New Xbox Live Game Every Week 61
Eurogamer reports that, with Xbox Live Wednesdays already a hit, Microsoft intends to continue releasing a new XBLA title every week for the near future. The company has announced their intention to have 160 titles for their next-gen console available by the end of the year, and some 30 of those may be Xbox Live Arcade titles. From the article: "The idea is to allow Xbox 360 owners who do not own hard disks to store downloaded Live Arcade games on memory units, which allow for 64MB of data. However, with PlayStation 3 in particular likely to allow for much larger downloadable games, Microsoft runs the risk of losing out on bigger releases despite the impressive momentum Live Arcade has already built up. Erickson admits that the company is already considering the possibilities of larger memory units, but there's no word on hard-disk-only Live Arcade games or other digitally distributed titles - although it's important to note that the latter, which Microsoft is certainly considering, would fall outside his remit."
Xbox Live almost too good (Score:4, Interesting)
360 games are selling like crazy in the US. Few weeks ago 7 of the top 10 games sold in America were 360 games (PS2 had the #10 spot with Kingdom Hearts, New Super Mario Bros #1, DDR for Gamecube somewhere in the middle).
360 also has the highest games sold/console ratio of any major console. Have to chuckle at the people who say the system has a limited library.
Re:Xbox Live almost too good (Score:2)
Re:Xbox Live almost too good (Score:1)
Re:Xbox Live almost too good (Score:2)
Re:Xbox Live almost too good (Score:1)
Re:Xbox Live almost too good (Score:1)
Re:Xbox Live almost too good (Score:1, Troll)
It's impossible to accurately track video game sales in the US. Where did you get these numbers from? If they're from the NPD Group (which is likely), they are not representative of all sales. NPD does not get sales reports from all retailers (including a little place called Wal-Mart).
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Barely news (Score:2)
Re:Barely news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Barely news (Score:1)
Re:Barely news (Score:1)
Another monthly fee? (Score:2)
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:2)
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:5, Informative)
So unless you like playing against others online, you can get by with just the free silver account.
The gold account is cheap anyway, less than $8 a month or less than $5 a month if you pay for the whole year. I used to pay more than that per day when I smoked cigarettes.
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:1)
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I'm concerned, the market place is much more valuable than people would have you believe.
I have yet to buy an X360 game, but I've probably spent about twice the value of a new game just on XBLA games, map packs and car packs for games that friends/family own.
Currently I have the pay-for package, but I hardly spend any time playing online what with all the lamers,
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:2)
Xbox Live isn't full of kiddies..in fact in the last 3 months of fairly heavy Live usage, I've probably run across 5 kids that were annyong.
That's why god invented the 'mute' button. Selective mute is great, you never have to hear from that person again.
Another great thing about Live- there's no such thing as an anonymous coward.
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:1)
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:1, Funny)
Oh. Piracy. Never mind.
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:1)
As to waste money on simple game mods, I saw this storefront down town with a sign called "Blockbuster" originally I thought it was a store that sold tetris, but apparently you can "rent" or "pay money" to "temporarily own" a video game, then return it a week later. It's a totally amazing new concept, I'm so glad I wasn't born yesterday!
My friends are glad too when I rent a ga
Re:Another monthly fee? (Score:1)
As other people say reputation helps people are less likely to be a dick due to the lack of anonymity. It seems.
I will probably get a wii, (Score:2, Interesting)
If MS can deliver a solid price drop (maybe $250 to $300 for the premium system, dropping the core model) by the time
Re:I will probably get a wii, (Score:1)
What's popular in the US isn't popular in a country with a very different culture and values. Go Figure.
Re:I will probably get a wii, (Score:1)
No such thing though.
According to Bloomberg, Microsoft have stated that they will be not adjusting the 360's price in light of the launch of the PS3. An MS rep commented there is currently no schedule in place to cut prices.
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=8710 [maxconsole.net]
Re:I will probably get a wii, (Score:2)
Of course they said that. They'd be stupid not to say that.
And it's probably true - there currently are no plans for cutting the price, considering that the launch date of the PS3 isn't quite set in stone yet. Once Sony has a specific date for the PS3 launch, MS will likely start plans to cut the XBox360 price just after the PS3 launch.
The reason why Microsoft is saying that they have no plans is because if they did admit that they plan on dropping the price, they'd lose sales at the higher price. Th
Three simple alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
2) There is currently a device that slides between an Xbox HD and the Xbox that allows you to use storage on your PC. Why not a device that lets you share your PC's HD to begin with from a 3rd party as well.
All XBs actaully will stream music from your XP PC's HD (and XP Media Center will stream video). Maybe just let you use storage space on your PC directly with a simple software update from MS.
Re:Three simple alternatives (Score:1)
Re:Three simple alternatives (Score:2)
This is a good starting point: Looky here [hackaday.com]
Re:Three simple alternatives (Score:1)
Re:Three simple alternatives (Score:2)
There's a special hash put on the drives that tells the Xbox360 whether's an xbox360 drive or not.
You can image the hard drive (it's just a standard SATA disk), but you cannot restore it over another hard drive, or a different Xbox360 hard drive. In fact, if you do the latter without imaging it, you'll lose the ability to use that hard drive in an Xbox360.
And there are tools to rip out stuff from the hard drive and onto your PC. Check out Xplorer36 [360gamesaves.com]
Re:Three simple alternatives (Score:2)
Re:Three simple alternatives (Score:2)
a) They want to make money off perephrials first
b) They probably want to ship it with Vista where they probably trust the DRM a bit more. With remote storage of save games its just that much easier to soft-mod your box.
Why Memory Units? (Score:2)
Re:Why Memory Units? (Score:2)
Re:Why Memory Units? (Score:2)
They do so for the PSP, so why shouldn't they allow the same for the PS3 (MemorySticks already *are* Sonys proprietary technology)? Only obvious reason to not allow it would be that every PS3 has a build in harddrive, so there is no need for memory cards at all, since its simply not needed except maybe for transfering savegames.
Re:Why Memory Units? (Score:1)
Re:Why Memory Units? (Score:2)
Re:Why Memory Units? (Score:2)
Bigger games != Better games? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought one of the biggest factors towards the Xbox Live success has been the fact that developers could quickly and easily make a low budget game, throw it up on Xbox Live for cheap and see where the market takes it. With larger budget, larger sized and larger 'content' (read: prettier graphics) in game demos, what makes them stand out from PC demos? (Which have arguably become oversized given their short length.)
Re:Bigger games != Better games? (Score:2)
If the games are 30MB each (pulling sizes out of my hat), then after getting one or two, I'd need another card. Good for people who have the money to spend on them, but for those who don't, or don't want to, it might make people not buy as much.
If I have a release in this size range, I might be put off on the Xbox Live, since my prospective audience might not have enough 'free space' to get the game/demo. That might be an
Re:Bigger games != Better games? (Score:1)
Re:Bigger games != Better games? (Score:1)
Re:Bigger games != Better games? (Score:2)
Out of curiousity, any idea how big the XBox Live version is? (just wondering)
64 Megs... Why? Has that always been that way? (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, is it a "consistent user experience" thing? Personally, no one I know that has a 360 transports their Arcade games, except by HDD, and would rather have larger, richer Arcade games instead.
64 meg games will be a HUGE disadvantage eventually
Just let developers make the Arcade games they want, and let the buying public decide how big is too big.
Re:64 Megs... Why? Has that always been that way? (Score:2)