Starting August 25th, Xbox Live users will be able to register to vote thanks to a partnership between Microsoft and activist organization Rock the Vote. This new service aims at getting more young people interested in politics by providing them access to Rock the Vote’s public service announcements, a special presidential forum, and various political polls. The service will be promoted by Xbox at both of the upcoming Republican and Democratic conventions. There, Microsoft will reinforce the parental controls and guidelines surrounding its console and the Xbox Live service.
“Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters,” says Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote. “To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there’s no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE.”
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that their PC gaming hub, Games for Windows Live, is now moving to a completely free business model. This move will remove the distinction between the Gold and Silver membership tiers and will hopefully alleviate some of the negative stigma that has been surrounding the service since its release.
In the wake of this announcement all eyes now turn to Microsoft’s console equivalent, Xbox Live, in the hopes that it will be undergoing a similar adjustment. However, in the absence of a direct competitor – such as Steam on the PC – and the fact that Microsoft continues to turn a profit from the service, any change that drastic seems highly unlikely.
I'm not sure what has gotten into developers, but if you hadn't noticed, in the past few couple of weeks, there've been several new accommodations on the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Store as, well, Map Packs. Some are free, some aren't free, and some aren't even out yet. In chronological order (according to availability), here's the latest updates on Bungie and Infinity Ward's purchasable offerings.
Not too long ago, Bungie decided to go ahead and treat the more casual players (and cheaper players) of Halo 3 to a less expensive price tag to their previous map pack...and by less expensive, I mean absolutely free. After several months, it's finally been offered as a free download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. So, I'm sure if you had Halo, you probably already downloaded it (unless you bought it when it was released). Even so, that only means that there is just another bucket of downloadable content creeping around the corner...
That was quite a while ago, however, and for now, the spotlight is on Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat, as their map pack compiling not three, but four new maps was released on April 4th for voracious players to drool all over.
These include: Broadcast, set in the television production studio and parking lot of the 'Charlie Don't Surf' level in Call of Duty 4. Chinatown is a direct remake of the classic Call of Duty 2 map, Carentan, but in the foggier, grittier, and certainly darker ambient of Chinatown. Creek, which is perhaps Call of Duty 4's most colorful map, is set outside [by a creek] in a large, wide open combat ravaged village with scarce cover spots, and might I say, it looks beautiful.
The final map is called Killhouse, a desolate training warehouse with several cover spots, not all of which are entirely safe.
What? Another map pack? I'm afraid so. See, it's clear the only reason the original Halo 3 downloadable map pack was offered free of charge was to clear out the way for their new Legendary Map Pack consisting of another three maps for the Halo junkies to have their frag fests on.
These include: Ghost Town is a medium sized, broken down ruin near the town of Voi ideal for small, to medium game types. Avalanche, one of the larger maps, has players freezing their armors in this mountainous frozen region, ideal for larger team battles and multi-team game types. Its final installment, Blackout, is an abandoned drill platform that monuments human frailty [?] -- I'm not sure what they mean by that, but what you should know is that this is a remake of Halo 2's "Lockout" it's safe to say veterans can rejoice. Loudly.
One more thing that I found laughable is the trailer for Halo 3's new map pack...well, two things...
First laughable material: Ever played World of Warcraft and cared enough to watch Blizzard's trailers? It's vividly clear that we've got Bungie borrowing the trailer style of Blizzard and using it for their own release. Why? I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I would probably say it's to hype people up more, even though it's just maps.
Second laughable material: Its theme is very peculiar. It seems very off-the-beaten-path, yet it feels somewhat Halo while being significantly off. Death, ancient battles, scars, and darkness were some of the more notable keywords amidst all these maps and the trailer; the reasons why could be speculated, but I'm not going to do so here.
Are these maps worth the money, or should we all just wait until they are offered free of charge? Maybe, maybe not -- but I've given you what you need to decide if you want one, the other, both, or even neither!
At this year's Game Developer's Conference, Microsoft made the announcement of their new "Community Arcade," a segment of the vaunted Xbox Live Arcade platform. With Community Arcade, Microsoft is giving true power to tiny, independent (and often one-man) development groups, who can now create a game, upload it for free to the Community Arcade, and allow any Xbox 360 owner with access to XBLA to download it (still for free).
Game developers will be able to build profiles called "creator profiles" to track their games, but players will have a significant say in the process as well. In order to regulate content, creators will tag their games with labels like "violence" and "language," but players will later be able to tag and peer-review the games themselves.
While some demos are out right now for players to try out the new Community Arcade games (such as Walaber's "Jelly Car"), Microsoft has not yet announced an official launch date for their revolutionary "YouTube of games."
Skyllus vBi, a player on the pro gaming Team vBi, is feeling the pain of celebrity. After creating a popular Halo 3 video, Skyllus was given in-game "Recon Armor," which is only held by Bungie employees and occasional Live members. Of course, the kind people of Xbox Live wanted some o' dat Recon Armor for themselves, and Skyllus has reported three hacks on his account in the last 3 months.
However, the newest hack Skyllus is fighting off has been compounded by Live's unhelpful customer service. Unable to return Skyllus's lost account to him, Live customer service kept him waiting for hours and then informed him that there would be an investigation into the hack. Wonderful.
It's a shame that this sort of thing happens. Someone gets rewarded for a job well done, he receives something as trivial as a suit of armor, and still there are people who will take advantage of him because his name and Gamertag are well-known. Despicable.
[via Joystiq]
It seems that somebody is following Doug Lowenstein's advice, as Microsoft has recently announced a game development contest called the Games for Change Challenge for college students to make games with real-world significance. They have chosen the touchy subject of global warming for the topic. All games must be made in Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express program, and the winners might even be used with Xbox Live Arcade or Games for Windows Live Arcade.
This is a great decision on the part of Microsoft, and I'm very interested in seeing some of these games. How do you think someone would incorporate global warming into an interesting game?
[via Kotaku]
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