Microsoft has been making some noise lately regarding an extended lifespan for the Xbox 360 console. One of the things they’re counting on is Project Natal. Another is software, the very thing Microsoft was built on.

The latter is also what Microsoft exec Shane Kim thinks will be one of the deciding factors for next gen, even more so than actual hardware. According to Kim, software and services like Xbox Live will be deciding factors for the “next generation.” Speaking with Fast Company, Kim said:

In the past we would always get this question, “Hey, there’s a new console launch every five years and you’re coming up on that time for Xbox, right?” That’s the old treadmill way of thinking.

Before you had things that were very obvious, from a hardware standpoint — pushing more pixels, the move from 2-D to 3-D, 3-D to HD, etc. We got a very powerful piece of hardware in Xbox 360.

I am confident that we have more headroom available, in terms of developers and creators figuring out how to get more out of the system. So I worry less about new hardware having to enable us to move to a different level of graphics. It’s much more about the experiences that you are going to deliver.

That’s why I think we’re very well-positioned, competitively speaking, because Microsoft is a software and services company.

• Shane Kim: We’ve reached a level third-party playing field with MGS Rising
• E3 2009: Shane Kim: Natal extended Xbox 360 life through 2015

Activision has finally revealed the full track listing of Guitar Hero 5 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii). The list features 85 tracks ranging from pop to rock, from indie to classic. The game is slated for a September 1 release.

• 3 Doors Down - Kryptonite
• A Perfect Circle - Judith
• AFI - Medicate
• Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm
• Attack! Attack! UK - You And Me
• Band Of Horses - Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
• Beastie Boys - Gratitude
• Beck - Gamma Ray
• Billy Idol - Dancing With Myself
• Billy Squier - Lonely Is The Night
• Blink-182 - The Rock Show
• Blur - Song 2
• Bob Dylan - All Along The Watchtower
• Bon Jovi - You Give Love A Bad Name
• Brand New - Sowing Season (Yeah)
• The Bronx - Six Days A Week
• Bush - Comedown
• Children Of Bodom - Done With Everything, Die For Nothing
• Coldplay - In My Place
• Darker My Love - Blue Day
• Darkest Hour - Demon(s)
• David Bowie - Fame
• Deep Purple - Woman From Tokyo (’99 Remix)
• The Derek Trucks Band - Younk Funk
• Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing
• The Duke Spirit - Send A Little Love Token
• Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf
• Eagles Of Death Metal - Wannabe In L.A.
• Elliott Smith - L.A.
• Elton John - Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)
• Face To Face - Disconnected
• Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains
• Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
• Gov’t Mule - Streamline Woman
• Grand Funk Railroad - We’re An American Band
• Iggy Pop - Lust For Life (Live)
• Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes To Midnight
• Jeff Beck - Scatterbrain (Live)
• Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
• John Mellencamp - Hurts So Good
• Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire
• Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat
• King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man
• Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire
• Kiss - Shout It Out Loud
• Love and Rockets - Mirror People
• Megadeth - Sweating Bullets
• M tley Cr e - Looks That Kill
• Muse - Plug In Baby
• My Morning Jacket - One Big Holiday
• Nirvana - Lithium (Live)
• Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
• No Doubt - Ex-Girlfriend
• Peter Frampton - Do You Feel Like We Do? (Live)
• The Police - So Lonely
• Public Enemy Featuring Zakk Wylde - Bring the Noise 20XX
• Queens Of The Stone Age - Make It Wit Chu
• Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
• Rammstein Du Hast
• The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil
• Rose Hill Drive - Sneak Out
• Rush - The Spirit Of Radio (Live)
• Santana - No One To Depend On (Live)
• Scars On Broadway - They Say
• Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You
• Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings
• Sonic Youth - Incinerate
• Spacehog - In The Meantime
• Stevie Wonder - Superstition
• Sublime - What I Got
• Sunny Day Real Estate - Seven
• T. Rex - 20th Century Boy
• The Killers - All The Pretty Faces
• The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes
• The Sword - Maiden, Mother & Crone
• Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
• Thrice - Deadbolt
• Tom Petty - Runnin’ Down A Dream
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - American Girl
• TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me
• Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
• Weezer - Why Bother?
• The White Stripes - Blue Orchid
• Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music
• Wolfmother - Back Round

