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MS Details Last.fm on Xbox Live, Marketplace Changes
Two of the less prominent announcements during E3 were that Last.fm would be coming to Xbox Live, and so would the ability to purchase games that were only available through physical media in the past. Microsoft has now elaborated on how those services will work. According to Kotaku, "The [Last.fm] service will be made available later this year, and will be free to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Once accessed, the Last.fm section of the 360 dashboard will function in much the same way as the popular internet radio station does on your PC." The Games on Demand service will let people pay the actual cost of the game with a credit card, bypassing the Microsoft Point system if they want to. To start, the service will be focused on making the popular, but older games available, rather than launching new games through it. Licensing for the games will work in much the same as for Arcade games now, so players will be able to re-download deleted games at will.
How about having some of the download only content available on physical media?
My biggest beef is that when I buy a download, If I want to get rid of it, I just burn the money. At least with a Disc I can sell it used to someone and recoup a couple of bucks.
Castle Crashers is fun, but I've played it through 12 times now, I'd like to give it to a neighbor or sell it for $1.00 on ebay.
This is why I hate downloaded content.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
and why do you have to pay for stuff that is FREE on the pc?
This is what sucks with locked in systems.
Requiring GOLD xbl membership for last.fm is silly. That being said, its free (for Gold members) they're not charging you for it. As for downloaded games those aren't free on the pc.
If you are playing on the same physical console you do not have to be logged in. If you do something like switch consoles, or upgrade to say, the Elite Version of the xbox, the downloaded content will not play on that xbox unless the account that purchased it is logged in and signed in to live.
The freely available x360mediaserver http://sourceforge.net/projects/x360mediaserve/ will send streaming internet radio to the xbox360. It runs on any PC with java (Linux or windows). I haven't tried it with last.fm, but I assume it would work. If it doesn't, run the Lastfm stream through LastFMProxy http://vidar.gimp.org/?page_id=50 and connect to the proxied stream with x360mediaserve.