Filed under: Gaming

Japan's Nikkei is reporting what we've been hearing Stateside for weeks: Xbox 360 price cuts across the board. Expected to go official sometime later today, the Japanese Xbox 360 Arcade will drop to just ¥19,800 or about $182 (tax inclusive, presumably) in hopes of boosting sales. The new pricing represents a near 30% drop from its previous ¥27,800 (about $256) price and undercuts the Wii sold locally for ¥25,000. Nikkei's sources also claim that Microsoft will cut the prices on all three Xbox 360 models without going into specifics. If true then this bodes well for the US price cuts expected on September 7th.

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Filed under: Gaming

Japan's Nikkei is reporting what we've been hearing Stateside for weeks: Xbox 360 price cuts across the board. Expected to go official sometime later today, the Japanese Xbox 360 Arcade will drop to just ¥19,800 or about $182 (tax inclusive, presumably) in hopes of boosting sales. The new pricing represents a near 30% drop from its previous ¥27,800 (about $256) price and undercuts the Wii sold locally for ¥25,000. Nikkei's sources also claim that Microsoft will cut the prices on all three Xbox 360 models without going into specifics. If true then this bodes well for the US price cuts expected on September 7th.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

While Apple's App Store was far from being the first of its kind, we're now seeing a job posting over in the Redmond area that suggests that Microsoft is looking to produce something similar for its Windows Mobile platform. The news comes hot on the heels of Google's own Android Market announcement, and if the Product Manager position writeup is to be believed, said platform will be christened Skymarket. Described as a "marketplace service for Windows Mobile," Skymarket could seemingly be a critical part of WinMo 7. But don't take our word for it, the proof is the pudding -- or in the read link, in this instance.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

While Apple's App Store was far from being the first of its kind, we're now seeing a job posting over in the Redmond area that suggests that Microsoft is looking to produce something similar for its Windows Mobile platform. The news comes hot on the heels of Google's own Android Market announcement, and if the Product Manager position writeup is to be believed, said platform will be christened Skymarket. Described as a "marketplace service for Windows Mobile," Skymarket could seemingly be a critical part of WinMo 7. But don't take our word for it, the proof is the pudding -- or in the read link, in this instance.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

SEATTLE, Washington -- Besides being a global gamer mecca, the annual Penny Arcade Expo is also an excellent place to pick up some super-cool, super-dorky swag.

Unlike Comic-Con where massive dealers' rooms hold hundreds of vendors that sell everything up to and including the kitchen sink (if the sink was autographed by Mark Hamill), Penny Arcade Expo takes a more conservative approach. Vendors can come to the show only if Penny Arcade likes the cut of their jib.

If you went to PAX over the weekend and didn't return with something at least this awesome, we feel sorry for you. Check out Wired.com's full Penny Arcade Expo coverage, including photo galleries from day one and day two of the expo.

Left: PAX attendees with $400 to burn had the opportunity to purchase one of the rarest videogame systems ever: Colorvision. Produced and sold only in France by various manufacturers, it features five games, each of which has an acetate screen embedded into them. The system lights up the screen and the acetate serves as a colorful, if non-interactive, backdrop. On sale at Y-Bot Classic Video Games.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

After years of waiting, the anticipated Xbox Live Arcade game Castle Crashers finally debuted last week. In celebration, its long-suffering fans could buy all kinds of Castle Crashers merch at PAX, including these adorably violent figurines for $10. But not the Castle playset, which was just for show.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

For those poor Japanese kids who couldn't afford real videogames, there was Time Lock the Invader. It's an unlicensed combination of Space Invaders and Perfection -- put all of the invaders onto the stand, matching the red tops with the black bottoms, before time runs out and the game explodes. $75 at Y-Bot.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

Kent, Washington, anime store, Sweet Kitty, is famous among Penny Arcade devotees. The retailer shared a space with the Penny Arcade creators at a comic convention many years ago, and were subsequently immortalized in a comic strip. Store employees and sisters Flo, left, and Kate Reyes pose for photos while holding plush versions of Hayao Miyazaki creations Catbus ($70) and Totoro ($60) in the exhibition hall.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

