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Microsoft is on a roll these days, bringing Xbox games to the Xbox 360, organizing local gaming events and trying to make sure at least first party titles are available here on Day 0. With Xbox LIVE turning five, they’re getting even more generous. According to an official press release, Microsoft will celebrate the five year milestone and the 2-year anniversary of Xbox LIVE Arcade by giving away free downloads of Carcassonne to to all 8 million members, in addition to showing their gratitude to those that have been supporting them since 2002 with 500 Microsoft Points.
Carcassonne will be available for download via Xbox LIVE Arcade from 12:01 a.m. PST on Nov. 15 through 11:59 p.m. PST on Nov. 16. Or, if you want that in local time, between 10:31 a.m. IST on Nov. 15 and 10:20 a.m. IST on Nov. 16. And oh, it looks like our prayers have indeed been answered and the most awesome Psychonauts will indeed be available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. What did we tell you, huh? Now to just sit back and wait for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to join its friends on the Xbox 360!
Hit the jump for the official press release.
Xbox LIVE may be temporarily down for the day, but things couldn’t be better for the service. With people fawning over the mysterious Fall Update and wondering if they’d get to actually play back their DivX movies on the console, OXM got an earful from the Microsoft folks about the already-long-overdue update.
According to CVG (which got the news through OXM), the Fall Update will be rolled out on December 4, with the Films-On-Demand rental service becoming available soon after. Costing less than $5 for a single rental, the movie will be available in 720p resolutions. Once downloaded, you have two weeks to start watching it, and once you do, you’ve got 24 hours to finish it, after which it conveniently deletes itself from the hard drive. What would make this a killer app is if such a delivery system was used to serve Xbox 360 game rentals securely to our hard drives. Aah, the blissful joys of never having to go out and see the sun!
But the best part about the update? You can buy, download and play Xbox titles on your 360 via Marketplace. While the service will start by offering Halo, Fable, Fahrenheit, Crimson Skies: Road to Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Burnout 3: Takedown, more titles will be added to the service, with each game costing about 1200 Microsoft Points. Frankly, I can’t wait to see Psychonauts and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time added to the list.
We’re not sure if this service will also be rolled out over here, but considering we’ve never had the Xbox officially available in India, it’d be a great way to get local gamers to boogie down with some of the great titles on dear departed Xbox. We’re gonna shoot off a mail straight to Microsoft India about this one and try to get more out of the horse’s mouth. Keep watching this space for updates!
Did you know Alan Bowman first started playing on an Atari? Neither did we, until we spoke to him, that is. Sitting down with us for a casual chat at the New Delhi presser for the Xbox LIVE India launch, Xbox Asia Pacific’s Director, Alan Bowman, a self proclaimed “casual gamer” (aren’t we all? Oh wait, we forgot about those 2 billion CS 1.6 jerks here) talks about his gaming habits and more importantly, working with local developers to generate “educational content” for Math, Science and the other subjects which will use the Xbox 360’s videogame prowess to help kids learn better. We think this is a great idea (even though Vijay for some reason seems to be very interested in “The Arbiter teaches typing”) and one that’s in line with the Games for Change initiative’s aim of deconstructing the myth that games can only be used as “practice” for deranged schoolkids with guns. Are you watching, huh, Jack Thompson?
Damn kids these days. Getting to learn with an Xbox 360 whereas we had to do it the old fashioned way. At least I had fun sneaking comics inside my textbooks.
So you thought all we did at the Microsoft Xbox LIVE India presser was just gorge on great food and kick each other’s asses in Halo 3? Nah, we actually took the time out to do, you know, real videogame journalism and all that jazz. First up in a series of video interviews, we’ve got the awesome Robbie Bach, positively beaming after the Xbox 360 Arcade announcements and the latest NPD numbers that put his baby on top. Talking to our two stalkers at yesterday’s launch event, Robbie talks about Games for Windows LIVE, Microsoft’s commitment to the Indian gaming market, and regional restrictions and how they’re slowly disappearing from the system. And oh, if you like Bollywood related content, Vijay just called them “crap”. Everybody, sic him! (I too, think they’re crap, but nobody sic me.) We’ll have more interviews with Alan Bowman and Mohit Anand later in the day.
Prefer to download the video? Here you go.
Download Video Interview with Robbie Bach (WMV/4.3 MB)
Remember the little big Microsoft announcement that we talked about some time back? With over 2 hours to go before the clock hits zero, we’ve got some news that will totally make you want to hug us. That’s how awesome we are. So revel, Indian gaming fans, in the knowledge that Xbox LIVE will be launching on November 5th, just in time for us to get our chainsaws revving in Gears of War.
Talking to the press at the Shangri-La hotel in New Delhi a couple of hours back, the Microsoft Awesome Foursome - Robbie Bach (President, Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division), Alan Bowman (Director, Home and Entertainment Division, Asia Pacific), Ravi Venkatesan (Chairman, Microsoft India) and Mohit Anand (Country Manager, Entertainment and Devices, Microsoft India) - knocked everyone over with a barrage of announcements.
So it didn’t answer any of the questions that Legend threw up, but Tomb Raider: Anniversary was a shining beacon as far as the franchise was concerned, thanks in full to Crystal Dynamics’ brilliant efforts. With PC, PS2 and PSP owners getting their action a long time back, Eidos had announced that the game would be made available to Xbox 360 owners as DLC on Marketplace sometime near the end of the year.
As of yesterday, though, all that has changed. People who were hoping for a retail release, like yours truly, will be happy to know that Eidos will release the retail version of Ms. Croft’s adventures on the Xbox 360 come October 23rd in the US, followed by a European release three days later. A DLC pack, split into two pieces, the first of which will contain the first two major areas and Croft Manor, will be released over Xbox LIVE in November and will require a retail copy of Tomb Raider: Legend to run.
That’s right, one more game that threatens to make me go flat B-R-O-K, broke, in the next three months. (sigh) Check, please!
With just over 4 days remaining for the big, mysterious announcement from Microsoft India, people have almost thrown themselves off bridges trying to figure out what the damn thing’s all about. Being the sick guy off work this week, what better way to spend my time recuperating than spreading and trying to substantiate rumors, right?
Even as hundreds of desperate fans try to analyze the image on the site, I think I may have just found a little more (ir?)refutable proof that the announcement will indeed be about Xbox LIVE. Thumbing through the Gears of War manual while waiting for a co-op session to begin, I noticed the Xbox LIVE ad in the manual has a number of “similar” characters. Which, combined with the little gold-colored concentric circles on the navigation menu on the Xbox India website, strongly points to the service soon finding its way into the country.
Of course, it’s quite possible that we’re setting ourselves, and hundreds of others, up for a huge fall, but, yeah, that’s how desperate and perverse we are. Or as the locals say, “kindly excuse, we are like this only!”