It Ain't Summer 'til The Summer of Arcade Says So

Xbox LIVE Arcade's Summer of Arcade promotions are always a good time. How they work are, Microsoft pools together a bunch of games, releases them weekly, and gives you a portion of your spending back if you buy multiple titles. There are a total of 5 games to be released between July and August, and a few of them look pretty damn snazzy. As your special bonus, should you buy any 3 of the Summer of Arcade titles, you'll get a whopping 400 Microsoft points back. Hooray for incentives! Breakdown to follow:

• July 18 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD - 1200 MSP
• July 25 - Wreckateer - 800 MSP
• August 1 - Deadlight - 1200 MSP
• August 8 - Hybrid - 1200 MSP
• August 15 - Dust: An Elysian Trail - 1200 MSP

Of the above, the two I'm most interested in getting play time with are Hybrid and Deadlight. Hybrid because of its dummyproof-however-refreshing take on the cover-based shooter genre, that kind of looks like the bastard child of Halo and Gears. Sure it sounds like every other game in the over-saturated genre, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. And Deadlight mostly due to its wonderful zombie-meets-Limbo aesthetic, gorgeous visuals, animation, and strong focus on delivering a satisfying narrative with comic inspired cut scenes. Trailers for the two are included below. What do you got on these, folks?

Hacking Xbox LIVE: My Experience

As powerful as the players in the gaming console market are, they ain't bulletproof. Sony discovered this last year, when their entire system was breached, leaving millions of users to face unexpected downtime while security was tightened on their network. Though all other security infringements seem trivial in comparison, Microsoft has a bit of a problem of its own. Two weeks ago, I experienced it first hand.

Click to read more ...

Xbox LIVE Updates, Moves to Outer Space

Well, not really outer space, but close. Microsoft has chosen to take Xbox where many companies have been going as of late; to the cloud! During Microsoft's E3 2011 press conference, it was announced that Xbox LIVE will begin implementing cloud features such as game saves and profile recovery. This means traveling with your Xbox LIVE profile will be easy-peezy, and much less of a hassle than either dealing with the dreadful 'Gamertag Recovery' or saving your profile along with all of your game data onto a dedicated USB stick.

I'm loving this direction, as I have two Xbox consoles in my house I play on, and carting profiles/saves back and forth is a huge pain in the red ring. Also, friends will now have easier access to their accounts without junking up my consoles USB ports with portable media. Everybody wins!

In addition to the knockout cloud announcement, Microsoft was getting busy in other ways. Like introducing another dashboard update?! That's right kids. It seems like Xbox LIVE gets a visual makeover every year, so why not another this fall? Long gone are the days of the blade, replaced now with a nice and simple interface reminiscent of the Windows Phone OS or the newly announced Windows 8 look. Microsoft seems to be following the footsteps of Apple by creating one unified look across all of its platforms, which ain't a bad thing, especially considering that this new look is actually quite snazzy.

Also announced are Xbox Live Beacons. It's an odd sounding feature that lets your network know what game you want to play. Then, you'll receive an instant notification when one of your friends has fired that game up. Sounds kind of silly, but sure, whatever. Must be useful if your friend list is at max capacity. Then again, if you're maxed out on XBL friends, you're probably exclusively playing one of either Halo, Gears of War, or Call of Duty. Beacons don't sound as awesome as bacon, but really, what does?

Expect more, such as YouTube and Bing search (through Kinect voice commands), increased Kinect support, and many more additions that have either flown under the radar, or I don't feel like writing about. Don't judge me, I'm pressed for time dammit. The latest Dashboard update will go live later this year, giving you plenty of time to save up for a Kinect.

Xbox LIVE Rewards Program Pays You Back For Doing Stuff

Sign up. There's no catch or hidden fees or anything, and it's open to all Xbox LIVE users, meaning the Silver members finally get some love too, instead of being relegated to redheaded step-child status, like so often the case in the past. 

The program is very vaguely described as allowing you to "earn Microsoft points for doing things they already do on Xbox LIVE." Obviously we're not going to be getting free points for playing games and watching Netflix all day. Points will be earned by renewing LIVE subscriptions, activating Netflix (for the first time only? Lame), taking monthly surveys, and purchasing select Marketplace content. Select content? I don't like how that sounds.

Regardless, it will be nice to earn 10 and 20 points here and there, when you probably would be spending money on these things even without the rewards program. Now if only we can get some sort of GamerScore rewards program.

via Major Nelson

A Look at the Fall 2010 Xbox LIVE Update

The new Xbox LIVE update will go out to day for the masses who applied to partake in the beta. For those of you who didn't, in your face suckas!

Not all is lost for you however, as you can see some of the differences in this video of terrible, terrible quality I've thrown together. So if the tragic quality doesn't make your eyes bleed, I hope this flick will be of some interest to you. Here's a quick overview of the update's features:

• Complete dashboard redesign
• Tweaked avatar design
• ESPN3 live streaming and on demand sports (where available)
• Updated audio codec for improved voice communication
• Kinect support for gaming and motion/voice control ala Minority Report
• Netflix search function (finally!)
• Zune looks pretty

Of course all these changes are not without some drawbacks. Upgrading to the beta means you can't communicate in party chat with anyone who is still on the old dashboard. Game chat should be no problem though. Codec compatibility issues? Also, most of your avatar marketplace items and game rewards won't appear on your likeness, probably until the the update is out of beta and available to the general public. So until late October, prepare to have a little less personality. Hope you weren't trying to impress anyone of the opposite sex, good lookin'.

Overall this is a step in the right direction for Xbox LIVE. The tweak to the voice comm is a huge help, and ESPN3 is going to be pretty popular I'm sure. What do you think of the changes, do we have a winner, or did Microsoft DmC this one?

Side note, does anyone want to contribute to the OBG video capture fund? Anybody? Ho-kay.