Heavy Rain

PS3
Best Price: £37.73 Amazon

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

PS3
Best Price: £29.73 Amazon

Xbox 360
Best Price: £29.73 Amazon

Wii
Best Price: £29.73 amazon

DS
Best Price: £17.73 The Hut

Napoleon: Total War

PC
Best Price: £16.95 Zavvi

Undead Knights

PSP
Best Price: £17.73 The Hut

Adventures To Go

PSP
Best Price: £14.99 Amazon

Aliens vs Predator

Xbox 360
Best Price: £34.73 Amazon

PS3
Best Price: £34.99 Amazon

PC
Best Price: £16.95 Zavvi

Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce

PS3
Best Price: £29.73 The Hut

Xbox 360
Best Price: £29.73 The Hut

Guitar Hero: Van Halen

PS3
Best Price: £29.97 Gameseek

Xbox 360
Best Price: £29.97 Gameseek

Wii
Best Price: £29.97 The Hut

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island

PC
Best Price: £17.73 The Hut

Family Party: Winter Fun

Wii
Best Price: £12.99 Amazon

Bioshock 2

Xbox 360
Best Price: £29.99 Amazon

PS3
Best Price: £29.99 Amazon

PC
Best Price: £23.99 CoolShop

Star Ocean: The Last Hope International

PS3
Best Price: £29.73 Amazon

Memento Mori

PC
Best Price: £11.73 The Hut

Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll

Wii
Best Price: £26.95 Zavvi

Phantasy Star Zero

DS
Best Price: £17.73 Amazon

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

Xbox 360
Best Price: £38.69 Amazon

PS3
Best Price: £38.69 Amazon

Dante’s Inferno

Xbox 360
Best Price: £34.99 CoolShop

PS3
Best Price: £37.73 Amazon

PSP
Best Price: £19.95 MyMemory

MX vs ATV Reflex

PS3
Best Price: £32.85 ShopTo

Xbox 360
Best Price: £34.99 ShopTo

PSP
Best Price: £22.99 CoolShop

DS
Best Price: £22.99 CoolShop

Star Trek Online

PC
Best Price: £29.73 The Hut

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers

Wii
Best Price: £24.99Amazon

Astro Boy

Wii
Best Price: £19.99 Amazon

PS2
Best Price: £14.85 The Hut

PSP
Best Price: £14.73 The Hut

DS
Best Price: £17.73 The Hut

Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep

Wii
Best Price: £29.73 The Hut

The Princess and the Frog

Wii
Best Price: £23.47 Tesco

DS
Best Price: £24.73 The Hut

Mass Effect 2

Xbox 360
Best Price: £34.99 Cool Shop

PC
Best Price: £26.99 Amazon

MAG

PS3
Best Price: £34.85 ShopTo

Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard

PS3
Best Price: £24.89 Sendit

Wii
Best Price: £24.89 Sendit

DS
Best Price: £17.89 Sendit

PC
Best Price: £14.89 Sendit

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom Ultimate All Stars

Wii
Best Price: £17.95 Zavvi

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing mind you. It is a well-known fact that the best games come out at the end of a consoles life cycle, when developers have gotten comfortable with developing for a machine. Fantastic, that means we get great games and won’t have to worry about the price of new hardware etc. But, I like the buzz of a new console, reading about how many petaflops of gigarams it can produce a second, seeing the fruits of the R+D departments labour and most importantly, being impressed by the new games that will be released.

I suppose that’s the point I’m getting at. I’m not absolutely gobsmacked by the games anymore. Sure, they look pretty,the stories draw you in and the audio is top notch but it has now become the norm. I am used to the textures and audio from a decent game. Has the Xbox 360 been pushed to its limits? Probably not, but I can’t see a drastic improvement being made in the next 3 years.

Natal will be released next winter. That means that in 2011 we will see loads of motion games being released. 2012 will be the same only developers will have got their head around developing for it and then 2013 they will announce the “Nextbox”. It seems to fit in with their Natal plans certainly.

I could also be totally wrong and they will release a console with the same software on the current 360 which will allow you to play in your Games Room. It seems rather silly to be basing your idea on when the next console will be released on a minor feature being added but it does seem to fit. Especially as we haven’t heard any rumours at all coming from Microsoft.

One-way around releasing a brand new console is just releasing an Xbox 360 V2 or an Xbox 540 maybe? Just add in the Natal camera and say it’s a new console. I desperately hope they don’t go that route, as I am sick and tired of new SKUs being released, for example the DS (DS Lite, DSi) and PSP (PSP 1000, 2000, 3000, GO). The market needs an update and if it’s going to be 3 years away, that’s a long time to wait.

It does sound like I am hating on the current games, which I assure you, I am not. I enjoy the games currently available; I just like to see the future of where things are going. If CES is anything to go by, the future seems to be outlined by a hazy red and blue glow, which you can only see properly if you wear 3D sunglasses. But that rant is for another article.

