Video: Xbox Live Arcade Forecast

This is from the awesome guys from gamerscoreblog.com. Its funny to watch but if the main idea of the plot is depressing.

Steve from XBL Radio interviews Michael Glosecki, Senior Producer for Command on Conquer and he asks hims all the questions you wanted to know.� Find out about super weapons, online play, downloadable content, map editing, new factions, weapons and much more.

To download it you can either right click here (save target as), or you can subscribe to our XBL Radio Extra’s feed by clicking here.

When the Zune first came out I did a review on it, it was a pretty favorable review, with nothing really bad being said about it, and if your interested here is the link. But after a few weeks of owning it and screwing around with it, I started to notice a disturbing trend, it was shutting off on me for no apparent reason out of no where. I even has it shock me through the ear buds once while listening to podcasts at work, wasn’t to thrilled about that. So what I did was I wrote another post about that to see if anyone else noticed a trend like this and this was what I got. But that was the last Zune story that I have wrote and I had a lot of people ask me what has happened with my Zune, so I figured I would write an update on it.So I stuck with my Zune for a couple months because I really wanted it to work but all I was doing was delaying the inevitable, I ended up returning it. It was a several reasons and now I’m going to go into them. First 3*3, the 3 plays 3 days thing is retarded, it really is, if I own the rights to something, ie The XBL Radio Podcast, I should be able to share it as much as I want with the receiver getting to play it for as long or as many times as they want, for MS to put there own drm on my music is a bunch of crap. The fact that I couldn’t share videos was another thing, why does the Zune have Wi-Fi if we can only use it for certain features, the Wi-Fi capabilities was way to locked down. Another Wi-Fi thing that sucked was I couldn’t find anyone else with a Zune to share music with in the first place. Nobody I knew had a Zune except for some MS employees, that was it, everyone I new either had a iPod, Zen or a Sansa.

Another huge issue I had was podcasting, as a podcaster I need to have the ability to download podcasts quickly and easily like with iTunes, and that is so not happening with the Zune. I had to have 2 extra programs running for my podcasts, I used Juice for my audio podcasts, its a pretty good program which allows autotagging and a bunch of other features but it had issues with my video podcasts so then I had used the program called FeedYourZune for my video programs, you can also download audio podcasts with this one but I didn’t like the features on this one too much, plus this was a huge memory hog. So now I have to have 3 programs running at all times for my podcasts to be on my Zune, there was the slow and bulky zune program too. All this to do what iTunes has always done for me.

Now one of my favorite things about the Zune was the large screen, but what good is a large screen if its not being used? iTunes has movie and tv downloads but the Zune, not so much. If you want video on your Zune you have to go elsewhere to get it, not through Microsoft but either though things like video podcasts, direct downloads or by buying video converting programs to get videos on your Zune right. And even then its not always effective. I had many videos that would work on a iPod that the Zune program wouldn’t even put it on my Zune. And while we are talking about buying videos, lets talk about buying other things for the Zune. Lets talk about the Zune marketplace and what a disaster it is. First I friggin hate buying things with MS points, all that does is make you forget that you are wasting real money on downloads, and a perfect example of that is the marketplace for the Xbox 360. Microsoft had a perfectly good music store with there Urge store, they shouldn’t have abandoned that for the Zune, stupid move I thought.

So like I said at the beginning of this post, I returned my Zune. In fact I returned it and I picked up an iPod which I’m very happy with, ya the screen is not as big and it doesn’t have crippled down Wi-Fi, nor fm radio (so far the only thing i really miss), but it does have a brighter screen plus about 12 hour battery life, which is a lot more then the Zune. It had podcast functionality built in to the software and it also allows tv and movie downloading.

There you go, now you all know. And I will not be jumping on the Zune bandwagon again till MS fixes all the things wrong with it and really I won’t even now about it unless they also send me a demo unit because I’m also not spending money on another Zune again. I hope this will help future Zune buyers in swaying there decision as well because I do not want you guys to have to go though what I had to go though.

BTW, do you know that with every Zune sold Universal gets a royalty because they figure that you are stealing music? How crappy is that?

