The Xbox 360 will soon become a platform for change. That’s right - Microsoft and Rock the Vote have formed a partnership to reach out to the many young adult Xbox 360 owners out there and get them to register for the upcoming fall Presidential elections. Starting on Monday August 25th (which also happens to be the first day of the Democratic National Convention), Xbox 360 owners will be able to use their Xbox 360 to register to vote, participate in presidential polls, and voice their opinions to presidential candidates through an exclusive forum via the console and Xbox Live. This marks the first time that Rock the Vote has joined forces with an entertainment partner so it’ll be interesting to see if this results in higher registrations and ultimately higher voter turnouts.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, Rock the Vote

I’ve been really impressed with the amount of activity and content that Microsoft has been putting into the Xbox 360 console and Xbox LIVE as a whole. In recent weeks, we’ve seen many more television shows being introduced, new games being announced, and a whole new user interface coming out in the fall. To further drive home the point that the Xbox 360 is striving to become the hub for all home entertainment, Microsoft announced today at Comic-Con that new original content in the form of original short films will be coming to Xbox LIVE this fall - free to all Xbox LIVE members. These films mix horror and comedy and was conceived by filmmaker James Gunn (Slither and Dawn of the Dead) and producer Peter Safran (Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans, and Disaster Movie). These short film pilots will be available directors such as James Wan (“Saw,” “Death Sentence”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night,” “Hard Candy”), James Gunn, Lucky McKee (“May,” “The Woods”), Andrew Douglas (“The Amityville Horror”) and Marcus Nispel (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Friday the 13th”).

The short film pilots coming this fall include:

• “Doggie Heaven (Woof!)” — The creative team behind the smash hit “Saw” films, James Wan (“Saw,” “Death Sentence”) and Leigh Whannell, tell the story of a young man who is having a dog of a day. He’s just been shot dead, but his real problems are only just beginning because of a clerical error that has sent him to the wrong heaven.
• “Humanzee!” — James Gunn (“Slither,” “Dawn of the Dead”) directs and stars in a sitcom about his human-chimp hybrid son, the Humanzee (played by Gunn’s brother, Sean Gunn, from “Gilmore Girls”). It’s a delightful mix of “South Park,” “Wonder Showzen” and “Small Wonder.”
• “MEATDOG: What’s Fer’ Dinner” — Director David Slade (“30 Days of Night,” “Hard Candy”) presents MEATDOG, an animated mutt made up of cold cuts. MEATDOG is pitted against a church of evil occult pigs while being pursued by a carnivorous rabbit and a slobbering hound. It’s dogicide when everyone wants MEATDOG on their menu.
• “Blue Like You” —From director Lucky McKee (“May,” “The Woods”), “Blue Like You” follows the antics of old friends Patrick and Cyndy as they get to know their mysterious and extraordinary new friend Blue, a beautiful young woman who doesn’t seem to understand how the simplest of things work.
• “The Miracle of Phil” — From director Andrew Douglas (“The Amityville Horror”), “The Miracle of Phil” shows that the best relationships are full of screaming, shouting and cursing, but when Phil gets knocked up, Chris is the one who feels screwed.
• “Adrenaline Slam” — Director Marcus Nispel (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Friday the 13th”) brings “ADRENALINE SLAM,” a high-octane hybrid of hidden camera reality and Hollywood fantasy that exposes ordinary people to extraordinary events.
• “Assorted Nightmares: The Janitor” — From online director John Clisham and starring Jenna Dewan (“Step Up”), somewhere in the darkness just beyond “Tales From the Crypt” and a little south of “The Twilight Zone,” is “Assorted Nightmares,” a modern-day horror anthology show. The first episode pays homage to the 1980s horror-slasher genre, as things at school for Jennifer don’t turn out as expected.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, Comedy, Horror, Comic-Con

Get ready for a whole new Xbox experience folks! Microsoft announced today, the new Xbox Experience - effectively changing the way users interact with the Xbox 360 console as well as providing a new look and feel to how users will play video games, watch multimedia content and interact with users on Xbox LIVE. That alone is big, but Microsoft and Netflix (as expected) also announced a partnership whereby Netflix subscribers will be able to view movies and TV shows directly on the Xbox 360 (think Roku Netflix Player here folks).

First let’s talk about the new Xbox Experience. The folks at Kotaku have an excellent write-up as to what the new experience will comprise of/look like. Here are some of the major tidbits for you to consider. First - why even update the Xbox Dashboard interface? Well the original interface was designed for dealing with hundreds of different pieces of content. However, the Xbox 360 has turned into a device that drives not hundreds but potentially thousands of pieces of multimedia content and thus this necessitated a new user interface.

