3 million units of Gears of War sold

The XBox 360 number one tittle has reached the mark of 3 million copies sold in the time of 10 weeks.

It started being the best-seller of December in any platform, sold 1 million copies before we could blink, and it has now reached the 3 million cypher which puts this game directly in the list of big games like other franchises (see Zelda, Halo, Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy):

"Like Blockbuster titles from Microsoft's Halo franchise and the Grand Theft Auto and Zelda franchises, Gears of War is tracking to be one of the best-selling videogames of all time and has established itself as the most successful new IP of the next-generation," said Microsoft marketing VP Jeff Bell.

A new way of making music (youtube)

Cool, hum?

So long no blogging

Hey there!

So long no talk, how ya doin'?

I've been very lazy lately to post something, but at last I decided to make a blog entry and tell what I've been doing these few weeks!

Well, the most remarkable stuff I did was the update we made in our computers (my brother and I) and the new monitor my brother got himself. Apart of that, I have to say that I've been very obsessed with chess this time (and still I am). I'm taking classes since October or so, and I kinda like it pretty much. I won a trophy in a tournament!! I was the third in my category (people below 18).

The update consisted on new motherboard, new processor, a new graphic card and memory ram for the new motherboard (which is DDR2 instead of DDR as the old one). The Motherboard as you can see in the pic below is an Asus AM2...., the processor an AMD64 AM2 3500+, the graphic card an ATi X1300PRO PCI-Express and the RAM memory a 1GB module at 533Mhz.

And here I leave some pics of all that :-)

The Wide 20,1' screen.

Playing Gears of War.

The components we bought.

The new components almost plugged in.

The Trophy.

Ah! And almost forget, I also got a digital camera (I didn't have one yet!) and since the old video camera got broken, we bought a new one.
For the 360, we got two new games: Fifa 07 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Both great games.

I hope I can be more active on the blog now, there's a lot to tell! This year is going to be full of great stuff when it comes to computers ;-)

Windows Vista RTM Ultimate installed

Thanks my very good friend Johann I got Windows Vista installed right into my computer. This is a happy day :D
I like it all from it, from the installation time (20, 25 mins?), to the stability and speed, and the great aero experience.

I'm a linux boy sometimes, but I have to admit that Microsoft has done his job with Windows Vista, and (forgive me Gates' haters) it's definitely a great Operating System.

The specs? Who said you needed a 2 thousand dollars pc? I'm running it so smoothly (with Glass) in an AMD Sempron 2800+, 1.5GB of RAM DDR 400Mhz, and an AGP gfx card ATi Radeon 9600PRO 256MB. More than enough.

One of the things that impressed me the most is the new Windows Media Center. Both the new interface and the media management is so great to access it remotely from an XBox 360. Thank you Microsoft.



I'll keep you updated if I find problems or anything like that.

< /2006> <2006>

Yesssss, the new year is here, with hope and a lot of things to come. The best luck for this new year if you have been good, and three red lights for the bad ones!

Apple to join the next-gen consoles battle

If there are three, why not four? Apple don't want to keep away from the battle, they are behind the HD-DVD/BluRay battle, but they wanted to compete with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo as well.

Apple's console, which will be released on October 2007 (expect the announcement on January), will be called iPlay and it will be compatible with the old Dreamcast games!

These are the specs:

Apple iPlay
Launch date: tba
CPU: 4 PowerPC 4 Parallel Core at 3,8 GHz, 512 K Two level internal cache
Memory: 1 GB Ram DDR 3
Video: Indeo Graphics Deep 3D at 700 Mhz with 512 MB VRAM
Processing power: 1,8 TeraFlops, 800 million TLS poligon by second.
Resolution: 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Video connections: HDMI and components.
Storage: Through iPod connection since 80 GB
Sound processor: LucasFilm THX 8.1
Connections: Wi-Fi 802.11 G, Bluetooth up to 8 pads, USB 2.0
Supports: BluRay. DVD Video compatible, CD Audio, MP3, DivX.
Retro compatibility: All Mac games and Dreamcast
Controller: Wireless with vibration, 3 axes movement sensor (not spectral). Integrated mic and speakers.
Online services: iPlay, renewed version of iTunes, with music, movies and games downloads.
Dimensions: 7,8 x 6,2 x 2 inches.
Weight: 1,6 Pounds

EDIT: this was all a joke. There is no real console by Apple. In Spain, on December 28th we usually make jokes, like inventing stuff like this. Unfortunately it's not true, cause the console looked cool, didn't it? ;-)

Merry Christamas and happy 2007 to everyone

From here I wanted to wish you all a happy 2007, may all your wishes become true on this new year.

