Microsoft announced on Feb. 1 that it would be selling a 250GB
hard-disc drive add-on for the Xbox 360 gaming console on March 11,
but there’s a catch: The hard drive, for now, will only be available in
Japan.
The device will retail for 15,540 yen, or approximately $170. According
to the
press release (when translated from Japanese), two other products, a
Wireless
Controller Game Pack and a Wireless LAN adapter N will also go on sale
on March
11. The wireless control will retail for 5,775 yen (about $63) and the
wireless
LAN adapter is listed at (nearly $100). The game pack includes an Xbox
360
black wireless controller, and four Xbox LIVE Arcade titles: Bomberman
Live;
the puzzle game Lumines; Pac-Man: Championship Edition; and Geometry
Wars: Retro
Evolved 2.
The wireless LAN adapter offers WPA2 encryption support and
IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 /a/b/g standards. The adapter is currently
available to Xbox owners in North America and retails for $99.99, according to
Microsoft’s Website. Kei Iwasaki, a Microsoft spokesman in Tokyo, said
the company has “no plans” to sell the HDD outside of Japan. "Microsoft
has no current plans to put it on sale as a stand-alone unit outside of
Japan," Iwasaki said.
Earlier this year at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in
Las Vegas, Microsoft announced plans to distribute its new Kodu video game
design program for novices through its Xbox Live community this spring. Kodu,
which was formerly known as Boku, is a new visual programming language that
comes out of Microsoft Research. It was made specifically for creating games, and
it runs on the Xbox and uses a game controller and allows for rapid design
iteration. Kodu also runs on a PC. According to Microsoft Research, the core of
the Kodu project is the programming user interface, and the language itself is
simple and entirely icon-based. The Kodu language provides specialized
primitives derived from gaming scenarios. And programs are expressed in
physical terms, using concepts such as vision, hearing and time to control
character behavior.
During their Jan. 28 earnings call, Microsoft reported
that
revenues for its Entertainment and Devices Division dipped from $3.25
billion
to $2.9 billion. The company reported shipping 5.2 million new Xbox 360
game
consoles in Q4 2009, down 13 percent from the same period in 2008.
Microsoft also announced, during CES, that sales of Xbox 360 consoles
had passed 39 million worldwide.
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