Bionic_Chango

I've been in the states for 6 years and I've been reading Edge since they previewed the original Gran Tourismo. I pretty much concur with what evrybody has said so far, except I think the price is somewhat justified, if you actually want a monthly magazine that is extremely well-crafted from cover to cover. Since I got here I have subscribed to PCGamer (US) and once I realized there were more adds than pages with copy on them I cancelled the sub and instead switched to Official XBOX magazine. That was ok for a while but now it seems they have run out of space within the magazine to put in ads, so they're gluing them over the top of the actual magazine cover. Oh, and they stopped providing coverdisks in printed cardboard packets (with actual edition numbers and contents, etc) and now we just get a disc in a plain old white envelope. I think I'm going to ditch that subscription too.
I'll gladly pay $75 for a magazine that is written by adults, with adult sensibilities, but still a vivd passion for the subject matter. Killer graphic design and composition. Excellent features. The Jobs in Gaming Classifieds section (try finding that in Ult1M4te PS2 Cod3z monthly).

As for Games TM - my local Borders stopped carrying it for some ungodly reason. They're RETRO section almost brings me to tears with the Zzap!64/Crash! design.

And that is really the big issue here - The fact that Microsoft has apparently been unable to ready a small portion of a game for distribution over LIVE, and yet the RETAIL version of the same game has completed final testing, and has sent the Gold to the ditribution warehouses for mass production.... you have to ask yourself what the big holdup is.
Testing is not rocket science, no matter how complex they would have you believe.

Someone posted up here earlier that there is no financial gain to be had for MS by releasing demos, arguing that it only adds value to thier product from a consumer-perspective. I cry horseshit on that one: Demos always have, and forever shall be, produced to distribute ideas and customer attraction. All for the sole purpose of increasing sales of said product.

Actually, my main conscious thought on this issue right now is that, with the release date of July 11th closing in rapidly, they will stall the demo release until after that date, and have been planning to do so since 6/22 or even before.
You have to ask yourself why this would be. And the only logical explenation I can think of is that perhaps the XBOX360 version of the demo stinks.