Microsoft’s been touting Windows Phone 7′s Xbox Live functionality since day one, but it’s always felt just a little lacking. You can look at your cute little avatar and play games that bump up your gamerscore, but where’s the connectivity with the Xbox experience we saw in demos like this one?

It would appear the folks in Redmond aren’t quite there yet, but a demo at their GamesFest in Seattle on Monday morning shows us that the idea hasn’t fallen by the wayside yet.

Microsoft and the Kinectimals team showed off a novel method of moving a furry friend from within the Kinectimals Xbox game onto a Windows Phone. Players who have grown fond of the pets on their Xbox can have the game generate a QR code that can be scanned by the Kinectimals mobile app. While on the phone, players can take photos with the camera and strategically their pets in them for kicks.

When players grow tired of carrying their little digital tiger around, the app generates a similar QR code that gets scanned by the Kinect camera and the pet gets reimported into the game. Geekwire has the whole demo on video, for those having trouble imagining it:

The Kinectimals connection is part of Microsoft’s plans to strengthen the ties between their immensely popular Xbox Live platform and Windows Phone 7. Frankly, it’s about time: it’s one thing for Microsoft to use the Xbox Live brand to garner their mobile OS some gamer cred, but it’s nigh-useless if that experience doesn’t deliver. As WPcentral points out, the only other game before Kinectimals that featured any sort of integration with its home counterpart was Full House Poker, which allowed gamers to transfer their winnings between play sessions.

Between today’s demo and the concepts they’ve already come up with, Microsoft is looking at potentially owning a large part of the mobile gaming space if they can just get their A-game on.

A Web site that illegally generated Microsoft Points has been shut down, but not before costing Redmond a cool $1.2 million in the process. Hackers had discovered an algorithm that would, when called upon, generate Microsoft Points codes at 160 points a clip.

The site was also able to generate codes for free 48-hour Xbox Live Gold membership trials and Halo: Reach avatar props.

Microsoft hasn’t said anything about what it will do to the accounts that used the site, or if they can do anything at all.

Just one of those things, I suppose.

Now available on an Xbox 360 console near you: Quake Arena Arcade. It looks to be a fairly straightforward port of Quake Live (which is to say, a fairly straightforward port of Quake III), but this time you’ll have to pay 1,200 Microsoft Points for the privilege. Then you have to convince yourself that playing the game with a console controller isn’t anything to be ashamed of—easier said then done.

And let’s also not forget that Quake III is readily available on Steam for $19.99, or just a few dollars more than what you’re paying for the 360 version.

But, for twitch-based gameplay at its finest, you probably can’t go wrong either way.

Incidentally, the engine that powers a new shooter like Call of Duty: Black Ops is an iteration of the very same engine that powers Quake III. It’s like you’ve discovered some sort of time machine!

Microsoft certainly used a lot of words at some Credit Suisse technology conference yesterday, but only a few of them are worth relaying here. The main thing that its Interactive Entertainment Division CEO, Dennis Durkin, said that a whopping 50 percent of Xbox Live users actually pay the $60 per year for Xbox Live. There’s 25 million Xbox Live subscribers, so you’re looking at something like 12.5 million Xbox Live Gold subscribers. How many of these 12.5 million people aren’t jerks? That’s all I want to know.

You’ll recall that Microsoft jacked up the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription by $10, from $50 per year to $60 per year. Microsoft says that’s to help cover the cost of all the fancy new features Xbox Live Gold subscribers get, such as… online multi-player! And access to ESPN and Netflix streaming video!

Eh, I suppose if you’re a big Netflix user that would be worth $60 per year (works out to $5 per month, in addition to whatever you pay to Netflix).

