360 limitations necessitate external solution.

Thanks to Microsoft charging peripheral makers a fee to use their proprietary wireless technology, the 360 version of Rock Band will be bundled with a wired guitar instead of a wireless axe like the PS3 edition. As disappointing as this is, it presented another issue: four wired peripherals is one more than the three USB ports on the 360 can handle.

To remedy this problem, EA will be including a USB hub with the bundle. Great news, particularly if you have a wireless network adapter (or perhaps an HD-DVD drive) already occupying the rear USB port.

Now the big question is, do you buy the bundle and get stuck with a wired guitar or do you buy everything piecemeal and pay a premium? I had planned on using my GHII X-plorer as the bass for my Rock Band and save the $70-$80 on a second Strat, so I'd kind of like my main guitar to be wireless. Decisions, decisions…

[via Kotaku] 

23K users avoid slap on the wrist and receive a stern talking-to instead.

It was widely reported yesterday that 23,000 Xbox Live users were banned for 24 hours for using an account recovery glitch to gain entry into the Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta without an invite.  Xbox Live's Major Nelson set the record straight, however, that not only was no one banned, but no one was going to be, at least not on such a major scale.

"…sharing accounts isn’t just a violation of the terms, which could get you banned, it’s actually not a good thing to do in general.  People can get details about you or content from you, or try to take action against you when you do something like that.  It is your responsibility to keep your account information safe.  Regarding the COD4 beta, the best advice I can give in a situation like this is try and be patient.  We know you all want to play, and we think that’s great, but if you break the rules, you can be banned. "

In less diplomatic terms: Cut the shit or we will ban you, or worse, make sure the only Beta you'll ever get into again is for Vampire Rain 2.

Naming contest pronounces a winner. 

Joining the ranks of the dozens of other games that begin with the word Project (and the countless more with Project somewhere in their title) Warner Bros. and Monolith announced today that the final title for the game previously known as "We Aren't Allowed to Call it F.E.A.R. 2", will be Project Origin. The name was chosen by fans as part of the Name Your Fear contest and beat out finalists Dark Signal and Dead Echo. I think Dark Echo would've been a great title if it wasn't already the Japanese subtitle for Metroid Prime 2.

Vivendi, F.E.A.R.'s original publisher and current trademark holder has yet to announce their own F.E.A.R. 2 but, as previously reported, a second expansion pack for the original F.E.A.R., called Perseus Mandate, will be available for PC this fall while a collection of both expansions will be released as F.E.A.R. Files for the 360.

Project Origin has no set release date but will appear on PC, 360, and PS3. 

[via Game|Life]

Better late than never.

Next week sees the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition, a full-priced collection of the original Oblivion, the bonus questline Knights of the Nine and the full expansion pack, Shivering Isles. That's all well and good for newcomers, but are current Oblivion owners without access to Xbox Live going to be left out in the cold?

Well, yes, but only for a little while, as Shivering Isles will also be getting its own release on disc sometime in October. The expansion will retail for $29.99, the same price it currently sells for on Xbox Live, and will also feature Knights of the Nine free of charge.

I don't quite understand the rationale behind releasing the expansion a month after the Game of the Year edition, aside from trying to lure people who already shelled out $60 for Oblivion 18 months ago into buying the GOTY edition. But hey, I'm surprised to see an expansion pack on disc at all. That hasn't happened since…well, GRAW2!

[via Joystiq]

OK, maybe $9 isn't really steep.

After all, NeoGeo games were $200 and up when they were originally released and they played on a console that cost $650 in 1991, which in today's money is something like the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars. And the thing couldn't even play Blu-ray movies! From that perspective, $9 is almost stupidly cheap.

Still, charging a $1 premium over the NeoGeo's contemporaries, the SNES and Genesis, seems out of place when titles for another lesser known contemporary, the TurboGrafx-16, sell for $6. Further emphasizing the high price is the fact that NeoGeo fighter Fatal Fury Special is coming out for Xbox Live Arcade, with online play and achievements, for $5. 

While there are no doubt many gamers out there who wouldn't hesitate to shell out $9 to play Samurai Shodown II on their Wii, I can't imagine most people are going to be familiar with the majority of the Neo-Geo's library. VC operates largely on nostalgia and not too many are going to be nostalgic for Magician Lord and 'Nam 1975. Oddly enough, I'm nostalgic for both and I've never played either. Chalk that up to time spent staring at Nobody Beats the Wiz ads every week, trying to wrap my brain around how a console could cost $650, and more importantly, how I could get one.

Nintendo, whittle the price of these things down to six or seven bucks and then we'll talk.

[via Joystiq]