Good stuff coming to Xbox 360 soon, today Microsoft showed a list of upcoming titles and updates to Xbox 360.

• New full body motion and voice recognition controller named Natal, where you move your body and use your voice to interact with the game you are playing, movie your watching and Xbox 360 dashboard
• Alan Wake coming spring 2010 as an Xbox 360 exclusive
• Splinter Cell: Conviction Xbox 360 exclusive coming end of year
• Forza 3, Xbox 360 exclusive coming October 2009
• Facebook and Twitter integration into Xbox 360
• Left 4 Dead 2 coming out this November on Xbox 360
• Call of Duty 5 (modern warfare 2) coming this fall with map packs coming to xbox 360 first
• Crackdown 2 is coming soon
• Metal Gear coming to Xbox 360
• Final Fantasy XIII coming next spring
• Halo ODST Coming this September
• Halo Reach coming out next fall, beta invites included in Halo ODST
• Zune video integration coming to Xbox 360 this fall
• 1080p HD video streaming

And alot more that i can no longer remember looks like good times coming to Xbox 360

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Recent Microsoft documents leak is one of the best leaks to ever happen in Microsoft History. Expect Microsoft stocks to go up or down pretty fast. According to what we see here, Windows Phone will be a complete Zune Phone, with Windows Phone (Windows Mobile) and will be ready to connect to your xbox 360. What’s absolutely new to us is the fact that the phone will be able to connect to any car stereo with a USB input and many more features, this is by far the best piece of information we could’ve even imagined to have our hands on.

Looking forward for this legendary gadget to surface for us to stress test it.

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With the help of Nissan, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit themes and Gamer Pictures are free on the Xbox Live Marketplace. If you’re a fan of the *ahem* issue or the female figure, then you’ll be happy to find out that there’s a different theme for each month, going from March 2009 to January 2010.

The themes are nothing fancy. They’re just pictures and and calendars that rest atop the white space on the screen. They change slightly if you explore the different channels on Xbox Live OS. Unfortunately, there’s no change to the graphics on your friends list. It’s pretty bare bones. But that shouldn’t matter too much, I’m sure you’ll be “focused” on the swimsuit models. They’re very easy on the eyes.

Click here to download it to your Xbox via the Web

Source: http://blogs.mercurynews.com

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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert for Xbox 360’s video download service, because it didn’t clarifying the 14-day expiration of period of downloaded films.

Small print in the TV ad, which we’re assuming is one of those lifestyle ’spinning head’ ones, mentions that the service requires a £169.99 Xbox 360 with a hard drive, but fails to note that movies expire after 14 days and 24 hours once you’ve watched them.

Source: ComputerAndVideoGames.com

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Demerjian [the Inquirer] says Intel has paid to secure a place for its new graphics chip, code-named Larrabee, in Sony’s next-generation console. He says that Advanced Micro Devices has locked up a graphics chip deal to get into the Xbox 360’s successor. And he thinks that, while not confirmed, AMD will also win the graphics chip for the Wii 2.

On Thursday, David Shippy, co-author of The Race for a New Game Machine, shared some interesting thoughts with me. Shippy was chief architect of the PowerPC core used in both Sony’s Cell microprocessor and Microsoft’s Waternoose processor in the Xbox 360. He believes the next consoles are going to combine both the CPU and the GPU in the same chip, right off the bat. Silicon process technology will move so far by that time that both Sony and Microsoft will likely have moved to combine the graphics chip and microprocessor into a single chip in the PS 3 and the Xbox 360. To make this happen, Sony has to get IBM and Nvidia to co-design a single chip for the PS 3, and Microsoft has to get AMD and IBM to do the same for the Xbox 360. This is likely in the contracts, but it’s easier said than done.

This means that the companies that are likely to win the deals are the ones with both graphics and microprocessor technology — AMD and Intel. By 2011, Intel will launch its 22-nanometer manufacturing process. That means it will be able to fit about four times more transistors, or basic electrical circuits, on a chip by that time than it can today. Hence, it be easier to do combo chips by 2012, for sure.

It is indeed going to be a tough road for Nvidia. But for two generations now, Nvidia has managed to get into a console. Why? One of the reasons is that some teams — even at the giant IBM — get stretched really thin if they try to serve all three masters at the same time, as Shippy pointed out in his book.

