Another Blu-Ray Disc issue, I thought this issue is over since I posted this news a couple of weeks earlier, like the Xbox 360 Blu-Ray Drive and the other news No Blu-Ray for the Xbox 360!

Now it seems the The Blu-Ray issue for the Xbox 360 is alive again as you can see from this post on DigiTimes :

Lite-On’s shipments of the BD ROMs to Microsoft will start in the second half of 2008, the sources added. Lite-On is currently one of the suppliers of Xbox 360-use internal DVD-ROM drives.

Microsoft has decided to switch to BD for its Xbox 360 game consoles after Toshiba announced to discontinue HD DVD, the sources said. The BD-ROM drives that Lite-On is developing for Microsoft are for the next-generation Xbox 360 game consoles, the sources said.

Power supply makers also revealed that while the present Xbox 360 uses a 210-watt power supply, the next-generation game console will use a 170-watt power supply in order to reduce production cost and the size of the device, according to the sources.

Lite-On has already started steady shipments of BD-ROM drives and BD burners, the sources added.

Oh well let’s not get our hopes up on this one. As we all know that the previous models that have the 90nm graphic chips need a lot more power but a new batch of console would come with a 170W power supply from the previous 210W to support the 65nm graphic chips which reduces the power draw and the internal heat of the game system.

This maybe an April Fool’s Day Prank…

Xbox LIVE Cheaters Beware! Those Cheaters that are tampering with gamesaves and Achievements are going to have their gamerscore reset back to zero. A post from Major Nelson’s Blog : GamerScore Correction explains to us how this works, and what they are doing to prevent the gamerscores and achievement cheaters.

Any offender that is caught will be penalized and this is the punishment:

• Resetting the entire Gamerscore for an account to zero
• The account will be unable to regain all previously obtained achievements and Gamerscore, however, the players will have the ability to gain future Achievements by earning them fairly, like the majority of the Xbox LIVE community does.
• The account will be clearly labeled as a cheater for the community to view on xbox.com, see below for a screenshot. In dash, the personal view of the gamercard will be labeled too.

Now Any offender caught which means those who are cheating by using external tools or is outside the actual playing of the game to increase their score, and gaining achievements under impossible conditions, which is in violation of the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use.

To Know more about GamerScore Cheating and more InfoClick the Link

The Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack is available for free exclusively on Xbox LIVE Marketplace,as each map presents a totally different play style. From the Standoff’s valley map, with its trenches, entrenched bases loads of boulders mid-sized campaign objective and Slayer game types, and the Rat’s Nest’s labyrinth type map for an indoor vehicle experience for the Campaign mode, with big team battles in mind. And last but not the least, the Foundry the ultimate Forge map where players can edit every single object in industrial setting, and there you can place anything from stairways, walls, bridges and tunnels to create an entirely new map and build almost any kind of map they can think of.

“As if the legions of “Halo 3″ players needed more reasons to stay logged on and fragging, the Forge also allows players to edit and customize all three maps, keeping “Halo 3’s” multiplayer experience fresh, exciting and evolving. In addition, ongoing updates to “Halo 3’s” matchmaking playlists ensure that ranked and social gameplay remains dynamic and competitive.
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And Yes, the new Legendary map pack will launch April 15, 2008.

We had posted a previous article that there will be no Blu-ray for the 360, but being the stubborn dudes that we are, we searched for the reason, to satisfy our immensely stubborn ego.

The answer is this… via the Standard
Microsoft stepped up to deliver iHD (later renamed HDi), which was a trademarked implementation of HD DVD’s XML markup language. Toshiba liked it. They made HDi functionality a standard for HD DVD players, and eventually partnered with Microsoft to expand HDi’s reach by founding the Advanced Interactivity Consortium. The primary goal of this group was forging industry relationships to further promote HDi in emerging outlets like downloadable and streaming media.

The deal gave HD DVD its competitive next-gen features, but here’s the rub: Microsoft didn’t need physical media to implement HDi. All of HDi’s interactive bells and whistles could theoretically be applied to downloadable video content, as long as a runtime environment was available. Even as the disc format war raged on, elements of HDi’s runtime environment showed up in Microsoft products like the Xbox 360 and Vista.

HDi-on-a-disc may now be dead, but the technology certainly isn’t. A Microsoft developer told me that the company’s HDi crew hasn’t been disbanded. Microsoft was apparently quite pleased with HDi’s performance, and is currently exploring applications on other platforms.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been expanding the HD video capabilities of both Vista Media Center and Xbox Live Marketplace. The Marketplace’s HD content library is modest today, but the software giant clearly has plans to change that.

Clarifications from Lionhead Studios regarding the Xbox Live Arcade games for Fable 2 will be released, “the games could all be released as separate downloads or they could all be compiled in a single Xbox Live Arcade release”. Final details regarding just what will happen haven’t yet been set down. All the games will still be playable within the Fable 2 game world regardless of whether or not players have also purchased the XBLA versions.

With This news. Xbox Live Arcade game that attached to Fable 2, Peter Molyneux has now confirmed on Major Nelson’s podcast that there will actually be three Xbox Live Arcade games that tie into Fable 2, Nice eh… For those that missed out on the news at GDC, these XBLA games will allow players to rack up gold check the interview with Peter, about Fable 2. The two newly announced games are called Wizard’s Tower and Mage Dice. Both games are developed by Carbonated Games as was Keystone, the game announced during GDC. Pricing and release dates for the games have not been confirmed, though we suspect at least one will be available before Fable 2 releases.

via [Xbox360Fanboy]