Resident Evil Archives

Wii
Best Price: £13.97 Amazon Resident Evil Archives: Zero (Wii)

Yu Gi Oh 5D’s Tag Force 4

PSP
Best Price: £24.25 Amazon Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 4 (PSP)

Death By Cube

XBLA
Best Price: 1200 MSPoints Xbox MarketPlace

Might and Magic: Clash Of Heroes

DS
Best Price: £22.97 Amazon Might & Magic: Clash Of Heroes (Nintendo DS)

The add-on gathers pricing information from many popular online retailers such as Amazon, HMV, Dixons, Game, Play, Zavvi and many more. So, what’s the catch? Well apart from the developer getting a small commission from the retailer after clicking the link to the product, there is no catch. It won’t affect your price whatsoever.

Currently InvisibleHand only works with online retailers in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, with Canada being supported soon. There is no word whether more countries will be added yet but you can recommend your country by sending them an e-mail.

There have been a couple of bugs that I have noticed. Most noticeably was when browsing for shoes it linked me to something totally different. This is a known issue and the developers are working on it. I found it is best when browsing for media such as games and DVDs. However, if the product you are looking at is a special edition or has some exclusive content bundled in, it doesn’t seem to compare prices with other sites.

Overall, if you shop online and find trawling through sites to get the best deal a chore, I would definitely recommend installing this add-on. It doesn’t affect browser performance in the testing I did and apart from the minor annoyances expressed above, I am quite happy with it. There is also an option for Chrome users to install the add-on, but I have not tested it out.

Firefox Add-ons InvisibleHand

Army of two: 40^th day

Xbox 360
Best Price: £37.73 – The Hut
PS3
Best Price: £34.99 – CoolShop
PSP
Best Price: £24.73 – The Hut

Vancouver 2010

Xbox 360
Best Price: £29.73 – The Hut
PS3
Best Price: £29.73 – The Hut
PC
Best Price: £17.73 – The Hut

Dark Void

Xbox 360
Best Price: £28.73 – The Hut
PS3
Best Price: £28.73 – The Hut
PC
Best Price: £17.73 – The Hut

Serious Sam HD

XBLA
Best Price: 1200 MSPoints Xbox MarketPlace
PC
Best Price: £6.11 Steam

Winter Sports 2010

Xbox 360
Best Price: £29.73 – The Hut
PS3
Best Price: £29.73 – The Hut
Wii
Best Price: £17.73 – The Hut

Video ends and Ballmer’s going to talk about 3 things, the screens in our lives, the cloud and the Natural user Interface. A closer look at what was delivered in 2009. Project Natal was announced, they’re 39 Million Xbox users around the world, 500 million games were shipped and $20 billion in revenue. “Bing is referred to as a decision engine, providing users the tools to make better decisions in their life”.

Computers

Microsoft’s Bing will become the default search engine on all HP computers. Ford are rolling out a new look for the next generation of sync. Having integrated zune into Xbox live, Microsoft will continue to expand Zune service into other Microsoft platforms. Windows Mobile 6.5 is being showed off on the new windows phone, the T-Mobile HD2. More news on windows mobile next month at mobile world congress. Microsoft wanted to deliver the PC experience the way people wanted it to work with windows 7 by making tasks simpler and enabling a world of new possibilities. They did this by working with the customers. Over 3,000 engineers, 50,000 partners and 8 Million beta testers helped. Windows 7 is the fastest selling OS in history.

Ryan Asdourian comes onto the stage and starts showing off more PCs, netbooks, All In Ones and small form factor PCs. Ryan demonstrates DX11 on a gaming machine, the Asus G51 with an Intel core i7 and a GTX260M graphics card. While still on the subject of PC gaming, 3D gaming is fast approaching. Batman Arkham Asylum is demonstrated and you will need glasses for the 3D experience. 3D is backwards compatible with hundreds of games. Moving on from games, software is being shown off including the Bleo Reader, an E-Reader for your desktop. It features interactive pictures and video embedded into the books. This software looks like it could work with the rumoured Courier don’t you think?

A new form factor pc is shown off called slate PCs. A demo unit from HP is demonstrated. This looks like it’s a target for the rumoured apple tablet.

Gaming

Robbie Bach now enters to talk about gaming. “The tech innovations over the past 5 years has been, pardon the pun, a game changer”. This year we will see blockbuster games including Mass effect 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, Modern Warfare 2 DLC in spring, Fable 3, Crackdown 2, Alan Wake (which will have episodic content available after release) and Halo Reach, which is coming in fall of 2010. A beta for Halo Reach is to be available in spring. A new Xbox live service, Game Room, is being launched in spring, allowing you to relive arcade classics with full soundtracks. You will be able to invite friends into your room and challenge them to a showdown. A new arcade game will be available every week and in 3 years time there will be over 1000 titles available. Next up, Project Natal. The Natural User Interface is removing the last barrier to gaming, the controller. It will be launched “this holiday season 2010” and will work with your existing console allowing you to “experience a new but natural way to play, 2010 is going to be the biggest year in Xbox history”.

That’s it, some pretty cool announcements, such as the slate PC. I will be interested to see apples effort on the 26^th of January at their event. We finally have a release date for Natal and looking at the list of games is breath taking. I agree with you Robbie, 2010 is certainly the biggest year in Xbox history.