The weekend is upon us Axeheads, thus ending another work week and finally giving us the chance to gather this week’s rumors and give them the blessing or slaughtering they deserve.  Hurray! This week was definitely a green themed week, and by green I mean an Xbox 360 themed week.  Now, before you start calling me a fanboy or other hurtful words just know that I obviously have no control over what the rumors of the week are.  I wish I did, but I didn’t. So for those deeply offended by this you obviously don’t have to read, but for those of you not blinded by the taint of fanboyism who want to take a stroll through this green lineup of rumors, grab your axes – it’s time for some slaying courtesy of EpicBattleAxe.com’s The Rumor KILL!

THE RUMOR: New Xbox 360 Acrade will have 4GB of memory

THE SOURCE: 1UP

MY TAKE: This rumor was one that is long overdue.  To be honest I’m completely surprised we didn’t hear about this the second after the 250GB model of the new Xbox 360 was announced.  Anyway, Amazon’s German store has seemingly let the cat out of the bag and listed an “Xbox 360 4 GB Arcade System Bundle” for 148.99 euros ($189 USD) with an August 20^th 2010 release date…opps!  The question is however is if this opps as in “we advertised a nonexistent system” opps   or a “oh, I forgot this wasn’t announced yet” opps.  Either way, 4GB is an interesting number for storage, so interesting that it’s hard to think it would be made up.  Think about it, if I was going to make a fake ad for a fake system wouldn’t I choose a common number for storage like 5 or a multiple of 10 or something along those lines instead of a seemingly random number like 4.  Maybe I’ve been watching too much Lie to Me and I’m looking too far into this but it’s a thought.

THE VERDICT: BELIEVE IT!!!

We all know a new “baseline” Xbox 360 has to be in the works since the old style is going into retirement and a $299, 250GB Xbox 360 isn’t going to be the one and only SKU with the new body style that Msoft will offer.  Microsoft needs that sleek new system at a small price tag in order to suck the casual audience into the clutches of Kinect and what better way to do so then have a cheap new 360 with the one feature cut out that everyone knows casual gamers don’t really need, a big hard drive.  Most of the people buying this SKU for the purpose of Kinect won’t be downloading titles or DLC or any other huge save files that would cause a need for a 250GB harddrive.  The one problem I see with this system though is its lack of appeal to 360 owners looking to upgrade to the new version.  For example, I have a Pro Model Xbox 360 and since my disk drive is on the verge of being as useful for playing games as a tea tray I’ve been considering an upgrade. However, the $299 price tag for the new 360 is a little much for a university student with debt leaking out of my pores.  This Arcade version would be in my price range but wouldn’t work at all since my 30GB or so of save files, DLC and XBLA games wouldn’t have a chance in hell of fitting on a 4GB drive – putting me in need of a new HD anyway.  See the dilemma?  So in summary, this 4GB Xbox 360 is in all odds on its way soon and is great for casual users but more hardcore gamers may not have use for it.

THE RUMOR: GoldenEye-like game is coming to Kinect courtesy of Rare

THE SOURCE: Eurogamer

MY TAKE: Okay I blame the title of the source for this rumor.  Eurogamer’s title for this article is “Rare researching GoldenEye for Kinect?”  when really GoldenEye itself was never mentioned but instead a “GoldenEye-like” game was briefly discussed.  Not a cool move guys since we all know the James Bond rights are Activision exclusive (hell I’m surprised I’m not charged a fee for just typing out “James Bond”) and therefore there’s not a shot in hell of Rare making a GoldenEye game.  A GoldenEye-esque game nevertheless is not completely out of the question for Kinect as Nick Burton himself said about said hypothetical game “for us, until you start on that product, it’s difficult to say what we’re going to do” implying that they plan to do something. As I’ve said many times before though planning and doing are two completely different things and for Rare to snap out of this casual game trance and start making the types of games that made them the renowned developer they are would be…a rarity.

THE VERDICT: KILL IT!!!

Sadly, Rare seems to have chosen the casual side of gaming and have seemingly ditched their once great library of awesome shooters, platformers and fighting games to make avatar accessories and Wii Sports knockoffs.  It’s incredibly lame but doesn’t seem to be changing, especially if Kinect Sports is actually successful.  If Kinect takes off, lead by Kinect Sports, we don’t have a hope of seeing Rare make more hardcore games if the casual market makes them the money Wii Sports did for Nintendo.  However, even if Kinect Sports and/or Kinect are flops (the two kind of go hand in hand) Microsoft will probably send Rare back to the drawing board and try again to push Kinect into the homes of people everywhere.  It seems the bottom line is Microsoft is using Rare as their go to developer for Kinect, whether Rare and Rare fans like it or not.