Secondly, this update is not an optional upgrade or feature of the console. It will effectively replace the Blade user interface we’ve come to love (or hate). The user interface features an Apple iPod/iTunes like Cover-Flow user interface (or similar to the Flip 3D UI from Vista). Kotaku reports that the new Xbox Guide and user interface will be faster than the current interface. Also - more importantly, all of your old content will indeed work with the new user interface.

Other new features being introduced with the Xbox experience include:

• LIVE Party - Share your experiences with friends all over the world
• Personalize your Xbox with Avatars
• Enjoy new content from places such as Netflix, NBC Universal, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, SCI FI Channel, USA Network, Constantin, and MGM.

The new experience also includes a new lineup of games, movies, and TV shows including the following:

• New Xbox LIVE Primetime - a collection of virtual game shows that allows thousands of gamers to become contestants from their own living rooms. One such game will be 1 vs. 100
• New console games such as Final Fantasy XIII, Gears of War 2, Resident Evil 5,Fable II, and exclusive GTA IV episodes
• Music content such as Lips, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World TourandDanceDanceRevolution® UNIVERSE3.
• Family titles such as Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts,Scene It? Box Office Smash and Viva Piñata®: Trouble in Paradise.

Ok.. now onto the Netflix/Microsoft partnership. You will now be able to view your Netflix Instant Queue list directly on your Xbox 360 console.  This new addition will be available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers. Movies can be enjoyed within 30 seconds of selecting the title with controls consisting of fast forward, pause, and rewind.

AND finally, there are two new colors available for the Xbox 360 wireless controller - a red model and a green model. The red model will sell for $64.99 while the green model will go for $44.99.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox experience, Netflix

Is there something big brewing for the Xbox 360? The folks at Kotaku are reporting that the next Xbox 360 Update could feature a radically new Dashboard user interface - replacing the Blade interface with a motion controlled interface that would be similar in operation to the interface seen in the movie Minority Report. Lending some credence to this rumor is the fact that design agency Schematic is supposedly working on the project. Why is this important? One, Schematic has worked on game interfaces before and two, the Chief Creative Officer, Dale Herigstad, previously helped design the interfaces seen within Minority Report. NICE..  Oh yeah - if this is indeed true, you’ll probably see a new motion controller be released by Microsoft to utilize this UI.

What else could be in this next update? Kotaku has a huge list of possible new features here. Make sure to check it out if you’re interested in what might be in store for the 360 down the road this year. NOTE: Picture above is from Kotaku.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360 Update, Motion Controlled user interface, Dale Herigstad, Schematic, Microsoft

The folks at Next Generation have published an interview with Marc Whitten, the general manager of Microsoft’s Xbox Live, here on their website. Some interesting tidbits from the interview include the following:

• More than $250 million have been spent on Xbox Live Marketplace since it’s inception
• Around 30 million downloads per month on Xbox Live Marketplace
• Microsoft will begin to focus on quality over quantity with Xbox Live Arcade Games: XBLA game size limits will be increased from 150 MB to 350 MB. More flexible price points will be allowed for game publishers including a new price point of 1600 Microsoft Points.
• Microsoft will be delisting XBLA titles that underperform
• There will be NO Spring Dashboard Update this year
• There will be a new Digital Rights Management (DRM) tool that allows you to better consolidate your licensed content on a single Xbox console

Read more of the interview at Next Generation.

[Check it out via CrunchGear]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox 360

Microsoft announced that it has sold over 10 million units of the Xbox 360 console in the U.S. - making it the first current generation console to hit that mark here in the U.S. At a global level, Microsoft has sold over 19 million units of the Xbox 360 console. Of course now that the Xbox 360 is the first console to hit 10 million unit sales, Microsoft is going to leverage this sales data as much as possible. The previous two consoles to hit 10 million unit sales first were both from Sony - the original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. We all know what these consoles achieved of course - each console was the overall sales leader for their respective generation of console systems. As a result, Don Mattrick, Senior VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft stated the following in the Microsoft press release:

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry.”

Of course it’s still far too early to call Microsoft the overall winner in the next generation console wars, but it does have a sizable lead over the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii.

One other interesting stat - Microsoft now has over 12 million Xbox LIVE subscribers around the world - making it easily the leader in this department. The 360 also has 16 platinum game titles that have sold more than 1 million units - two times the number of platinum titles for the Wii and 16:2 over the PS3.

Microsoft did have a year head start over it’s competition with the Xbox 360 but then again, let’s not forget that the PS2 had a fairly significant head start over the original Xbox console too (no one seems to recall that fact these days!). Congrats to Microsoft on this achievement.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, 10 million units

I was about to head to bed when I decided to try out something with my Xbox 360 console. After starting up the console, I got a surprise message informing me of an update to the 360.

