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Opening Acts Announced for U2’s 360 Tour

, a performer at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, will be one of the acts joining on their 360 Tour.

Interpol, Lenny Kravitz and The Fray will also open up for the group when the North American leg (finally!) begins next summer.

You can see the list and dates after the jump.

Click to continue reading Opening Acts Announced for U2’s 360 Tour

Read More | U2

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U2 Announces New Dates, Records Message


I hope you’re still holding on to those unused concert tickets.

Although Bono underwent emergency back surgery in May, the lead singer has been “rebuilt by German engineering” and is - as seen in the video - back on the road to recovery. This means the band will soon be back on the road and performing in stadiums around the world.

The group will first wrap up the European leg of their summer tour (those dates were unaffected) beginning with the August 6th stop in Turin, Italy. The previously scheduled stops in North America will then kick off in May 2011.

For more information on the new dates, you check out information posted on the band’s website here.

Read More | Rolling Stone

U2 Officially Delays Concert Tour

U2

Concert promoter is having a very bad week.

First, Christina Aguilera announces she’ll be postponing her tour until sometime 2011. Now, U2 is delaying their gigs as well.

The official announcement comes just days after learning that Bono had emergency surgery on his back in Munich, Germany. Although it had already been announced that the band’s stop in Salt Lake City would be rescheduled, the remaining cities in the group’s North American leg will now have to wait as well.

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Read More | Today

Bono Has Surgery, Fate of U2 Tour in Question

Bono

UPDATE: All dates from the North American leg have now officially been postponed until 2011.

‘s trip to Salt Lake City has taken an unexpected detour - toward the hospital.

The singer, who is in the middle of a worldwide tour with U2, is currently receiving medical treatment in Germany. “Bono has today undergone emergency back surgery for an injury sustained during tour preparation training,” a statement on the band’s website explains. “He was admitted to a specialist neuro surgery unit in a Munich hospital, and is under the care of neuro surgeon Prof. Dr. Jorg Tonn and Dr Muller Wohlfahrt. Bono will spend the next few days there, before returning home to recuperate.”

Click to continue reading Bono Has Surgery, Fate of U2 Tour in Question

Read More | Daily Mail

Saints Row 2 Announced

Saints Row 2 Logo

THQ announced that sequel to the GTA-style next gen game Saints Row is in the works. Saints Row was an Xbox 360 exclusive that followed the criminal underworld/open world model of Rockstar‘s key franchise pretty closely but included a character generator and several minor improvements that made it a hit with early 360 adopters.

Saints Row 2 takes place years after the original in the same city (Stillwater), but things have changed with the passage of time. As described in the press release, “Saints Row 2 has a much darker and more sinister story that leads your character down a path of betrayal, revenge and redemption against the city that has left him for dead.”

Unlike the original, which was a 360 exclusive, Saints Row 2 will be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sometime in 2008.

Read More | Business Wire via GamerNode


Call of Duty 4 Beta Ends September 30th

Call of Duty 4

Robert “402” Bowling from Infinity Ward has posted about some upcoming changes to the Call of Duty 4 beta on his blog. The most significant announcement is the closing of the beta on September 30th, but he also revealed that two days prior the level cap, which has been at 16 for a couple of weeks after being lifted from the initial cap of 11, will go up to 25. That gives beta testers only two days to jump from 16 to 25 before the beta closes down in anticipation of the game’s release November 5th.

Part of the post hinted that CoD4 had gone gold, but Bowling refused to come right out and say it, saving the announcement for more official channels. He did say that Infinity Ward had received congratulations from the Sony of America and the Xbox 360 certification team, which leaves little room for doubt that the game is in the final stages before shipping.

The beta has been an excellent marketing tool for Infinity Ward since the strength of the game is quite evident from the limited, multiplayer-only test version. Even though the game is likely gold, the beta continues for developers to continue gathering data for the inevitable title upgrades and expansion packs. The raising of the level cap so close to the end of the beta is, speculatively, due to the launch of a certain multiplayer juggernaut a few days prior.

