Category: Xbox360

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Elite

Xbox Live’s new “On Demand” game buying feature

Microsoft decided to add a new system to XBL that allows you to buy full retail games via the console. While that seems like a great idea, there are a couple of downfalls that make this offer really stupid.

  1. You can only pay via credit card (which, may I remind you, is not easy to remove on XBL)
  2. The prices are compared to retail. NO. BAD MICROSOFT. What makes downloading games a better option than buying retail is that the prices are normally cheaper online.
  3. Hard drive space. Obviously, this is important because Xbox 360 have really low hard drive capacities. I mean, my Xbox has a 20GB hard drive and I have about 3GB left. New Xbox 360 hard drives range from 80 to about 160 dollars; so unless Microsoft decides to either offer an upgrade for free or at a reduced rate for us owners of the 20GB drives, this offer is useless.
  4. DRM. So what happens if your Xbox fries? Most content is tied to your Xbox hardware id (content you have can only play on your Xbox) and your Live id. The Mythic and Legendary map pack for Halo 3 have this form of DRM, will these “On Demand” games have it too?

Don’t get your hopes up.

Get a CoD: World at War Beta Key, on us!

This drawing is currently closed and the winners have been sent their keys. Thanks to everyone who entered!

A few weeks ago, Treyarch announced a multiplayer beta of CoD: World at War, for their “friends and family”. We’re doing something similar. We’ve gotten our hands on 5 beta keys that we’ll give out to 5 randomly picked commenters on this post.

All you have to do is comment on what you think will be the best part of World at War.

One key per household. If you try to enter more than once (and we can tell if you have), you will be removed from the drawing and not receive a key.

Giveaway ends this Thursday (October 23) at 5:30PM PST. We’ll send the winners their keys via email then.

Getting Dead Space? EA has some free DLC for you

If you own the Xbox 360, and are getting/own Dead Space, it might be wise to pick up some of the DLC on the Marketplace. EA has released a special “Elite Suit” that can be used on your character. The level 5 suit improves toughness and expands your inventory slots and the best part, it’s free. So pick it up while it’s still availible, according to EA it won’t be free for long.

Browse the Xbox 360 Marketplace from your PC

The old Xbox Live Pipeline
The old Xbox Live Pipeline
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Microsoft created a site called the Xbox Live Pipeline which allowed players to browse the Xbox Live Marketplace from your Computer. It was mainly just a way to look at pretty pictures, and not much else. The site closed in the beginning of 2007, and started redirecting to xbox.com.

Purchasing via Xbox.com
Purchasing via Xbox.com
Today, Microsoft announced the ability to browse the Xbox 360 Marketplace from your PC that will be implemented around the time the new dashboard releases (November 19th).

Players will be able to browse the Marketplace and queue content to be downloaded automatically the next time the Xbox is turned on.

Additionally, players can purchase content from the site. However, there was no mention if the site will accept additional online methods of payment (like Paypal), besides a credit card or Microsoft Points.

This move is a pretty cool move for Microsoft, though it is somewhat redundant. Beats browsing via the Xbox 360 sitting right in front of you….right?

Bungie reveals new Campaign addon

Halo 3: Recon ODST
Halo 3: Recon ODST

Last night, Bungie revealed the second part of its original Halo 3 trailer (prepare to drop) as the trailer for the new Halo 3 campaign addon, Recon (Recon is whole new game using the H3 engine). Halo 3: Recon tells the story of what happens on Earth before Master Chief falls to Earth at the beginning of Halo 3. In the expansion, due in Fall 2009, you play as an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) holding down Africa waiting for Master Chief to return. The expansion is supposed to be tougher (as you do not have any shields), and so you will have to employ more stealth than before.

According to Microsoft, Recon will ship with new multiplayer maps (that are different from the Mythic Map Pack) and will improve on Halo 3’s Forge Engine (yay).

You can watch the full trailer (includes new content) here. The game will be availible in stores on a disk (not on marketplace currently). It looks mighty pricey.