I went ahead with the update, rebooted and went about my business but was left wondering what this update was all about. Well Major Nelson just posted a blog entry on his website stating that the mandatory update was to “prepare for future growth of the service.” There were no new features introduced with this update. Hm… I wonder what kind of code changes they needed to make to allow for growth. Optimized code perhaps? I wonder.. oh well.. the next time you turn on your Xbox 360, you’ll see the request for update.

Good night!

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Update, Major Nelson

Warning: this is a major gripe posting directed towards Microsoft and the Xbox Live service. I, like many other Xbox 360 owners, sat down in front of the console this past holiday weekend hoping for hours of online enjoyment with Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare (COD4). However, instead of fragging others with an MP4, a frag grenade, or a knife stab, most of us spent countless minutes if not hours dealing with all sorts of Xbox Live network issues. Everything from network timeouts to server outages to waiting for the 360 to connect for minutes on end. Don’t believe me? Check out this thread over at the Xbox 360 support forums.

At first I thought the problem was on my end. I started up the Xbox 360 console on Friday night hoping to further my online experience with COD4.. yet my Xbox Live profile would not connect with the Live service at all. After numerous attempts, I would finally connect only to lose connections 50 percent of the time while playing a game in COD4. Was it my router or my cable connection? Restarted the router and cable modem but that certainly didn’t help matters at all.

That’s when I logged onto Xbox.com to see what others were experiencing and sure enough, this was a widespread problem.

What made things particularly bad was the near non-acknowledgment from Microsoft about any sort of problem. If it was just me or perhaps a few individuals I could understand.. but folks - just look at this thread. It was ridiculous. If you’re running a 24/7 gaming network, you need to staff it appropriately and more importantly - you need to keep your members updated because someone somewhere is up around the world.

Oh yes.. there was indeed a status page within the Xbox Live support section but that status page kept saying Live was up and running. Err Microsoft - that would be a no? Who exactly is monitoring the data centers here? Geez!

Ironically, if Microsoft kept their users posted about the network status, I’m sure people would have been far more forgiving. However, the lack of responses from Microsoft and the fact that this occurred throughout the holiday break was absolutely ridiculous.

Consider Microsoft - how many new Xbox 360 console owners were there this Christmas/New Years? I bet there were a fair amount - especially since it was hard to find a Nintendo Wii and the PS3 is still somewhat worthless without solid content. You had your chance to really make an awesome impression but what do you do? You have a screwed up Xbox Live network experience - especially for everyone playing COD4 - perhaps the best game of 2007.

Ah yes.. things appear to be normal again but guess what? Most of us are back at work now too. Why wasn’t this addressed when most of the world was on break? Why oh why Microsoft? A little acknowledgement please? some credit to all the Xbox Live subscribers out there? Come on!!

Ok.. gripe fest is over..

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Call of Duty 4

Microsoft has released a new backwards compatibility update for the Xbox 360 console; adding support for over 80 original Xbox games that were previously unsupported on the 360 console. All supported games are capable of running at resolutions up to 1080i with anti-aliasing enabled. You can see a complete list of Xbox games playable on the 360 console here.

There are two ways you can get the update. You can either insert an original Xbox game into the 360 console OR you can download the update from Microsoft and burn it to a disc. Check out this page for additional information on the latter procedure.

One final note - remember that you’ll be able to purchase and download several Xbox original games via the Xbox LIVE Marketplace starting on December 4th. Games available via the Xbox Originals program include:

• Burnout 3: Takedown
• Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex
• Crimson Skies
• Fable
• Fuzion Frenzy
• Halo
• Psychonauts

[Check it out via CrunchGear]

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Microsoft, Backwards Compatibility Update,

December 4th is shaping up to be a fun day (well at least to me). Battlestar Galactica Razor is coming out on DVD (the 2 hour episode just ran over the holiday weekend and it utterly rocked). For HD DVD fans, the first season of Battlestar Galactica will be coming out for HD DVD on the fourth also. Finally, something with far wider implications, Microsoft will be releasing the Fall Dashboard Update on December 4th for the Xbox 360 console. One of the new features coming out with the Fall Dashboard Update will be the “Friends of Friends” feature which allows you to check out the friends list of fellow Xbox LIVE members right from the Dashboard.

Once the update rolls out on December 4th, the new default setting on Xbox LIVE will be active, allowing members to see friends lists of other LIVE members. You can always opt out of this feature by going to www.xbox.com/fof . In fact, you can change your settings today by selecting one of three options available for your Xbox LIVE gamertag:

• Everyone (only available to members 18 and older)
• Friends only (available to members 13 and older)
• Blocked (available to all members, and automatic for anyone under the age of 13)

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Xbox, Xbox LIVE, Friends of Friends, Fall Dashboard Update, December 4th, 2007