Fire up Xbox Live for a “glimpse” of the upcoming New Xbox Experience, Microsft’s latest update to the Xbox System Software. The Avatars are still lame, sure, but the enhanced multimedia options are a welcome treat. → Read More
Would-be Xbox 360 killer app Fable II comes out on October 21, but it’s now emerged that the game will ship without a functional online co-op mode. That’s right, after you make the long, lonely drive back from GameStop that Tuesday, you won’t immediately be able to hop on Xbox Live to play with your friends. That said, you won’t have to wait very long for online co-op. Lionhead says it should have the mode up and running within a week of the game’s release. The company is merely trying to ensure that the mode works as well as possible when it goes live. For that we should thank Lionhead, but we should also question why, after so many years in development, the game isn’t done yet. → Read More
Anybody who completely relies on Microsoft for all of their entertainment needs is going to be bored straight out of their minds when Monday, September 29th rolls around. At 12:01 AM PST, both the Xbox Live and the entire Zune service will be taken down for maintenance. Live will be out for 24 hours, while Zune will go dark for closer to two days. According to Major Nelson, the Live outage is in preparation for the Xbox experience dashboard and feature upgrades coming later this fall. They’re just laying the foundation right now, though – when things come back up on Tuesday morning, everything will be just as it was before. No new features, no new dashboard. → Read More
A cool 800 Microsoft points will get you all the womanizing, blue collar fun that is Duke Nukem 3D for the Xbox Live Arcade. The classic shooter’s graphics have been bumped up to high definition, and there’s an eight-player death match, conveniently named DukeMatch. Bad news for you folks in Germany and Korea: the games isn’t available to you. Mr. Nukem is too crude for your learned cultures. → Read More
Microsoft has a new scheme designed to get people excited about watching movies on Xbox Live, which isn’t half-bad as it is now. They’re launching something called the Xbox Film Club, which gives a handful of lucky people (you have to enter and win) the chance to see new, hit movies before their theatrical release. It does seem to be UK-centric at this point, what with one of the movies being touted, Tropic Thunder, having come out in the U.S. a few weeks ago. Now how ’bout a U.S. version? via Xbox-Scene → Read More
It’s always been a dream of mine to drive a Zamboni. The demo will provide fans an early chance to experience the new simplified controls and relive the excitement of this past season’s thrilling Stanley Cup™ Final for a brief three minute period as either the Pittsburgh Penguins or Detroit Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. → Read More
The demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is now on Xbox Live. The 900MB demo is available in all XBL regions, so people all over the world can enjoy the game. You wanna take a wild guess as to what’s my least favorite movie franchise of all time? I just never “got” it, sorry. → Read More
I’m not the most avid Live player and my friends can attest to that. I’m just not very fond of getting my arse handed to me by 12-year-old girls. However, I do like to see what others are playing and how good they are, so I may actually download one of friends list apps through iTunes. You see, Microsoft requires that all apps pertaining to Xbox Live be free. So you filthy developers out there trying to make money will soon get a scolding from Microsoft. Will Microsoft ever make their own app for the Apple platform? 1337pwnblog [via joystiq] → Read More
I, along with 30 Helens, agree with Don Reisinger on the subject of Xbox Live. Xbox Live Gold memberships should be free. I actually can’t speak for the aforementioned Helens, so let’s just say that Don and I are in complete concurrence. → Read More
http://qik.com/player2.swf?streamname=dfa56c1adf1741618476cfc5cc1d3067&vid=129666&playback=false&polling=false&user=c870e7b7af28f528a2ee5b9ad144f0ccbc0f8694&displayname=Qikker56606&safelink=c870e7b7af28f528a2ee5b9ad144f0ccbc0f8694&userlock=true&islive=&username=anonymous But don’t expect any new features. However, this will prepare our RROD boxes for the new update this fall. Thanks for the heads up, Major. → Read More
