You gotta admit, the Xbox Originals deal is a really cool idea, especially if you live in a country which never had the Xbox, completely obliterating your chances of getting an original Xbox disc anywhere within a 10,000 mile radius. Never mind the fact that we still don’t have the 120GB HDD here officially and we’d have to juggle our Xbox Original games via our Download History!

But for those that are planning to download them anyway, like us, there’s nothing better than giving us a chance at winning some cool stuff just for doing it. Announcing the new “Play & Win” sweepstakes on the official Xbox website, Microsoft is now giving those that download Xbox Originals a chance at winning great goodies including an Xbox 360 VIP Accessory Kit that includes a wireless controller, two Play & Charge kits, an Xbox LIVE Vision camera, a Quick Charge kit, the Universal Media Remote, a Wireless Network Adapter, a Wireless Headset, a 64 MB Memory Unit - all housed in a neat Limited Edition Xbox 360 Aluminium carrying case. If you’re not among the five lucky winners that’s going to be getting this killer kit, you can hope to be among the other 50 lucky SOBs that can walk away with a 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription or 1600 Microsoft Points gratis.

All you gotta do is register your GamerTag on the official registration form before December 5th, make sure you got an Xbox LIVE Gold membership in good standing and then download an Xbox Original game off Marketplace with the same GamerTag. Then its off to waiting until December 16 to see if you won anything. And oh, you gotta be a US resident to be eligible to enter said sweepstakes. Damn, we knew there was a catch somewhere. Now we’re off to contact Microsoft India and beg them to do something like that here as well, since it’d be even more of an incentive for us to get our Fahrenheit and Psychonauts goodness come December 4th.

We have official confirmation! In a press release that was sent to us just now, Microsoft India says that the Xbox Originals service will indeed be available in the country on December 4, along with expectations that Xbox LIVE will cross the 10-million user mark by June 2008.

Each Xbox Original will retail for 1200 Microsoft Points (or approximately INR 590 a pop) and will range from 2GB to 7GB in size, which should take us about, oh, 2 days to download on our crappy 256k lines. (Sorry, Microsoft, that 4 - 8 hour download timeframe is for the lucky people in the rest of the world who have access to great 2Mbps lines!) And yes, we too will get the chance to download Carcassonne (or Hexic 2, we’re not sure) within a 48 hour period as we had previously reported. Also.. wait, what?! That’s not what we reported! We thought it was a 24 hour period, unless my Math is that phenomenally bad. But the press release claims we should be able to download “a free Xbox LIVE Arcade game*, within a 48 hour period starting 15 November 1:30 PM.” Oh well, this one’s better anyway.

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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.

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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!

There are good sides and bad sides to living in India, especially if you happen to be a die-hard gamer. The good deal is that almost all PC and Xbox 360 games are a lot cheaper than their US/UK counterparts. That is, if the games actually release down here before the rest of the world has finished playing them three times over. Or worse, like UbiSoft Xbox 360 titles, turn up their noses and ignore us completely.

With first party titles like Halo 3 and Mass Effect enjoying a simultaneous release with their American counterparts, it was more than a little upsetting to PC owners here that Gears of War still wasn’t available on shelves. Naturally, Xbox 360 owners weren’t too happy with the regional restrictions and extremely low content on the Marketplace. After all, Reggie’s not in the best of moods if you keep him from buying DOOM!

However, talking to our stalkers in a short email interview, the good folks at Microsoft India let us know that they are indeed working to fix said problems. According to Sanjoy John, PC owners desperate for their Gears fix will be able to pick up their copies this week, while Xbox 360 owners will see a lot of new content, including more Arcade games and Bollywood related content (blech!), headed their way.

And to feed us rabid Mass Effect hungry zombies, copies will be available with the distributors on the 15th, and in stores around the 20th. And yes, there’s probably even going to be a nice, big launch party, where some of us will be gulping down food while the sane desperate ones try to get as quickly as they can to the alien boobies! Wonder if we’ll get to see any Liara cosplayers at the event.

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)