Pink Godzilla, a Seattle store specializing in imports and gaming collectibles, includes an erotic game for the Atari 2600 in its inventory. Produced by a company called Playaround, it features two different games, depending on which side of the cartridge you insert into your Atari. How they thought anyone would be aroused by pixels the size of your fist, we'll never know. $50.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

Brian Coyle of Seattle holds up a shirt that reads "Jesus says: Don't be a dick," one of the many funny shirts that PAX themselves sold at the expo for $20 each. You could also buy the Penny Arcade comic books, Penny Arcade hoodies, Penny Arcade the Videogame, and more.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

The Color TV Game 15 is one of the first pieces of game hardware that Nintendo ever made, before it hired Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. It plays 15 different variations on Pong. It's a rare find in any condition, but Pink Godzilla had a brand new model, still in the plastic, for $150.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

Namco Bandai, makers of Pac-Man, have brought the yellow dot-eater back in a big way as retro gaming chic takes hold of the world. A Pac-Man hat ($27) is always a popular item at PAX; other Pac-tchotchkes included shot glasses and T-shirts.

: Photo: Stephen Brashear/Wired.com

Pink Godzilla's store mascot is, of course, a pink Godzilla. They sold quite a few of them at $10 each, and some devotees of the store's customer-friendly approach to game sales wanted co-owner Nathan Paine to sign their Gojira's pink ass.

: Photo: Chris Kohler/Wired.com

And this is what Wired.com's roving PAX reporter Chris Kohler wasted his hard-earned $13 on: A copy of China Warrior, probably one of the worst games for the TurboGrafx-16. Readers voted on which bad game he should buy from Pink Godzilla's ample racks.

The Korean automaker's got a slate of gas-electric cars it plans to start rolling out by 2010, and it predicts Korean battery tech will be on par with Japan's within five years.

<!-- pageType= magazinewide slug= pl_games section= gaming subsection= gamingreviews headline= Ditch the Joystick and Go Voice Commando With Tom Clancy's EndWar authorName= John Gaudiosi creditType= screenshot credit= Screenshot courtesy Ubisoft -->

Controller innovations have allowed aspiring tennis stars to swing a Wiimote like Federer and music fans to strum a fake guitar like their favorite rock god. Now, a new game lets couch-bound generals command a virtual army by voice. Tom Clancy's EndWar from Ubisoft, out this fall for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, is like a CG version of the board game Risk, with players micromanaging thousands of variables for victory.

Traditionally, this kind of gameplay required a keyboard and mouse for meticulous troop arrangement. But EndWar gives players the option of ditching all the point and click for scream and shout. Just don a headset that's compatible with your console and a voice-recognition app kicks in that understands thousands of command combinations. Patton wannabes can order their two forward-most infantry units to flank attackers while calling in air support from bombers.

The developers carefully chose an arsenal of words that the system can parse regardless of accent or delivery style. "We went back and forth five times over whether it should be 'reticule,' 'crosshair,' or 'cursor,'" says Ubisoft creative director Michael de Plater. Whatever. As long as it understands "Fire!"

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These athletes are turning the stereotype of the inarticulate jock on its empty head. But they have more on their minds than endorsements and bad calls. Just try to match the pros with their prose.

1) "Life comes at us in stages. Sometimes, those stages develop slowly ... Other times, they sneak up on us like a sadistic bunk mate with a sockful of pennies." 2) "I think that what's really unpatriotic is sitting by, allowing a president to make bad decision after bad decision ... Silence is the enemy of democracy." 3) "I've done a lot of writing these last two years ... I have written from the heart. I have written as a human being ... To those who have doubted, rest assured I know how to take care of business when it's time." 4) "It seems that in the daily grind of life we get so caught up ... that we don't have time to change and evolve. It's like day to day we are just collecting puzzle pieces, and we need some time and space to actually put it all together." 5) "Just back from CES ... I wanted to throw some kudos to the guys at Flying Labs. I am arguably the last person on the planet to think pirates and that whole genre are cool, but from my first 30 or so minutes of exposure to [Pirates of the Burning Sea], I can't say enough good things about it."