Additionally, Durkin doesn’t seem too bothered that much of the Kinect launch software really isn’t all that good, perhaps with the exception of Dance Central. That seems dandy.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was released two years ago by Ubisoft. I’ve always been a fan of Rainbow Six and I like the game. Buying it for 30€ was a bold thing to do but I thought playing with my friend will be worth it. I’m lazy and the comfort of not standing up from the sofa was also tempting. Anyway, I bought the game, fired it up and started a session for my friend to join. Then the following error message appeared on his screen: “Please insert the RB6V2 Disk”. Okay that’s odd since he has the disc in the tray. Next step was that my friend tried to host a game but this resulted in the same error message on my end.

Comparing our games revealed that his version is called TC’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 while my version is titled RB6V2. Something must be wrong here. We have the same game but it shows up as we have different games. What’s going on?

After having a lengthy chat with several Xbox Live support technicians and a series of escalations it turns out that my version has several incompatibility issues with earlier releases of the game. Ubisoft apparently sold a different game in 2008 than that’s on the Xbox Live Marketplace today. This means that just after two years the game is no longer supported by the developers. They don’t even try to have consistency. You buy the game and realize that you can only play with people who have the exact same version. This resulted in two (2!) games that I’ve found online on Live. When I buy a game I want to be able to play with someone from Kazakhstan. When I buy a game I want it to be supported for more than 24 months. Somehow this makes me think that video games are starting to hold less and less value for gamers. There is a new Call Of Duty title every year. To me this is bad because when I spend 60€ on a brand new game I want it to be worth it. I want to play it for a long time, I want to get the value back in entertainment. I played Modern Warfare 2 for 3 days. Rainbow Six Rogue Spear on the other hand, for three years. What’s even more disturbing is the technician said that they have this problem with various “older” titles. Beware, it very well may be that the game you buy from Xbox Live will not be compatible with the disc version. Of course there is no way to know. It’s kind of a game in the game you see.

This is all okay since making video games is a business. The more games you make (sell) the more money you make. What I can’t understand is how can Microsoft sell this game like this. At least they could have a note saying something like “this game is only compatible with the same versions and can not be played online with other versions of the game”. Of course refund is not possible. I feel cheated and I can’t play with my friend. Thank you, Ubisoft, thanks Microsoft.

Ex-WinMo hacker guru, Conflipper, told WP Central today that Windows Phone 7 ships with a “Genuine Software” checker, much like Windows 7 or Office.

The trickery lies in a set of keys built into the hardware that WinPho7 looks for and compares against. If you try to access Xbox, Marketplace, Windows Live, or Zune on a version of the OS that doesn’t match your hardware key, then you’ll be greeted with the screen shown here.

In addition to this, anyone found modifying the phone to fudge with their Xbox achievements or run pirated games will be perma-banned from Xbox Live, much like MS did to Xbox 360 hackers back in 2008.

Now — also like on Windows 7 or Office — these checks aren’t impossible to circumvent, but the link to hardware, as well as the risk of cocking up your Xbox Live account, will make this a wily beast to overcome.

In the mean time, anyone desperate for a custom ROM should probably stick to the well-established hacking grounds of Android or iOS.

The Xbox Live Web site will re-launch tomorrow. There will be new things, not least of which is the “massive facelift.” Highlights include: an avatar editor, a new message viewer, and a improved Marketplace browser.

Major Nelson adds that you’ll be able to “play Web games with your Xbox Live friends on the web or on Windows Phone 7.”

Web games? Windows Phone 7? It’s all too much for my old heart.

Again, the new site launches tomorrow, and while xbox.com will go down for maintenance tomorrow at 5am ET Xbox Live service will continue uninterrupted.

Do you want to be a part of the new Xbox 360 System Update Preview program? You can! Well, provided you sign up and are selected. (Incidentally, Greg just signed up and was selected a few moments ago.)

There’s not much to it. You go to the signup site, enter your info, then cross your fingers and hope Microsoft selects you.

Major Nelson, that great Microsoft ambassador, says they’re looking for “multiple thousands of participants,” so it’s not like we’re talking PowerBall odds here.

What’s part of the new system? Oh, things like ESPN integration and a brand new Dashboard.

(I love how Major Nelson has to stress this is not for Kinect!)

So yeah, sign up if you want a crack at the preview.

