Microsoft announces pre-Christmas Xbox game blitz

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 12 July 2007 02:41

Your IT - Entertainment

Microsoft is gearing up for a successful holiday selling season with a raft of new games for the Xbox 360.

Many of the titles are the next instalments in established franchises or followups to successful games. These include Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation; Beautiful Katamari; Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE 2; Grand Theft Auto IV; Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock; Halo 3; Madden NFL 08; Project Gotham Racing 4; Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action; Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction; Virtua Fighter 5; and Viva Piñata: Party Animals.

Microsoft is setting great store by these sequels, predicting that Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and Madden NFL 08 will account for one-third of all console new release sales in the US during the second half of the year.

New games include Assassin's Creed ("experience the art of a master assassin"), BioShock (first-person shooter), Blue Dragon (RPG), Mass Effect (SF action and RPG), Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (an anime/manga based title), and Rock Band (virtual music performance).

"Thanks to our amazing partners and our own studios, no company in video game history has ever had a lineup of blockbusters and exclusives like we will have by this holiday," said Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business.

The company claims more than 300 games will be available for the Xbox 360 by the end of the year.

Also due before the holiday season are the Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition Console in green and gold, the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit ($US29.95) comprising a headset and a chatpad keyboard that attaches to a controller, and wireless controllers in pink, dark blue or light blue ($US49.95).

The Xbox 360 has not been selling as well as Microsoft hoped. The company recently extended the hardware warranty to three years in the light of a high failure rate.