If you’ve been thinking about getting a 360 or need to replace your recently dead unit there’s a new bundle coming that just might be perfect. Amazon just added a listing for a 2010 Spring bundle that includes Forza 3, Halo 3: ODST and a 120GB Elite 360 for just $299.99. The deal should be available this coming Tuesday, March 9th from Amazon.

Really, this is about the best deal I’ve seen. The kit includes two great games and even nets you beta participation for Halo: Reach through ODST. Really, it’s like three games for the price of a console. This bundle also launches the same day as the Final Fantasy XIII bundle that runs $399. That one includes two controllers, the game, and a 250GB hard drive.

Either way, you get a really solid bundle at an incredible price. Can’t really ask for much more than that.

According to an MCV report, Microsoft is going to take Natal marketing outside the male 18-34 demographic. The company supposedly held a VIP showcase for select media outlets, particularly women’s mags like Cosmopolitan and Glamour, to show off Natal and talk about options for exposure.

Microsoft is taking a page out of the Nintendo playbook if this thing is true. The Wii’s success came largely from marketing to non-gamers and convincing them that bowling, even with terrible graphics, is a lot of fun if it doesn’t play like a traditional game. It’s that same group of people Microsoft is after, people who may want something social to do with friends that doesn’t have the learning curve of a controller. The only real problem I see is that a lot of those people already own a Wii. How can you convince them they need a Natal, too?

MCV says Microsoft will be using celebrity endorsements to market Natal in “the parenting press, toy retailers and publications which primarily cater for non-gamers.” Good luck with that guys.

Source: MCV

If you haven’t played Dante’s Inferno yet, you should. The atmosphere of the game alone is enough to merit the 8-12 hour excursion into the epic poem. Find a rainy weekend and rent the game at the very least. If buying is your thing, though, you can get EA’s latest slasher for just $39.99 at Target next week. That’s a damn fine price for a fresh title – a full $20 off retail.

Target is also having a sale on NBA 2K10, dropping it down to $29.99. There are also a few Pokemon deals going down if you want to have the most random collection of games this side of a Sega Saturn. I should probably also remind you that Bad Company 2 and MLB 10: The Show both drop on March 2nd, though those will be full price. Not an altogether bad week for gaming.

The blog circuit is finally getting some hands-on time with Project Natal, and there’s a lot of excitement about it. The breakout game in particular seems to get people to really appreciate the power of the peripheral, even more so than the Burnout demo we’ve seen so many places. A big part of that is the barely noticeable lag that accompanies the system. Unfortunately, barely is just enough to make for a frustrating game experience.

MTV says the delay is about .1 seconds – just enough that you’ll notice it, especially in games like Burnout where to-the-millisecond response becomes important. That kind of delay is bad enough for finely tuned controls that it could take Natal down to something neat you show your friends once. That is, if fine control were all Microsoft was after.

One really cool feature of Natal is head tracking. It gives the viewer a whole new level of immersion by changing the image on screen based on the position of your eyes relative to that screen. It’s something Johnny Chung Lee demoed using the Wiimote some time ago. It’s just one facet of Natal that will take it beyond a simple control device to creating a new kind of experience with games.

Once upon a time I was considering going pro as a Halo player. No joke. I was in college, logging several hours of play a day and winning local tournaments as often as I could find them. Being in college, though, I was dead broke, unable to afford the plane ticket and lodging it would cost to to get from central Ohio to one of the early MLG tournaments with hopes of landing a team spot and competing at the national level. At the time, pro gaming, at least for consoles, was just getting its start, and there wasn’t another venue that would offer that kind of opportunity before I was set to graduate and find myself in need of gainful employment.

If you’re in that same situation, things have gotten a bit better. There are loads of pro leagues all over the country, and regional tourneys happen all the time. Breaking into the MLG scene can still be pretty tough, which is why Doritos has put together the Pro Gaming Combine in select cities around the country. You still have to get there, and there is an entry fee, but pro gaming has reached a point that, if you’re any good, you can easily get noticed at an event like this and start to make a name for yourself.