Source: venturebeat.com

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In a joint press release issued Thursday morning, Microsoft (MSFT) and Netflix (NFLX) announced that to date, Netflix members have streamed 1.5 billion minutes worth of videos to the XBOX 360 console. Considering the Netflix streaming service has only been available to the XBOX 360 console for the past three months, I think anyone would view that as a huge number with great success early on.

To put that number into perspective as it pertains to bits delivered, since we know the technical details on how Netflix encodes videos, since November, content delivery companies Limelight Networks (LLNW) and Level 3 (LVLT) combined have delivered nearly 25 million GB of data. That’s some serious traffic.

While the 1.5 billion minutes is huge, it’s still very small when compared to the total minutes of content they ship via their DVD business. If we use the numbers Netflix has on their website, they ship around 730 million DVDs a year. If we use an average of 120 minutes per DVD, Netflix ships roughly 88 billion minutes of video in the mail, if I did my math right. So the streaming service is still very small in the overall picture but clearly has some really nice traction in only three months time.

The release also stated that Netflix’s application for the XBOX 360 has been downloaded and activated by one million XBOX Live Gold Members but keep in mind that does not mean one million unique consoles since every XBOX Live account can contain multiple profiles or members. UPDATED: Microsoft’s PR folks responded to my question on the one million number and said that the number of multiple gold account houses (on a single console versus two), where both accounts also have a Netflix subscription, has to be rare. So they wouldn’t expect the correlative number of consoles to be anything less than around 95-98 percent of 1 million, if not higher.

These viewing numbers clearly highlight that the XBOX 360 console is by far the most important broadband connected device for the success of Netflix’s streaming service. That really comes as no surprise considering that to date, Microsoft has sold nearly 14 million XBOX 360 consoles in the U.S., which is far more than the Roku, TiVo, Blu-ray players and broadband enabled TVs combined.

Source: http://seekingalpha.com

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Achievements are great and all, but progress marches on. Avatars may soon be the latest and greatest way for Xbox 360 owners to try and show off their sizable… skills.
Speaking with Videogaming247, Rare said that special clothing and accessories for NXE avatars will soon be given out like achievements. At the moment, the only clothes are those available at launch and a few free packs.

Source: 1up.com

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Microsoft is rolling out a new dashboard update to fix the issue with Audio over HDMI. see below for quote below for the scoop.

mandatory dashboard update. The update addresses the issue that a few folks were having with audio and their HDMI connection.
This update will be rolled out to all Xbox LIVE members around the world over the space of a few hours, so you may not get prompted for the update immediately. Thanks for your patience.

Source: Major Nelson

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Microsoft recently started recruiting women to throw Xbox soirees as part of a branding effort to get women to start playing the Xbox, according to the Gannett news service.

“They got an Xbox party pack of freebies that included microwaveable popcorn, Xbox trivia game "Scene It? Box Office Smash," an Xbox universal media remote control, a three-month subscription to Xbox Live, and 1,600 Xbox Live points (used for game, movie and TV show purchases). “

I do think this is a great marketing strategy but as with all Microsoft marketing efforts it feels a bit off. Women have proven to be huge consumers of casual games, and heavily interested in the Wii (Nintendo has been advertising heavily to the ladies for quite a while) but the Xbox feels like a stretch. And, there aren’t a ton of Xbox games that are appealing to women–at least not from my informal survey (I asked my wife and a woman in the hotel lobby.)

"We’ve sold 20 million consoles to date globally since we launched three years ago," says Heather Snavely, Microsoft’s director of interactive entertainment business global platforms. "In order to get to the next 20 million, we need to get a new audience of women and teens. We’re going after them in ways that are different than ways we’ve done before."

Good for Microsoft on this attempt and good for the women who want get involved with playing video games.

Of course, the main thing that comes to mind for me with this program is a free episode I downloaded of The Real Housewives of Orange County, where all the snake-skinned ladies got together for a cocktail and lingerie party. Somehow, I just can’t see that crew getting together for a rousing game of Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto. Maybe if there was a Botox game or something where you drink until you irreparably insult your husband and isolate your children? (Zing!)

Source: http://news.cnet.com

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Gridplane spent a few months working with Microsoft’s XBOX 360 group developing concepts for the latest graphical user interface for the XBOX 360 console.
The time was spent exploring many ways that a new menu system could allow users to browse and navigate game libraries, music, movies and TV shows. Oh, and play games too. In addition to the menu systems, we dreamt up an immersive 3D environment for users to explore the latest games, events and online activity within the XBOX Live community.
These examples represent one of many concepts that we worked on. We are happy to have contributed to the evolution of the XBOX console UI. The new "XBOX Experience" debuted in November, 2008.