The new System Software should be available in November if all goes according to plan.

Among companies I loathe, Comcast is right up there. Alongside Expedia and AT&T, they share the common thread of having typically poor service, and even worse customer service. But I’m a forgiving guy. I’m willing to give Comcast a second chance. Well, for 6 months at least.

I’ve been a Comcast customer a few different times at various points of my life. Each time I’ve had an awful experience. My favorite was two years ago when I was continually getting billed for services I didn’t have (nor had I ever had, actually). Each month I was told it was resolved, and each month it was right back on my bill. It took me bitching up a storm on Twitter to get it actually resolved by the higher-ups at the company. And I know my situation wasn’t unique — and sadly, many people have an even bigger nightmare resolving things.

After that incident, I cancelled my cable television service from Comcast. Unfortunately, I couldn’t completely sever the tie, because they were the only high-speed Internet provider in my area. Still, it was kind of wonderful, I used a combination of iTunes, Hulu, and Xbox Live to get all my content over Comcast’s dumb pipe. But something was still missing.

When I moved last year, I was in an area where Comcast didn’t reign supreme, so I decided to get cable television again. I just wanted to see if I really had missed it. It turns out I sort of had — mainly because of sports. So now I have a difficult choice. I’ve just moved again and sadly, once again, only Comcast is available in my area. I have to get Internet from them, so I’ve decided to sign up for one of their special packages that is discounted for 6 months.

I don’t particularly want to do this, but it’s also football season, and I really don’t feel like having to go to a bar every time I want to see a game. More importantly, the new Apple TV and Google TV are on the verge of launching. And there are even more potentially interesting things on the horizon. The assault is underway.

I think we’re getting closer and closer to the point where completely cutting the cord is not just viable, but a savvy move. And while some of my counterparts like Nick Bilton have been able to cut the cord already, others, like Dan Frommer, reattached it. We’re not there just yet. But in 6 months…

As everyone is well aware, Apple TV hasn’t been a success up to now. I like mine, but the content model on it is flawed. The move to TV show rentals is definitely a welcome one. But with only content from ABC and some content from Fox, the selection isn’t good enough. My hope is that this model proves to be a success and the other networks/stations get on board quickly. (Though it doesn’t look too promising right now.)

More interesting about the new Apple TV is the AirPlay functionality that is going to allow you to push almost any video content from any iOS device right to your Apple TV (and soon other devices that have this built-in). Yes, that includes Netflix and the MLB app.

Sports remain an issue in general, but some are supposedly coming to Xbox Live compliments of ESPN shortly. And there is ESPN 3, the online component of the network that allows you to watch games live online — if your provider has a deal with them to carry it (Comcast does).

Meanwhile, Google TV is set to launch as soon as next month. It’s a little bit different because it seems to be a layer that will exist on top of current television offerings. But it will also be pushing online video as well. That could definitely help change the stigma that is still associated with online video versus television.

And then there’s that new Mac mini with an HDMI output.

All of this stuff is chipping away at the cable television stronghold. There isn’t going to be one “killer”, but all of these combined are slowly doing the job. And they’ll continue to get better at it.

I fully understand that the vast majority of people are not going to cut the cable anytime soon. This smorgasbord of services is way too complicated for the average consumers to deal with. But I think it’s foolish if these companies believe that people never will (especially if cable keeps offering a user experience that is utter garbage).

Eventually, everything, including all video content, is going to be served over one pipe — the Internet. And, as is always the case, young people are going to lead this revolution. The excuse that, “my parents are never going to cancel their cable” isn’t a valid one. This is about the future.

So, I’m giving Comcast 6 months to live, then I’m likely cutting off its head and going Internet-only. The timing seems right.

Humorously, Comcast isn’t making this particularly easy. I was on the web yesterday looking at my options, and I found one I think I liked. But I couldn’t find a way to add all the options I wanted (like a DVR), so I called customer support. After about six steps where I basically had to prove I wasn’t already a customer (I mean, seriously?), I got through to an actual human being.

