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December 13, 2010
Rewards for being on XBOX Live!
Microsoft has now introduced its free Xbox Live Rewards program for their loyal customers. Members who participate in the program will earn Microsoft Points (the same currency used by Xbox Live) when they use the service to renew memberships, activate Netflix, purchase certain merchandise and more.
According to Major Nelson of Microsoft ( real name Larry Hryb), allparticipantswill be able to earn points while just playing games online. While its available to everyone, Gold Members get the more opportunities in comparison. This is great, in this blogger's opinion, as sometimes I feel like there should be a way to earn those points at times, because I really
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December 07, 2010
Industry News - Console's memberships are 50% Paid
Most people that have a Xbox 360 are likely to be connected to the internet. What you probably don't know is that most of them aren't on the Gold subscription list for Xbox Live.
Yep, half of them are Silver according to a quote from Microsoft's Dennis Durkin at the Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference here in Arizona.
"Of our 25 million members, about half of them are subscribers to the business and pay us about $60 dollars a year for that. It's a very large business for us and our partners."
While he is emphasizing the GOLD membership's revenue being great, people are wondering exactly what is the internet-based breadwinner in this part of Microsoft.
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December 04, 2010
Nintendo makes a mark during largest sales day of 2010
Nintendo most certainly had a rewarding Black Friday week, bringing in sales of over 1.5 million Nintendo video game systems in the entirety of last week (between Sunday, November 21 and Saturday, November 27). According to Kotaku, Nintendos internal sales estimated that the handheld systems fared best, with 900,000 Nintendo DS, DSi, and DSi XL systems selling out over the week, just in time for the holidays. The Wii sold just above 600,000 units.According to the Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, an average of 9,000 Nintendo hardware systems sold during every hour of every day of Black Friday in the United States alone. He and Nintendo attributed these high sales this to the recent release of the 25th Anniversary of Mario red Wii and DSi XL systems, the orange and green Nintendo DSi holiday bundles included in Black Friday
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November 24, 2010
Finally, some numbers on Kinect sales have been released and, in blackjack terms: winner, winner, chicken dinner! The Xbox Kinect sold 1 million units within the first 10 days of the release, and, at this rate, is expected to sell around 5 million units by the end of the year (an absolutely stunning figure for only one month and a half although, I do suppose it helps that the holidays are just around the corner).
According to a survey on BlackFriday.com, the Kinect was revealed to be the second most sought after purchase for this upcoming Black Friday, only falling short to Apple's fabled iPad. Store after store are finding a need to reorder shipments of the Kinect after
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November 05, 2010
Console News - Update in XBOX Dashboard
For those that did not know, Microsoft Kinects will be launching on November 4th in the U.S. Microsoft plans to release a dozen games immediate and has five more waiting to come. I'm looking for Kinects to come out because I'm interested on what games I will be able to play. Gamer will be able to work on their dance moves with games like, Dance Central. There will be others working on their fitness with games like, Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout.
Those games are going to be fun for the friends and family to all participate in. With a new
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November 05, 2010
Industry News - Win a Kinect with a Whopper meal.
Between November 1 through November 28, all you have to do at a BK is order a Whopper Extra Value meal and you can get a chance to get a 4GB XBox 360 Kinect bundle (once every FIFTEEN minutes).The bundle contains a XBox 360 console (4gig memory), a Kinect sensor, Kinect Adventures, and Kinect sports. To enter and win you will have to order a value meal, then take the codes from the sandwich wrappers, drinks, and fries container and text them to a special number to enter.
Pretty ingenious...and a giant kick in my diet program. ÂÂFirst Monopoly McDonalds ends (with their chance to win things like game consoles) and now I'm drawn into buying
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November 04, 2010
Console News - XBOX LIVE reaches 1 billion hours per month
According to one of Microsoft's latest press releases, apparently Xbox Live game network users spend over one billion hours a MONTH using Xbox Live. This averages to more than 40 hours a month a member (all 25 million Live members, that is), basically, more than an hour a day for every single player.
With Microsoft's upcoming expansion from 26 countries to 35 in the month of November, that number can only substantially increase. With the addition of ESPN to Xbox Live catering to an entirely different demographic than the average game playing movie watcher, who knows how high the number will eventually
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November 02, 2010
Gaming News - ESPN To be more interactive with its audience
Let's take video games and combine them with sports, what do you get, ESPN on Xbox LIVE! The gaming world is going to become a lot better with this release. ESPN has decided to partner up with Xbox LIVE and make the world of sports more interactive. I think this is a great step for our generation. A lot of people enjoy watching sports, but never been able to interact. ESPN and Microsoft plan to change that very soon. People will have the ability to watch 3,500 live and on demand events. They can vote on who they think will win the game. With the Kinects coming soon, gamers will not need a remote to change the channel.
I think this is a very exciting a unique combination, but it will definitely need working on after this initial launch. The problems with interactive products are the bugs that constantly occur. Over time that should become less of a problem. There are the possibilities of gaming going 3D. They are
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October 30, 2010
Console News - PSP to be combined with Smartphone
Ever since smart phones have come out, it seems most of the apps offered through the iTunes store or Android markets are games. People have the ability to play Doom on their Droid X or Super Monkey Ball on their Iphones. Looking back, making games applications on phones was the first step to something unique and cool. There have been rumors going around about Sony coming out with a cell phone. Guess what, it's TRUE! It has been confirmed that Sony will be releasing a Playstation cell phone in the future.
The phone codename is Zeus and was last seen running Android 2.0 OS. Sony has been quite about this project and
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October 17, 2010
XBOX 360 Console NEWS: Chevy and others advertise by XBOX
The forces of Sprint, T-Mobile, and Chevrolet in using the Kinect from Microsoft in order to advertiseÂÂto gamers in a new way. When Kinect Joy Ride comes out later this year, Chevrolet will use the technology of the Kinect in order to have gamers test-drive vehicles in-game. In addition you can unlock other Chevy products such was the Cruze, Camaro, and the Corvette.
Sprint will be using Kinect by sponsoring the launch of Kinect Adventures by co-branding the experience on X-Box live and also holding a contest where people can get their pictures on the