat to Xbox 360 commercial products, since none were included with the kiosk demo, the existence of a non-secure disc whose binary image can be run from ordinary media, could expedite the efforts of individuals seeking to discover the secrets of Xbox 360's file system.

Click here for Cardscan

A copy of the .ISO image from the kiosk demo disc was immediately distributed via a Usenet newsgroup, by "Team PI Coder" - the same Dutch group responsible for extracting .ISO images (http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/12/20/xbox_360_open_source_dump_extractor/) from commercial discs, and distributing those images over the newsgroup over the holidays. Although the copied commercial images, when burned to CD-R, cannot be played on an Xbox 360 console, their contents can be examined on an ordinary Windows computer.

An information file accompanying the kiosk demo image contains this rather non-cryptic message: "It seems Microsoft was in such a hurry to get this stuff out that they forgot to set the media protection on this disc. This leaves hackers with the possibility [sic] to hack around with this disc that load from a normal DVDR5 backup!... We hope this encourages all hackers, coders and crackers out there to take up the challenge. Enjoy!" The message contradicts statements by defenders of the practice who say the team is merely practicing its rights to tinker with its own equipment.

Within a day of the Team PI kiosk disc posting, other members of the Usenet newsgroup posted what they claim to be code fragments that make copied CD-R discs self-booting from the Xbox 360 console, though subsequent posts indicate those fragments to be non-functional.

[IkemenTommy]

GameFly Rental Service Relays Xbox 360 Disc Scratching Problems

According to reports obtained by Gamasutra, a number of subscribers to the North American GameFly video game rental service have received messages regarding an Xbox 360 hardware fault that potentially scratches game discs, making them unplayable.

The issue has previously been discussed at length on a number of fan websites, with the problem being particularly pronounced if users move the Xbox 360 while it is in use. However, some consumers are reporting that their Xbox 360 hardware will scratch discs without being moved.

The disc scratching problem is evidently widespread enough that GameFly has prepared a 'form letter' to send to all consumers who return Xbox 360 discs with defects on them, commenting:

"We have received reports that certain XBOX 360 consoles have caused damage to GameFly videogames. Unfortunately, we have been notified that you recently returned a damaged XBOX 360 game.

As a precaution, we have removed all XBOX 360 games from your GameQ. Please contact Microsoft at 1-800-4MY-XBOX. Please do not rent XBOX 360 games until you have resolved this issue.

In the future, should GameFly receive XBOX 360 games from you that have been damaged, you will be charged a replacement fee."

Representatives from GameFly had not returned calls inquiring about the extent of the problem by press time. Microsoft itself has previously commented to VNUNet regarding post-launch Xbox 360 technical issues: "We have received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected. The call rate is well below what you'd expect for a consumer electronics product of this complexity."