Read More | Fourzerotwo's Blog

Inside Halo 3’s $10 Million Marketing Push

Microsoft has known how important Halo 3 will be to their success this generation since before they even announced the Xbox 360. Halo 2 sold $125 million on the first day, but then the original Xbox was just struggling for recognition in the wake of the PS2 juggernaut. Now the 360 holds a tenuous lead in installed base and isn’t selling the way Microsoft may have hoped. If it’s possible Halo 3 may have become even more important to Microsoft’s strategy than they originally hoped. Fortunately, they’ve been planning ahead.

In an article released today on Brand Week, the calculated ten-month marketing efforts behind ‘s trilogy finale is dissected starting from the Starry Nights TV spot launched last November through the public beta this spring/early summer. They talk about the Project Iris viral campaign and the efforts they’ve gone to secure strategic branding partners. This has included the Mountain Dew Game Fuel limited edition soft drink that comes plastered with Halo 3 imagery plus a total of $5 million from Pontiac to help push the launch of the game on September 25.

And they aren’t done yet. Microsoft will begin the full blitz with the new Believe campaign that will lead up to the launch taking place at midnight in over 10,000 stores to give Halo fans a chance to grab the game as soon as possible. It’s an interesting read about the science behind building a monster.

Read More | Brand Week via Kotaku


Harmonix Co-Founder Answers Questions About Rock Band

Rock Band Guitar ControllerThe Official Xbox Magazine’s podcast has an interview this week with Harmonix co-founder and president Alex Rigopulos about their upcoming game Rock Band. In the interview he talks about the game bundles, although light on concrete details he does confirm a band-in-a-box bundle that will include a guitar, drum kit and microphone. However, he goes on to say that the PlayStation 3 version will include a wireless guitar controller while the Xbox 360 version will have to include a wired guitar because Microsoft‘s wireless technology is too expensive to make the bundle reasonably priced. Since the 360 also has only two USB ports, the 360 Rock Band bundle will also be packed with a USB hub.

Rigopulos goes on to discuss the game’s career modes a little, saying there will be both solo career mode that progresses in a linear fashion similar to what Guitar Hero players are used to, but they are also including a less linear band career mode. In this mode you traverse to various venues trying to build up your fan base and in some cases return to previously played locations to maintain your fame there. Also it’s worth noting that the solo career mode will not include a bass career track so your options are vocals, guitar and drums in solo career mode. But Rigopulos did reveal that the finale songs for each career path (and therefore likely the difficulty distinctions throughout) will be different for each instrument, and he even said that at this point the drum finale will be The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Click to continue reading Harmonix Co-Founder Answers Questions About Rock Band

Read More | KOXM Podcast

Xbox Live Arcade and Virtual Console Releases This Week

BonkThere are six new games to choose from this week on and , though none of them are original games (which you expect from VC but even XBLA is arcade ports this week). Plus, most of this week’s games are relatively inexpensive with one exception.

Games this week include Bonk 3: Bonk’s Big Adventure, Adventure Island, Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Cyberball 2072 and Fatal Fury Special. Details for the releases are below.

Click to continue reading Xbox Live Arcade and Virtual Console Releases This Week

Read More | Nintendo Press Release

GamerAndy Live! Episode 86: Chocolate Rain

Finally, now that the dust has settled from E3, we have finally found the time to get our thoughts in order and give you an extra-long episode of GamerAndy Live!

This week, Edie and Hawkes chat up all that happened before E3, during E3, and after E3, including:

OUR E3 COVERAGE
- How Edie spotted Slash, missed Ron Jeremy and got groped by China Doll;
- Edie defends why she thinks Nintendo “won” E3 this year;
- Why Hawkes wasn’t as impressed at Killzone 2 as many others;
- Burnout Paradise;
- John Woo’s Stranglehold;
- Fallout 3;
- Hellgate: London;
- Katamari Damarcy;
- PGR4;
- Assassin’s Creed;
- Why Activision will get sued over Guitar Hero III;
- The big scoop we

almost

had;
- Rumor that E for All may not happen

NEWS
- Peter Moore chucks MS job for EA Sports;
- EA Sports: Hockey-less in ‘08;
- Chocolate Rain;
- Bully revamped for release on 360 and Wii;
- Wii Fit
- MGS4 coming to 360?
- Shoutouts and Shoutats;
- Problems for Unreal Engine?
- X07 gone;
- Xbox extended warantees;
- PS3 price drop…er, clearance sale;
- The Jaime Kennedy Embarassment;
- South Park’s WoW episode nominated for Emmy

Enjoy!


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