I can't believe this name was shouted down by the press club

Xbox Australia has officially announced today a new official partnership with Foxtel (one of Australia’s major pay-TV networks) to deliver pay-TV via the Xbox 360 console.  Officially.

The move comes mere days after Sony’s announcement that they will be providing their own Movies-on-Demand service (spanning all the major movie studios no less) for the PlayStation 3 later in 2010.

Microsoft’s announcement basically continues the two consoles conflict as to who can provide the better media hub.  Xbox already has it’s own pay-per-view movie streaming deal in Australia, while PlayStation owners freely get to make use of ABC’s wonderful iView catch-up program.  Packages for the new Foxtel partnership haven’t been announced yet, but the announcement confirms that you will need both an Xbox Live Gold subscription and a seperate Xbox Foxtel subscription to recieve the service.  So if you’re staunchly a Silver account holder, you’ll have to go Gold if you want your new pay-TV.  Pricing is also yet to be announced, but I for one would keep in mind that these are the people who’d ask you to pay 200 wooden nickels MS Points for a single music video.  Something to consider.

The new Xbox service is creatively titled “Foxtel by Xbox Live”, as if that was seriously the best name they could come up with.  Why not BoxTel? Or FoxBox Gold?  Anyway, if you’re interested you can head on over to the official announcement for full details and PR approved quotes.  The word “innovative” will probably be used in there somewhere.

Both 360 and PS3′s new entertainment offerings will be available later in 2010.

With the recent release of Dragon Age: Origins (which I’ve still yet to get my hands on, stupid poverty!), everyone is once again enjoying the splendid quality that BioWare brings to their RPG titles.

But where do they go from here?  Mass Effect 2 is due out next year, but I think BioWare should consider teaming up with HBO to create a few choice TV show crossovers.  And I think I’ve got just the place to begin:

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No more five o'clock shadow reviewers allowed

It’s been a surprising week down here in Australia for viewer’s of the ABC’s gaming show Good Game.  Monday’s episode broke the news that long time co-presenter Junglist has been given the boot and replaced with a new female presenter: Hex.  Almost no explanation was given to the viewership, other than that Junglist had taken a “behind the scenes” role on the show.

The show’s management has been rather tight-lipped about the whole affair all week, weathering a viewer backlash of monumental proportions, until today when an official statement was issued on the Good Game forums.  Here’s a sample:

For all sorts of reasons we are unable to tell you things that have happened over many months inside Team Good Game which have impacted on the production. That’s just real life folks. We know it leaves many questions unanswered but we have reached that point where we really can’t say any more than that.

But we can tell you this much…

The decision to take Junglist off air was not forced upon us by ABC Management and it’s one that is fully supported by all the GG team. We are gutted that it has come to this but in our opinion it absolutely had to happen.

Understandably upset with the whole situation, this would apparently be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Junglist, who up until today had honoured his confidentiality clause to the letter.  Further on in the same forum post, however, Junglist dropped a little hard knowledge:

I feel now as if I’m being professionally attacked, so here’s a truth bomb. In the meeting where I was told I would be replaced, the reason given was they wanted a girl on the show. “Mass appeal” was a direct quote from that meeting. After a half-hour of explaining how they’ll lose their hardcore following, they responded that yes, they knew this, but expected to make up the numbers with a new following. “A show can grow beyond its hardcore base”, is another direct quote.

The decision was forced by ABC management, for a mass appeal direction, and will naturally be dumbed down for the loss of experience. Case in point: Monday night’s show. Both Forza 3 and Kingdom Hearts clearly written by people with no idea about those franchises. Hell, no one on the team even thought to correct the presenters on how to pronounce “Forza” correctly? Expect a lot more of that…

Both the show’s producer and co-presenter have different versions of events, but it’s obvious that this is something that has come down from high up in the ABC’s management.  To this effect, Junglist is hoping that irate viewers lay off new presenter Hex, as “all she ever did was accept a cool job”.  For those interested, you can join the Save Junglist movement, even if all evidence points to it being irreconcilable.

Hitler isn’t happy, people.

A episode a day could keep the boredom at bay

I almost had a brief joygasm before when flicking channels on TV brought the announcement that SBS‘s second digital channel SBS Two begins it’s broadcast in earnest this week.  Previously the channel had simply either mirrored SBS One’s content or provided foreign language news broadcasts.  The reason for my elation was my misunderstanding of the channel’s announcement ad implying that Iron Chef (the good one, not Iron Chef: America) would be screening every night.

Suffice to say I was proved wrong, but what a happy couple of minutes it was.

Turns out Iron Chef is one of the SEVEN rotating shows in SBS Two’s 7:30pm slot.  The conclusion?  It’s on once a week, just like … well, it always has been.  Sigh.

Still, even suffering this disappointment, SBS Two looks like it’s shaping up to have a pretty good evening selection.  Every night has a different movie from around the world, with different genres for different days (for example Thursday is action, Sunday is comedy).  I’m not sure if it’s always going to be able to compete with the fine level of programming SBS One usually offers of a night-time, but it’ll certainly be a good alternative view.

Oh, and in the process of garnering the links for this post, I also discovered that there is an Iron Chef: America game in development for the Wii and DS.  I have been tossing up if I should buy a DS for a long time, that might just tip the scales.