Latest Gear Live Videos
New Gears Of War Maps, Patch Coming
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Third Person Shooters, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,
Epic will be offering two new free multiplayer maps along with a software patch for Gears of War in the upcoming days. First, on January 9, a software update for the game will be made available. According to a posting from Mark Rein on the Gears forums, the following changes will be made:
- Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640x480
- Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress
- Players can now get the Achievement for “Dish Best Served Cold” when using Troika turret to kill RAAM
- Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match
- Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer
- Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance
- Enabled “Strict” NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues
- Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons
- Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone
- Removed host name from Ranked match server browser
- Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches
- Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4)
- Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points
- Added additional cheat detection code
- Additional housekeeping updates
In addition, January 10th will bring two new multiplayer maps, Raven Down and Old Bones. According to John Porcaro at Microsoft’s Gamerscoreblog, the map downloads will be free, thanks to a sponsorship from the Discovery Channel. Gamerscoreblog has descriptions of the maps as well as four screenshots of the new content.
Read More 
| Gamerscoreblog
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IPTV Confirmed For Xbox 360
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Hardware, Internet, Xbox 360,
Microsoft confirmed via press release that an IPTV client will be coming to the Xbox 360 during the holiday 2007 season. IPTV will integrate with the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live to allow services like video on demand and digital video recording to work with Xbox Live features like voice chat and instant messaging. Microsoft’s partners for the launch include AT&T in the US, BT in the UK, and Deutsche Telekom in Germany.
The full press release continues after the jump.
Click to continue reading IPTV Confirmed For Xbox 360
Two New Ways To Get Halo 3 Beta
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Bungie, First Person Shooters, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
When Microsoft opened their initial sign-up for the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, the form was swamped with gamers hoping to get access online. Now, the company has announced two new ways of getting into the upcoming beta release. First, the company has confirmed that those people buying Crackdown will be able to download the multiplayer beta upon release. Those gamers not willing to pony up the cash to get the game and access will have an alternate method; Microsoft’s “Rule of Three” program. Starting in February, gamers that qualify on Xbox Live and are among the first 13,333 Halo 2 players that register on the official Halo 3 website will also have access to the beta. One would also expect that there will be other promotions in the future to get into the test program as well.
The full press release continues after the jump.
Click to continue reading Two New Ways To Get Halo 3 Beta
Xbox Live Suffers Outage
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Microsoft’s Xbox Live matchmaking service went down for about six hours today; the first reports starting appearing at around 5:30 PM Pacific Time, and Major Nelson reported that the service was fixed at around 11:30 PM Pacific. During the outage, gamers would have a hard time connecting to the Live service and could not get into online games. Supposedly, voice chat and achievements were still working during the outage, but gamers looking at playing the single player campaign in Gears of War needed to disconnect their Ethernet connections to play. While outages like this are frustrating, Microsoft’s Major Nelson was able to keep gamers abreast of the situation through his blog; hopefully he will be able to share some post-mortem insight into the outage.
Read More | Major Nelson
Microsoft’s Video Marketplace Top Downloads
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,
Major Nelson, Microsoft’s Larry Hryb, has updated his blog with the top Video Marketplace downloads for the week of December 10th through the 17th. The list doesn’t include absolute numbers, so one can’t really judge how popular the service is overall, but the selections making up the top ten are interesting to say the least.
The top movie downloads are Mission Impossible III, followed by Nacho Libre; both are only available in SD format. This may somewhat act as a gauge of the adoption rate of HD displays with Xbox 360 owners, or people may just not want to spend the extra time downloading the HD content. Other oddities are some of the movies on the list; Poseidon makes the top ten, which received generally unfavorable reviews and had a particularly weak opening weekend in May. Also on the list is The Lake House, a remake of a romantic Korean film that also got relatively poor reviews. The film choices may somewhat reflect the limited movie availability yet on Xbox Live.
The television choices seem to skew more towards the stereotypical Xbox core user, with titles like South Park, Enterprise, and Chappelle’s Show on the list. Again, since no total download numbers are released, the service’s popularity can’t really be determined, but the mix of titles gives some interesting insights into the users of the service.
Read More | Major Nelson
This Week’s Free Xbox Live Marketplace Content: 12/8-12/15
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Music, Trailers, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace,
This week there was a lack of actual in game content available through the marketplace so I’ll focus on game and movie videos & trailers. Hopefully some good free content will be released as we move towards Christmas. I’ll keep my eyes open and make sure it’s posted as it becomes available. In the meantime check out this weeks free content. Enjoy!
