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The New Xbox 360

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The all new Xbox 360!

The all new Xbox 360!

The new Xbox 360 landed on singapore shores mid-July this year. One would ask: What’s new about it? Well first thing you’ll notice is its slick new design. Its slimmer and comes in a glossy black finish. Its absolutely gorgeous. That green glow of the power button against that glossy black finish makes you think its powered by kryptonite. Its really quite a looker and will send a gamer’s heart a flutter, especially an Xbox 360 owner. Microsoft should have made this glossy black finish standard on the old (read:original) Xbox 360. I’m sure there are a lot of original Xbox 360s out there that are now more of the color beige than white.

The new Xbox 360 is more than a looker. It now comes with a 250GB hard drive. That’s more than enough for downloading and storing games, game add-ons and more. The new Xbox 360 is also “whisper quiet” as stated in their ad. I don’t know about you but I don’t really find the original Xbox 360 noisy unless its right beside when you’re playing. You couldn’t here it over the sound of gunfire (in a video game that is haha). Anyway quiet is good.

Now you’re wondering is that it? Of course not. I think one of the more exciting things about the new Xbox 360 besides its looks is that it now has a built-in Wi-Fi. Yeeeeeey!!! No more wires! When connecting to Xbox Live that is. But what puts the “new” in the new Xbox 360 is that it’s Kinect ready.

Kinect ready? Yup, Kinect ready. It basically transforms your body movement into game play. It’s similar to the Wii and Playstation Move. But what makes the Kinect different is you don’t use any controllers. YOU ARE the controller. More specifically your body movements control the game. Isn’t that exciting?! Sure you’ll feel a little silly at first. It will feel like the first time you talked on you’re mobile phone using a bluetooth headset. But hey, that means no controllers flying out of your hands and hitting someone or your much loved TV. The Kinect device is sold separately and will be available in November with a slew of kinect games of course.

Editor’s note: For those who don’t know Kinect, check out the video on kinect below.

One major thing missing with this new Xbox 360 is a blu-ray drive. I would have thought they would have incorporated this already with the new Xbox. The Playstation had this for quite some time now. Anyway it still is primarily a gaming device, and blu-ray has not catched-up with the masses yet. Besides, a blu-ray drive will certainly up the price of the new Xbox 360.

Now that you’re familiar with the new Xbox360, the question is should I buy one? The simple answer is no. This still feels like the old Xbox 360 but with the bells and whistles. That’s why the name remains the same, except with the word “new”.  You can still play the new games with your old Xbox 360, even the new Kinect games, but you’ll need a separate power supply for the Kinect device. But if you want to jump in to motion-controlled gaming or your Xbox 360 really feels old, by all means yes. I just wonder if you bought one, after a year would you still call it the “new” Xbox 360? hmmm….

I think they’ve come full circle with the name Xbox 360 (pun intended).  If you do intend to buy the new Xbox 360 and the Kinect device, just a word of caution, don’t let the neighbors see you when you’re playing 😀

Gambit

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Tokyo Game Show 2010

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5313 km away an exciting party for gamers is ending today. It is the Tokyo Game Show 2010 which runs from 16 September to 19 September . Like a child left out of a party, I cannot get first hand news from the TGS 2010 and had to look through the net for any updates. Some interesting upcoming games were showcased at the show. I will now provide a run through of these titles:)

1. Ni no Kuni

This game is a team-up between Studio Ghibli producer and Level-5, a Japan based game developer. There is a PS3 as well as a Nintendo DS version for this game. Studio Ghibli is well known for creating wonderful animated films such as Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. Ni No Kuni has a rather sad story line. It follows the adventure of a 13-year old boy who mother died suddenly. In order to revive her, he heeds the advice of a fairy and enter a parallel world called “Ninokuni”. For any who had watched Ghibli Studio’s production, the scene of the game has an uncanny resemblance to other Studio Ghibli’s film. As a matter of fact, the studio has been employing computer 3D graphic technology in some scenes of their animated film for some years. This may explain why some of the scenes of Ni no Kuni has flavours of Studio Ghibli’s animated film. The DS version is scheduled to be released this holiday season while the PS version will only be out next year.

2. The Last Guardian

This beautiful game about the friendship between a boy and a giant creature (that looks like a dog and eagle) named Trico is set to warm the heart of the player. Hmmm, but I do wonder what kind of game can the developer made that surround just these two characters. While it is announced that this game is going to be an action-adventure puzzle game, I hope that this game will not just be a level of puzzle after another. We will have to wait till late 2011 for this game to be released.

3. Metal Gear Solid Rising

Snake has retired but can Raiden bring new life to the MGS series? In MGS: Rising we get to slash enemies playing as ‘Ninja’ Raiden. The ‘free slicing’ mode allows the player to cut through space freely. The physics seen in the video above is really cool! For all you MGS fans out that, this game is due 2011 on Xbox 360 and PS3.

4. Deus ex:Human Revolution

For those who prefer the English version, here is the link.

This game is the third part of the action game series Deus Ex by British video game developer Eidos Interactive (it was later bought over by Square-Enix). Just watching the video makes me wonder whether this is a game or movie. This title is available on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

5. Final Fantasy Versus XIII

This is a video leak from TGS 2010 for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. In this video, we can only have a very vague idea of what this Action-RPG game is going to be like. A scene of the player slashing a behemoth was shown in this trailer. It gives us a rough idea of the kind of slash and kill game play that FF versus XIII is going to be. Instead of the usual turn-based attack of FFXIII, now I really get to cut down a real behemoth! Cool!

