MS Details Last.fm on Xbox Live, Marketplace Changes 82
Two of the less prominent announcements during E3 were that Last.fm would be coming to Xbox Live, and so would the ability to purchase games that were only available through physical media in the past. Microsoft has now elaborated on how those services will work. According to Kotaku, "The [Last.fm] service will be made available later this year, and will be free to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Once accessed, the Last.fm section of the 360 dashboard will function in much the same way as the popular internet radio station does on your PC." The Games on Demand service will let people pay the actual cost of the game with a credit card, bypassing the Microsoft Point system if they want to. To start, the service will be focused on making the popular, but older games available, rather than launching new games through it. Licensing for the games will work in much the same as for Arcade games now, so players will be able to re-download deleted games at will.
Re:downloaded content sucks. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why publishers love it, though.
Re:Last.fm (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really, it's still a nice feature. Many people have their 360's plugged through their entertainment system. It's a nice way to have internet radio without having to plug in a computer...although it would be nice to have in game as well. Funny thing though, these days I don't find myself listening to music while playing games very often unless I'm playing a puzzle game or something of the sort. With all the 3D games today, I usually have the game audio playing for positional information. Depending on the game I might even put on headphones for more detailed positional information than what my tv puts out. It's not like the old NES/SNES days where I'd mute the game (unless it was something like Mega Man of course) and turn on the stereo.
Re:downloaded content sucks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:downloaded content sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't imagine why developers like to get paid. They should learn to eat the happiness that comes with knowing people are enjoying their work.
Re:downloaded content sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I have the option, I'll never buy downloadable content as opposed to physical media. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been selling old Super Nintendo and N64 games complete with their boxes and instruction manuals, easily recouping what I spent on the game in the first place over 10 years ago. If Nintendo had instead let me download those, they would be completely worthless to both me and anyone else in the market at this point. A couple of months ago I was looking to purchase World of Goo, and while I could get the game off Steam or even download directly from 2D Boy, I decided to pay a little extra for the boxed copy from Amazon. At least I have the disc now and can install it whenever I feel the need to play again.