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Bad at math? Use this MS Points converter
Been duped into forking over 200 "Microsoft Points" for some fancy horse armor, only to have your waning, embarrassingly poor math skills catch up with your error after the fact? "2.50? 2.50?! I coulda bought a bunch of gamertag pictures for that!"You're right dear reader, although we'd question that expenditure as well. In the real world, $2.50 can buy all sorts of great stuff like: four thousandths of a PlayStation 3, some Taco Bell, or a small water at a movie theater. Using bigsteveouk's Unofficial Microsoft Points Converter, you can convert Microsoft's funny money into real currency before making any more impulse buys, and then save that money for important stuff. [Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
MS Points currency converter
Big Steve Hunter from the UK (GamerTag: bigsteveouk) created this handy 6 currency MS Points converter just in case you forget you're spending real Yen on the latest over-priced content.[Thanks Mike]
New CoD2 Map Pack fails to answer Prey-ers
It's interesting that the new 800 MS Point Call of Duty 2 Map Pack isn't generating the same angry response as the GRAW expansion, despite the fact it could have easily been combined with the map pack from a couple weeks ago. Maybe it's because the complainers are too busy placing irrational blame on Major Nelson for the missing Prey demo. As the conspiracy theory goes, the machiavellian Major nixed Prey because he wanted to keep the focus on paid content over the Holiday Weekend. It's just nutty enough to make perfect sense, but you'd think they could work a Halliburton angle in there.
June 27th says: "No Live for you!" [update 1]
PlayOnline has announced that Xbox Live servers will be down on June 27th from 2:00 'til 6:00 PDT for maintenance. It looks like this will only affect PlayOnline, but it might mean no Live for anyone. No word has actually come down from Microsoft about Live being down so, who knows? The announcement mentions that those already connected to PlayOnline will stay connected, but once you disconnect you won't be able to access PlayOnine until the maintenance is finished. So, 360 Final Fantasy XI fans (both of you) better connect now before it's too late. [Via Xboxic] Update: Reader bigC24 let us know that the Live outage is official. Check out Major Nelson for details.
Lumines fiasco redux
Some of you may have noticed a comment from Live Arcade's Ross Erickson on Wednesday's Lumines story. The original post claimed that -- according to Tetsuya Mizuguchi, mind you -- an extra pack would have to be purchased from Marketplace to access online play in Lumines Live. I contacted Mr. Erickson to get to the bottom of this. I asked whether or not he could confirm that Live play will be included with Lumines at no extra cost. I received a one word reply: "Confirmed." There you have it folks. Crisis averted. I would have preferred a less terse reply, but I'll take what I can get. So, knowing that Live play is included, will you buy Lumines if it costs fifteen bucks?
Demo Delay for Prey
Boomtown reports that George Broussard of 3DRealms has announced a likely delay in the release of the Prey demo for Xbox Live Marketplace. This likely comes as no surprise to those of you who stayed up all night waiting for it. In a posting on the 3DRealms website, Broussard made the following statement: "The 360 demo will not appear on Marketplace tonight [Wednesday]. I'm still waiting for specifics, but I'm being told that it's still in testing at Microsoft. From what I understand this isn't Microsoft's fault, and is more likely just an issue of timing. I'm hesitant to give any estimates for a release, but I've been told it should be reasonably soon after the pc release, but could be as long as a few days." As many of our commenters have already noted, if the demo doesn't hit today, it probably won't drop until Monday. There is one happy note: the PC demo is available if you've got the muscle to run it. [Via openXBOX360]
XBLA goes brick n' mortar
XboxAddict is reporting that Microsoft is planning to start releasing Xbox Live Arcade titles at retail stores. Microsoft's hope is that simple games like Marble Blast, Smash TV, and Uno will appeal to the elusive "non-gamer" demographic. As an added bonus, these games will also avail the joys of Xbox Live to the less savvy 360 owners out there -- if you read this site, chances are this does not apply to you. Pricing and packaging have not been discussed yet. Though many suspect these games will be released in some type of compilation, I wouldn't be surprised if we see lots of single games at super budget prices. Maybe even in jewel cases like budget PC games. There are other uncertainties, too. Will these games install on the hard drive or run off of the DVD? If they install on the hard drive, what's to keep people from installing them on multiple 360s? Of course, the big question is whether or not we still have to buy two copies of Lumines.
400 XBLM points for free -- sort of
Outpost.com is selling 1600 Marketplace points for $14.99 (the usual price is $20.00). Over the weekend, the status of this deal was "Call for Availability." However, they seem to be back in stock now. The site is also selling 12 and 3 month Live subscriptions for $54.99 and $29.99 respectively. That's $10 off of a three month subscription and a full $15 off of a 12 month subscription. 360 Fanboy does not endorse this site, and I have no idea how reliable it is so, buy at your own risk. Anybody scored any other deals lately? [Via The Hottest Deals]
Mehrune's Razor shaves its way onto XBLM
In case you haven't noticed, new Oblivion content is available on Marketplace. Here's the description according to Major Nelson: "The lost Ayleid City Varsa Baalim has been unearthed by a rogue Telvanni arch-mage, in pursuit of a fearsome Daedric Artifact, Mehrunes Razor, which he believes will give him the power he needs to topple the Imperial reign - but what horrors lie in wait beneath the Valus mountains; and can you overcome them to claim Mehrune's Razor as your own?" You can grab Mehrune's Razor for 250 points. Personally, I'm waiting for the next expansion: Kerrek's Aftershave.
