Last night, the boys from South Park dealt with a vampire outbreak at their school, brought on by the Twilight craze, but before they got into all of that... they played Call of Duty: World at War in their computer lab at school:

Warning: Possible NSFW Language

Sure, it's product integration and marketing, but creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are well documented gamers. Is this the game they are currently playing?

We've been getting a few reports from readers that the New Xbox Experience has bricked their Xbox 360, leaving them with an error code and no console.

At this point, we're nowhere near ready to claim that the NXE is definitely the cause, but the timing seems good enough to do some investigation. That's why we want your help.

Have you or anyone you know had problems with the New Xbox Experience? Red Ring of Death? Other error codes?

One user is reporting that Microsoft support is asking for $100 to fix his Xbox after installing the NXE, though they did not get the Red Ring of Death.

Let us know!

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

Microsoft has recent price drops and an aggressive marketing campaign to thank for its latest success in Europe, with Xbox 360 sales surging past 7 million in the region. The system previously reached the six-million milestone in September. The veep of strategic marketing for Xbox in EMEA, David Gosen, seemed pleased with the results and used the word "fantastic" a lot.

"We're in a position now where we've sold over seven million consoles in EMEA, which puts us in a fantastic place versus PlayStation 3," he told MCV. It's the combination of elements that put us in a fantastically strong position. We have 360 degrees of entertainment. At the moment, momentum is fantastic, we've got real traction in all European market."

Gosen went on the extend his confidence to the forthcoming holiday period, predicting it to be "the best ever Christmas in the history of Xbox." So, pretty fantastic then.

Xbox 360 sells over 7 million in Europe originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some Xbox 360 users might be experiencing some issues with the Marketplace in the New Xbox Experience, but Microsoft wants you to know that they are aware of the problems and are currently working on a solution.

Major Nelson feels that the worldwide rollout of the NXE was successful, however. All things considered, this is a pretty minor issue and hopefully MS will resolve it quickly.

How has your New Xbox Experience been? What features have you tried out? What do you like or dislike?

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If you're at an agency creating an advertisement for Microsoft, one of the biggest and most successful companies on the planet... you'd think it'd be worth it to spend at least a few minutes figuring out that your client doesn't make the PlayStation.

Look at this ad for Vista gaming and check out the controllers the two boys are using.

Whoops! It's always funny when these mistakes happen in advertising, but I guess video games are interchangeable to people that don't really know anything about them.

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If you're at an agency creating an advertisement for Microsoft, one of the biggest and most successful companies on the planet... you'd think it'd be worth it to spend at least a few minutes figuring out that your client doesn't make the PS3.

Look at this ad for Vista gaming and check out the controllers the two boys are using.

Whoops! It's always funny when these mistakes happen in advertising, but I guess video games are interchangeable to people that don't really know anything about them.

Source

Filed under: Business

The GameStop collective announced today that sales rose 5.2% to $1.7 billion, with profits of $46.7 million, in the third quarter ending November 1. Not that our future overlords are immune from the current economic crisis -- store sales were down 1.8% this year, as compared to the 46% increase during our last trip around the sun.

The company appears optimistic about weathering the current economic climate, as store sales increased in October by 11% and are up 20.5% in the first two weeks of November. Looks like the hive is going to be just fine during the fourth quarter.

GameStop assimilates $1.7 billion in Q3 sales originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

Oh the blame game...it's almost as much fun as Pokemon. Seriously though, Variety reports that one reason Midway has been struggling is its unfamiliarity the Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Midway has been working under a blanket licensing agreement with Epic. To maximize the value of the deal, it tries to use Unreal Engine 3 technology in as many games as possible. While the engine has shown the ability to produce excellent graphics, it can also be tricky to work with. According to Variety, a former Midway employee said:

"The mistake we made was, instead of just taking the base Unreal 3 engine that Gears of War was made on and building games off of that, we let our tech and product development guys try to really modify the engine to add all these different things. It was a ton of new technology which they just weren’t capable of doing. It put all the games way behind schedule."

It sounds like a pretty reasonable excuse, but it only tells part of the story. Many critics would argue that Midway's quality has been sub par. While engine unfamiliarity can be used as an excuse for lateness and poor quality due to rushing, this ultimately sounds like a case of bad management. Some people will interpret this blame game and wrongly use it to ding Epic's engine, but Midway's managers are really at fault if the above quote is accurate. Why tweak the engine to the point of it being more difficult to work with? Doesn't that negate the point of the licensing agreement? It just seems a bit silly to me.

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Hater of all things related to video games, Jack Thompson, is complaining once again.

This time, it has to do with a check he paid to the Florida Bar in the sum of $42,525.00.

Last summer, a judge in Florida recommended a permanent disbarment and issued a fine against Mr. Thompson to the Florida Supreme Court for the said amount.

The Florida Bar filed the disbarment proceedings against him over allegations of professional misconduct. Mr. Thompson has a history with others who file claims against him for defamatory, false statements with attempts to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them.

Mr. Thompson initially came to prominence when he entered controversy with the rap group 2 Live Crew. He asked then State Attorney General, Janet Reno to investigate them for obscenity laws. When that request was declined, he would attach a photo of Batman over his driver's license to remind his opponents that "like Bruce Wayne helped the police in the movie, I have had to assist the sheriff of Broward County." He also wore a Batman wristwatch.  Ha ha.

So today, Mr. Thompson sent out an e-mail complaining that the good court had not cashed his check!

Holy Terror, Batman!

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The fastest selling PC game of all time is Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

It sold over 2.8 million units in its first 24 hours upon availability.

The previous record was held by World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade when it came out back in January 2007 and sold 2.4 million copies on day one.

It's an impressive feat not only to break record sales, but to do so by topping their own record.

Congrats to Blizzard.

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