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msoft prepares for gta iv

Xbox Live Preps for GTA IV Server Riot

If Microsoft has one thing going for them that no fanboy rant can question, it's Xbox LIVE. As long as Nintendo has friend codes and Sony has, uhhh, we'll get back to that, Microsoft stands tall on their untarnished pedestal. Well...untarnished if you ignore the month+ of outages around Christmas 2007. The fact of the matter is, Xbox LIVE has failed the consumer public before. And it could fail us again. More »

mods

Unreal Tournament 3 To Bring Bigger Mods To Consoles

Unreal Tournament 3 has served as a console gamer's diplomat, successfully pulling mods long restricted to PCs to the PS3 and *fingers crossed* the Xbox 360. But past mods have been in small pieces, like Samus skins, more meant to customize the game than fundamentally exploit its robust engine.

Now the user-based developers behind Tactical Ops (a classic UT mod similar to CounterStrike) are talking about bringing Tactical Ops 3 to consoles. While the team doesn't think that the first release of TO3 will support the PS3 or Xbox 360 (due to issues like button mapping), they're confident in the possibility for future releases. And when console mods become the size of full games, we can't stand behind a waist-height object fast enough.

Huge Unreal Tournament III mod whets PS3 appetites [CVG]


live arcade

Microsoft Cutting Back On Arcade Ports?

It came straight from the horse's mouth. Well, almost. Famitsu reported that 5pb—a company working on LIVE ports of multiple titles, including some classic top-down shooters by Cave—is getting the cold shoulder from Microsoft. 5pb's Masaki Sakari explains:

Out initial plan was to port lots of good arcade titles to XBLA. We talked to IP holders of these titles, and persuaded them. We secured these licenses, and finally talked with Microsoft. There they rejected all of our proposals saying, 'We are going to cut down faithful arcade ports.' We felt so frustrated.
So was Microsoft just rejecting the top-down shooter and covering it with a polite, wider message, or are they rejecting arcade classics? I'm hoping for the former, because while I love original games, Microsoft has pretty much nailed their ports on LIVE.

5pb - 'XBLA rejected Ketsui and Dodonpachi'
[XBLAH via OpposableThumbs][image]

update

"My Xbox" Pages Redesigned, Made Redesignier

In case you missed it, "My Xbox" pages on Xbox.com have gotten a pretty drastic face-lift today. Click the jump to enlarge the side-by-side, but it's immediately apparent that the entire interface has been streamlined and condensed with more emphasis placed on horizontal space. Aside from the aesthetics, the biggest functional change is probably the achievement comparison, with one friend appearing on your main page at all times.

And apparently it's been "recoded to increase page performance." In other words, somewhere a Microsoft programmer is wincing from the still-fresh whip wounds and a marathon coding session, drinking a free orange soda to alleviate the pain.

My Xbox Update
[Major Nelson]


dlc

Valve Wants Team Fortress 2 Maps Free On Consoles

Let's state the obvious: Valve gave us a heck of a deal with The Orange Box. And if a developer were ever justified in charging console consumers for DLC, it would be Valve through a Team Fortress 2 map pack. But here's the thing, Valve has no interest in charging us for more maps. Valve's VP of marketing Doug Lombardi explains that they'd like to offer content...
...for free, definitely, as much as we can. You know, we don't have full say over that, but we have some say over how that works.
He continues: More »

downloads

Wait, Now Microsoft Is Pushing Movies Again?

We understand that our friends in the UK got access to Microsoft's LIVE video store a little later than us, but it's still a surprise when we read things like this from Xbox LIVE marketing manager (UK) Robin Burrowes:
The advent of Video Store is a competitive advantage from a PR standpoint, alongside the range of games on our platform. In the last two months, since the launch of Video Store in the UK, our audience figures have grown dramatically.
More »

deals

Score An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership For $38.75

Here's a quick heads up if you'd like to save some cash. While you can usually snag an Xbox LIVE Gold membership for under the retail $50 price, Buy.com is offering them for just $38.75. Oh, but there's like $5 in shipping, you say? Nope. Free shipping. Did you get that? Free Shipping!!!

At this price, Xbox LIVE is just about $3/month. So low that's it's pretty damn tough to complain about Microsoft charging for the privilege of online fun...but don't you get any ideas, Sony.

Xbox 360 Live 12-Month Gold Subscription Card (FREE 1 Month Bonus) [Buy via BargainJack]


gamestrata

Can Xbox 360 Achievements Be Cloned For PS3?

I sat down with the developers of GameStrata today (that powerful game stats analysis site that we told you about a few weeks back). And while they didn't have any major announcements for me to break, they did enlighten me as to their gameplan for their coming—in their mind—years of success.

And I have to admit, their plan sounds pretty good. So hit the jump for their ideas on cloning Xbox achievements for PS3 users and a lot of other neat stuff.

More »

news

Mass Effect DLC Brings Batarians to the Mix

Bioware today announced the first downloadable content pack for their Xbox 360 RPG Mass Effect.

