Wii gets streamable preview videos for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Nintendo is calling August the "Month of Metroid" to promote the upcoming Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, being released on August 27th. A new channel has been made available in the Wii Shop, promising the ability to watch videos, but they are not downloaded to the system. Instead, a small player interface is downloaded that provides a Metroid-themed interface to watch videos and look at some artwork. The videos appear to be streamed, as there were occasional hiccups in the video. The compression is light, without the plague of blocks and smudges that appear on most online video services. Two videos are available to watch now, with two more being available on August 13th.

Nintendo is demonstrating the ability to have preview videos available for everyone on their system, and hopefully a similar service will be implemented for previews of Virtual Console titles. Currently in the Wii Shop channel you are told to go to Wii.com to watch preview videos, but today's release shows that this process isn't absolutely necessary.

Nintendo is slowly expanding their online presence. With the obvious lack of playable demos, they are still behind the other major players, but hopefully Nintendo is just remaining quiet on the issue, and not ignoring it altogether.

Microsoft needlessly markets to 1 million Halo 3 customers

The media blitz has begun for Halo 3, the biggest title Microsoft is pushing this year for the Xbox 360. With the release on September 25 only a few weeks away, logos and artwork are beginning to appear everywhere, from 7-11 to Burger King. Preorders for the new Bungie title have already reached the one million mark, and you can tell Microsoft is excited.

"What we've experienced is nothing short of phenomenal," said Bob McKenzie, senior vice president of merchandising at GameStop Corp. "Halo 3 has eclipsed many previous records and will prove to be one of the must-have items of 2007."

Mountain Dew is launching a limited-edition drink called Game Fuel with extra caffeine and a slightly different flavor, and has been promoting this new product at events like the recent WSVG event in Dallas. Pontiac is giving away 1,000 copies of the game, along with a Halo 3 G6 GXP Street car. With displays popping up at every video game store, and various retailers around the country, Microsoft is comparing the advertising to the levels of a movie. Most movies with this much marketing have a video game tie-in, but luckily for gamers the Halo 3 movies are the tie-in for the game.

View our Halo 3 Image Gallery

Halo 3 Preorders Pass One Million Mark [Xbox.com]

Microsoft drops prices of all Xbox 360 models at least $20

Rumors and pictures of advertisements have been circulating around the internet showing a price drop on the Xbox 360, and now it has been made official by Microsoft. On August 8th, tomorrow, Xbox 360 Core models will be available in the United States for $279.99, $20 less than they have been since launch. The Premium model will drop by $50 to $349.99, and the Elite model will now be priced at $449.99, a $30 price drop. This price drop is timed with the launch of Madden NFL '08, the next title in one of the most successful franchises in history.

Microsoft is hoping that the gamers sitting on the fence about getting a new console will finally take the plunge with this reduced price. The Xbox 360 Core model is now within striking distance of the Nintendo Wii's price of $249.99, but without a hard drive the Xbox 360 Core is a severely lacking experience. Microsoft holds the opinion that the Xbox 360 is a great value, and this price drop definitely helps their argument, especially compared to the Sony Playstation 3.

The Madden series drives purchases every year, much like the Mario series does for Nintendo. Microsoft is confident that this double shot of a price drop along with a mass-appeal game like Madden will help expand their market into the more frugal, casual sports gamer.

Microsoft Lowers Price of Xbox 360 by $50 [Microsoft Press Release]

Nintendo updates Wii Shop, News, and Weather

Wii consoles everywhere had their slot glowing blue this morning with a message from Nintendo about an update for the Wii. With most of the changes related to the console's shopping channel, a few minor updates throughout the rest of the system seem to be well received at this point. Minor changes to the News and Weather channels show more information on the main Wii menu, and a clock has been added for those that may not have one handy elsewhere.

The Wii Shop channel saw the largest amount of changes, due in part to the fact that there are now over 100 titles available to be downloaded. It appears that you can no longer look through every title in one list, you must narrow down your search by a category. You can view games by the system they were originally released on, the genre, or even the publisher. For those that want to quickly find a game they know exists, a search has been added to find games by title. A quick search of "lol" returned The Adventures of LoLo almost immediately, making this method of searching the fastest by far. Another search option has been added that lists popular titles, those that have been downloaded the most by Wii owners. Mario titles take nearly every spot in the list, with Zelda games getting their fair share as well.