This week will mark the return of 24 (one of the XBL Radio staff’s favorite t.v. shows). So in honor of the frenzy building up around the 4 hour (mini-seris) release, the Marketplace will release the following picture packs for you Jack Fans:

Name: 24 - Season 6 Theme
Price: Free
Available in: Canada and U.S.
Dash Details: Get your “24″ fix by adding this customized theme to your system. The next non-stop season of “24″ begins with a 2-night, 4-hour season premiere on Sunday, January 14th 8/7c and Monday, January 15th 8/7c on FOX.

Name: 24 - Season 6 Picture Pack
Price: Free
Available in: Canada and U.S.
Dash Details: Add a CTU badge to your Gamer Card, or just show that you’re a “24″ fan. The next non-stop season of “24″ begins with a 2-night, 4-hour season premiere on Sunday, January 14th 8/7c and Monday, January 15th 8/7c on FOX.

So get ready to see a lot of 24 gamerpics on UNO! I wonder who will win the most worn gamerpic: Jack Black or Jack Bauer?

A little bit ago, Major Nelson did a interview with Chip Lang, EA’s Vice President of Online Commerce. Major Nelson seemed to ask Chip all the right questions and if you listened to the first interview, Chip seemed to dance around all of the answers. At least that is what you thought!� Rusty and I were scouring Major’s site and found something very interesting,� a hidden interview with Chip Lang.� It looks like it was done twice, one with honest answers and one done with answers that will keep the EA higher ups happy.� You can guess which one made Major’s show, but what you wouldn’t believe is that we are publishing the “other” interview to show you the real truth behind EA’s Marketplace Strategy.

So if you would like to check out this awesome, real and uncut interview,

click here, (right click, save as)

BTW guys, in case you didn’t know, it is a parody.

XBL ver 32.0 is out this NOW. Listen in as we discuss:TECH NEWS:
-Vista and direct X 10.
-Casual Games start to dress for success.
-Sony changes its staff. Is it related to the PS3 launch?

GAME NEWS:
- WOW keeps track of its stats. Plus new updates on the way.
-Texas Hold em updates its online game play. Shall we ante up again?
-Christians wont feel left out of gaming. The will get Left Behind.
-100000 Gamerscore. StripclubDJ is defending his Achievements.

GAME REVIEWS:

-COD3: Join in as XBL Radio Enlists in this new addition to the Call of Duty series.
-Contra for the Xbox Arcade. -Defender for the Xbox Arcade. -Small Arms for the Xbox Arcade. Are the New Arcade releases worth your MS Points?

GUI J with the MARKETPLACE MINUTE:
XBLR Signs into the LIVE Marketplace to find out whats available and whats worth downloading.

PLUS: Console Crimes. Gears of War contest winner announced.

And we pay tribute to a fallen comrade.
“He was so young.”�

Here is the direct download link,
Right Click here (and save as… for best download experience).

Talk about the show in our forums.�

To subscribe to the podcast you can click on one of these…
~ ~ ~

Good day XBL Radio friends and family. I am sure you have heard me a few times over “LIVE on LIVE”, and have seen me floating around the forums, giving my little gaming rants here and there. I am honored to announce that I am the newest member to the XBL Radio staff and I will be doing the “Market Place Minute” on the XBL Radio show as well as appearing here and there whenever it is called for me to do so. I hope I can live up to the excellence that you guys-n-gals have come to expect from the great guys here at the XBL Radio shows. So see ya around!!!!
GUI J

First off I just wanna wish everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving, since today today is Thanksgiving.� Now time for my post, I was not going to post anything today but something happened to me when I was trying out the new Xbox Live movie and TV download feature.� So yesterday I get home off of work, you know they first day of the video marketplace, and I happen to go online before I turn on my Xbox 360.� The first thing that I see that everyone seems to be having issues with the video downloads.� Some people are having issues with download speeds and others are having issues with the video downloads not completing and then the dashboard is popping up error messages.� I was a little discouraged because of this, granted it was the first day that we have had this option and Xbox Live is probably getting slammed but they have experienced this before so this should not be happening, but I ignore the issue and feel that I can not slam MS without trying it out myself.� It was already 11 at night and I had to be at work early tomorrow morning, yes I had to work today on Thanksgiving, so I decided to download a movie and let it go throughout the night so I can later do a review about the whole thing.� Now most of the movies that they had either sucked, or I already owned, or I have already seen, but V for Vendetta, which I have not seen yet and I actually did want to see it so I decided on this one.