THE RUMOR: Photos have leaked of an Xbox 360 Dashboard Update due out with launch of Kinect

THE SOURCE: 1UP

MY TAKE: I already know what non-Xbox 360 players are saying: what exactly is the difference between the current dashboard and this one?  The answer is…very, very little.  Basically, as 1UP describes, the only real differences are the sharper edges on all the windows, slightly different color scheme and the panels aren’t staked over one another.  That’s it.  Why is this a big deal?  It isn’t, but it would be the first aesthetic dashboard change since the New Xbox Experience launched in November 2008.  The reason for this is obvious, to make the dashboard easier to navigate with Kinect as the separated panels and less rounded edges would make selecting what you want easier (and probably easier for Kinect as well).  The question is if these are real leaked photos of the dashboard update or photoshopped fakes created by some crazed person who wants attention.  Hard to tell since the differences are so subtle that they could easily be photoshopped but at the same time look pretty legit.

THE VERDICT: KILL IT!!!

This kill is a little different because I’m not killing the fact there will be a new dashboard to go with Kinect, I’m also not killing that these photos are real because in my opinion they look pretty genuine.  What I am killing is that these images above and in the source is what the dashboard is going to look like.  We’ve already seen what the dashboard is pretty much going to look like at E3 during the live demonstration.  It’s going to be 8 panels spread across the screen that allows for easy access with your hand and reduces the need to scroll through menus.  Even the E3 dashboard might not be the final version but it definitely gives you an idea of what they’re going for.  My theory on the photos is that they are from a very early build of the dashboard for Kinect since in one of the screens they call a set up option a “Natal Tuner” which is obviously not the name of Kinect anymore.

THE RUMOR: Respawn Entertainment is making a “Halo-killer”

THE SOURCE: GameSpot

MY TAKE: It’s hard not to be on Respawn’s side after following what Acti-Satan has done to Jason West, Vince Zampella and two dozen of their finest employees.  Now it looks like they just might land on their feet and begin doing what these guys were meant to do, create awesome games.  It appears though they don’t just intent to create another game; they want to topple one of the biggest FPS’s out there, Halo. That’s according to Michael Pachter who boldly predicted that Respawn’s next game would be a space shooter on Episode 123 of Pach-Attack.  Is there any evidence to support this claim? No, but come on, it’s Pachter, you got to believe him; after all he predicted the Wii HD would be released…oh wait…

THE VERDICT: SPARE IT!!!

Sorry Pach, I’m usually on your side but for this rumor I can’t pick one.  With Zampella and West busy with their lawsuit it’s hard to picture them putting their full effort into a new game until their business with Acti-Bastards is over.  So with a website that just has an application email address it’s really hard to predict where Respawn end up.  Will they take a stab at the space shooter genre?  Perhaps, but with all the information we have they’re just as likely to make a Hello Kitty RPG…okay maybe not but you get the point.  Unless Pachter has some amazing source that knows exactly what’s going on at Respawn Entertainment right this second what he’s not telling us about his prediction doesn’t hold water.  He’s just going to be like us normal people and wait for an announcement or even a real website to see what direction they’re going.  Until then I really hope they destroy Acti-Pricks in the lawsuit and steal the bully’s lunch money if you know what I mean!

THE FINAL SAY

My final say this week has absolutely nothing to do with gaming.  Just before writing this column I saw Inception, which for those living in a cave for the past while is Christopher Nolen’s latest sci fi epic and I have to say…it’s EPIC!!!  We aren’t a movie site and I’m not a movie critic and without spoiling anything I’ll tell you all you need to know about it in four words: go see this movie.  Seriously, stop reading this…all that’s left is the conclusion…so go see Inception then come back to leave a comment.  The columns not going anywhere but the tickets are – so go see it…I’ll wait.

So hopefully at this point your mind is full of awesome sauce after seeing Inception and you’re ready to BELIEVE, SPARE or KILL these rumors yourself.  Lets us know below your verdicts and any other thoughts you feel the Axehead community needs to know.  I’ll see you all next week on another edition of EpicBattleAxe.com’s The Rumor KILL and seriously, Inception is awesome go see it….NOW!!!