PopCap Has Announced XBLA Version of Plants Vs Zombies

PopCap Games has announced the release of Plants vs. Zombies for the Xbox Live Arcade. The developer promises to deliver the biggest version of their hit tower defense game, including two new multiplayer modes. The title will launch sometime in the early days of September for 1200 Microsoft Points, that is 15 dollars.

“With a ton of new features and content exclusive to the XBLA version, we’ve pulled out all the stops to both expand and optimize this adaptation for a hard core gaming audience,” said Ed Allard, head of worldwide studios at PopCap. “The two new multiplayer modes allow gamers to work cooperatively to defeat hordes of invading zombies, or go head-to-head in a true ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ challenge.”

This will clearly be the richest version of Plants vs. Zombie in terms of content. It will include seven game modes, among them two multiplayer options: cooperative and versus mode. Another new feature is the ability to share and track friends' progress online by allowing gamers creating a custom home and cruising down the street to see the houses of their friends. The XBLA version of Plants vs. Zombies will also have 12 Xbox 360 Achievements and 21 mini-games, more than in any other version of the title.

The well known Adventure Mode will be there in its entirety, with 50 levels that are meant to introduce newcomers to gameplay elements, while maintaining enough challenge to keep veterans excited. Furthermore, PopCap is planning to release a boxed version of the Xbox 360 version of Plants vs. Zombies that will also include full licenses of Zuma and Peggle. A Plants vs. Zombies Game of the Year edition is also expected this fall for the PC and Mac, containing a zombie figurine. Both will come at the suggested retail price of 20 dollars.

Kinect Will Make the Xbox 360 Attractive for Five More Years

We were once accustomed to seeing rumors about a next generation console being developed by Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo every couple of months but with the launch of the PlayStation 3 Slim, the push for new motion tracking controllers and the transition to three-dimensional gaming, it seems console makers were telling the truth when boasting that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 would be around for at least ten years.

New statements from a Microsoft executive enhance this idea. Chris Lewis, who is the man in charge of the Xbox 360 in Europe, told Gamesindustry.biz that “I think 2010 will be a very big year for us, it is in many ways for us a mid-lifecycle. What you've seen is with this new sleek design and Kinect for Xbox 360 we've got at least another five years of this generation where we continue to offer great experiences for people.”

Ever since Kinect, the motion tracking system formerly known as Project Natal, was first unveiled, the software giant has made a lot of noise about treating the launch as if it was that of a whole new gaming console. The official unveiling before the E3 trade show, which also presented the first titles that would be using Kinect, was a grand affair with the Cirque de Soleil brought in to visually push the idea that it is a revolutionary technology that would change not only gaming but the world forever.

Sony has maintained that it has a ten-year plan for the PlayStation 3 ever since the home console was outed, and Microsoft appears to be getting ever closer to the same idea. The two companies have not released any numbers but analysts are speculating the Research & Development costs associated with the PS3 and the Xbox 360 were so big that they are not interested in spending the same sums again to create true next-gen consoles and prefer incremental changes to the already existing hardware.

June Xbox 360 Sales Spike Due to Price Discounts on Older Models

Last week's NPD charts showed a sales spike for the Xbox 360 in the United States. Many attributed this successful month of June for Microsoft’s console to the slim redesign announced during E3. It seems this was a premature assumption, as Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, has revealed that only 40 percent of the 451,700 units that sold during the month of June were represented by the new models of the Xbox 360.

He went on to point out that 35 percent of those sales were the 150 dollar old Arcade model, according to Wired.co.uk. Furthermore, Wal-Mart, a famous US retailer, offered a 50-dollar gift card with every Xbox 360 Arcade purchase, effectively lowering the price of the console to 100 dollars. The rest of the 25 percent of units sold were Pro and Elite models of Microsoft’s console which also had their price lowered by 50 dollars.

This means that the biggest contributor to what was Microsoft’s most successful non-holiday month since the release of Halo 3 was not the redesign of the Xbox 360, but the tremendous price drop for the older models. This is quite an unfortunate piece of news for Microsoft, because it seems that when the old models manage to sell out or when the company decides to end the discounts the adoption rate for the console will get back.

The new Xbox 360 is meant to solve the problems related to the over-heating, including the infamous Red Ring of Death issue. In addition to this, the new model has a wireless card incorporated, removing the necessity to buy the expensive dongle peripheral that Microsoft has put up for sale. It is also Kinect compatible, meaning that the motion controller will not need to be powered separately, like in the cases of the older Xbox 360 versions. There have been rumors of a cheaper slim version of the Arcade SKU that would be priced at 200 dollars, but they have not been confirmed yet.

Nintendo Is Unstoppable In Japan

Media Create has released the Japanese hardware and software sale charts for the week that lasted from the 5th of July to the 11th of July. Nintendo is a clear winner in the part of the world as well, dominating both in terms of games and consoles sold. Two Nintendo products sit at the top of the lists, Nintendo DSi LL and Wii Party.

In terms of hardware the Nintendo DSi LL, the Japanese version of Nintendo DSi XL, is number one, even if it has registered a decrease in number of units sold in comparison with the week before from 32,661 to 28,916. The Nintendo Wii comes in at a close second place with 24,604 consoles sold, as opposed to the 21,965 it had sold in the seven days before. The PlayStation Portable came down one place to number three with 24,421 units sold, but keeps going strong, approximately maintaining the 24,684 sales figure it manage to achieve before the 5th of July. PlayStation 3 is the most successful next generation console in Japan, keeping to its fourth spot, while the Xbox 360 struggles selling only 5,688 units. The worst selling platform in Japan is the PlayStation Portable Go, with only 1,046 models sold in one week.

Nintendo's Wii Party entered the chart at number one, managing to move no less than 235,000 copies in only one week. Despite the stiff competition, the PlayStation 3 exclusive White Knight Chronicles: Awakening of Light and Darkness also sold a respectable number of discs in that week, that is 176,000. Last week's number one, Inazuma Eleven 3: World Challenge for the Nintendo DS, was not by far as successful in this one, selling only 98,000 as opposed to the staggering 505,161 figure it achieved before. The next two positions in the top ten chart are also Nintendo DS games, that is Harvest Moon, Twin Villages and Taiko Drum Master DS. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is still doing well on number six. Crackdown 2 is at number seven, a kind of a surprise given the Xbox 360's low popularity in Japan. The last three spots in the chart are occupied by Friend Collection and the PlayStation 3 and PSP versions of Winning Eleven 2010, the Japanese name for Pro Evolution Soccer 2010.