April 2007 - Posts
What is so remarkable about these cars...is that they are unremarkable. It sounds so wrong...but is so true. The realism is coming to your 360 on May 29th!
Check out the Video. (Link opens the video)
The commercial sounds like a Jaguar commercial. Being so subtle is what makes it cool.
Che and the group over at Forzamotorsport.net, the official site for the Forza Motorsport simulation racer, has cooked up a new pitpass for all of us. And yes...following last weeks AMAZING video of a Sunday drive at Muguello, they have a new video in 720p HD.
This video is all about who is better. It is American muscle cars versus the Japanese tuner cars. Man does this video look sweet.
Image courtesy of Forzamotorsport.net
Get your pitpass!
I was emailed today about content going up on Gamespot.com, regarding Command & Conquer 3 for the 360. There is going to be a massive preview of the game.
Edit: As of the time of the post, the content is not live...but will be coming shortly.
Make sure to check out the site, located here.
Image courtesy of Teamxbox.com
GamertagRadio.com is teaming up with TheXboxdomain.net & Gaia Industries for a community event that will take place May 5 @ 2pm EST in New York City. You'll get to play & see their new Xbox Live Arcade game "Street Trace: NYC".
Here is the Address:
Street Trace NYC Community Day 5/5 @ 2pm EST!
197A Grand Street #2S
New York, NY 10013
Grand Between Mulberry and Mott in Little Italy.
RSVP by May 4th to godfree7@gmail.com if you would like to go. Pizza and refreshments will be served too!
Its that time again. I took a little break from my 8 page paper on the impact of athletics and after school activities on the development of children (yea...slightly boring) to bring you a SWEET picture to have one your zune. I was reading through my Scoble thread when he linked to a blog wiht SWEET pictures from the Hubble Telescope.
Sweet Images [Via Scoble]
Just got word from Major Nelson that this week's Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday is another double shot of arcade goodness.
Eets: Chowdown and Pinball FX (which looks VERY cool, and utilizes the Xbox LIve Vision Camera) will both weigh in at 800 MP points.
Just got word from Major Nelson that this week's Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday is another double shot of arcade goodness.
Eets: Chowdown and Pinball FX (which looks VERY cool, and utilizes the Xbox LIve Vision Camera) will both weigh in at 800 MP points.
Well, this is the third installment of the background image of the week. Just trying to put together some cool images to be shared, that look SWEET on the zune. Well, with the 4/17 release date of NIN's new album Year Zero, it will again be a NIN inspired background.
This image is found on the CD booklet that comes with your Year Zero Album.
Oh...and I recieved my Year Zero album today! It freakin rocks. Did you know that it changes color when heated up? Play it in a CD player or PC and watch it change!
Got word from Amazon that my Year Zero album is ready to be shipped (I assume starting tomorrow). It gives a funky ETA of 4/24 (a week after release), but I think it will be correted as time goes on. Man, I can NOT wait for this album.
My Profile
Again, next week's release of Nine Inch Nail's "Year Zero", has inspired this weeks Zune Image of the Week.
This is a picture from Trent Reznor in Paris, France.
Grab the image at Flickr.com
Got an IM via TwitterAIM from John Porcaro, part of the gamerscoreblog.com team, and from Major Nelson about the Gears of War Update coming later today.
John at Twitter.
Check Gamerscoreblog.com and Majornelson.com for details in a short amout of time.
Edit: Sorry for the confusion before saying that there was a Beta, in which there is not. While writing the post this morning, I was also reading details about the Games for Windows Live Beta, which I am a participant for on the PC. I mixed up my post and what I was reading about. Again, sorry for the confusion, there is no beta for anyone to take part in regarding the 2007 Dashboard.
Here are the list of new features, and fixes. Bold ones should be considered pretty important or exciting.
Oh, yea...before the list of features...WINDOWS LIVE MESSENGER INTEGRATION! Stay connected anywhere. Use the keyboard that will release soon (will come with its own headset):
Other New Features
Beyond Windows Live Messenger, the Spring Update for Xbox 360 includes hundreds of new features and enhancements including:
- A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list.
- Enhanced family settings features for Xbox Live communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
- A new Xbox Live Marketplace blade lets Xbox Live members access the content they seek—whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States)—from one place on Xbox Live.