• Full Guitar Hero 5 band list revealed

A Telltale games employee who goes by the username Yare has claimed on the official Telltale forums that the Apple iPhone packs more power than Nintendo’s Wii home console. Not just more powerful, but “much more powerful.”

We’ve heard a lot of comparisons between the iPhone and other current market handhelds since the former’s release so coming across another one isn’t really that surprising anymore. Comparisons to current-gen home consoles, on the other hand, aren’t as prevalent, I think.

The statement was made in a thread for complaints about the bad quality of Telltale’s WiiWare version of Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Yare backed up his claims with the following explanation:

The extra RAM is really what makes the difference. Of the Wii’s 88 MB of RAM, a not insignificant chunk of that is always being used by the OS and is unavailable to developers. The Wii’s RAM is also split into two separate banks, each of which has different read/write metrics and you can’t really spill from one to another if you need to.

As I said before, everything in computer science is about striking a balance between a small memory footprint, or having blistering fast algorithms. When you are limited in file size and memory footprint, you spend a lot of processing time decompressing things, deciding what needs to be loaded in memory at the moment, streaming things on/off the disk, and so on. If you have more memory, you can use cheaper (or no) compression, spend less time worrying about how much stuff can be loaded, hit the disk less frequently, memorize calculations, and other awesome stuff.

A little bit of RAM goes a huge way in letting you use faster algorithms. It’s more important than a faster processor, IMO.

• id Software: iPhone more powerful than DS and PSP combined

Homebrew coder mdbrim has released the first version of Wii Double Down, a simple blackjack game for the Nintendo Wii. The goal of the game is to get a higher card total than the dealer, but without going over 21.

Since this is the initial release of the game, the dev plans to add more features in the next release like split feature, custom mp3 support, multiplayer mode and more casino games.

Download: Wii Double Down v1.0

• Wii homebrew game - BlastGuy v2.0
• Wii homebrew - Turnip v0.1

As GamesCom slowly approaches, we’ve got more publishers announcing their lineup for the said event. For today, it’s Square Enix and their newly-acquired Eidos, and the two will be sharing one booth to showcase their joint lineup. Hold your horses though, there aren’t any crossovers from the two publishers just yet.

These are what they’ll be bringing:

• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Dissidia Final Fantasy
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Final Fantasy XIV
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
• Mini Ninjas
• Supreme Commander 2

• Konami and Kojima announce their GamesCom lineup
• Square Enix Europe announces GamesCom 2009 game lineup
  

Capcom’s all ready to ship out the latest iteration in the ber-popular Monster Hunter franchise, Monster Hunter Tri, in Japan this Saturday. So ready for the oncoming stampede, in fact, that they have shipped out over one million units already in prep for the launch.

This figure stands to be significant because this becomes the first ever third party Wii game to ship out over 1 million unites in Japan. The whole MH franchise has proven to be highly successful in Japan thus far, having surpassed the 10 million units shipped mark.

To be released for the Nintendo Wii,  Monster Hunter Tri boasts of greatly enhanced graphics, as well as the expansion of the entire MH world. For the first time, you can hunt underwater aquatic beasts, on top of being able to enjoy online functionality for multiplayer. There’s also the split-screen co-op mode implemented, and a new Arena fighting mode.

Still no word on when US will be getting this monster of a jewel, though. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on that.

• Monster Hunter Tri Japan release date announced, US ‘not YET’

When Limit Break posted a Mario Family Line about two weeks ago to enumerate every released title and spin-off in Mario’s history, veteran game journalist Jim Sterling commented, “I’d be really interested to see this guy do a chart for Mega Man as well… but that’s probably a project that could take a lifetime to complete.” For Destructoid community member megaStryke, it took just a week.