The Bring Down the Sky downloadable content pack hits LIVE on March 10 at 2 a.m. PST, for 400 MS points ($5) and is the first in a series of planned downloadable content that expands the Mass Effect universe and continues the plot.

The pack will include an uncharted world that introduces the Batarians alien race. In the pack a Batarian extremist group has hijacked a mobile asteroid station in the Asgard system, setting it on a collision course with the nearby colony world of Terra Nova. Only Commander Shepard can save the millions of innocent civilians before the asteroid completes its deadly descent.

The developers say the pack will contain about an hour and a half of action and a new Achievement worth 50 Gamerscore points.

Hit the jump for a second shot from the pack.

More »

live

The Turok Demo Is Here! (In North America)

For those who reside in Canada, Mexico and the Unites States, the Turok Xbox 360 demo is finally available on LIVE. Even through the rest of the world may have already decided that the game kinda blows, it's not for them to choose! Download it for youself and decide! It's a free country, and from what we understand of that designation, we can download demos for free. And, you know, not be charged for the full price of the game to try it out. Ain't America/Mexico and Canada great?

Demo: Turok (North America) [MajorNelson]


love for sale

Is Top Xbox 360 Gamer Selling His Account?

Most of you have probably heard of StripClubDJ, even if you don't remember why. His real name is Gary Dudley, and he's Xbox LIVE's top ranked player with 245,825 gamer points...who also happens to also be banned from the service. And, according to one of our tipsters, he's trying to sell the account, soliciting the sale in two separate messages:

More »

Xbox Live Status Watch: Day 27 Just when we thought the outages were over, along comes a bug. Not only is the official Xbox site's support page officially reporting official problems with Xbox Live, but reports from readers are also starting to roll in. Readers tell us they're having lots of problems with matchmaking. The official word is that the issue is connected to Windows Live ID and could effect account creation, renewal and recovery. Make sure to let us know if you're still experiencing problems.

xbla

360 News Coming at GDC

John Schappert, Microsoft's vice president of Live, will be delivering a Game Developers Conference keynote next month about the future of the Xbox Live service, the GDC announced today.

A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community will touch on the 360's "in democratizing game development, vastly opening up the industry for developers of all sizes." Specifically, the session will discuss the talk about the console's strategy for the year and reveal "top developers' plans for the platform in 08." That's right, it sounds like we're going to get some news.

I hope Schappert will also talk a bit about what the Xbox Live Arcade has in store for us. I'd like to see more indie games coming to the platform and less retro remakes. I think Sony's done a great job of snagging some memorable niche titles, like flow and Everyday Shooter, and I know Microsoft can do the same.

More »

Xbox Live Status Watch: Day 25 Live continues to be a good little boy, no download issues on my Denver-based box, multiplay is working fine (though the amount of COD4 pwnage is off the charts right now) and I can even access my details from Xbox.com. Could this be the end of the siege? Make sure to let us know if you're still experiencing problems.

rumor

Microsoft To Compensate Customers For LIVE Downtime?

According to The Bitbag, Microsoft will be compensating their Xbox LIVE Gold customers for the problems the service has been having over the holiday—somehow. An unnamed Microsoft contact told the site:

...we will definitely be doing something for our Gold members that weren't able to get online over the last week.
Subscriber rights to some sort of refund seem a little vague here, especially since Microsoft has said that the service isn't technically down. It's like if your satellite or cable was working, but the channels you actually wanted to watch weren't coming in—is that a full refund situation, since you only bought the subscription for those channels anyway? Or, since you can still watch HGTV and the 24-hour Oprah Channel...well, I think you get my wordy metaphor.

It's just a shame that LIVE is having so many problems during a time when people can actually play (with plenty of newly gifted games to boot.)

Microsoft Taking Care Of It's Gold Members After Last Weeks Live Outage [bitbag]


s.s. live

Major Nelson: All Hands on Deck Working on Live Problem

Just pinged Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb to see what the status was of his baby, Xbox Live. The Xbox 360's network has been suffering sporadic issues since the holidays and it seems that a solid solution continues to elude the team.

He told me a bit earlier today that they are all over the Live issues, "we have had all hands on deck." He also pointed out that he's now using Twitter to keep readers of his site up-to-date on the current status of repairs.

26 minutes ago: Even though things are working, the teams are still hard at work to ensure things stay that way! 2 hours ago: I think I need to take e to lunch today. 2 hours ago: BTW: Account Recovery is working much better now. Give it a try. 2 hours ago: No, installing 'fatter pipes' won't have helped the issues we were having. 2 hours ago: Getting a lot of messages from people telling me LIVE Is working well for them. Great to hear. 2 hours ago: No, most of the staff is not away for the Holiday. They are right here, working on any issues.

Hopefully we'll hear that the repairs and fixes have been shored up soon. It will be interesting to hear what actually caused the problems. I suspect the influx of new accounts over the holidays didn't help.

Major Nelson

More »