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MS Details Last.fm on Xbox Live, Marketplace Changes

Posted by Soulskill on from the buried-by-natal-news dept.

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.

11 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. downloaded content sucks. by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:downloaded content sucks. by lordandmaker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is why I hate downloaded content.

      This is why publishers love it, though.

    2. Re:downloaded content sucks. by $1uck · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've seen some of the DLC content for sale on physical media. Still can you blame the publisher? Lets be honest here what you bought is a license, you don't own the game (regardless of the distribution system).. You own a license to play it. You don't own the right to use the game characters to sell your products you don't own lots of other rights to the game. I think this is reasonable. If you want the right to sell your "license" that you purchased of a particular game/music, they're not going to give that to you. You're going to have laws written to require that. Go talk to your congress person.

    3. Re:downloaded content sucks. by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't imagine why developers like to get paid. They should learn to eat the happiness that comes with knowing people are enjoying their work.

    4. Re:downloaded content sucks. by hansamurai · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If I have the option, I'll never buy downloadable content as opposed to physical media. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been selling old Super Nintendo and N64 games complete with their boxes and instruction manuals, easily recouping what I spent on the game in the first place over 10 years ago. If Nintendo had instead let me download those, they would be completely worthless to both me and anyone else in the market at this point. A couple of months ago I was looking to purchase World of Goo, and while I could get the game off Steam or even download directly from 2D Boy, I decided to pay a little extra for the boxed copy from Amazon. At least I have the disc now and can install it whenever I feel the need to play again.

      --
      Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  2. and why do you have to pay for stuff that is FREE by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    and why do you have to pay for stuff that is FREE on the pc?

    This is what sucks with locked in systems.

  3. Re:Last.fm by ProppaT · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not really, it's still a nice feature. Many people have their 360's plugged through their entertainment system. It's a nice way to have internet radio without having to plug in a computer...although it would be nice to have in game as well. Funny thing though, these days I don't find myself listening to music while playing games very often unless I'm playing a puzzle game or something of the sort. With all the 3D games today, I usually have the game audio playing for positional information. Depending on the game I might even put on headphones for more detailed positional information than what my tv puts out. It's not like the old NES/SNES days where I'd mute the game (unless it was something like Mega Man of course) and turn on the stereo.

    --
    Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
  4. Re:and why do you have to pay for stuff that is FR by $1uck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  5. Move an XBLA game to another Xbox 360 by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    You could move a steam game from your main PC to your laptop, your grandmothers' machine, etc.

    Likewise, Wikipedia says Xbox Live Marketplace purchases are associated to both a console and an Xbox Live account. This means any logged-in Xbox Live member can redownload any game that he has purchased to any Xbox 360 console, but it won't play unless he's logged in.

    1. Re:Move an XBLA game to another Xbox 360 by BradleyUffner · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  6. Re:and why do you have to pay for stuff that is FR by sricetx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.