Madden '12 Releasing Early....Say Whaaaaaat!

Looks like you can get Madden before most jocks. Who'da thunk it.

Madden 12 will be available Friday, August 26th through the Season Ticket subscription plan. It'll be available for the Xbox 360 at 10 AM EST/ 7 AM PST and on the Playstation 3 at 6 PM EST/ 3 PM EST.

The digital copy will expire Tuesday morning but all the saved info and achievements will be transfered to the retail copies of the games. All game modes minus Madden Ultimate Team will be available. Yes, online play will be available as well.

4J Studios Working on Kinect Version of Minecraft

As Minecraft approaches ever closer to its official "launch date" this November, the universe itself continues to expand to various other platforms. Most recently Microsoft announced at E3 that a Kinect-enabled version would be making its way to the Xbox 360.

Well we now have some more information about that, Markus "Notch" Perrson creator of Minecraft revealed last night via his Twitter account that 4J Studios will be handling the 360 port of the gaming phenomenon. For those unfamiliar with 4J, they've worked with Microsoft before, they're the ones who ported Perfect Dark, and the two Banjo-Kazooie games to the Xbox Live Arcade. They also ported The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to the PS3.

Minecraft is also going mobile this year, though that will be handled by an in-house team. It'll show up on Android first (Sony's Xperia Play) and iOS devices after that. This is all of course in addition to constant updates being made to the main game itself in preperation for it moving out of beta and into final.

Hacking Made Official, Microsoft Launches Kinect SDK

Let's be honest, there haven't been a lot of games worth playing for the Kinect. Hackers on the other hand have found plenty of uses for Microsoft's motion controlled device. Wanting to get in on some of the action that's been going on in the community, Microsoft has officially released the Kinect software development kit in beta, providing an official place for these Kinect creations.

As of now creators cannot charge for what they create using the kit unless they're official developers, Microsoft says this will change down the line.

Microsoft is calling this beta a "starter kit" and hopes that it will be used by the "academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich experiences" for the Kinect.

If you're interested in using the SDK you can download it right here.

Rage to be on 3 Discs for 360

It has recently been confirmed that Rage is walking the same path as LA Noire, in that it will be spanned across 3 discs for the Xbox 360.  There will be 2 discs for the single player campaign and a 3rd for multiplayer, PS3 owners will be pleased to know it will still only be on a single disc for them.  I also attached a lengthy gameplay trailer of Rage from E3, below.

Cloud Storage Coming to Xbox Live

During all that E3 goodness, I wouldn't be surprised if this little piece of news slipped over your head, because it did to me.  Microsoft is going to be releasing a Cloud Storage service for XBL, which will not only save your profile in the cloud, but also your game saves.  What this means is that you will no longer have to recover your gamertag, and bring your hard drive when planning to use a different Xbox.  Instead all your profile data (including achievements, MS Points, and etc.) and your game saves (if you chose to store them in the cloud) will be saved in the "Secure" cloud for easy access from anywhere with an internet connection.