Microsoft To Offer Xbox 1 Games For Download, Celebrates Live Anniversary

Joystiq is reporting that Microsoft's Xbox Live service will be offering some great party favors soon, as the company celebrates the service's second birthday. Starting at 12:01 a.m. EST on November 15th, and lasting for 48 hours, users will be able to download the most-excellent board game Carcassonne for free. They've also announced their intent to allow us to download original Xbox titles to the 360 console. "In its press release, Microsoft explicitly named Halo, Psychonauts, Crimson Skies and Fable as titles for the Xbox Originals initiative, but did not confirm exactly which games will serve as the jumpoff: 'This new service will launch with an array of blockbuster titles spanning the most popular genres from action-adventure to classic role-playing games.' Third-party reports claim the preliminary lineup will also include ... Indigo Prophecy ... Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex and Burnout 3."

free carcassonne

[Anonymous Coward]

they should give me my xbox dollars back :_(

The bigger news in this

[nuzak]

This means they're pushing digital distribution of actual games. These aren't Microsoft titles, so they've actually gotten agreements with the publishers. Meaning there's really no necessary distinction between these titles and new ones. Finally, a chance to put a stake in the heart of GameStop and their skeezy incompetent chain of pawnshops. No, I would NOT like to preorder, bitch!

And is this why XBL fell over last night? I had to unplug the goddam network just to be able to sign in to my own profile.

Re:The bigger news in this

[nuzak]

I got the Elite, mostly because I wanted HDMI outputs, and it has a reasonably big drive, so I don't have the problem, but I definitely hear ya. The hardware hack to take the drive out is pretty trivial, but apparently the 360 will refuse to format it at a higher capacity no matter what you put in. Sony on the other hand, lets you throw any SATA drive in, and it'll use it all. Funny thing that, I like the PS3 more than the 360 in every respect ... except as a freakin game console.

Re:The bigger news in this

[jollyreaper]

This means they're pushing digital distribution of actual games. These aren't Microsoft titles, so they've actually gotten agreements with the publishers. Meaning there's really no necessary distinction between these titles and new ones. Finally, a chance to put a stake in the heart of GameStop and their skeezy incompetent chain of pawnshops. No, I would NOT like to preorder, bitch!

Two drawbacks: 1) you'll never be able to borrow your friend's game 2) you won't be able to resell it. Given that not everybody has fast internet service, we probably won't have to suffer the worst of this. We'll probably still see physical media alongside electronic distribution, the same way you can get a game off of Steam or in the physical store. While borrowing a friend's copy of a game is not theft in the normal people sense of the word, you can bet that the publishers would see it that way.

Personally, I still like the opportunity of finding good old games for a bargain price. I doubt that they'll drop a four year old game down to $10 or $15 on XBox Live the same way they would in the stores.

RE:I wish there were a way to do this with new gam

[trdrstv]

Right now, the only people moving this way are Sony. You'll note that Warhawk was available as a download purchase, as well as being sold in stores. Don't expect to ever see this feature for the Wii, though. The lack of a proper hard-drive means that you'll never see new commercial-quality games as downloads.

Yes, but I think Warhawk symbolizes how dumb corporations are in trying to pursue a new revenue model. The Downloaded version of the game (for $40 mind you) does not support local multiplayer, since in Sony's infinite wisdom "they did not pay for the right to play that game", It doesn't matter if they are sub accounts under the master that did buy them, they still can't play. So either you can pay $60 for a version with a bluetooth headset (and local multiplayer, and resellability, or the ability to loan it to friends), or a $40 version without the headset, or a $40 version that is locked to both the PS3 and the user?

The Wii could support USB hard drives, or SDHC cards (which are pin compatible with SD cards and offer sizes over 2 gig) with a firmware update so it is completely possible. Remember, it wasn't too long ago that (nearly all) Gamecube games shipped in 1.5 gig mini DVD's. Originally this was reguarded mearly as "wishful thinking" by the fan base, but with Final Fantasy Christal Chronicles was announced as a WiiWare title [wired.com], something along these lines seems imminent.