Naturally, he tried to get me to sign up for a significantly more expensive package (more than double the price) and tried to get me to agree to a 2-year contract. When I told him that was silly because the lease on my apartment is only for one year — what if I move again? He said I could easily transfer my plan. Okay, but what if I move to a place that doesn’t offer Comcast as an option, like my last apartment? Silence.

Moving on, I told him I knew the package I wanted. Guess what? He said he couldn’t help me get it because it was online-only. “Are you serious?” “Yes. How about we sign you up for the package I told you about so you can try it out?”

This is going to be a fun 6 months. I’m already sharpening my sword.

[images: Warner Brothers]

Short version: The SteelSeries Spectrum 5XB is a headset for your Xbox 360 (and PC) that lets you separate your online teammates’ voices from the sounds explosions, gunfire, and other assorted bits of mayhem. So, if your team leader is barking orders you can turn down the game’s audio and listen exclusively to the commands.

Features

• Works with both Xbox 360 and PC
• AudioMixer that can separately control the volume of voice and other game audio. Can also be done automatically with LiveMix.
• Retractable microphone. Just want to listen to music? Tuck the mic away.

Pros
• The cans don’t kill your ears, and they’re spaced in such a way that you can actually wear glasses. As a glasses wearer, dear lord thank you.
• Easy to use once everything is set up—just a couple of plugs here and there.
• Separating voice and other audio is pretty handy if you’re someone who actually plays that type of game

Cons
• Most useful only for a specific type of gamer, the guy who plays online games so competitively that they’d benefit from the LiveMixer
• After years of wearing earbuds, wearing cans took some getting used to
• Main cable coming off the headset a little on the shortside, which could make casual use a little tricky
• Not that this is SteelSeries’ fault, but many of the people on Xbox Live are jerks, and this makes it easier to hear them

Full review

Say hello to SteelSeries’ console gaming debut. The company, best known for its professional PC gaming gear, has decided to give the console business a go, and this is the result: the Steelseries Spectrum 5XB, a headset for the Xbox 360 (don’t worry, it’ll work with your PC, too) that’s able to isolate your Xbox Live teammates’ voices from the sound of explosions, gunfire, and all other sorts of mayhem. (There’s also the Spectrum 4XB, which is basically the same headset, but the headband strap isn’t as bendy and you can’t take it apart for when you have to travel.)

I’ve pretty much exclusively worn earbuds for the past six years, so using cans for any amount of time is sorta weird to me. There’s a reason for that: prior to these, every single pair of cans I’ve ever come across have required me to take my glasses off first in order to put them on, and then I had to constantly adjust them just to keep sane. Is that the worst thing in the world? No, of course not, but it’s been enough of an annoyance that I’ve stuck with earbuds. I’m going to assume that SteelSeries has noticed that many gamers wear glasses, so they’ve designed them in such a way (there’s extra empty space where the frames of your glasses sit against your head) that they fit without having to remove your glasses. The SteelSeries people had to point this out to me when I met them a few weeks ago since I’ve been trained, like a dog, to remove my glasses when putting on cans.

No more!

The foam covering the cans and the headband are plenty soft. I sat there this past weekend for a few hours and didn’t once think, “Well, these hurt.”

And lo, the headset works!

I played several rounds of Halo 3 online over the past few weekends(within two seconds of entering my first lobby someone told me to “go fuck” myself. Sigh.) and the entire campaign of Halo: Reach last weekend (my thoughts on the game should go up this afternoon), and I was able to mute the game sounds with the flick of the dial, and yet I could still hear my teammates. Conversely, I could mute my teammates and listen to the game audio just fine.

The headset’s AudioMixer will automatically lower the game audio when your teammates speak provided you have LiveMix turned on. (Steelseries sells the AudioMixer separately if you already have a headset you’re comfortable with.) You might at well leave it on, unless you want to constantly “mix” the different audio levels on your own. Let LiveMix do its thing, I say.

