Scogg's Score: Marathon Madness

After the release of the fastest-selling video game in history, Halo 3, rumors have been flooding cyberspace like crazy. People are wondering what former Microsoft affiliate Bungie Studios will do now that they've finished the so-called "final chapter" of perhaps what has become one of the most revolutionary First-person Shooter games in the history of the industry, (second only to Doom). Well, I'll tell you what I've heard.

Remember back in the '90s a little after Doom was released? There was a game made for Macintosh computers by Bungie that went by the name of Marathon. The first-person shooter genre was still in its infancy, but for those who played it, Marathon represented "a landmark in Macintosh gaming".



What many people don't know is that much of what Halo was based on came from concepts from Marathon. Now for the juicy bit: rumor has it that Bungie plans to completely remake the Marathon series using to their full advantage all the pleasures of modern technology. Could this be the next big FPS blockbuster, or just one more FPS blowout? Only time can tell...

Slash Those Prices

This week Microsoft finally announced a price reduction for their ever-popular-yet-notoriously-expensive gaming console, the Xbox 360. A price drop of around $50 will be effective for each package available:

• Core: now $279.99
• Premium: now $349.99
• Elite: now $449.99
  

This was an expected move from Microsoft, seeing as how rival Sony just recently dropped the price of their console: the PS3. Sony wisely chose to lower the price of their 60GB model from $599 to $499 in response to "lower-than-expected sales of the console."

Microsoft hopes that the price cut will open the wallets... er... I mean minds of previously unreached consumers, resulting in a much sought-after increase in sales. As for me, I just bought mine off of eBay.

For more information, see Xbox.com.

WTF?! Microsoft now Digg's Ad Company

Kevin Rose and the rest of the gang at Digg have scored a somewhat surprising deal with Microsoft to sell their ads. It's odd, but hey, whatever pays the bills, right? Here's a quote from Rose on the Digg blog:

This move gives us an advertising partner with a larger organization and a more scalable technology platform to keep pace with Digg’s growth. Best of all, it lets the Digg team completely focus on new feature development. Federated Media, which has been an awesome partner for the last year and a half, will continue working with Digg focusing on integrated sponsorships and custom programs like the Arc project in labs.

This should make no difference whatsoever to your digging experience, hopefully. I just thought everyone would like to know.