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MLB.tv lands on Xbox 360, gets cozy alongside ESPN and UFC
You knew it was coming, and now Microsoft's ready to make MLB.tv on your Xbox 360 official. Just like previous sporting efforts on the console, Redmond's gone and built a custom layer atop a partner's content in hopes of creating a richer and more immersive experience. A premium MLB.tv subscription still applies here, which'll grant you access to HD streams of every out-of-market game -- all of which are watchable live, in recap or archived forms. We liked the "My Teams" functionality which enabled us to quickly earmark content from teams we cared about, which makes triaging through MLB's rather large catalog far more palatable. There's a spiffy mini guide too, which makes for swapping between games a painless affair, in addition to split screen view, where two games are splayed side-by-side -- each which can be paused, or rewound to your hearts content. And it wouldn't be a party if gesture and voice controls, courtesy of Kinect, didn't make an appearance here too. So go peep that dashboard for the update, or hop past the break for a demo video of the whole shindig.
Nexon's Min Kim on the 'Free2pocalypse'
Nexon bigwig Min Kim recently checked in with Gamasutra for a brief interview regarding the state of the company's global free-to-play initiative. In short, business is booming, and while MapleStory was viewed as an oddity when it launched with a F2P model eight years ago, it's now much closer to the norm. "A lot of people laughed at the business model, and now a lot of companies are starting to try to understand it or experiment with it. We've been calling it 'the free2pocalypse.' Every company is looking at it; the market is just way larger," Kim explains. He also talks a bit about Nexon's new Live Games division, which consolidates the company's operations, marketing, and communications groups into a single entity under his direction. Finally, Kim explains the logic behind the decision to remove Nexon's name from its uber-successful retail store game cards. In a nutshell, the benefits of unifying the virtual item currencies across a diverse selection of games outweighed the name recognition afforded by the Nexon banner.
