Xbox 360

Not content to merely offer the program in their own stores, Microsoft will expand its pilot program – which offers 4GB Xbox 360/Kinect bundles for $99 with a two-year subscription to Xbox Live – to two new retailers. Later this month, the program will migrate to all U.S. Best Buy locations and select GameStop stores.

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Ever look at the collection of video streaming apps available on Xbox Live and think to yourself, “You know? This could use more apps.” If so, you’re in luck – Amazon Instant Video is now available on the Xbox 360.
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When the Xbox 360 launched in November of 2005, the console wars were largely viewed as a two-horse race. Nintendo’s Wii was an afterthought in the minds of most industry analysts and executives — a belief that would be proven correct in terms of relevance among the traditional gamer audience, but so very wrong on the sales front, as it marched on to over 95 million units sold worldwide as of March. Rather, both popular and informed opinion said the battle would be fought between Sony and Microsoft.

Sony had spent the past 10 years decimating Nintendo and Sega’s positions as dominant forces in the industry by appealing to an older consumer and making the PlayStation 2 the best-selling home console of all time with more than 150 million consoles sold as of the end of last year. After having replaced the name “Nintendo” with “PlayStation” as a synonym for video games, the Tokyo, Japan-based electronics empire was feeling as invincible as Superman. With Nintendo having done its damnedest to torpedo its relationships with third-party developers and the software behemoth in Washington looking like the proverbial babe in the woods when it came the console biz, Sony could see no kryptonite in sight. Of course, few outsiders did either at the time.

Had it not allowed the pride that success brought to convince it that sinking so much of its PS and PS2 profits into the foolhardy enterprise of out-muscling the Xbox 360 with the PlayStation 3, however, it might have foreseen that it was on a path to learn the same hard and humbling lesson it had itself taught Nintendo. Instead, it produced an expensively priced machine that arrived a year late to the party and quickly built a reputation, fair or not, of being notoriously difficult to develop for. Geekwire reports that when he spoke to the Northwest Entrepreneur Network last week, Robbie Bach, former president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, highlighted how Sony’s miscalculations and mismanaged generational shift opened the door for the 360 to become the hugely profitable success that it is today.

“When you’re doing a startup, you need friends. It’s just the way life works,” Bach said. “It turned out we were able to convince retailers and publishers like Activision, Electronic Arts and others, that it was a good thing for Microsoft to be successful, because if we were not successful, the only game in town was Sony. Being dependent on somebody else was bad for them, and so they supported us disproportionately to what they should have, mathematically.”

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Microsoft today launched a “pilot program” at its chain of 16 stores in the United States that will “test a new pricing model for the Xbox 360.” The …
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Microsoft’s first foray into the video game business was a risky and expensive maneuver. Despite having Halo as a stellar launch title and hardware capable of feats its competition couldn’t possibly produce, the original Xbox failed to maintain the flash and evolution of its distant brother: the Xbox 360–which is nearly celebrating its 7^th anniversary on the market.

Console generations generally don’t exceed the pre-determined life expectancy predicted by its creators, but sometimes an unexpected boom of success prompts the decision makers to reconsider. Last November, Microsoft sold 1.7 million Xbox 360 consoles in the U.S., defeating Nintendo’s Wii and 3DS consoles by a large margin. Profit incites investors, potentially explaining why Microsoft has yet to formally announce a successor to its commercial darling. The last thing Microsoft wants to do is create competition for its own product.

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If you go on Xbox Live today you’ll receive a notification for a mandatory system update. This update will increase performance and bring noticeable color fixes to the dashboard. Partners of Xbox Live are also …
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Now that the dust has settled on another holiday season, many folks are turning to the internet to check out information on their new gifts. For those of you who have recently acquired a new Xbox 360, we at XBLA Fans are here to help! After you get it all set up, here’s a quick rundown of some of the things you can do to get started on the awesome path of Xbox ownership.

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The new YouTube app now available to dashboard beta testers.
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In October Microsoft announced that they would be bringing live TV to the Xbox sometime in the future. We now have more details other then it is coming, the …
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According to sales figures released earlier today by Major Nelson, some of you went a little bit crazy on Black Friday. Over 960,000 Xbox 360s were sold last week, …
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