Source: gridplane.com

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Many Netflix subscribers already enjoy online streaming access to some 12,000 movies and TV shows, but they may also eventually be able to stream premium movies and original series’ from cable channels like HBO. The company revealed that it’s at least entertaining such an idea through a question on a recent consumer survey, though customers would have to pay another $10 per month to get access to the premium content.

The survey was sent to a handful of Netflix customers, and it asked whether they would be interested in such a service. Specifically, the page says that customers would pay an additional $9.99 on top of their normal Netflix subscriptions and that they could watch the premium content on their computers and on a number of other Netflix-capable devices, like the Roku, Xbox 360, and TiVo. The number of DVDs available as part of the subscription would not change, and customers would still have access to all the currently-available content online.

Source: arstechnica.com

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Microsoft says it will lay off 5,000 workers over the next 18 months, nearly five percent of its total workforce, as the tech giant’s total profits for the fourth quarter of 2008 declined to $4.17 billion from $4.71 billion in the same period last year.

The decline came in spite of a 2 percent increase in total revenues to $16.63 billion — and, crediting the global economy, the company says it must take steps to manage costs.

The company’s Entertainment and Devices Division, which contains its Xbox 360 and games businesses, saw $3.18 billion in revenue for the quarter, an increase of 3% over 2007’s $3.07 billion. However, the division had less revenue in the second half of 2008 than it did in 2007 — $4.99 billion versus $5.02 billion.

The company says that while Xbox 360 platform and PC game revenue drove the increase, it was offset by a decrease in revenue from the company’s Zune music player. And while Xbox 360 platform and PC game revenue specifically was up 6 percent to $135 million, price reductions still offset the bottom line.

The five percent year-over-year revenue decline in the six-month comparison is because of the comparison to Halo 3’s $330 million launch last year, the company adds.

Microsoft says it shipped 6 million Xbox 360 consoles during the quarter, compared to 4.3 million in the previous year. In all, 8.3 million Xbox 360 consoles were shipped in the last six months of 2008, versus 6.1 million consoles in the year previous.

Overall, "…in response to the realities of a deteriorating economy, we’re taking important steps to realign Microsoft’s business," CEO Steve Ballmer said in a company-wide memo.

According to Ballmer, the reductions will be made "in the areas of R&D, marketing, sales, finance, [legal], HR, and IT over the next 18 months" — although 1,400 of the announced job cuts will be made tomorrow.

"The decision to eliminate jobs is a very difficult one," wrote Ballmer in his memo. "Our people are the foundation of everything we have achieved and we place the highest value on the commitment and hard work that you have dedicated to building this company."

"But we believe these job eliminations are crucial to our ability to adjust the company’s cost structure so that we have the resources to drive future profitable growth," he added.

Source: GamaSutra.com

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Amazon.com has trimmed the annual membership price of Xbox Live by 40%, bringing the fee down to $29.97. The $30 fee covers the Xbox 360 Live 12 Month Gold Card plus 1 Month Bonus card offered by Amazon.

Source: PCWorld

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If you happened to miss Tuesday’s inaugural festivities — or were sorely disappointed by the terrible quality of the video stream to your computer — Microsoft has you covered.

For the rest of the week, a special "Inauguration" channel has been added to your Xbox Live interface, letting you stream key moments from the Obamarama, including:

* Barack Obama’s swearing in and his address
* Joe Biden’s swearing in as vice president
* a performance of ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ by Aretha Franklin and a bow threatening to eat her head
* Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman playing together on a new piece by John "I wrote the ‘Jaws’ theme" Williams

The video — provided by MSNBC — isn’t high-definition, but it certainly blows away most of what was available on the Internet Tuesday afternoon. (I bailed out when the video stream I was watching dropped to what could best be described as "sluggish." A co-worker applied the adjective "slideshow" to what he later saw.)

This isn’t the first time President Obama and the Xbox 360 have crossed paths. You may remember the in-game ads that showed up in certain Electronic Arts games such as ‘Burnout Paradise’ and ‘NHL 09′ last October. Those were paid spots, however, while the inauguration coverage appears to have been done as part of normal news coverage.