Conclusion

The SteelSeries Spectrum 5XB certainly fits a niche: Xbox 360 gamers who are a little more serious about their online gaming. I mean, SteelSeries’ tagline is “professional gaming gear” for a reason. And clearly SteelSeries sees that more and more “hardcore” online gaming is taking place on the consoles, so they might as well get in on the action. (Just look at what id said a few weeks ago at QuakeCon, essentially that consoles are the future, and for a number of reasons.) As headsets go, the Spectrum 5XBs has everything you’d like to see in a headset. (Well, maybe you’d like to see PS3 compatibility!) They’re comfortable, the mic is clear (I actually used the headset to add narration to my Plex video), and the automatic audio level handling is particularly handy if you play teammate-heavy games.

The likes of Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Medal of Honor are either just around the corner or have just been released. So if you’ll be in the market for a headset in anticipation of the release of these games, well, she ain’t bad at all.

SteelSeries Spectrum 5XB ($89)

SteelSeries Spectrum 4XB ($59)

Spectrum Audio Mixer ($39)

It’s called Bangai-O HD Missile Fury, and the developers promise “sensory overload of thousands of missiles.” It should debut at PAX this weekend. Hell yes.

Ever heard of Kinect? Microsoft’s motion tracking controller? Sure you have and it probably just hit you that the add-on is supposed to also launch in November. Microsoft might be trying to slip one past holiday shoppers as Xbox Live cards will likely be bought alongside the Kinect resulting in an easy revenue boost for the company.

Don’t forget about Windows Phone 7, though. The upcoming system integrates nicely with the gaming platform, which means Live will soon span multiple product lines. A simple, and honestly modest, price increase is an easy way to help the bottom line.

There is some silver lining here. To compensate current Live gamers, the One-Year Live subscription price is now only $40 until the November 1st price increase. That’s nice.

Oh, what could have been. Rahul Sood, of Voodoo PC fame (now at HP), says he’s heard from people in the know that Microsoft was working on a project that would have integrated Xbox Live with a sort of Windows Live. The end goal was to have been console gamers and PC gamers playing against each other on a combined Xbox Live+Windows Live service. The reason why this project never saw the light of day? Because console gamers are rubbish.

What happened was that the combined service, or whatever you want to call it, was moving along smoothly, even getting to the testing stages. That is, testing between console gamers over here and PC gamers over there. Console gamers would be using their standard controller and PC gamers would be using their standard mouse and keyboard.

Every single time the PC gamer killed the console gamer. And I don’t mean killed as in “fragged,” but killed as in the PC gamer knocked the teeth out of the console gamers every single time.

So partially for this reason—console gamers didn’t stand a chance against PC gamers—that Microsoft decided to kill the project. Maybe that’s good (would PC gaming be more popular today?), maybe that’s bad (would PC gamers have to put up with 12-year-olds screaming stupid nonsense at the top of their lungs all game long?). Who knows.

Now, this could be saying a few ones. One is obvious: a mouse and keyboard is more precise than any console controller. That’s not disputable, right? I should hope not! Two, it could be saying something about the relative skill level of PC and console gamers. Can you name even one “famous” professional console gamer? I certainly cannot, but I know you’ve heard the name Fatal1ty before. Perhaps PC gamers are simply better at gaming then their console counterparts?

Then again, it could simply be function following form. PC games (that’s from-the-ground-up PC games, not mere ports) are usually more complex than console games, so after years of getting used to playing, say, Eve Online (or name-your-complex-game), they’ve developed better skills?

No one is saying that PC gamers are “better” than console gamers, just that maybe they have a higher developed skill-set thanks to a more precise input method and generally harder games. Please don’t throw pointy things at me.

*ducks*

Major Nelson indicated that the update, due to launch next week, will also allow you to see what games your friends like, which games are the highest rated overall, and what games are similar to the ones that you enjoy. There’s also some visual changes, but the real story is the new usability features. Major Nelson posted some screen shots to his Flickr account, and it looks pretty good.

