The ex-Sega-Microsoft-Now-EA man Peter Moore has provide a retelling of the last days of Dreamcast, as it were. He revealed that he was the one who gave the word to "can" the system. He called the 18 months of "pain, heartache, and euphoria." The system was one of our favorites here at GR, but it just never reached the critical mass to beat the PS2's impending launch.

"We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2. It was a big stakes game. Sega had the option of pouring in more money and going bankrupt and they decided they wanted to live to fight another day. So we licked our wounds, ate some humble pie and went to Sony and Nintendo to ask for dev kits."

The new Lime Green Limited Edition XBox360 pad being released next month by Microsoft will feature the enhanced dpad that everyone is talking about -- except Microsoft, that is. Surprisingly, they have released the new controller with little, if any, fanfare, which is confusing considering it is one of the only gripes gamers have with the 360 pad. Eurogamer actually got one of the new pads and takes it through the motions. The games they use are not programmed to use the new 32-direction input that the pad sports, so their tests are strictly hardware based, which is good for existing games.

Microsoft has fired the employee who openly spoke with Venture Beat about the Xbox360's hardware launch issues. In case you missed the article, the employee, Robert Delaware, who worked as a tester for MS from 2005 to 2007, spoke about the many hardware issues the console had, as well as how XBox Live updates turned working consoles into non-working bricks. Nomatter how people may feel about his candid remarks, it is, in reality, a breach of his contract and NDA, so legally, he may be in trouble. It will be interesting to see how far MS pursues this.

Microsoft has responded to the NPD numbers for this month by claiming their upcoming karaoke title, Lips, is going to be a million-seller. Along with Guitar Hero, Fallout 3, and Rock Band 2, MS is expecting a strong selling Holiday season all around. Time will tell.

Microsoft has reaffirmed their ownership of the Age of Empires franchise in the wake of today's closure of the Halo Wars developer, Ensemble Studios. It seems that in the future, MS will be using the AoE license to make some new titles, and the staff left from Ensemble will be working on it.

"If you’re a PC gamer, you’ve likely played some version of Age of Empires somewhere along the line. I want to reassure you that Microsoft will still own the Age of Empires intellectual property,"

According to Bloomberg, the sales of the Xbox360 have almost doubled since the price cut was announced. Retailers reported a 100% increase in sales for all models as compared with the previous weekend, MS claims in an e-mailed statement. Once we have some solid numbers we will bring them to you.

Despite the comments made this morning by the CEO of Wild Tangent, Microsoft's Robbie Bach says that the demand for the Xbox360 hardware has not diminished at all. Speaking to Reuters from a promotional event, Bach claimed that despite worldwide economic issues, Xbox, Windows Mobile, and the Zune player's business have seen no significant decrease, at least not yet.

This ties in to our last news item, but here is the official separate, confirmation. Microsoft is indeed closing down Ensemble Studios, the Halo Wars developer, after the game's release. This is in order to reform the group into one developer which will support HW, as well as some other new projects.

The CEO of Wild Tangent claims that both Sony and MS will continue to close internal studios as the companies both strive to turn a profit. Speaking with GI, St. John said that MS themselves were "ramping down" the XBox360 investments, to enter what he called a "recovery phase." Our guess is it also has something to do with the next Xbox hardware in development, but that is just speculation from us at this point.

"You will clearly see Sony and Microsoft ramping down their investment in those platforms... What's interesting to note is that Microsoft [Game] Studios: the number of titles they're producing is in decline. So they're investing a lot less in the Xbox, and Sony is doing the same, because they're in a cost recovery phase," he said.

MS today announced the XBox Live Film Club. This new service will deliver sneak preview screenings of upcoming new movies to a select group of Xbox gamers in an exclusive setting. This gives them the chance to see the movies before anyone else. This is certainly something we need to hear more about, click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

London, 5th September 2008 – Xbox today announces a unique initiative that will enable entertainment fans to see some of the most anticipated new movies before their theatrical release.