Well, some of you may have experienced some problems over the past 24 hours on the brewology network. You can rest assured that everything has been taken care of. Thank you for your cooperation during this time. If you are experiencing any difficulties signing in, leave a comment on this posting with your username and we will look into the matter as soon as possible. Once again we thank you for keeping the brewology alive and kicking and the best site for all your console needs. Thanks and have a happy 2008.

Brewology Staff

Now I know this is a bit late, but we’ve been having a bit of trouble with the servers and no one has had much of a chance to get on the site for around two weeks, But We couldn’t go without Wishing you all a

HAPPY NEW YEAR For 2008 FROM PS3brew!

“Three Texas residents filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of themselves and others who have had trouble connecting to Xbox Live in recent weeks.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Houston, claims Microsoft’s outages represent a breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation for which the software maker is liable. The suit doesn’t claim specific damages, but notes the amount is in excess of $5 million.
In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Microsoft should have known strong holiday sales would tax its servers. “Microsoft knew the increase in subscriptions would increase game-play on its servers, yet failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers.”

This seems a little harsh to me. Microsoft should have updated its servers before Christmas and Holidays but suing over it is a bit far, especially asking for $5 million. What does everyone else think? Be expecting a little more from Microsoft then a free arcade game if this actually goes through and happens.

Bad news for all of the Metal Gear Solid fans. Guns of the Patriots, the fourth game in the series, has had it's USA release date pushed into the second-quarter. The original plan was for all regions to get it at the same time. Europe is getting it later in the first-quarter, Australia in April, and Japan's release is yet to be announced. The reason for the delay is, as usual, to improve the game for release.

Official response from Marc Whitten:

 Dear Xbox LIVE Members: 

During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service. 

As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state. 

At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you. 

Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today! 

Sincerely,
Marc Whitten

General Manager, Xbox LIVE 

A free arcade game…thats all?  Microsoft needs to do better then this. Maybe a month of Gold (heck a free week of Gold)? Maybe 800 Microsoft points so we all can go buy the new maps for Halo 3? All i have to say is Microsoft better give us a selection and not a game such as Tetris or Pacman.  

 Discuss in our forums 

HERE

When contacted by Next-Gen, Microsoft declined to comment on the rumor. However, a separate source close to Microsoft who wished to remain anonymous said that the rumored “Ultimate” is simply not on the cards.

By the way it looks the Ultimate is a story brewing in some man’s mind as of right now. Bill Gates and his crew have enough money to make a Ultimate though just to show us wrong. We will update as we learn more about the situation. 

Metal Gear Solid 4 coming to Xbox 360

http://xboxfamily.com/xf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1123&Itemid=2

According to The XboxFamily fansite, one of Konami's representatives stated that Metal Gear Solid 4 will

be released 12 to 14 months after the PS3 version hits the shelves. The sites News poster claims that this

is not a rumor, he has took the chance to speak with a Konami representative and stated that Metal Gear Solid 4

is in development for the 360.

If you havent found the way to find out what you have yet, here is how.

Every Falcon has HDMI but every HDMI does not have Falcon.  NO HDMI= No Falcon. HDMI=Maybe

Now that we have gotten that, here are the steps to take to find out what you have.

1. Take your HDD off so you do not damage your 360.

2. Turn your 360 upside down verticle.

3. Get a good flashlight and look for these in the middleish:

90nm click here

60nm click here

Discuss in our forums HERE

Here is an EASY way to see what DVD drive you have (without voiding waranty) and a short description of each.

Take notice of the shape of the DVD tray itself.  Each have a unique design that makes it a relatively easy task to determine which drive you have without opening your console.

Hitachi: Easy to flash. Easy to Brick.

Samsung: Easy to flash. NOT easy to Brick.

BENQ: Not much is known of this drive. Popular opinion is quietest and fastest of all the 360 drives.

Click HERE to discuss in our forums

Why not add 2 posts together?

First: Xbox Live Problems: If you are having problems with your Gold subscription to Xbox Live do not be alarmed. Everyone is having problems with the service and the problem is being checked out by crew from Microsoft (almost fixed). This is mainly going out to people who had problems a few days ago(and still now but its not as bad). The problem is being said "almost" fixed. If you are a Gold subscriber be expecting a "gift" in some fashion from Microsoft. They have said they will do something for the members who had issuses (1 month free Live? 1000 points?)

Second: Brewology Issues: The staff is aware that people cant get to the site half the time (for me more then half) and is working on the issue. No worries, for to much longer the problem will be resolved.

To discuss in our forums click HERE