GAME DEMOS
:
College Hoops 2K7 – Rated E - 2006 – 961.64MB
Splinter Cell Double Agent (Single Player) – Rated M – - 2006 – 505.86MB
RoboBlitz (Arcade) – Rated E10+ - 2006 – 49.32MB
GAME VIDEOS & TRAILERS
:
Halo3 1st TV Commercial – Rated : NR - 2006
SD - 480p – 14.07MB
HD - 720p - 48.21MB
Battlestations : Midway War Machines Trailer : Rated T - 2006
SD - 480p – 15.46MB
HD - 720p – 73.70MB
Bionicle Heroes Trailer I : Rated E10+ - 2006
SD - 480p – 13.07MB
HD - 720p – 74.07MB
Eragon : Making of Trailer – Rated T - 2006
Unknown format – 126.54MB
Eragon : Director and Designer Interview Trailer – Rated T - 2006
Unknown Format – 160.01MB
MOVIE CLIPS & TRAILERS
:
Eragon Trailer I : 1 Minute – Rated G - 2006
SD - 480p Widescreen – 23MB
HD - 720p Widescreen – 83MB
Eragon Trailer II : 2 minutes – Rated G - 2006
SD - 480p Widescreen – 33MB
HD - 720p Widescreen – 120MB
Transformers Teaser Trailer : 1 Minute – Rated PG-13 (2007)
SD - 480p Widescreen – 25MB
HD - 720p Widescreen – 86MB
MUSIC VIDEOS
:
Tenacious D : The Pick of Destiny : 2 Minutes – NR - 2006
SD - 480p Widescreen – 32MB
Song of the Heart : (from Happy Feet soundtrack) – 3 Minutes – NR - 2006
SD - 480p Widescreen – 34MB
Hold Me Down : (from Motion City soundtrack) 4 Minutes – Rated Explicit - 2005
SD - 480p Widescreen – 47MB
Bad Religion : Los Angeles Is Burning : 3 Minutes – NR – 2004
SD - 480p Fullscreen – 38MB
Matchbook Romance : Monsters : 4 Minutes – NR - 2006
SD - 480p Widescreen – 45MB
Xbox 360 Video Marketplace Reviewed
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Microsoft, Movies, Product Reviews, Video Games,
This one is from our friends over at Krunker, who decided to go through the horrific pain and agony (in our opinion) of downloading the huge video files available on the Xbox 360 Video Marketplace onto the miniscule Xbox 360 hard drive. They report back with their full review of the service, which they see as one of the beginnings of an Xbox 360 - Zune relationship:
The new Xbox Video Marketplace is a small step in the right direction for the Xbox 360. The initial release is underwhelming and some of the restrictions annoying, but the service introduction clearly lays out the infrastructure and ground work for a bigger service down the road - one that will most likely bridge us to the Zune as well.
A small step in the right direction - we agree there - but come on Microsoft. You guys created Windows Media Video, and it streams incredibly well on PCs. Why can’t you use the same technology on the Xbox 360? Don’t you think users would much rather have instant-on access to these shows and movies rather than having to wait hours for a download to complete? Contemplate that, please, and get back to us. Thanks.
Read More | Krunker
This Week’s Free Xbox Live Marketplace Content
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Driving, Features, Simulation, Sports, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,
We are going to start bringing you the free content available on the Xbox Live Marketplace on the regular, thanks to long-time Playfeed reader munkyxtc. Let’s not waste any time, and jump right in.
Available in: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States?
- Viva Pinata Maximum Candiosity Gamer Picture (2 days only, expires Dec 4th)
- Burger King Games Picture Pack (US & Canada Only)
- Test Drive Unlimited : New Vehicles: (All XBL Regions/Requires in game currency)
- Lexus IS 350 Chevy Corvette C1 1957
- NCAA 07: Alternate Uniforms: (Courtesy of Coca-Cola)
- Big 10, Pac 10, Notre Dame
- ACC
- Big East, Conf. USA
- SEC, Mtn. West
- Big 12, WAC
- Madden 07 – Throwback Uniforms: (Courtesy of Sprint)
- AFC East Throwback Uniforms
- AFC North Throwback Uniforms
- AFC South Throwback Uniforms
- AFC West Throwback Uniforms
- NFC East Throwback Uniforms
- NFC North Throwback Uniforms
- NFC South Throwback Uniforms
- NFC West Throwback Uniforms
Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta Sign Up Monday
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Bungie, Culture, First Person Shooters, Xbox 360,
Microsoft has just announced that gamers will be able to sign up to participate in the Halo 3 multiplayer beta on Monday, December 4. On that day, people will be able to sign up for the beta by going to www.halo3.com; those gamers selected will get exclusive access to the pre-release code some time around spring of 2007. The sign-up is tied to the debut of a new CGI-rendered trailer for the game set to air on ESPN’s Monday Night Football between 5:50 and 6:20 p.m. PST.
Read More | Gamerscoreblog
Rare Not Convinced On Downloadable Content
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,
GamesIndustry.biz recently interviewed Viva Piñata developer Rare, and in some published excerpts, the company claims that it is still on the fence in regards to downloadable content. Viva Piñata’s collection-based gameplay would seem to make the game ideal for future downloads, but Rare is balancing developing add-ons versus creation of a whole new game. Part of Rare’s hesitance seems to be tied to the relative lack of success that they have had with previous downloadable releases. Realistically, though, the additional content that Rare has offered has been pretty marginal. The company’s Kameo Power Pack really only offered new game modes, and nothing particularly compelling. Other game companies have been trumpeting the virtues of downloadable content; Activision and Ubisoft have been happy with the success of their expansions for Call of Duty and Ghost Recon, and Electronic Arts has been going crazy for paid content, so it is odd to see a company with such close ties to Microsoft not buying into the business model.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
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