There’s a phishing scam going around Xbox Live right now that promises free Microsoft points by visiting a Web site. After entering your XBL info in the Web site, it sends the same message to everyone on your friends list. Friends, it’s simply stealing your login info. You get no points, no glory, and you’ll annoy your friends in the process if you give up your info. To paraphrase Rangers FC, just be Ready, and you’ll avoid this type of nonsense. → Read More
You gamers should know how great Xbox Live can be, but do you know how the service came about, or what Microsoft’s plans for it in the future are? (You may also know how incompetent many XBL players are—playing Team Fortress 2, it never ceases to amaze me that on my team of eight players, six were engineers, one was a useless dunce, and I was the only scout trying to get the briefcase. Teamwork!) If you’re even remotely interested in that, I suggest you make your way on over to the recently revamped Edge Online, which has a nice little feature on Xbox Live. Given that it’s from Edge, a magazine I’ve praised here many times in the past, you can expect all sorts of Big Boy treatment of the topic. If you like Edge, may I also suggest the Game Theory podcast, which similarly treats video games as a proper topic, and not like some pastime for kids? → Read More
The demo for Madden 09 is now—or will be in the next few hours—available on Xbox Live. (PS3 owners: a demo is salted to appear on PSN around the same time.) Go crazy, football fans, playing the same game you’ve been playing for the past 20 years. That’s two NFL stories in as many days. Clearly something has gone wrong here. → Read More
The very exclusive Microsoft Gamefest conference is in full swing right now somewhere here in the Northwest, and they’ve dropped a couple of newsworthy items. First of all is the revision of the Games for Windows – LIVE system they’ve got going on. Starting today every multiplayer feature of LIVE is free on Windows: chat, shared friends lists with the 360, achievements, and so on. That’s nice; probably they needed more Windows folks to sign up. I personally don’t really enjoy the community aspect of gaming, but a lot of people do and this might make it a little more appealing. More importantly, they’re giving Windows users some love by redesigning the interface and adding a LIVE marketplace (soon, anyway) which will serve up games, demos, and presumably DLC. Sounds good. → Read More
Remember this? We should know for sure by E3, but for now it looks like Microsoft will release a 60GB Xbox 360 sometime this month. An internal e-mail, which I refuse to copy-paste here out of respect for the original source, Xbox Family, supposedly sent from Microsoft to GameStop and Best Buy details the company’s plans. In addition, Microsoft will release a stand-alone 60GB hard drive for Core and Arcade owners, and people with a 1st gen Pro, like me. Speaking of which, this new 60GB SKU is supposed to replace the current Pro model. The hard drive comes with three months of Xbox Live, a wired headset and an ethernet cable. Fancy. But yeah, E3 starts next week, and Peter and Devin will be having a blast running around from meeting to meeting, playing mud-colored FPS after mud-colored FPS. via 1UP → Read More
If you haven’t already been informed of this then I have great news for you! Today is Bungie Day and to celebrate you can download a gaggle of Halo 3 goodies from Xbox Live that include themes, gamer pics, and the ultra frosty Cold Storage map as well as a price drop for the Legendary Map Pack down to 600 MS points. I guess I should dig up my copy of Halo 3 and take out Gear of War. Yes, I still play GoW. I can’t wait for E3 next week, so I can get a hands-on of GoW2. → Read More
http://www.g4tv.com/lv3/26397 Do you guys know Adam Sessler, the host of G4′s X-Play? He has a problem with all the swearing, racism and general malfeasance found on Xbox Live and other forms of online gaming. And with good reason: a lot of the “trash talk” on XBL is non-sensical bunk. But, is telling 10-year-olds to lay off the swearing really going to work? They’re a bunch of dumb kids spouting profanities. Let them be low lives. → Read More
Microsoft believes it can, and ought to, make changes to the Xbox Live interface. While the Marketplace and general Live interface was designed, maybe, for a couple hundred items, there’s now more than 17,000. Too confusing, too cluttered for the average consumer. Basically, Microsoft is looking to re-organize the way XBL is laid out. How that happens, when that happens—in time for the expected Fall update?—remains to be seen. And yes, to a point I’d agree with Microsoft. The constant scrolling, going from page to page, doesn’t exactly make looking for a new (free) picture set or whatever all that engaging. Flickr’d → Read More
