Well I actually had to come to work this weekend, so that just means more blogs for the world.  Splinter Cell Double Agent has been delayed yet again, it's coming out in October now.  That just sucks.  I think Gears is coming out in November so I was happy that I'd have 2 months to be addicted Double Agent before grinding chainsaws into people. Splinter Cell Caos Theory was the first game I played on Xbox Live, so I'm just sad.

I hate it when I find a cool news story like this and it's only on one website, then like an hour after I blog about it it's all over the place, rendering my blog useless

Well I came into work and had tons to do, but I just knocked it out so I'm having time to visit some of the websites that aren't totally mainstream. I found some really interesting stuff on Spong about Bungie. We all know Halo 3 is the last game in this trilogy, but apparently there has been some mention of a possible Halo prequel trilogy in the future. That's good new for just about everyone. Also, it appears that Bungie is in preproduction on another game and we should hear more about it at X06. Just read the article, it's cool.

Spong

So this isn't related to Xbox, but if you visit all these Xbox related sites and blogs Zune is the new thing being talked about.  I guess it's Microsoft's iPod killer.  The thing is, this is a war that can't be won.  It's not like gaming consoles where you can enter the competition once a new gen is coming and you can compete then.  iPod owns this market, and unless Zune has like 10 extra features that the iPod doesn't have, cheaper downloads, and a much cheaper price tag, then it's gonna flop. 

I have a 60gb video iPod, I can't imagine myself buying a Zune or whatever we're calling it.  Why would I?  There are a few things that if Zune can do it, then I'd buy it, but I doubt it will have all the things I"m about to list?  So here's what could get me to make the big switch, provided Zune already has all the stuff my iPod does like music and video downloads.

• Built in Cell Phone
• Built in wi-fi and internet connection through cell connection, with web browser
• screen that's bigger than my iPod, and by bigger I mean more than one inch
• Live arcade games tied to live anywhere, with full access to friends list (voice messaging)
• pda functionality

Now I'll be honest, it wouldn't need to have all those things to get me to buy it, I know the cell phone thing is a stretch.  I could even live without PDA features, but built in wi-fi for download from the Urge music service (is that what it's called?) would be awesome. 

So I'm making my through the new podcasts of the week, and I've made it most of the through Major Nelson's by now.  Well I sure feel dumb, and I must correct myself publicly on my previous blog about Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays.  Apparently the plan is to release a new game every Wednesday, not just for 5 straight Wednesdays.  So yeah, I'm psyched, this rocks.  I'm sure there will be weeks where there is no release, but I'm ok with that as long as we'll see a regular stream of new games.  Awesomeness

Well Frogger basically wiped me out in terms of my MS Points so I figured I'd buy some more in anticipation of all the new games coming out, and I noticed something interesting.  You can now purchase 5000 point for lilke $60 or something like that.  How freakin greedy is that?  Also, how sad is it that I bought them?  Yeah, I spent $60 on MS Points.

Isn't it funny how everytime I blog complaining it's not a real complaint.  Like how in my previous blog I complained about the "big announcement" of arcade, yet I'm going to download every game they ever put out for the arcade.  That's what real love is, it's unconditional.  I love you Xbox/Xbox 360, I really do.

Wow, what a lame "announcement" that was, or is it just me?  Yeah I guess tt's cool to have 5 arcade titles dated and all being released on consecutive Wednesdays, but I'm seriously not all that impressed.  Don't get me wrong, this is cool and all, but at this rate the virtual console is going to completely own XBLA.  There are some advantages with the arcade over virtual console, you get hi-def update, multiplayer, and leaderboards.  No one really knows if there will be multiplayer for on Wii.

I guess the main thing is the rate at which arcade games comes out is not at all impressive.  If this announcement said that every Wednesday forever we'd get a new game, that would be freakin sweet.  All they're really saying is we plan to release one game every week for the next 5 weeks, after those 5 weeks are up it could be a month before we see another game.  I just hope everything goes smoothly with these releases.  If even one of these games gets pushed back one day then Major Nelson might need to look into getting a bomb sniffing dog cuz people are gonna freak out like normal.  btw that's not a threat, I don't get freaked out over things like that.

So what games from the arcade Wednesdays promo thing will I be getting you ask?  Cloning Clyde and SF2 of course.  I say that now but odds are I'll get home from work and download Frogger cuz there are very arcade titles that I don't have.

• July 12 – Frogger
• July 19 – Cloning Clyde
• July 26 – Galaga
• August 2 – Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting
• August 9 – Pac-Man

In case you're living under a rock the is an Xbox Live Arcade event in San Fran today.  There's supposed to be some big announcements coming out of there as well.  No one's sure of what it is, it may just be a bunch of new titles announced.  Personally, this takes me back a few weeks to rumor of Sega Genesis games on the arcade, that would be such a huge announcement.  Expect a post later commenting on the announcement.