A) Curt Schilling Boston Red Sox, 38pitches.com B) Ian Crocker US Olympic swimmer, swimroom.com C) Evan Tanner former UFC middleweight champion, evantanner.net D) Etan Thomas Washington Wizards, huffingtonpost.com E) Paul Shirley Menorca Bàsquet, espn.com

Rollover the ??? to reveal the answers 1 ??? 2 ??? 3 ??? 4 ??? 5 ???

1939: Germany invades Poland, starting the second European war in a generation and introducing the world to a new kind of warfare: blitzkrieg.

This form of attack, which helped the Germans obliterate the Poles in three weeks and the French in only six, relies on rapid mobility and the coordination of massed armor and infantry, with fighter planes and dive bombers providing air support. It also depends on the element of surprise, one reason Nazi Germany never declared war prior to invading an enemy.

The concept of blitzkrieg was a matter of adapting 20th-century technology -- especially the tank, the airplane and the radio -- to the age-old tactics of mobile warfare. The Germans were not alone in exploring these possibilities -- military thinkers like Britain's Basil Liddell Hart and France's Charles de Gaulle also wrote extensively on the subject during the interwar years -- but conditions within the German army, and inside Germany itself, made for a more receptive audience.

Heinz Guderian is the acknowledged father of the blitzkrieg. Guderian was a signals officer during World War I, but he studied tank tactics in the early '20s and became a proselytizer for armored warfare. He later published a study, Achtung Panzer!, that amounted to a blueprint of German blitzkrieg tactics for the next war.

Adolf Hitler, meanwhile, was in the process of rearming the country when he attended a war-gaming exercise that combined tanks and motorized infantry. Hitler was impressed by the swiftness and the striking power, and he told Guderian -- who was running the exercise -- that this was the army he meant to have.

The tank is the blitzkrieg's decisive weapon. Tactically, the key is to attack en masse rather than committing tanks piecemeal, in an infantry support role, which is what the French did. In Germany, this philosophy led to the creation of the panzer divisions, the world's first truly armored units.

(Guderian, though only a colonel, was given command of the 2nd Panzer Division in 1935. As a general in World War II, Guderian commanded the XIX Panzer Corps during the Polish and French campaigns and, later, the Second Panzer Army in Russia. He also served as inspector general of panzer troops and, finally, as chief of the army's general staff.)

The classic blitzkrieg attack unfolds like this:

• Air strikes, rather than artillery, open the attack, hitting at key targets such as enemy airfields, communications centers, rail lines, main roads, supply depots and troop concentrations. Early in the war, the Ju-87 "Stuka" dive bomber was heavily employed in this role.
• Artillery zeros in on those points in the enemy line selected for the armored breakthrough.
• When the barrage lifts, massed armor attacks those points (Schwerpunkte in German), tearing gaps in the enemy's line. Tanks, supported by motorized infantry, achieve the breakthrough, driving deep into the enemy's rear areas without stopping to consolidate gains or engage troops on the flanks. The point is to disrupt communications, paralyze command structure and destroy the enemy's ability to mount a coordinated counterattack.
• Infantry divisions follow up the breakthrough, encircling and mopping up enemy resistance, shoring up the flanks and consolidating the conquered territory.

Success is achieved through surprise and speed, which keeps the enemy off balance. Maneuvering is coordinated through the use of radio, which was used so extensively by the Germans that individual tanks carried their own equipment. The French, by comparison, hardly used radio at all. The French High Command was not even connected by radio to units in the field. Instead, it dispatched orders by motorcycle courier from its headquarters outside of Paris.

Incidentally, the German Wehrmacht never officially used the word blitzkrieg -- literally, "lightning war" -- though it did appear in several prewar German military publications. It came into popular use after turning up in Time magazine's coverage of the Polish invasion.

Source: Various

Members of the San Diego hardcore punk scene reunite on a blog dedicated to rare material from the early '80s. From the diplomat in Nairobi to the Jiu Jitsu instructor in Hawaii, we track them down with the help of a blog to see where life has taken them.