Free MS points! Gotta love that

Looks like the crew over at Microsoft kinda messed up in regards to the GTA 4 pre-order arrangement. The deal was that if you pre-ordered you got 500 MS points when you picked up your game, which most of us got. The problem was that the points that were given out had an expiry date on them (I believe it was June 30), so a lot of people didn't get to spend them (it was only by chance that I was on the MS billing web site and saw mine were going to expire so I went and spent up on a couple of arcade games). Then over the last couple of weeks I have been hearing stories of people getting 500 points from the good people at MS, and everyone was happy - and even happier were the people that already spent those 500 points and still got another lot of 500! I was quite happy to fall into this category, as I got my additional 500 points yesterday ... now I just gotta figure out what to spend them on, I already have too many arcade games that I don't play!

8 guys + 3 Xbox 360's + Plenty of KFC = Good times for all

Yea the title fairly well sums up what I did with my Saturday night, I attended a LAN night with a couple of guys I work with and some of their mates and it was great fun. We started out with some Halo 3, had some GRAW 2 in there, a bit of Guitar Hero 2 & 3, before finishing up with a bit more Halo 3. We also had a bit of a go with Mario Kart on the Wii which was interesting - I didn't fair too well with that, but I think that's because Mario Kart just doesn't feel like Mario Kart to me without the N64 controller :-)

All in all I did OK. I was one of the better in the group at Halo (still no where near the best though), I kinda sucked at GRAW 2 multi-player though, and I ripped up Guitar Hero (having said that I had played it much, much more than anyone else :-P).

Anyway it was fun, looking forward to doing it again sometime!

Features-a-plenty for next 360 update

With E3 now winding down, I figured I should hurry up and get a post about this one up - the next system update for the 360. This one is going to be the biggest update the console has seen, here is a run down of some of the cooler things going into it:

• A full re-make of the dashboard. It will have a new 3D look to it, as well as new easier ways to get to your content, as well as content available through Xbox live
• Avatars - Microsoft's answer to the Mii - now you can create a little person and dress them up and make them look however you want, and this will go with your gamercard - not sure if this will replace the gamer pic, but we will see.
• Full game installs on your HDD - You will be able to install a 360 title on to the HDD of your console and run it from there. The disc will need to be in the tray still (to make sure you haven't just hired a game, ripped it and returned it) but this means your 360's disc drive will last longer, and loading times will drop massively
• You will have access to the marketplace from the web - and if your console is turned on it will download straight to it. This means you can download game content or a movie while you are at work, so it is ready to go when you get home.
• The blade system is now incorporated into the guide - so the new dashboard doesn't get rid of it all together. Now when you hit the guide button you will get a small window that gives you all the same functionality you have on the current dashboard.
• A new LIVE party system - you can group together with up to 8 people and have that group persist through everything you do on your Xbox, from a game, to the dashboard, to watching a movie - you will be in constant contact with your party, no matter what you are doing. Great for a gaming night with a few games on the menu, no more having to find each other in the new game again.
• Xbox Live Primetime is a new type of game being added - think like gameshows (the first will be 1 vs 100) that you can play on your console, with other gamers all interacting in it with you and real prizes up for grabs. So you will see what time each game is on for, and can join in - looks very cool.
• Some new display modes have been addes, like support for 16x10 over VGA and HDMI.

And this is just the beginning we are told - stay tuned for more news closer to the release of the update, which should be in a couple of months.

360 gets a price cut down under

Well it finally happened, the Xbox 360 has taken a price cut in Australia (not quite as big as the rumours were leading us to believe, but still not a bad effort). Here are the new RRP prices:

• Xbox 360 Arcade - $349 (down $50)
• Xbox 360 Premium - $499 (down $80)
• Xbox 360 Elite - $649 (down $80)

This makes the important move of putting a console price below that of the Nintendo Wii, which could prove to be an important selling point coming into the holiday season (especially if the Wii sells out again which, lets face it, is a real possibility - those things walk themselves off the shelves). Also the Elite is now running in at the same price as the bottom level PS3

Of course if you were thinking that would be the end then you might be in for a shock - I don't think that Nintendo or Sony will let this one go unanswered into the holiday season - I would expect to hear similar announcements from both camps before the Christmas shopping spree begins! Watch this space gamers.

"Sequels are in" - GoW 2 and Saints Row 2 videos

Over the weekend a couple of very cool videos got released with some exclusive footage fo two of this years biggest sequels - Gears of War 2 and Saints Row 2 (if only there  was a decent Fable 2 video this weekend, it would have made one hell of a hat-trick, but I digress).

First of all, the Gears video was all about the new multiplayer stuff in the game this time round, and it looks fantastic! (Sorry about the crappy ads in this one though)

Online Videos by Veoh.com

The second video is for Saints Row 2 - which I have to admit with all the hype of GTA 4 I had kinda thought "meh" about this game, but having finished the first one and then to see where the story line is being taken with this one, you really do just wanna go and get it because it looks awesome!

New DRM tool makes it debut

Well it looks like the rumours on this one were true, MS have just released a new tool that will let you transfer the licenses for all your downloaded content from one console to another. So if you fell victim to the RROD or had to get a new console for some other reason, then this is definitely something you need to check out.

For those who don't know, DRM (digital right management) is a way of locking your downloaded content to the console and gamertag that you downloaded it with. So this means that anyone who signs on to the console it was downloaded to can use it, or the gamertag that downloaded it can use it on any console, as long as they are signed in to Xbox Live. This meant that if you got a new console, only your gamertag could use the arcade games etc. that you downloaded (any other profiles on the console would just see the trial versions) and you had to be signed in to do it.

Now with the help of this tool, you can transfer the licenses to your new console. There are a couple of catches - the main one is that you can only do it once every 12 months. Also you can't transfer licenses for movie rentals (not that we have the video marketplace here in Australia, so I don'e care about that one). And lastly (and this is an important one if you are outside the US) to get to the tool on xbox.com if you are not in the US, go to https://live.xbox.com/signup/UIPStartPage.aspx?appid=ConsoleLicenseTransfer instead of www.xbox.com/drm, otherwise you will get a page not found error (Found this fix in the comments about the tool on Major Nelsons blog, Litheon posted it).

For more information, check out the FAQ on Xbox.com (use the link above) or Major Nelson's blog.

My new PC

I recently got into playing some Halo 2 on my PC, and quite quickly discovered that my PC was not exactly up to scratch on the gaming front. So with my birthday being yesterday, my other half and her family put in to buy me all the parts I needed to build a new PC! I am so happy with it too, this thing just flies! Here is a run down of the specs:

• AMD Phenom x4 9500 CPU (Quad core 2.2GHz)
• 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
• Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 motherboard (AMD 770 chipset)
• Sapphire ATI HD 3850 512MB video card
• 2x Samsung 500GB SATA2 hard disks
• 2x Leadtek DTV1000T digital TV tuners
• Antec Sonata III case with 500w power supply
• Pioneer 20x DVD burner with lightscribe

I did a 3D Mark 06 test on it yesterday, while it was streaming live TV to my Xbox and it scored 7600 or so, I'll do another test when its not wasting resources on TV to see how it goes!