OK, well maybe not free live time for all, but if you happen to be a silver member when downloading the upcoming ME3 multiplayer demo, Microsoft has a surprise for you.
Mass Effect 3 Demo – Free Live Time for All!
Tag Archives: microsoft
Microsoft: No New Console Announcements This Year
It seems like every day there’s a new rumor regarding the inevitable successor to Microsoft’s Xbox 360, but don’t expect Microsoft themselves to say anything about the mysterious new console any time soon.
Bargain Bin Slumming: The Best Xbox 360 Games for $10 or Less
In tough economic times like these, it’s not unwise to tighten your belt and cut your expenditures down to the bare necessities. Of course, what qualifies as a “necessity” is open to interpretation: while some (sane) people make paying the rent or making sure they have food to eat their top priority, my personal need to be entertained overrides any basic survival instincts. I am an 20-something American male dammit, and society demands that I engage in blind, insatiable materialism and media consumption. As worrying as the thoughts of going hungry or bankrupt are, my hands shake like a withdrawing drug addict at the thought of not being able to afford more games.
RUMOR: Next Xbox Plays Blu-Ray, Doesn’t Play Used Games
The internet has been filled with Microsoft related rumors lately, and the latest is a doozy: Kotaku editor Stephen Totilo says he’s heard info from “a reliable industry source” that Microsoft’s next console will be incompatible with used games.
RUMOR: Say Good Riddance to Microsoft Points
Tired of having to convert your money into Microsoft Points every time you buy something off of XBLA? Sick of always having 40 or 80 points left over after buying a sale item, and having absolutely nothing worthwhile to use them on? Well, these annoyances may be a thing of the past, as Microsoft is rumored to be phasing out their version of Itchy and Scratchy Dollars in favor of simply allowing users to pay for downloads directly.
According to the rumor, Microsoft is phasing out the use of Microsoft Points in favor of real currency in order to create parity between the Windows Mobile app store, the Zune marketplace, and Xbox Live. Mobile app developers have allegedly already been told to plan their future pricing strategies around real money MSRP’s instead of points, and Microsoft is supposedly going to phase out the old points system before the end of the year.
Now, obviously Microsoft is denying all this at this point, but the change would make sense: the whole points system makes XBLA seem anachronistic when compared to the more streamlined check-outs available on Steam and PSN since you don’t have to convert your money into points, and I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve had to buy $10 worth of Microsoft Points (800 MSP) in order to buy a game that was on sale for 500 or 600 MSP. I think Xbox Live would benefit as a whole if Microsoft got rid of their pointless nickel-and-dime-ing MS Points scheme and simply let users make purchases with real money like, y’know, every single other website in the universe.*
(*except for the Wii online shop, but seriously, who uses that anymore? I think even Nintendo forgot that it exists.)
Microsoft loosens a restriction on Indie Games
Indie game development on the 360 had one problem according to the developers, and that was that all games over 50MB in size had a price of 240 or 400 Microsoft points. This resulted in developers doing everything they could to reduce the filesize of the game to have it worth 80. This could result in cutting content, compressing the quality of graphics, or removing music.
I’m not much of a developer, but I can tell you that even simple games like Touhou, VVVVVV, or Super Meat Boy can blame their filesizes (which numbers well into the hundreds for Touhou and SMB) on the music. Poor compression of graphics can also be blamed, especially if your engine cannot play nice with all filetypes.
Microsoft has greatly reduced this restriction, by increasing this cap from 50MB to 150MB. In addition, the number of games a developer can have on the marketplace has gone from 10 to 20.
This is a good move, but I still find it completely unnacceptable that they can say “Go over this we make you charge a pittance for it”, which greatly harms the indie game industry. 20 years ago, if you told someone they had 2MB to work with, they would scoff and say “Who would need TWO megabytes?”, nowadays it’s not unusual to have a single track on the OST to be 5, 10, or even 15 megabytes in its size. Whenever technology of that era can be used on modern consoles or not remains unknown to me.
I still find it weird people would make such a big deal over $2 on a game’s pricetag. Most indie games I’ve played got for around 1000 yen.
Google and Apple will not be using ESRB for mobile game ratings
Recently the ESRB has announced that it will start doing mobile ratings, starting in 2012, but it may be for nothing as Apple and Google will have no part of it. The ESRB has been keeping game ratings private and providing parents with adequate information on what games they shouldn’t and shouldn’t buy their kids. Google feels it’s current marketplace ratings system is just fine.
Indie Devs furious at XBox Marketplace burying them
Update: According to Chris, they’ve been less-buried, but apparently “Indie” is still a genre where all games are the same.
Indie developers, who are responsible for great games like Terraria, VVVVVV, Minecraft, Spelunkey, La Mulana, Koumajou Densetsu, and who also get a lot of love from the internet’s many users are an important part of the gaming industry and growing. Whoever designed the XBox Marketplace missed that memo.
Online Windows Phone Metro UI Demo Unveiled
In an innovative move, Microsoft has unveiled a demo online version of their Metro UI, which will allow Android and iOS users to get an idea as to how Windows Phone devices work. It is not an application per se, but it is basically an HTML and Java Script website which will serve as a kind of a mock version of the Windows Phone.
More Xbox Live users are Playing Skyrim than Battlefield 3
It is already known that Skyrim sold a whopping 3.5 Million copies in its first two days, which may not seem like much for a AAA title, but for an RPG of this sort that is mighty impressive. So, it may be no wonder that after so many people were playing it while logged in to the Xbox Live service last week. Below is the full list of the top 20 games played by Xbox Live users. Skyrim ranks third and Battlefield 3 follows right behind in fourth.
Rumor: Sony and Microsoft team-up to make Kinect TV’s
Sony and Microsoft are rumored to be teaming up, but it’s not in the way you expect– No, it’s not a Playstation360 or an Uncharted vs. Halo crossover, but rather something a little more mundane: the two are, according to an anonymous source speaking with The Daily, in talks to create a series of TV’s that would use Kinect technology, such as gesture control and voice commands, in lieu of a standard TV remote.
Fall Xbox 360 update turns into Winter update – launch date
Major Nelson finally announced the official launch date of the new dashboard update for all Xbox 360′s.Tuesday, December 6th will mark the day that Xbox Live users around the world will get their hands on all the new features Microsoft has been talking about such as cloud storage and Beacons, in addition to the new aesthetic changes.
