Atomic’s game news roundup

David Field sifts through all the information sent to us from the gaming industry over the past week.

We get a lot of press releases here at Atomic, but they’re not usually interesting enough to warrant a full article. But with their powers combined, they are The Weekly Games Roundup. Think of it as the Gearbox of Gaming.

This week will be very Xbox 360 centric, because the X06 Gaming Convention that was held in Barcelona has just finished. It’s a major launching pad for all the goings-on in the world of Xbox, and is held in a different exotic city every year.

Allow us to dive straight into the roundup with the most interesting quote of the week first: "...as part of the mid November 2006 console update all Xbox 360 consoles will have the ability to output native resolution 1080p games and movies.”

All the big franchises were out at the X06 Gaming Convention, and at the top of the pecking order was Halo. The rumors we’ve been hearing for some time are now official -- Peter “I want the CG monkey in the film for another hour” Jackson has signed up do something with the Halo franchise. It’s not a film, it’s “two new interactive entertainment series for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live”. We’ll keep you posted.

There’s also an RTS-based on Halo for the 360 in the pipeline, called Halo Wars. It’s being made by Ensemble Studios, the creators of Age of Empires. That one wasn’t met with much fanfare when it was ported to the PS2, but since Ensemble Studios have already had a crack at it they’ve got more experience under their belts than other developers out there.

Microsoft is gearing up to take down this Blue Ray thing that Sony seems to be betting the farm on. The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player is due in the US and Europe in mid-November, in time for the Christmas buying frenzy. For a reason that remains unknown to everybody, it comes bundled with a free copy of “King Kong” on HD-DVD. It’s estimated to retail for US$199.99, which works out to be AUD$266 at current conversion rates. With that in mind, we would like to formally ask the US dollar to keep on sliding.

Xbox 360’s lineup of exclusives seem to be gaining traction: the yet-to-be-announced sequel to Splinter Cell: Double Agent will be an Xbox 360 console-exclusive, as will Bioshock and Marvel Universe Online. That last one’s being developed by Cryptic Studios, the mob responsible for bringing us City of Heroes. A new Banjo Kazooie game was also announced. It’s being developed by Rare, now owned by Microsoft, so it won’t be finding its way back to a Nintendo platform anytime soon.

When Grand Theft Auto IV is released, there will be two downloadable episodes, which will be exclusive to Xbox Live. Guitar Hero 2 will not only be making an appearance on the 360, but will be supplemented with downloadable tracks. Project Gotham 4 was announced with few details, but there will probably be some additional Live services available for it when it ships.

Speaking of downloadable content, Doom has been added to Xbox Live Arcade for all your nostalgic gaming flashback needs. This iteration has been developed by Nerve Software, should be available now and was described as delivering “all the original nightmarish demons and hellish zombies in enhanced graphics supporting High-Definition displays along with 5.1 Surround Sound.” We know 2-4-player co-operative and Deathmatch modes are available, in both split screen and Xbox Live modes, and that it costs 800 points.

We’ve been looking at more than just the Xbox 360 this week, you know.

Ben played the Wii at a Nintendo press launch a few days ago, and he’s been raving about it at length ever since. And for good reason, too.

It turns out that the PlayStation 3 will support HDMI after all, and it’s had a price cut in the process. Check out Dave Kidd’s Tokyo Game Show reports to read about this and more, including how the PS3 will help cure cancer.