6. God of War: Ghost of Sparta

GOW is now on PSP! We don’t have to wait long for this one, it is going to be released this coming year end holiday.

7. Gran Turismo 5

More video released for TGS 2010. Get ready to be blown off by the new stunning visual effects! GT5 is out end of this year.

8. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

A revive of the Castlevania franchise, this new title has Hideo Kojima’s input as an advisor. Looking to be a cross between Devil May Cry and God Of War, we will see soon whether this game can indeed revive the Castlevania series around October of this year when it is released.

Going 3D?

Sony who is pushing for 3D gaming in TGS 2010 even had a 3D panel at TGS 2010. Currently, Xbox 360 is unable to serve 3D content to players unlike PS3. But wearing a pair of glasses and the need to burn a hole in your pocket to get that 3D TV may put off players who are thinking of going into 3D gaming. Especially with the ‘glasses-less’ Nintendo 3Ds coming out probably before next April, players will be spoilt. Wearing glasses to play game? No way! Well, it might be still too early to see whether 3D gaming to kick off. But until the price of 3D TV drops, it is likely to be a barrier for most gamers to go 3D.

So that’s it. A round-up of the games featured in TGS 2010. Of course there are games that I have not covered. Among them we have, Asura’s Wrath, Yakuza: Of the End, Fable III, Killzone III, Monster Hunter Portable, Patapon 3, Tokyo Jungle, Dance Evolution and many more. Darn…they should have a Singapore Game Show too. I guess our gaming industry is just not matured enough.

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Selling tips for seller!

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Are you having trouble selling your games? Here are some tips that we would like to share with you:)
First of all, register with GameTrader.SG and start posting you games (ok…that is obvious)!

Now for some real tips!

1. Pricing:
Buyers are mostly price-sensitive. Copy of the same game don’t really differ much from each other if they are from the same region. Therefore, you need to set a reasonable price for your games to attract buyers.

For pre-owned games, the pricing would definitely have to be lower than the brand new games for obvious reason. To check out the current price of a brand new game, you can either visit any game store and ask or simply go online to game store websites where such prices are usually published. Some of these stores also sell pre-owned games. Benchmark your own price against theirs. Google ‘buy pre-owned PS3 games’ will return you a lists of game stores selling pre-owned PS3 games online for example.  Ok for the few who don’t wish to manually google, just click here.

Alternatively, you can simply search GameTrader.SG for the game you are going to sell and look at the price other people are quoting.  Games that are sold will still be on our website and you can use it to gauge the price you should put for your game.

Our GameTrader.SG platform has an option for you to indicate whether your price is negotiable. By indicating that your price is negotiable, you may be able to attract bargain buyers. However, do note that you might also attract buyers who think you are desperate and may give unreasonable prices for your games.

Last of all, prices of games do fluctuate! After posting your game, make sure you update your price accordingly to the market price (ways to obtain the market price is described above). The rule of the thumb is that games get cheaper as they get older. To update your price on GameTrader.SG, simple go to “My Profile”, select the game that you wish to change the price and click the ‘Edit’ button.

2. Information:
To entice buyer to buy from you, it would be good to include a description of the game. For example, you can add information like ‘disc is scratched free’ or ‘game is a week old’ etc. The region of the game would be useful too especially for PS3 games where games with different region code may vary slightly. For PS3 games, Gametrader.SG allows you to specify the region whether it is R1, R2, R3, R4 or even R5. 

Furthermore, if your game has additional bonus such as unredeemed online content or comes with some free  gifts, do put them down in the description. This will enable you to differentiate your game from other sellers’.

3. Adding an image to your game post
When posting your games on GameTrader.SG, you should add a game image to your posts. Humans are usually more attracted to visual cues than boring texts. Having an image will subtly increase your chances of selling. GameTrade.SG allows you to either upload your own photo or simply just select an image from Google image search for those who hate uploading images.

4. Making the deal
Most of the time, the collection method of the games are by meet-up. Buyers and seller may have different places that are convenient to them. As a seller, if you prefer to meet, say in the East, you can perhaps offer some discount if buyers are willing to accomodate your meet-up location. Alternatively, if you are willing to meet everywhere in Singapore, that will also be a great incentive for buyers to buy from you. You can also have special service such as delivering the game to the buyer doorstep with additional top-up.

For the other seller who might opt for postage to seller, you may want to consider sending a registered mail. While my personal experience is that non-registered mail is seldom lost in Singapore, it maybe better to registered your mail (of course at additional cost) to prevent dispute in case the mail is lost.

5. After the transaction…
Your relationship with the buyer need not end after the transaction. Most probably, the buyer may want to buy games from you again! If not, it doesn’t harm to make more friends anyway 🙂 . With many multiplayer games in the market, you can add your buyers as your PSN or Xbox 360 Live friend and start playing games together!

You can also ask your buyer to write feedback on your GameTrader.SG wall after the transaction. These feedback will help you to build up your reputation on GameTrader.SG.

That concludes our tips for seller! Hope it is useful to all your sellers out there!
We had about 642 games sold through GameTrader.SG platform as on 11th Nov 2010. We hope you can sell your game soon and add on to our lists of game sold! Good luck!:)