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Xbox Live Hits 24 Million Downloads
Thanks to the 'E3 at Home' initiative, Xbox Live has served up 24 million pieces of content, and connected 1.5 million gamers. From the article: "Over 600 terabytes of data were transferred over the network during the week, a figure which represents 30 times more data than is found in all the printed material in the US Library of Congress, according to Microsoft games boss Peter Moore, who thankfully did not go on to provide the standard British comparison of telling us how many double decker buses it equates to."
I guess if you are part of the Xbox 360 marketing/PR types up there in Redmond:
1) Can't brag about sales numbers - the 360 is dead in one region and getting outsold by a six year old console in another
2) Can't brag about backwards compatibility - I guess they have given up
3) Can't brag about graphics - mid-range pcs with 200 graphics cards are already looking better than 360 games(and without the low framerates, screen tearing, jaggies, and texture filtering problems) and it looking more and more likely that 480p Wii games aren't going to look any different than 480p Xbox 360 games(and after all that shit talking Xbox fans did about the Wii, ouch!)
4) Can't brag about the online service in general - Microsoft is the only company that forces people to pay just to play games online - which comes out to an additional 200-300 dollars on top of the console price over four to five years
5) Can't brag about reliability - there are people getting stories written about how they are now up to their fifth 360 replacement unit
Microsoft is going to have one hell of a mess on their hands when they are forced to catch up to Sony and Nintendo in November and switch to free online gaming. Refunds for the suckers who have been paying all these months? Free games? An apology?
I think there's a fair number of people who use mods for semi-legitimate uses (stuff like emulators, media players etc.)[1], or legitimate stuff like Linux. Microsoft doesn't particularly want people doing these things on the Xbox, so they refuse them entry to their super fun happy club.
Of course the people who used mods to cheat at Halo are probably great for MS PR, as Halo players can equate "mod" with "stinking cheater". It's partly Bungie's fault anyway, data on the Xbox HD was insecure for ages before Halo 2, so did they do any kinda of data verification? Of course not...
[1] I say semi, as emulators are a legal grey area, as AFAIK most Xbox homebrew uses pirate copies of the MS SDK.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
This is apparently being adressed, so hopefully we'll see this being sorted soon. I downloaded the Tomb Raider Legends demo recently, and while I'm happy you can do this finally, I had go do something else for the hour it took to download (on a 4MB connection no less - the download service is obviously capped).
Oblivion is amazing. check it out in HD with surround sound. I've lost my wife for the last three weeks due to that game.
I'm actually not sure about the PS3. Xbox is here now and it works great. Sure we all want more software, but the 30 or so titles they have out is enough for a start.
I'm curious how the PS3 looks. I have a 1080i Sony and the xbox rocks.
"It's technical in a psychometric kind a way" -- C. Parish
According to Major Nelson ( http://majornelson.com/ ) the Oblivion horse armor sold ridiculously well.
Even Major Nelson was telling people not to buy it- that it was a ripoff. I'm not an Oblivion fan, but if I were, I am sure that I would have downloaded the armor. The reason I would have downloaded it is that the system makes it so damn easy to buy stuff, that people think, "Yeah, sure, why not?"
I think the micropayment thing is going well. I've spent (pissed away) about $100 on different things like XBLA games, and even a few themes. Stupid? Yes...profitable? Yes...
No reason to lie.