X06 Round-Up.

Microsoft rounds out the month with a bang. Their annual European event "X" was held in Barcelona this. They started in 2001 with X01, now in 2006 they are on X06. This show is was the same as America's E3 press event. To follow up some big announcements at the Tokyo Game Show (1080p anyone?) Microsoft came out with tons of Halo goodness: Halo Wars (pictured above) is a new RTS (Real time strategy) game by Ensemble Studios exclusive to the X360. While we're talking about exclusives, MS nabbed a few more: The next Splinter Cell game, Bioshock, GTA4 downloadable content only for 360, Banjo-Kazooie, Kane and Lynch, of and Gears of War of course.

Getting back to Halo, Peter Jackson (LoTR and King Kong) appeared on stage to announce that Wingnut Studios and Microsoft Game Studios will work on a new Halo "game," a blending of film and videogame into an interactive, emotional "experience." Whatever that means Jackson, the director of the Halo Movie is also making a new Halo game not to be confused with a little game called Halo 3.

Microsoft further twisted the knife a little deeper in Sony with announcing 1080p output on the 360 through a software update (Fall Update?). Also, they finally have let us in on the HD DVD Drive bundle, price, and date. To launch in Mid-November, the drive will sell for $199 and to come with the HD DVD of King Kong, Wow. With all the buzz the last few months points at $200-$300 for this drive no one was expecting $199 with a free (decent) movie and a remote.



Last but not least MS announced some XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) news; manly that the beloved id software creation, Doom, is coming to XBLA um, now. Yes that's right it's already on the Marketplace, and as a bonus they threw in co-op player with up to 4 players and deathmatch. It doesn't get much better than that. Other big titles in the works for XBLA are: Contra, Small Arms, Gyruss, Mutant Storm Empires, TotemBall, Defender, Assault Heroes, Sensible Soccer Heavy Weapon, NBA Jam, Killer Instinct, and Spy Hunter.

Well that about wraps it up, another great day for Xbox and a bad one for the PS3...