- Updates to Xbox Live Arcade allow owners to quickly see which Xbox Live Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox Live members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
- Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
- A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox Live Arcade games.
- New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace.
- Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.
The Spring Update is free beginning the week of May 7 and will be easily accessible to every Xbox 360 owner through Xbox Live or on Xbox.com.
You may not even notice all the new features, but they are all designed to enhance your Xbox Live experience. Some of the other features in this upgrade include:
- The name of game in tray is now displayed in the dashboard. (Finally)
- When the tray icon is highlighted, a list of achievements, game icon and gamerscore for that game is displayed.
- Video trick modes are enabled for content that is being progressively downloaded from Video Marketplace.
- Playback progress bar indicates download completion.
- Improved skip forward, skip back functionality during video playback.
- Switchable aspect ratio now available during video playback (Auto to Letterbox, Zoom, Stretch, Native).
- Player and friends lists now quickly show session presence information for quick identification of users that are joinable.
- Support for streaming WM-DRM protected content from a PC
- Folder view for video content on connected devices
- H.264 video support: Up to 15 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
- Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
- Show folder hierarchy for video content played from all devices.
- Bookmarks are stored for each video that the user plays remembering the users last location in the file as well as the aspect ratio that the user choose for that file.
- Video trick modes (fast forward, rewind, chapter skip) can now be used while downloading Video Marketplace content.
- Skip forward and backward functionality has been improved to skip to the next or previous chapter. Each video is divided into 10 “chapters” allowing you to quickly skip around video content.
- The information bar that is turned on via the On Screen Display (OSD) now shows you exactly where you are in the playback of the video file. In addition it will also show for Video Marketplace content how much of the file has been downloaded and where the “chapters” exist in the file.
- Windows Media protected content (WM-DRM) can now be streamed from the PC to the console. If the WM-DRM license is missing or corrupted then a specific error message is displayed to the user. Bookmarking is also stored for protected content.
- When the user is in the dashboard and an Xbox 360 game is in the console then the name of the game is displayed in the tray icon of the dashboard. If the user highlights the tray icon then achievements and gamer score are displayed for that game based on the signed in user. Xbox1 games show the name and image of the game.
- Bookmarks are stored for each video that the user plays. The user can delete all bookmarks but this will reset all bookmark information for every video that the user has played. The bookmark database is exposed in the system/memory/system items
- When a user selects an item for download from Marketplace then the system will determine if there is sufficient disk space for the item and, if not, will ask the user to delete content on the HDD. The system provides a sorted by size list of videos, game trailers, demos and arcade content to aid the user in the deletion process. The same list of items are also available from within memory so that users can quickly see which items are consuming the most disk space.
- The console will block the user who attempts to download content onto a storage device that will never have the capacity to store the item without deducting any points associated with the content item.
- The screensaver is disabled when playing photos from any source
I was playing JetPac Refuelled online today, and...I am sad to say that I am infected! Yup, that is right, I played against an infected person in Jetpac and now I have that achievement. If anyone wants it...send me a FR, and hopefully we can setup a game.
This is somethign I want to try to do every week (goal of Tuesdays). Every week or so, I change the image that is the background of my Zune. This week and the following two will be Nine Inch Nails based images, as the release of Trent's new album is two weeks away.
I placed it on Flickr for a higher quality download.
I, personally, have had a game disc (my brothers Gears of War copy) scratched while in the machine, to the point where parts of the software is not playable. Yea its a bummer...but Microsoft has just announced a new program which will REPLACE scratched games. Yes, there are limitations:
- The game MUST be PUBLISHED by Microsoft (here is the list):
- This program is good only for Xbox 360 console owners in countries where Xbox 360 is sold at authorized retail locations.
You will have to fill out a form or two, but the hassle is worth getting your game replaced.
You can find more information on the programs page.
It what appears to be the successor, or evolution to the Guitar Hero game, Harmonix has announced "Rock Band". It will support 4 inputs, which should be 2 guitars (base, lead), and drum and a mic.
Now, if you TRULY want to be a video game rock star...here is your chance. It looks like a release before the year is out is expected.
[360 Fanboy]