The News and Weather channels are now more useful, as previews of their content are visible from the main Wii menu. For the News channel, a couple top headlines scroll by. In full screen preview mode many more headlines are visible, although you cannot go directly to any of the stories you see. The Weather thumbnail now shows the current weather, but no temperature is displayed, making it only useful for those who don't have immediate access to a window.

A clock has been added to the Wii menu, but it has the old 7-segment display look that you see on most clock radios and digital watches. A little ugly, we can only hope it will be configurable in the future, and even removable for those that may prefer the old look.

Browsing the new Wii Shop channel, it's easy to see that some of the new categories haven't been ironed out. Capcom is listed twice under Publishers, with different games in each grouping, and for PinBall for the NES is listed under the Board Games genre. Since the listings are easily updated by Nintendo, we should see these problems corrected fairly soon. Although a fairly minor update, it's encouraging to see Nintendo dealing with the issues people are having, and responding to their ever growing Wii community.

Call of Duty 4 Beta coming to U.S. first, rest of the world possible

Call of Duty 4 was not playable at E3 this year, but a semi-public multiplayer beta was announced at the show. Details about how to qualify were sketchy (Register at http://www.charlieoscardelta.com to learn more), and now it looks as though it won't be a world-wide beta, at least initially. Activision spoke about the start of the beta to CVG, confirming it should begin sometime in August, but made a remark that upset a lot of the Xbox 360 audience.

The publisher has confirmed with CVG this morning that the beta test WILL BE for US residents only.

However, further discussion with Activision made it clear that this was only the initial plan for the beta, and a world-wide release was not completely ruled out.

"In order to get started, and kick off the beta we will begin in the United States, but are looking to go International and currently sorting out those details."

Unplayable versions at E3 upset some journalist (at least this one), and now outright shunning of a lot of the community is putting Activision in a bad light. Better explanations of why these decisions are being made would help appease the myriad of gamers looking forward to a non-WWII shooter.

CoD 4 multiplayer beta US-only [CVG]
Call of Duty 4 beta may still extend beyond U.S. [Joystiq]

Sony makes $100 price cut official, introduces new PlayStation 3 80GB model

Ahead of the industry's highest profile event, Sony announced a new 80GB model of its PlayStation 3, hitting store shelves this August. The new PlayStation 3 model will be available in North America for $599 and will include a retail-copy of the online-enabled racing game MotorStorm. But the biggest announcement is that the existing 60GB high-end PlayStation 3 officially has had $100 slashed off of its price effective immediately for North America at the $499 price point.

Sony's main focus at the E3 Media and Business Summit will be the detailing of their strategy to increase the number of PlayStation 3 consoles in the market place. Dropping the price to $499 will definitely help in that cause. Expect Sony to announce a much broader and higher quality software line-up in the months to come and also plan on Sony to start pushing their PlayStation Network download service with those new 80GB drives needing content to fill their increased capacity.

Full press release included after the jump.

Microsoft extends warranty on Xbox360 to three years

In the face of hundreds of online complaints, and almost common-knowledge of the "Red Ring of Death" problem, Microsoft has always denied there was a serious issue with the construction of the Xbox 360. Now Microsoft is admitting they performed an investigation into the reasons why so many people were having problems, and as a result are extending the warranty of all Xbox 360 consoles to three years from the purchase date. This means every Xbox 360 console is covered.

Microsoft stands behind its products and is taking responsibility to repair or replace any Xbox 360 console that experiences the “three flashing red lights” error message within three years from time of purchase free of charge, including shipping costs. Microsoft will take a $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion pre-tax charge to earnings for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 for anticipated costs under its current and enhanced Xbox 360 policies.

Microsoft is hoping to gather support in the community by reimbursing all customers for charges due to these failures, even with billion dollar costs expected. It's likely their support will grow, but people may still be hesitant of the hassle involved when purchasing an Xbox 360. Having to send in a console for repair was considered a rare occurrence before the Xbox 360, but knowing that repairs will be covered for 3 years on the most common problem provides some ease of mind.

Microsoft Expands Xbox 360 Warranty Coverage [Microsoft]