Nintendo granted messaging patent -- Wii IM?
Six years ago, before the GameCube's launch, Nintendo had filed for a patent on a "messaging service for video game systems with buddy list that displays game being played," and on Tuesday they were granted the patent. The details involve a fully-fledged IM system featuring buddy icons, in-game messaging (via text or voice chat), and web-based storage of the user profile (i.e. Nintendo's servers). All the details can be viewed within the patent's claims.You can see the similarities between Nintendo's patent and Microsoft's Xbox Live service, but there are two things you should take from this patent: It does not mean Microsoft copied Nintendo. While Nintendo filed this patent before the Xbox was even launched, chances are Microsoft also filed a patent just as long ago, if not longer. It does not guarantee these services will be included in the Wii. While Nintendo now has patent protection on such services, given the company the option to incorporate all these features into Wii Connect24, that does not guarantee Nintendo's willingness to implement every aspect of the patent into its service, although it is likely we will see a very similar (if not exact) system implemented by the time the Wii launches. Nintendo, we can now confirm, has the ability to launch a fully-fledged online service on par with Microsoft, providing almost the exact same features (fully-fledged messaging, downloadable content). To what extent will Nintendo beef up the Wii's online component?[Thanks, Ianc02]
XBL background downloads coming yesterday?
We already suspected it was supposed to drop this month, but Microsoft's Knowledge Base (KB article #919421) has revealed the feature set and the release date for the Xbox 360's long anticipated background downloading functionality. The date: yesterday. Alright, so they're running a little late (at least it's not Vista-late), but the feature set is promising. Instead of the compromised functionality many of us expected (Arcade games or videos only while downloading), the newly re-dubbed "Active Download feature" is fairly robust. It appears the only thing one can't do while background downloading is play online games, for obvious reasons. Actually, you can play online games -- the system just pauses your download to be resumed later. We've included the contents of the KB article after the break, lest someone at Redmond gets wind and decides to remove it. Microsoft: roll it out and we'll gladly cross this one off our list of Xbox 360 annoyances (both of em ... this was really annoying). [Thanks, Gary]
Ridge Racer 6 XBL demo here and gone and here again
Major Nelson announced that the demo for Ridge Racer 6 is available for download in the XBLM. Wait, now it's gone. He's gonna let us know when it's available again.What's that? Check again? Alright... wow! It's back again! We'd normally be willing to overlook this minor SNAFU if it was the first time it had happened. The King Kong demo was pulled almost a month ago and is still not available for download, all that remains is the notice, "This demo has been removed. I’ll update you if/when it is replaced with an updated version." The demo system is one of the killer apps of the Xbox Live service (even when it is a little slow), otherwise we wouldn't care. Microsoft has distinguished themselves with active community participation from people like Mr. Hyrb (Major Nelson) and the Gamerscore crew, but a little more transparency wouldn't hurt. Some examples might be: the Kong demo was pulled? Yeah, it was buggy. So, the RR6 demo is buggy? No, it was just a server error. I heard the GRAW demo is never coming out? [This is the part that Microsoft is supposed to fill in here.][Thanks, Drew][UPDATE: Gamerscore blogger John Porcaro stopped by to give us his thoughts writing, "I think we could be a bit more forthrite when we make changes like posting, then removing public material. Usually, the explanation is a LOT simpler than some would think." Xbox Live's Major Nelson also just dropped us an email to point out that he tracked down what happened and posted it on his blog. He writes, "It turns out that the wrong file was placed on the server. The team realized it, tracked down the proper file, and made the correction. Total time of the mystery: less then 2 hours." A LOT simpler than some would think.See, I told you they had distinguished themselves with community participation! Thanks a ton guys for all the hard work on your end... now what's up with the Kong demo... and the CoD2 patch? Obnoxious inquiring minds want to know!]
Full Auto demo explodes onto XBLM
As expected, the demo for Sega's ballet of guns and cars (what else) is up on the Xbox Live Marketplace for your enjoyment. Weighing in at roughly 650MB, it'll take awhile to download. To all the snickering OXM readers out there who've been happily playing the demo for weeks now, just let us losers have our fun! You can download the Marble Blast demo.[Thanks to everyone that tipped us off]
Full Auto demo gonna drop this Wednesday
GameSHOUT is reporting that Sega's gun-infused racing game, Full Auto, will be exploding onto the Xbox Live Marketplace this Wednesday, January 25th. This will be the second title following Fight Night Round 3 to hit the Marketplace before retail stores; the full version of Full Auto is scheduled to hit retailers on February 14th. [Thanks, Nick]
