Alan Wake is a game that you probably don’t remember or at least its been so long since its appearance at E3 of 2006 that any impressions of this game have long been buried. We must admit we were very impressed with the game when we first saw it. 3 years later, the graphics still impress us but with so many high profile titles coming out, we can’t help but wonder if its been too long and gamers just don’t care as much anymore. The good news is however that Alan Wake is “done” and being polished at this point. Remedy came through for us after all and the game will be set to be released some time in the spring 2010 time frame.

[Source: Gamecenteronline]

Gameinformer magazine recently took a survey of videogame failure rates. The Wii came in at about 6% while the Playstation 3 had a fail rate of roughly 10%. The Xbox has always been notorious for the “red ring of death” and so not surprisingly, it was the highest coming in at over 54%. We’re guessing that the survey interviewed a lot of new Xbox owners who have not yet had the pleasure of going through the Xbox replacement process. The new consoles with the Jasper motherboard may have also helped. If the survey had been conducted only on Xbox owners of more than 3 years, we’re pretty sure the fail rates would have been much higher. Despite the high frequency of the RRoD and Microsoft’s poor customer service, fans are not deterred as only about 4% of people actually indicated that they would not be buying another Xbox 360 due to the high failure rate.

[Source: Joystiq]

A recent job posting from Microsoft seems to suggest that they are looking for a seasoned veteran to help develop the next generation of the Xbox.

“The LIVE Engagement Team is looking for a LIVE Community Director to manage its LIVE community strategy and execution across a range of properties, from Xbox LIVE to Windows Mobile. This senior position will play a vital role in the community space as the LIVE Engagement team builds and program’s Microsoft’s next-generation, LIVE-enabled casual and social gaming platform across the Web, the console, mobile and beyond.”

Microsoft is apparently very keen on the idea of integrating their Xbox with the PC and even Windows Mobile. Microsoft is most likely trying to take advantage of the fact that the Windows platform is nearly universal in order to boost the presence of the other two.

[Source: ARStechnica]

As of August 8th, Halo 3 has become the first Xbox title (both original and 360) to sell over 10 million copies. Of course if you’re reading this blog you probably won’t be very surprised. Halo 3 had excellent reviews and the original halo was instrumental in building up the popularity of the Xbox Live network. The game opened to over 3 million sales in just its first week alone and even now, after 2 years, it still commands a respectable 30,000 sales weekly. In fact, the only reason some analysts are projecting slower sales in the near future is due to the release of Halo 3: ODST.
BTW: Halo 3 is the latest of only 35 games in all of history to sell over 10 million copies; the number 1 being Wii Sports which straddles atop the list at an astounding 45+ million copies sold.

[Source: VGChartz]