“I took it upon myself to do for Mega Man what Agamemnon of Limit Break did for Mario,” he said. “It was hard. It was time-consuming. Why didn’t I just drop the whole thing? I have too much free time.” I remember trying to do so back when I posted on the PSN release of Mega Man One, but I had no such time on my hands. Lucky for us, megaStryke does.

To the best of megaStryke’s knowledge, the chart features every title and spin-off on every platform, and even LCD games, ever released by Capcom. The image is HUGE, so if you want to see in in all its Mega-glory, you can hit the source link below.

• Junior cosplay: kid dressed up as Mega Man
• Megaman 2.5d now has a multiplayer video - MegaMan and ProtoMan
  

When Limit Break posted a Mario Family Line about two weeks ago to enumerate every released title and spin-off in Mario’s history, veteran game journalist Jim Sterling commented, “I’d be really interested to see this guy do a chart for Mega Man as well… but that’s probably a project that could take a lifetime to complete.” For Destructoid community member megaStryke, it took just a week.

“I took it upon myself to do for Mega Man what Agamemnon of Limit Break did for Mario,” he said. “It was hard. It was time-consuming. Why didn’t I just drop the whole thing? I have too much free time.” I remember trying to do so back when I posted on the PSN release of Mega Man One, but I had no such time on my hands. Lucky for us, megaStryke does.

To the best of megaStryke’s knowledge, the chart features every title and spin-off on every platform, and even LCD games, ever released by Capcom. The image is HUGE, so if you want to see in in all its Mega-glory, you can hit the source link below.

• Junior cosplay: kid dressed up as Mega Man
• Megaman 2.5d now has a multiplayer video - MegaMan and ProtoMan
  

“EA launched the game in 2008 and is working on the second and third installments.” This is the line from Variety’s piece on the Dead Space film that got tongues wagging as to whether or not Electronic Arts is indeed concurrently developing parts 2 and 3.

The article was centered on the sci-fi/horror film adaptation of the video game, confirmed to be directed by D.J. Caruso of Eagle Eye fame. According to the report, the production is now in the process of selecting from among prospective screenwriters, after which they will auction the property to studios for backing. If all goes well according plan, the film may be off pitching and scouting for a publisher by September.

But let’s go back to that intriguing line above. Is EA doing installments 2 and 3? At the Comic-Con, the most that the Dead Space team would allow themselves to admit is that a Dead Space 2 reveal isn’t necessarily a long shot. But still:

The only Dead Space game announced and in development at this time is Dead Space: Extraction.

They do like that “for now” spiel quite a bit as of late, don’t you think. That’s also what they said when asked if Extraction was to remain a Wii exclusive.

So the question remains, and it looks like it will stay that way, at least until EA decides the time is ripe to announce more Dead Space titles. For now, folks can keep speculating, and the film production team can continue on with the flick’s development.

• Visceral execs leaving EA for Activision
• Video: Dead Space: Extraction gameplay mechanics and controls
  

Following the success of the UFC 2009: Undisputed in the PS3 and Xbox 360, THQ is now moving to bring mixed martial arts into the Wii and the handhelds. Having shifted nearly three million copies, the publisher is now considering expanding into more platforms and even yearly installments like all the other sports titles.

So says THQ through an investor call:

We plan to launch games based on UFC on an annual basis and to build this franchise with new technology and game play, additional platforms and increase sales outside of North America as the UFC brand continues its global expansion.

Brian Farrell of THQ was a little more specific:

Over time, we plan to build our UFC franchise by expanding international sales and by developing games on new platforms such as handhelds and the Nintendo Wii.

• UFC 2009: Undisputed patch detailed, will implement anti-rage quitting measures
• UFC’s Dana White: EA told us we weren’t a real sport