microsoft

A LinkedIn profile page for Praveen Rutnam, group product planner at Microsoft, has outed the publisher’s plan to roll out a new strategy for generating revenue through Xbox Live starting this a holiday season. The experience section of Rutnam’s profile explicitly states that he created a “strategy to further monetize [the] Xbox LIVE subscriber base.” It mentions this holiday season as the target date for the new monetization efforts to go into effect.

Although no specific details as to what the strategy will entail are laid out in the listing, Joystiq has gone ahead and done some speculating. One possibility is the implementation of an online pass of some sort, not unlike those utilized by publishers EA, Ubisoft, THQ, Sony and Warner. The publishing houses using them have seen a strong backlash from gamers over online passes, but the consumer resistance has done little to stop their growing ubiquity.

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Microsoft recently stating on the record that the Xbox Durango/720 won’t be officially announced at E3, and likely not until next year, has done little to quell the constant stream of “insider sources” reporting this, that and the other about the next-generation console. The trend continued today. Tipsters informed VG 24/7 that Redmond-based Microsoft plans to launch the Xbox 360’s successor during the holiday 2013 season. That wasn’t all they had to say, either: the next Xbox will also feature a Blu-ray drive and two GPUs if these informants are to be believed.

Today’s release whispers are in line with what some previous industry canaries have been singing, but they fly in the face of the 2014 launch scuttlebutt that has arisen from other loose lips that sink ships, and they certainly don’t match up to the 2012 reports that some deep throats had falsely reported prior to the console-maker’s assertions to the contrary. The lesson here is that while game console rumors, while fun, are a bunch of bologna as often as they are legitimate leaks. On top of that, even legitimate leaks can end up being inaccurate down the road when the manufacturer in question changes its strategy in response to technology developments, movements by the competition, cost issues or any of a great number of other factors.

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XBLA’s name is changing to…April Fools!
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Xbox 360 owners now more frequently use their consoles for viewing movies and TV shows and listening to music than they do for playing online games, Microsoft told the L.A. Times yesterday. All told, Xbox-equipped households are now devoting 84 hours monthly to all of those activities, with a smidgen over 50 percent of that time being spent taking in non-gaming media, said Xbox marketing and strategy boss, Yusuf Mehdi. The total usage figure represents a 30 percent jump from one year ago.

“What we’re seeing is that people are turning on the Xbox to play games and then keeping it on afterwards to get other types of entertainment,” Mehdi said. Entertainment features on the console falling under the broad “other” umbrella have increased drastically since the console’s November 2005 launch. Today alone Microsoft rolled out MLB.TV, Xfinity On Demand and HBO Go applications. As the Times noted, their inclusion brought the current tally of entertainment media services available on the platform up to 36.

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Xbox owners who choose to stream Comcast Xfinity On Demand to their consoles once the service launches won’t have to worry about the data adding up towards their 250-gigabyte bandwidth caps, according to a Comcast FAQ. The reasoning is that “since the content is being delivered over our private IP network and not the public Internet, it does not count against a customer’s bandwidth cap,” reads the FAQ.

Users will thus be able to stream all the on-demand national broadcasts, premium channel programming and free videos they please once the Xfinity service makes its way to Microsoft’s console. They will not, however, gain the ability to watch live TV on their 360s. Furthermore, Comcast currently has no plans “at this time” to offer live TV streaming at any future date. What Xbox 360 owners will be able to do is take advantage of Kinect and the dashboard’s search function when they’re looking to enjoy a little HBO Go or other compatible programming.

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Microsoft announced today that its next console will not be shown at this June’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, nor will it be launching in calendar year 2012. Bloomberg‘s Dina Bass relayed a message from Microsoft Corporate Public Relations Manager David Dennis over Twitter earlier in the day explaining that that the Xbox 360’s successor would not be displayed or discussed at this year’s E3 or “anytime soon.” Dennis stopped short of completely ruling out showing/announcing it later in 2012, but his words seemed to strongly imply as much. Additionally, such a move would draw attention away from the holiday 360 games and would therefore seem to make little sense.

It is a revelation that should finally silence the tsunami of rumors and stories that have originated from “insider sources” and claimed the exact opposite these past months. Speaking of insider sources — of which there never seems to be any shortage of when the topic of next generation is broached — Bloomberg has also learned from anonymous parties that the next Xbox’s first appearance is currently not planned until E3 of next year. Those same tipsters also believe the console will hit the market at an unknown point in 2013. Yet, as has been a common theme with Microsoft’s next home gaming platform, rumors and plans are constantly in flux.

No doubt aware of the media storm and public reaction that Dennis’ words would incite, the console-maker then released a more detailed explanation. The Washington-based firm showed its desire to keep consumer focus on its current console in the year ahead, rather than scare the market by prematurely discussing specifics of what the public has come to jokingly refer to as the “Xbox 720.”

While we appreciate all the interest in our long-range plans for the future, we can confirm that there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon. For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360-and it’s the best year ever for Xbox 360. The console is coming off its biggest year ever-a year in which Xbox outsold all other consoles worldwide. Xbox 360 didn’t just outsell other consoles, it also outsold all other TV-connected devices like DVD players, as well as digital media receivers and home theatre systems. And in our seventh year, we sold more consoles than in any other year-defying convention.

This year, we will build on that Xbox 360 momentum. With ‘Halo 4,’ ‘Forza Horizon,’ ‘Fable: The Journey,’ and other great Kinect games on the way, our 2012 Xbox lineup is our strongest ever. This year, we will deliver more TV, music, and movie experiences for Xbox 360-as we’ll make it even easier to find and control your all entertainment. And this year, Xbox games, music, and video are coming to Windows 8 so people can enjoy their Xbox entertainment wherever they go.

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The release of Wrecked: Revenge Revisited inches ever closer, as the Supersonic Blog reports that the game has passed certification and been approved by Microsoft. With this out of …
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All new Xbox Live Arcade releases will have the option to carry up to 400 Gamerscore points and 30 Achievements, Major Nelson has revealed. This new scoring system …
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We totally missed January, but the Monthly Recap is back for February! Yaaay. There’s an immense amount of news this month because for some reason February is XBLA month. There’s roughly a million game announcements and DLC as well. I suggest hitting CTRL + F and searching for the copious news about your favorite game. Or games. Or just read all the news, because that’s a good idea.

Beyond the “things that happened”, there’s also several Friday Top Fives and Most Wanted’s this month as we continue to beef up our feature repertoire. Our chief feature, A Year In Review (2011) is definitely worth checking out for some insight into the fluctuations in XBLA cost versus review scores. Lastly, amongst the five podcasts is our Music Special which showcases some of the best XBLA soundtrack tunes since its inception.

Without further ado, welcome to February all over again! Read More

Registration for the Dream.Build.Play 2012 Challenge, the annual contest to inspire independent developers to create games for Microsoft, opened earlier this week. This year in addition to creating games …
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