Microsoft Confirms LIVE Console Ban Wave to IGN

Apparently, the ban wave has been going on over the past week. So far reports coming in are from the US & Canada. No doubt the rest of the world will soon follow.

From IGN:
"We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles that have been modified to play pirated game discs," a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. "In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox LIVE."

MS Forcefully Removes Private Chat from Upcoming Titles

From examiner.com:

"Do you like to use the party chat option on your Xbox 360? Well, if you do, you may soon find yourself being forced out of using that option. Microsoft appears to be offering developers the option to negate the private chat option the Xbox 360 offers. Currently, players have the option of forming a private chat with players, but that will soon change.


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will force players to decide whether or not they’ll play the game and join the game chat, or choose to stay in a private chat and not play in the multiplayer game. With titles like Gears of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: World at War, and many other online based multiplayer titles, the private chat feature became a way of telling other players of enemy locations after being killed.


Such a feature shouldn’t detract from the overall online experience much, but there will surely be some gamers who won’t like the type of feature being implemented. With some gamers only using the private chat to talk to friends while playing different games, this will likely pose a problem for them."

This news has been far from welcomed in the community, e.g.:
Yes! I can't wait to go back a step and once again have to listen to racists, squeaky voiced 11 year olds who shouldn't even own a rated M title, homophobes, angst ridden Mcdonalds employee teenagers, people too cheap or stupid to fix their echo filled headsets, people listening to music as max volume in the background, the guy with 3 kills and 14 deaths yelling tips for everyone, the guy with 12 kills and no deaths who spent the past 12 minutes crouched in a corner waiting for someone to walk by talking about how he "PWNED" everyone, the guy with the mic WAY too close to his mouth who no one can understand, etc...

Just Cause 2 - 5 min trailer - Blow stuff up!

Cant say I was a big fan of the first Just Cause, but this one is slowly grabbing my attention...

Bold EA and some dirty Dragon Age tactics!

Oh oooo!!! Looks like those dirty tactics are back! You might remember back when Batman Arkham asylum was coming that Edios was said to have made a deal with reviewers so that they could release a review before the embargo... if the game was given a 9/10 or equivalent score! Well apparently the dude (RAM Raider) that broke open that evil little egg has claimed the same over 'EA' and 'Dragon Age: Origins'. Tut tut, whether the game is good or bad this kind of tactic is just... wrong! Full story here: RAM Raider

Great Site for Gamers - Rooster Teeth.

Have you ever heard of 'Rooster Teeth' ? Red v's Blue ? Achievement Hunter? If not get your ass over there and check out the abundant amount of cool stuff on offer, the comics are a particular favourite of mine! Newbies, check out the archives for all the goodies from their past its well worth it!!! Here's a taster of some R v B, so if ya like it then click here for more:Rooster Teeth
Enjoy!

South Park - Rockband... Lady CartMan.

Yay! Its Friday! Seen as there is not allot of news today here is a nice little south park clip of Cartman singing 'Poker Face' on rock band with Stan getting all moral... shut up Stan!!

I Want Bigger! BIGGER! B- I -G- G- E -R!!

In a surprising move, Nintendo have announced a larger version of their smash-hit handheld gaming device DSi. The new DS, sporting a substantial sizing up of the dual screen is being given the moniker DSLL in Japan with an expected release date of November 21st. We can expect to get our grubby little Euro-Fingers on it early 2010 when it lands here as the Dsi XL. The new dual screen size will be 4.25 inches and pricing available so far is around 20,000 Yen ($220) but we'll let you do the Euro math!

Strange move if you ask us, coming at a time when Sony is reducing it's screen size on the PSP Go and most mobile devices are working their asses off to shed a few pounds! But as we've learned in the past, the one thing the Japanese giant knows for sure is the handheld market...