[via 1up]

Everyone is busy talking about Microsoft Kinect (the project formerly known as Natal), but to me, some much bigger news just dropped at E3 from Microsoft: ESPN live sports access. Simply put: this was the only thing holding me back from completely canceling my cable subscription. As soon as this goes live, I’m done with cable forever.

No, this live sporting access won’t be entirely free, but it’s one hell of a deal. You simply have be an Xbox Live Gold member (about $50 a year), and you’ll get access to over 3,500 live events a year. In HD. Did I mention it was $50 a year? My cable bill is currently double that — a month.

According to BusinessofVideo.com:

Content includes college basketball, college football, soccer, MLB and NBA amongst others.

It’s hard to overstate just how big this news is for people fed up for cable. A little over a year ago I tried to cancel my cable after being fed up with Comcast’s sub-par (a nice way of saying it) service and absurd prices. I was fine using only my Xbox 360, Apple TV, and computer for all my content for several months. One thing I severely missed though was live sports. As crazy as it sounds, there’s only so many times you can drag yourself to a bar on a weeknight to watch every game you want to see.

So when I moved a few months ago, I signed up for cable again (this time without Comcast, thankfully). Once again, I find the only thing I regularly watch on cable is live sports — so I’m effectively paying $100 a month for that privilege since the cable companies still refuse to do a-la-carte packages where you can choose only the channels you want. With this new Xbox Live ESPN service, I can officially cancel cable — and never look back.

One thing not mentioned in the announcement was the biggest sports league in the U.S.: the NFL. Still, if I only have to drag myself to bars to watch those games, I’ll be a happy camper.

Back in December, when it looked like Apple was on the verge of talking some of the television networks into doing subscription-based TV packages through iTunes, I wrote that Apple may be on the verge of kneecapping the cable industry. Those deals have yet to come to fruition. And so their rival Microsoft beat them to the knee bashing. As long as I can throw that crappy cable box and its piece of garbage remote out the window, I don’t care who destroys big cable’s monopoly, I just care that it’s done.

Gear Live reportedly got their hands on some information about Microsoft’s upcoming announcements at E3. Citing a reliable source that “has never been wrong before”, GL states that Hulu is in fact coming to the Xbox platform. No word about pricing – if any, but undoubtedly – or even how they will charge. I hope that the entire catalog gets released, unlike Netflix’s limited release.

We’ll know more in two weeks when E3 begins, and more precisely during Microsoft’s Media Briefing on June 14^th at 10am pacific time.

Microsoft had tried to shutdown the original Xbox Live servers, but a couple of Halo 2 stalwarts had refused to log off! I guess Microsoft couldn’t turn the servers off, or wouldn’t, while people were still connected? No matter: the last Halo 2 Xbox Live player has signed off. We wish him well in his future endeavors.

Yes, APACHE N4SIR, the last player to still be logged into Halo 2 on Xbox Live signed off a few hours ago, putting an end to the orignial incarnation of Xbox Live. The ironic thing is, I probably played more Xbox Live with the Xbox1 than I do now with my 360. Go figure!

Much of that time was spent with Halo 2. The game came out when I was as freshman in college, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that my tiny dorm room was filled with folks playing that damn game for hours at a time.

No matter—turn the lights out, will you?

Would you be willing to pay an extra dollar or two per month for Xbox Live if you were able to watch live TV on it? That’s what Microsoft and News Corp. execs are currently contemplating, with the two companies in talks over bringing a “young, male” channel to XBL. Now, this is all rumor and speculation, so no need to freak out if you’re diametrically opposed to the idea.

The idea is to bring a channel to XBL in order to figure out a new way to get people to pay for Hollywood’s greatest whatever. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, so long as it’s made optional: I sure as heck don’t want to be forced to pay even one more penny for the privilege of watching, I don’t know, cool skateboard tricks, car crashes, or women jumping on trampolines à la The Man Show. I have zero interest in watching that.

And here’s a bit more gossip: apparently Conan was in talks with starting some sort of XBL channel before he agreed to go to TBS.