The last game announced today at E3 was easily the most interesting or at most clever.

It showed some kind of pad that people stand on to play games, do exercise and compete against other players on a graphical stage.

Mr. Miyamoto wanted to show off this game himself, not Zelda, not SM: Galaxy. He wanted it to be a whole family game.

He had 3 fitness trainers show off the game. The first trainer showed off an stretching exercise that develops leg muscle. The Wii pad ensures that it’s done right and at the proper pace.

The second trainer showed off a game that looked a bit more fun. It reminded me of DDR but with only two pads. One for each foot. The idea is to watch the pads on screen and match them.

The third trainer demonstrated a sideways twist. She did it very well, though it seemed that when the game was moved out onto the floor it lost a bit of it’s calibration. It seemed a bit off. He encouraged people to take a look at it on the floor where it would be better calibrated.

The name of the extra bit of hardware, the pad, is called the “Wii Balance Board”. It measures the pressure put on the board and as your weight shifts around the board.

Today at E3 a new hardware announement for the Wii was released. The Wii Zapper. Play as a military official shooting down terrori

sts or shooting Zombies in Resident Evil. Third partys will be making announcements regarding their plans for the Wii zapper later this week.

You also won’t be missing the zapper when you play your games. It will be packaged with Wii software and also available for a low retail price of $19.99.

Not bad

Konami just doesn’t think that a $100 price cut will have enough of a positive impact on the PS3’s sales. Konami just doesn’t think it’s enough for Metal Gear anymore.

“I wonder if Sony can win back user support by the price cut of just $100,” speaks Kazumi Kitaue, head of Konami’s North American and European operations.

Konami is considering releasing it on other formats to pay for the development costs that went into the game. They would like to hold it as a PS3 exclusive since it was “born” with Sony, however with the PS3 costing as much as decent personal computer they’re reconsidering keeping it with Playstation.

In response to Sony’s price cuts of their PS3s, and to maintain the price advantage Microsoft enjoys, Microsoft has announced price cuts on all three versions of the XBox 360.

The Elite’s price is going from $479 to $399, the price of the Premium version is going down from $399 to $349 and the price of the Core version is going from $299 to $249.

-Unstable

Rated M for Mature.
Halo 3 got that rating for “Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Violence” by ESRB(Entertainment Software Rating Board).

Considering that the last Halo games were also rated M we can expect the same level of violence and language as we expected in the last Halo games.

No results yet from the BBFC or other European software ratings board. I’m sure we can expect similar ratings though.

In an open letter to Xbox 360′ers Peter Moore, the VP of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment devision, has sent out his apologies for the problems experienced with the 360’s hardware. They are owning up to their problems saying,

“You’ve spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we’ve not been doing a good enough job.”

They have also changed the warranty so that all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address these problems. There is now a 3-year warranty that covers all of the hardware “flashing red light” problems.

Here’s a copy of the entire letter:

Open Letter From Peter Moore

To our Xbox Community:

You’ve spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we’ve not been doing a good enough job.

Some of you have expressed frustration with the customer experiences you have had with Xbox 360; frustration with having to return your console for service after receiving the general hardware error message on the console.

The majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles have had a terrific experience from their first day, and continue to, day in and day out. But when anyone questions the reliability of our product, or our commitment to our customers, it’s something I take very seriously.

We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console.

We are also implementing some important policy changes intended to keep you in the game, worry-free.

As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles. While we will still have a general one year console warranty (two years in some countries), we are announcing today a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message. If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past. In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience.

If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.

This will take a few days to roll out globally, and I appreciate your continued patience as we launch this program. I’ve posted an FAQ that should address some additional questions, and we’ll update it over the next few days.

I want to thank you, on behalf of all us at Microsoft, for your loyalty.