Posts Tagged ‘Xbox Live!’

Microsoft has officially released the fall dashboard update for the Xbox 360 today. When you connect to Xbox Live! today, you will be prompted to update your dashboard to the latest version. If you decline the update, you will be unable to connect to Live! – once you do run the update however, here are all the goodies Microsoft has in store for you:

ESPN on Xbox LIVE

• 3,500 Sporting Events A Year – Access more than 3,500 live and on-demand global sporting events from ESPN3.com a year, including college basketball, college football and college bowl games, MLB, NBA, international soccer and more.
• Out of Market Games – Catch your favorite college team games. Check out the huge catalog of out of market games and enjoy them on the big screen.
• The Best Ways to Watch – Enjoy HD programming, DVR controls, plus access to hundreds of clips from ESPN3.com, refreshed daily.
• Games at a Glance – Keep up on real-time score information using ESPN.com’s score feed without leaving the game you’re watching. View scores for leagues and games currently in the ESPN.com feed and select “Watch Live” or “Watch Replay” to jump straight into that game.
• Predict the Winner – Pick what team you think will win. While watching selected games in college football, college basketball, MLB, and NBA, you will be prompted to vote for your team of choice. You’ll also see the percentage of votes among the Xbox LIVE viewing community.
• Voice Chat – Voice chat with up to seven other friends while watching the big game.
• My Sports – To customize your ESPN on Xbox LIVE experience, click on the “Events, Highlights and More” slot on the homepage and browse by sport to pick a specific league that you want to follow for the season. The league that you select will now automatically display in your My Sports Channel.

Zune Music

• Zune Pass – Zune Pass is a monthly subscription service that gives you unlimited, on demand streaming of millions of songs at launch from all the major music labels and thousands of independent labels.
• Enhanced search – Search the broad library to find your favorite artists, albums, songs and playlists.
• Social – Connect with like-minded fans on the Zune online community and get new music recommendations. Zune Social also lets you see friend’s Avatars and listen to their recently played songs or check out their favorite artists.
• Smart DJ – Instantly create customized playlists by selecting an artist and have Smart DJ find songs that complement your selection.

Netflix Search – Experience a streamlined search function making it much easier to find the movies and TV shows you want to watch.

Improved voice chat quality – The audio codec is updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game or catch a big game with friends via ESPN3.

Improved Gamertag creation – Choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you’re looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.

Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard – We’ve taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, when signing up for LIVE within the dashboard for example.

Improved Xbox LIVE Marketplace UI and browse experience – The Game Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the gaming and video content you want, reducing the number of steps to get to a download.

Easier to get on a wireless network – Trying to connect to a wireless network? Now you can see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings. From there, you can select a new network or further configure the network you’re connected to.

Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI – We’re adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.

New browse experience for 100% completed games – You spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so we’re giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.
Updated Family Settings – Xbox 360 continues to lead the industry in efforts to create tools that help parents and caregivers choose the right play and viewing settings for their families. We are enhancing the core Family Settings tools for all Xbox LIVE members:

Family Programming – When turned on, Family Programming disables display of all mature content on the dashboard and can be turned on or off with a protected password for individual members (per account). It also highlights all family-friendly entertainment.

Intelligent Default Settings – Your Xbox automatically customizes privacy and activity settings for each member, based on age (child, teen and adult). These settings can later be individually customized.

Title Exceptions – Allow your family members to play specific games above the console’s designated ESRB/PEGI (etc.) rating as you deem appropriate.

All in all, there’s not a ton to get excited about, but the improved chat quality, Netflix search, and the new sign-in UI are all welcome changes. Things look a bit cleaner and more polished as well, but it’s nothing groundbreaking.

You can also bet that there are some behind the scenes changes to the anti-piracy protections built in to the dashboard as well. Microsoft likes to up the ante just before a big game drops, so I am sure we will hear of large ban waves in no time, with the impending release of Call of Duty: Black Ops.

What are your thoughts on the new dashboard?

[via MajorNelson]

This morning, Major Nelson announced a pricing increase for the Xbox Live! Gold service. These increases affect all packages, including 1 month, 3 month, and 12 month packages both in the US as well as abroad.

The service has not seen a price increase since its inception in 2002, and with all of the additional content provided over the years, Microsoft decided it was time to change the price structure. The new pricing that goes into effect November 1st looks like this:

• 1 Month membership – $2 increase from $7.99 to $9.99
• 3 Month membership – $5 increase from $19.99 to $24.99
• 12 Month membership – $10 increase from $49.99 to $59.99

Overall, the price increases are not terrible, however it would be nice to see some better protection against game hackers and system abusers if we’re paying even more for the service. Better response and policing via user complaints would be a nice way to see this extra money spent.

That said, I cannot remember paying even close to $50 for a year’s worth of Gold membership as long as I have owned my Xbox. Truth be told, I have only spent around $39 for 12 or 13-month membership cards in the past, so I don’t see the new pricing scheme hurting me all that much. It really pays to shop around and look for specials – if you look hard enough, I think you will be able to find 12-month membership cards for around $49.99 or less once the new pricing scheme takes effect.

[Majornelson.com via Forbes.com]

[EDIT]

It seems that Microsoft is allowing people to “lock in” an additional year of Live! service for $39.99 if they renew now at Xbox.com. If I were really desperate to save money, I suppose I would just buy a handful of subscription codes for the same price at Amazon and then stash them away until I needed them.

Microsoft and Epic Games have sat down in their bunker of doom to think of a new way to get gamers involved with the next iteration of Gears of War, while simultaneously donating to a charity.  If you read the title, then you know that they will be letting you decide the fate of the next Carmine brother in Gears of War 3.

Starting July 29th, two shirts will be available for purchase on the Xbox Live Avatar Marketplace.  Both shirts state simple words.  Choose either “Save Carmine” or “Carmine Must Die” and cast your vote for his fate in the game.

A big note here, the proceeds from your shirt purchase (Which is not a real shirt, so why are you buying it?) will trickle out of Microsoft’s and Epic’s hands and right into the open pockets of Penny-Arcade’s Child’s Play Charity.  Personally I want a shirt that says “Schrödinger’s Carmine”