New Aus/NZ Launch Dates for Xbox 360

Noooooooooooo!!!!
March 23rd. Here's the official press release:




January 27, 2006 – Xbox today announced a new launch date in Australia and New Zealand for the Xbox 360™. The new launch date is 12:01am on March 23 2006.

The new launch date has been set due to unprecedented global consumer demand and short-term manufacturing issues due to component shortages stemming from challenges in ramping supply. The move ensures that the markets will have an adequate supply of Xbox 360 consoles to meet demand at launch.

Xbox 360 is well on its way to becoming the fastest-selling video game console in history, and remains on track to meet the year end forecast to ship between 4.5 million and 5.5 million consoles worldwide by the end of June 2006.

About Xbox 360
Xbox 360 is a next generation video game and entertainment system, delivering incredible games, the Xbox Live online gaming service, and unique digital entertainment experiences that revolve around gamers. The system was launched in Europe, Japan and North America in the 2005 holiday season and will be launched in Australia and New Zealand on March 23 2006.

Translation:
"Microsoft will hold back on Australia as it's unimportant. We love those Osssies but we can sell more in the US. We knew all along we were going to have to do this, as our constant denial of any launch slippage up until this point demonstrates."

Oh well, more time to get through the old Xbox catalog I guess.
Fark it.

**UPDATE**
Official letter from David McLean; Regional Director, Xbox Australia and New Zealand, here.

Amazing Puzzles

Ok, so I'm easily fooled and relatively gullible, but these two puzzles had me (happily and infuriatingly) stumped for ages. See how you honestly fare:

Mind Reader
This is a well known and clever little trick by Andy Naughton.

Below is an explanation of how the Flash Mind Reader works. If you want to puzzle it out for yourself, read no further. You have been warned!

**The answer appears below if you highlight the area with your mouse - I've coloured the text to be the same as the background so it doesn't appear without highlighting**

"A false path. At one point we thought it was tracking the mouse. Haha. Except it isn't. Even if you don't touch the mouse amazingly it always gets the right answer. Hehe.

Half the solution, because there are two tricks at work here, not just one: if you do the math, you'll see that every possible result has to be a multiple of nine. Any two-digit number can be expressed as a*10 + b. (For 73 a=7, b=3). Now the puzzler requests that we subtract the sum of a and b from the number, a*10 + b - (a + b), which becomes a * 9 if you reduce it. Therefore it's a multiple of nine.

The second half of the solution: note that the glyphs of all the multiples of nine are the same.
They are? Yes, they are. That's the trick!
Every time we refresh the screen the symbols change, unbeknownst to us. It gets better. 90 and 99 which are multiples of nine, have different symbols from the other multiples of nine. But there's no way to get those numbers to come out the other end of the algorithm. Nice twist."

Don's Amazing Puzzle
Please read this sentence.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-

SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-

IC STUDY COMBINED WITH

THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

Count the F's.
How many did you find?

**The answer appears below if you highlight the area with your mouse, as above**

There are six F's in the sentence.
There is no catch.

I, like everyone else, found three. I went back and counted and recounted, and I was sure there were just three. So I did a search for 'F' on the page to see what was going on, and sure enough if you do the same on this page (CNTRL-F / APPLE-F in your browser) it will find all six! Mystifying how our brains work.

Both really great tricks.
=)

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Xbox 360™ Screenshots

From the most recent EA newsletter:

"The battlefield comes to life like never before in the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. Feast your eyes on the highly detailed character and vehicle models in these exclusive new screenshots:"



Also:

Battlefield 2: Euro Force™ Announced
"On January 12th, DICE and Electronic Arts will proudly announce the first booster pack for Battlefield 2™, and we're giving you an exclusive first-look at some of the new content."
Learn more >>

Warsome Booster Pack Available Now - Free (Xbox Battlefield 2: Modern Combat)
"Your Battlefield 2: Modern Combat™ experience is about to get Warsome! As a special bonus we're giving away the Warsome booster pack for free to all Xbox Live players. The booster pack is a $9.99 value and includes 3 new maps, new vehicles, and new skins. Download it today!"
Learn more >>

New game from the creators of Diablo!

Oh yeh!!!
It was only the other day I was posting about Diablo II, and whatever happened to another game from the team who made it, so imagine my surprise when this arrived in my inbox quite by chance:

Hands-On with 'Hellgate: London' Article

woohoo!

Quote:
"The year 2005 has already marked the appearance of a few new action RPGs, and there are several more in the works. It's fitting that one of them will be from the original creators of the Diablo series, who have set up a new shop at Flagship Studios. Their game is Hellgate: London, a hack-and-slash game that takes place in a postmodern version of London, England, after a catastrophic demonic invasion, and, unusually enough, plays from a first-person perspective (or a third-person, behind-the-back view). Some time ago, we had a chance to get our hands on the game once more, to take a closer look at it. Here's what we found."

Screenies: (Click for full size)



No release date is set yet, but the developers are assuring ua that "..we won't have to wait longer than it takes for an average high school student to graduate."