The combine runs for three days at a time with both team and solo categories. Players who demonstrate the highest level of “slaying power, teamwork/communication, leadership, objective play and support play” will be selected for further evaluation by the MLG Scout Team and given an opportunity to play at an MLG Pro Circuit event and an invite to the National Championship Competition, all expenses paid. Combine registration is $100 per team or $10 per player, which is much better than the actual circuit tickets last time I checked.

For the date and location schedule, check out the official page at MLG. There will be several online events leading up to each tourney, giving you the chance to see how you stack up before spending that Hamilton or Benjamin on your registration.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has already had a busy week. So far he’s predicted that Project Natal will run $50 for Xbox 360 users and that it will sell 10 million units in about a year, which he thinks will be five times as many units as Sony’s Arc will sell.

“I think that the Sony motion controller will have some problems gaining traction, since it is not an ‘in the box’ solution,” he told PS3 Center. “That will probably limit adoption to 1 or 2 million at the outset.” He thinks the extra sales of Natal will help it gain a third-party advantage over the Arc.

The real shocker for me is that $50 price tag for Natal. For a company that charges more than a benjy for a low capacity hard drive, $50 for the latest gaming technology seems crazy. Of course, that’s exactly what Nintendo did with the Wii and I think we all know how that turned out.

Peter Molyneux recently told Gamereactor that there would be some big Fable III news announced at X10 this week. Of course he won’t say what, just that it’s going to be upsetting.

“There’s some very, very big things happening in Fable,” Molyneux said. “Bigger than you think, and it’s going to really upset people.” He said he’s actually scared to give people the news because, “They’re going to get super pissed off, they really are.” The weird thing is he seems excited about it. Excited to piss off his constituents. Granted, he’s done this before. In fact, every Fable release has had something to get a little miffed about, mostly involving missed expectations.

My guess for this, as is Joystiq’s, is that he’s modified the storyline from Fable II in some way, making it a dream or some equally horrible storytelling technique.

As you surely know, Dante’s Inferno launches next Tuesday on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The fiery slasher is highly anticipated and has already received very solid reviews. I got the chance to talk with EA’s Phil Marineau, the Senior Product Manager on Dante’s Inferno, to talk about development, the game’s place in the action/adventure genre, and the upcoming Super Bowl ad for the game.

Fearless Gamer: Obviously the game’s based on Dante’s Inferno so why that poem, why that source material?

Phil Marineau: Well, ever since our executive producer read the poem – and he’s somewhat of a literary buff – if you go online and you go on Google and you type in Dante’s Inferno and you search images everyone throughout history who’s read the poem has been inspired by it. The image you see the most is the cone, the cone image, where someone’s sort of drawing Hell. And it gave us the idea that, you know what, this sets up perfectly for a level-based video game. You start at the top, on the surface, you fight through nine levels of Hell, and at the end you have the ultimate boss battle with the ultimate bad guy, Lucifer.

As we were going around pitching it internally people were like, “Yeah, I totally get it.”

FG: So what makes Visceral and EA’s vision of hell different from what we’ve seen. There are a lot of games out there that take the hell concept, what makes this different?
Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since Microsoft announced Project Natal there has been speculation about which blockbuster titles would see motion controlled support. What’s more blockbuster than Halo? Nothing. But thankfully, Bungie confirmed it won’t be making Reach with Natal capabilities.

The confirmation came after a leaked screenshot showed a targeting reticule off to the side of the screen.

“Halo: Reach is NOT a Natal title and is being developed expressly with the traditional Xbox 360 controller in mind.”

Just to assuage any doubt, Bungie included the bug report for the anomaly along with it’s denial of Natal support. The full post was a “mythbusters” post, resolving other rumors like HUD and crosshair customization. You can find all those goodies at the Bungie website.

Finally, there’s a corporation in the world that’s willing to move on from Tiger’s sex life and continue to endorse him for what he does best (yes, better than cheating on his wife – he failed at keeping that quiet): playing golf. EA officially announced today that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is in development.

The game will launch in June of this year for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and the iPhone. I really wish there were more jokes to be had at Tiger’s expense, but really I’m just glad that this little saga is at the beginning of its end.

Sure, Tiger’s income looks a lot more like a trickle than the insane waterfall of years past, but it’s better than nothing, right?