We'll be active in the blog during 2007 too, and I'll tell you soon about the 20' wide screen and the upgrade we got on both computers.

Saint Claus and the Wise Men, be good with my blog readers!!!

[STORY] SIMO was great, an amazing experience

Well, it's here, it took some time to write it, but this is basically what I did during on Saturday and Sunday November 11th and 12th.
As I said in a previous post, I was in the SIMO, a big computers and technology exhibition in Madrid, hosted in a place called IFEMA.

I went on Saturday morning, at about 10:30 local time, with a couple of friends. I walked through all the pavilions (from now on, when I say pavilion I mean the different buildings where there were stands, with products, etc) to see what there was in each one. It took about two hours, since there were a lot of them, and they were so big!
There was a big place with Mac stuff: Mac G5, lovely screens, iPods, etc. In the Toshiba stand, they were showing the possibilities of the HD-DVD, they had LCD screens with movies in High Definition, you could also buy a HD-DVD drive (the cheapest was 800€)

Me

Anyway, I have no doubt the best pavilion was one entirely dedicated to Microsoft. Good job Microsoft, you did a great job. They shown there: Windows Vista, Office 2007, Flight Simulator X and a lot of stuff of the xbox 360 that I'll detail later.

Windows Vista

There was even a place for Windows Live. They were showing the possibilities that the new Windows Live environment gives the user (Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Live Search, etc).
What you see in the photo below is a fight between two guys inside a Messenger dress. Quite funny, it was making a lot of noise, you could hear it from any place of the pavilion, people laughing, shouting...

Windows Live Stand

The XBOX 360 was the star of this pavilion, with a big stand full of consoles in Samsung Screens, showing Pro Evolution Soccer 5, Fifa 07, Gears of War (without any doubt the great success on SIMO 2006) and Viva Piñata.
Moreover, every half hour a great guy made a kind of conference about the new devices that will come out for xbox 360, as well as showing the people that didn't know the consoles, the multimedia possibilities it brings to the general public (the commonly called "casual gamers"), as the option of seeing photos, listening to music, etc.
I have to say he made a great work on showing how great the console is because of these little details. He shown the camera, the HD-DVD device (not connected, cause there was no dashboard update yet), the wireless wheel and the new headset.

One curious details is that the consoles were not normal consoles, but debug consoles, as shown in this image:

There was another pavillion called "iLife" (doesn't it reminds you of Apple stuff?), where there were basically consoles. Sony overall had PS2s with Guitar Hero, Buzz and other games like that. They made some tournaments as well, I participated on one of xbox 360 Dead or Alive, I wan the first match, and lost the second, but I took many magazines that were there for your disposal :P
But the queen of this pavilion was the Sony Play Station 3. Don't get me wrong, you couldn't play it, you couldn't even touch it or get any close, it was inside a crystal box looking beaty next to the controller (the "sixaxis").


Well, and this is it. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed that day. I'm looking forward for next year SIMO, I hope studies allow me go.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Build 168 Public Beta

It's been so long since the last Windows Live Release, I tried the latest BETA and I was quite disappointed. A quick release of a 8.1 build lacking new features, and with bugs.

Finally a new build, much newer, build 168. I haven't tried it yet and I don't know what's new on it. I'll keep this updated.


Download.

Japaneses liked the PS3 more than XBOX 360 or Wii

Nobody wonder why, Microsoft knew that XBOX 360 wouldn't sell more consoles in Japan than PS3.

No more than 180,000 consoles sold Microsoft since last year when they released the the white console, and Sony has sold 10,000 more consoles than Microsoft only in its first month.

Nothing that we weren't expecting.
On the other hand, Microsoft was much more lucky on the United States, where it's going to reach the number of 1,000,000 units sold.