Source: http://blogs.indystar.com

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When Microsoft Corp. reports its second-quarter earnings Thursday, the company is expected to outline a series of cost-cutting measures, which will include postponing most of its plans to further expand its facilities across the Puget Sound region.

An internal planning and scenario PowerPoint presentation reviewed by the Seattle P-I shows that Microsoft is set to delay the construction of all new buildings in Redmond, except one, for at least three years. The company also will not renew most of its leases when they come up for renewal this year and next.

The changes are driven by the deteriorating global economic situation, which has led to a steep hiring slowdown by Microsoft. It is unclear whether the company will lay off any employees, as has been rumored, this week.

In recent years, Microsoft has launched a major expansion of its Redmond campus, including a 1.1 million-square-foot complex for its Entertainment and Devices Division.
Some of the complex is under construction, and work will not stop.

Source: seattlepi

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Sony Computer Entertainment’s ever-confident chairman Kazuo Hirai has said that the Xbox 360 "lacks longevity", and remains certain PS3 will finish on top.

"And with the Xbox - again, I can’t come up with one word to fit. You need a word that describes something that lacks longevity," said Hirai.

"Last time I checked, they’ve never had a console that’s been on the market for more than four or five years and we’ve committed to a ten year life cycle, so you do the math.

"And unless things go really bad," added Hirai, "there’s no way that at the end of a life cycle our competition is going to have a higher install base."

Source: computerandvideogames.com

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Currently, when it comes to DivX on consoles, it is just Sony who has signed up for the official codec compliance for the PlayStation 3.

TechRadar asked if DivX can see other console manufacturers teaming up with the company in the future, and Rota [founder and VP creative, brand and community of DivX] was quick to respond with regards to the Xbox 360:

"When it comes to DivX branding, we have had a hard time with Microsoft. Obviously we would love for some sort of partnership to happen.

"Currently, Microsoft does support DivX, which is fantastic, but the company has brought in some third-party support for the Xbox 360, and we are not very happy with that."

Source: techradar.com

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So what’s missing? Microsoft’s Xbox 360 with YouTube, of course. The Xbox 360 console is mysteriously absent from YouTube’s announcement. Microsoft’s one-up in this battle is its acquisition of Netflix before its rivals, but with streaming television being the next big thing, that may not be enough.

Source: PCWorld.com

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While recent sweeping Xbox 360 price cuts have seen Microsoft extend its market lead over main rival Sony and its PlayStation 3 console, Sony’s cost-free PlayStation Network remains a more attractive online multiplayer facet that manages to tarnish Microsoft’s subscription-based Xbox Live platform.

However, the well established Xbox Live service, which was made completely free to PC users in July of 2008, is now considerably more appealing to Xbox 360 owners thanks to a substantial price cut implemented by retail giant Amazon.

Unveiled by Amazon.com this past Sunday as part of its latest accessories sale, the price cut covers Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold Subscription card and brings the usual $49.99 USD price down to a much more tempting $29.97 USD.

The product delivers a full 12 months of complete Xbox Live access, which includes worldwide multiplayer gaming as well as the download of free videogame demos and trailers, and the cost-based download of additional gameplay content, full games, TV shows, movies and other related items.

Although Xbox Live boasts some 17 million subscribers and a wealth of online content, Sony’s relatively new PlayStation Network enables PlayStation 3 owners to take advantage of a similarly structured service without any form of charged access.

It remains to be seen whether the Amazon price cut emerges as little more than a temporary reduction or if Redmond-based Microsoft moves to expand free PC access to also include its Xbox 360 user base.

Although, given the substantial Xbox Live revenue stream Microsoft reaps from its console customers, that might not be forthcoming any time soon. 

According to Microsoft, generation-leading price adjustments made to its gaming hardware have helped the company sell 28 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world, which it claims is some eight million more units than the PlayStation 3.

The Xbox 360 outperformed the PlayStation 3 by a ratio of 2-to-1 in December, according to market research specialist NPD Group.

Source: http://www.thetechherald.com

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A handful of loyal X3F fanboys just sent word that a new Xbox 360 dashboard update has just been released. The update installs the new dashboard version 2.0.7363.0 (replacing the old 2.0.7357.0 version) and has been slowly releasing across all consoles connected to Xbox Live.

Nobody at Microsoft has announced the update’s release. Those who have received it haven’t been able to find anything new, so we’re speculating that it’s one of those behind the scenes / no new features dash upgrades.

Source: xbox360fanboy.com

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