Not only did I decide to download this one, but I decided to get the HD version because I wanted to see it in all its HD glory, all 6.07GB of it.� So like I was saying before, I picked V for Vendetta, right before I went to bed.� Now I get up the next day ready to watch it and what do I see? ERROR - Ah, shit.� Stupid ass piece of crap.� So it was on all last night, or so I thought, and it had an issue.� So I try again before I went to work, I restart the download.� And you know how when you restart your download it shows you how much it has done?� Well for it I had 2%, yes, only 2% done from all last night.� So again, I restart it and go to work.� Now I get back from work, turn my TV on and I figure it would be done minus any error and what do I see?� No error messages!!! Oh I feel good now, I go over to active downloads, 8% done.� What kind of crap is that?� I’m about 16 hours into downloading now and I have a whole 8% is it.� Right now I’m while I’m writing this story, I just reached 20 hours and I am at 19%.

Microsoft, if your reading, which I know you are because you have contacted me before about my stories, this is piss poor.� Seriously, this whole movie download service which is suppose to be like on demand really blows.� I could care less for excuses, I just want this fixed.� In my case I am spending big dollars to watch a movie in HD which is costing me more then if I just ordered it from Comcast through In Demand, and their service is a whole lot faster and easier.� I do not like to feel like I am getting screwed when I spend dollars at your marketplace but it seems that with all your retro releases, EA downloads, and now a broken in demand video service.

I know that the Xbox already has a good following, a lot of GREAT content but this is no time to drop the ball.� I do not know if you have noticed but there are 2 new systems out there now to compete with and if you wanna let them catch up keep doing what you have been doing lately but if you do want to succeed against them you need to fix these issues and fix them soon.

�

Today is ‘Emergence Day’ in North America, and that means cool free ‘Gears’ Marketplace content is available today only for Xbox Live Gold and Silver members in Mexico, Canada and the U.S.

Name: Gears of War Emergence Day Gamer Picture
Price: Free
Available in: Canada, Mexico and the U.S.
Dash Details: One day only! Download the Exclusive Gears of War “I played on Emergence Day” Gamerpic.

Name: Gears of War Emergence Day Theme
Price: Free
Available in: Canada, Mexico and the U.S.
Dash Details: One day only! Download the Exclusive Gears of War “I played on Emergence Day” Theme.

This content is available until tonight at 11:59pm PT, so grab it while you can!
from MajorNelson.com

�

Peter Moore was on stage at the Showcase event in New York City, and just announced a partnership with CBS, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Turner Broadcasting, UFC, and Warner Bros Home Entertainment to digitally deliver high-def (or SD) TV shows and Movies to Xbox Live Marketplace.� � The service goes live on November 22, and by the end of the year, we’ll have� more than 1,000 hours of content to download to own or rent.

�
Some examples of content that will be available on the network by the end of year include:

• “Robot Chicken” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” from Adult Swim
• “CSI,” “Survivor” and “Star Trek” from CBS
• Emmy and Peabody Award-Winning “South Park” and “Chappelle’s Show” from COMEDY CENTRAL
• “The Real World” and “Pimp My Ride” from MTV
• “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and ”SpongeBob SquarePants” from Nickelodeon
• “Skyland” and “The Nicktoons Network Animation Festival” from Nicktoons Network
• “Nacho Libre” and “Jackass: The Movie” from Paramount Pictures
• “Carpocalypse” and “Raising the Roofs” from Spike TV
• “Race Rewind” provided by NASCAR.COM
• Select episodes of the original season of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series and the “UFC: All Access” shows from the UFC
• “Breaking Bonaduce” and “Hogan Knows Best” from VH1
• “The Matrix,” “Superman Returns” and “Batman Forever” from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

You� can access Xbox Live Marketplace with a free Xbox Live Silver subscription and a broadband connection. For more information about the content available on Xbox Live Marketplace visit www.xbox.com/marketplaceentertainment.� More detail can be found in the press release we just issued.

From GamerScoreBlog.com