Two of the people who spearheaded the Xbox project within Microsoft will leave the company this year, it said Tuesday.

Robbie Bach (pictured above playing Project Natal), president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, will retire this fall. J Allard, senior VP of design and development for Bach’s division, will also leave the company but remain in an advisory role.

One of the original creators of the Xbox, Allard spent a few years as the face of the company’s gaming efforts, appearing ..read the full article

With the Halo: Reach open beta finally over, Xbox gamers can set their sights on September.

Bungie said today that Halo: Reach will be coming to store shelves in the United States on September 14. Japan gets the game on September 15.

Halo: Reach, an Xbox 360 exclusive, is the fifth game in the long-running and wildly sucessful series of action-packed first-person shooters about space marines fending off the advances of ticked-off aliens called the Covenant.

When September rolls around, fans will have ..read the full article

Movie studio executives are blaming videogames for dragging young men away from theaters.

The Sunday Times calls it the “Xbox Factor.” Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Pictures, backed them up. “A lot of young males are spending much more time on the internet, games and UFC,” he said. “They have not abandoned movies but they have diminished as a target, while the female audience has remained robust.”

The article explores how Hollywood seeks to tap into the female audience by throwing ..read the full article

Well, this is no shocker. Microsoft Senior Regional Director for Entertainment, Neil Thompson, told MCV that Modern Warfare 2 will be best experienced on the Xbox 360. You don’t say.

“We want to offer people the best possible Modern Warfare 2 experience,” said Thompson. “We firmly believe that with LIVE services, the quality of the gaming experience on 360, and all the new ways we can get consumers engaged with the IP that Xbox is the best platform to experience this ..read the full article

Forza Motorsport 3 is undoubtedly a visually impressive racer, as noted in our hands-on time earlier this month. With a robust physics engine, 10 times more polygons than its predecessor and all running on a solid 60 frames per second, Forza 3 is going to be the racer to beat when it comes out this October on the Xbox 360. But despite all the magic voodoo that Turn 10 has performed on Microsoft’s console to churn out the realistic visuals, ..read the full article

Here’s the list of this weeks game releases. The most popular titles are Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on DS, Dead Space Extraction on Wii, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on PS3, and Gran Turismo on PSP. On the downloadable games front we’ve got today’s Wii Shop and DSiWare titles Arkanoid Plus, DRiiFT Mania, Altered Beast, Art Academy, Dragon Quest Wars. Followed by Bust-A-Move, Football Genius, and Military Madness on Xbox Live Arcade (updates Wednesday). As well as Heroes Of Might & ..read the full article

Any time a company publicly states that they are choosing one console over another, the floodgates open and waves of comments from supporters and detractors begin to roll in. Ubisoft, either not knowing of this occurrence or, most likely, wanting to stir up the fan base to keep the coverage rolling, has fired the first shot for Splinter Cell: Conviction by saying that the game is “meant for the Xbox 360.”

“There’s going to be a really strong partnership with Microsoft,” ..read the full article

[bliptv gctbgaONSwI]

Dragon Age: Origins expands on its family of misfits, introducing Zevran, an assassin who joined the order of The Crown without having much say in the matter, according to the video above. Raised amongst “whores,” as Zevran himself puts it, this assassin is recruited to join the Alistair, Leliana and the rest of the crew which, according to Morrigan, is “a fine plan.” He swears his allegiance to the party, giving the party reason enough to be in doubt what with ..read the full article

Here is a cool Halo Xbox 360 casemod from modder, EvilDan. It features Master Chief and a Covenant Elite on top of the console. The best part of this Xbox 360 case mod is the glowing blue LED sticky grenade in the Master Chief’s hand. See more pictures after the jump.

[technabob]

Here’s the latest trailer from the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII which was presented during last weekend’s Tokyo Game Show by Square Enix. The game will be released in Japan on December 17th for PS3, and in Spring 2010 in both US and Europe for PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms. Watch the trailer after the break.

[VG247]

So it’s pretty obvious that Netflix Instant Watch is a pretty cool thing. What made it super awesome, though, was when it showed up on Xbox Live for Gold members. Of course, being that there is a massive competition between consoles, it only makes sense that supporters of the Wii and PlayStation 3 would wonder if/when the service would find its way to their console of choice. And why wouldn’t it? The thing’s done Netflix a good chunk of good. ..read the full article

With Risen finding gold a week ago, and its imminent October 2nd launch approaching fast, Deep Silver released this cinematic trailer which could at certain levels be considered epic. Although, we’re not sure if 40 seconds is enough to call anything epic, but with a shipwreck at sea and our hero’s survival and arising, this is pretty much as close to being epic as a 40 second trailer of any game can possibly get.

Risen launches for PC October 2nd as ..read the full article

Microsoft is always trying to push Xbox Live further, innovating in any way possible. The next goal is to deliver Joy Ride, developed by Big Park, as the first ever free-to-play Xbox Live Arcade game in which you will put your avatar behind the wheel and drive through a Grand Canyon-inspired location in a wildly manner. You can pimp your car and dress your avatar via microtransactions, then head out to the road and make a name for yourself, styling in ..read the full article

What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the hottest right now. Think of it as a games weather report.

What follows is a listing of the Top 50 bestsellers per region, for all systems combined.

1. Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360) 2. Wii Sports Resort with Wii MotionPlus Accessory (Wii) 3. Scribblenauts (DS) 4. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS) 5. Mario & Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story (DS) 6. Mario Kart with ..read the full article

Welcome to the MagnaCarta 2 wallpapers page!

MagnaCarta 2 is the Xbox 360-exclusive sequel to the PS2 RPG Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata (Magna Carta: The Phantom of Avalanche on PC). Here we will post images that you can use as desktop wallpapers, both official and otherwise. We will add to this list as we find cool new wallpapers for the game.

To download to your PC computer: Right click on the Image. Select “Set as Background Image.”

To download to your Mac ..read the full article

Welcome to the Forza Motorsport 3 wallpapers page!

Microsoft’s racing franchise finally returns for Xbox 360.H ere we will post images that you can use as desktop wallpapers, both official and otherwise. We will add to this list as we find cool new wallpapers for the game.

To download to your PC computer: Right click on the Image. Select “Set as Background Image.”

To download to your Mac computer: Click Image to Download to Desktop. Go to Apple Menu > System ..read the full article

Splinter Cell: Conviction has been dated for February 23, 2010 on Xbox 360 and PC announced publisher Ubisoft.

The final date was finally announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2009 following numerous delays for the first next-gen entry in the popular last-gen stealth series. The game will also ship in February for the UK and the rest of the European Union.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is set two years after Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which saw series hero Sam Fisher become a ..read the full article

The Red Faction: Guerrilla Smasher Pack will be made available on October 1st, 2009 for $4.99. Available for Xbox 360 and PS3, the pack includes 8 maps for the offline Wrecking Crew mode and the new found ability to use mechs in multiplayer. [Destructoid]