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Print 23 comment(s) - last by Trisped.. on Oct 31 at 11:53 AM
Xbox Live Gold members to get downloadable content faster

Up until now, when it comes to accessing downloadable content on Xbox Live, Silver and Gold Level members have pretty much had equal access. This parity between subscriptions levels is starting to change and the rift will increase in the coming months. The first indication of the shift in policy came this past Wednesday when Microsoft released the latest Gears of War trailer for Xbox Live Gold members only. While the trailer has made the rounds across the Internet via various video hosting sites, Xbox Live Silver members won't have access to the trailer through Xbox Live until sometime this week.

According to Microsoft's Major Nelson, Xbox Live Gold members will have first dibs on videos, game trailers, game demos and downloadable game content. Joystiq.com reports:

The point is that Microsoft is finally treating the Gold level like what it is supposed to be, a step above the Silver membership. Silver members don't pay for anything, it's a free service meant to provide an "introduction" to XBL. Gold members pay for additional features, and with it they expect their perks to be delivered. While it's limited to trailers right now, expect it to expand to demos, downloadable content, and anything else Microsoft can think about leveraging for more subscribers to make the jump up to the next tier while their model for microtransactions seems to be falling apart with the inmates running the asylum.

While some Xbox Silver Members feel slighted by the planned change of direction by Microsoft, you can't really blame the folks in Redmond. The company wants to further differentiate the two subscriptions levels and if you're not paying for access, you're just going to have to wait longer for content than your buddies that are paying $50 a year.

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Gears of War trailer
By Enoch2001 on 10/30/2006 10:01:13 AM , Rating: 2
I'm blown away by the 720p trailer for Gears of War. If that's actually what it will look like in-game on the 360, then I'm glad I got my 360 when I did. And the Gold Live membership is worth every dime ($4.17/month)! Just wish they would add stuff like downloadable TV shows in 720p, etc. I mean I know the 20 Gig HDD wouldn't store much, but a pay as you view system wouldn't be bad IMHO.




RE: Gears of War trailer
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 10/30/2006 10:03:50 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I'm blown away by the 720p trailer for Gears of War. If that's actually what it will look like in-game on the 360, then I'm glad I got my 360 when I did.


http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/10/25/Trai...

quote:
This is the commercial that was played last week at X'06 Canada. It was created entirely with the in-game engine. The music used is disc 1, cut 13 from the ‘Donnie Darko’ soundtrack.


RE: Gears of War trailer
By therealnickdanger on 10/30/2006 10:29:15 AM , Rating: 3
I own that soundtrack and it is excellent! Between the 80s hits, modern covers, and dark ambient electronica, it makes for great mood music. The "Mad World" track with all in-game sounds silenced made it quite dramatic. After watching it a couple times I realized that all of the "lights" under that giant beast were soldiers! I almost peed my pants.


RE: Gears of War trailer
By therealnickdanger on 10/30/2006 10:11:18 AM , Rating: 2
Xbox Live has been my friend since it came out. I love it. The GoW trailer truly excited me, it looks gorgeous and scary at the same time. I'm embarassed to admit I've replayed the trailer about 20-30 times now... I can't wait for this game!

I would love it if I could download shows/movies/music directly from Live to my media server. That would be awesome...


RE: Gears of War trailer
By dpope on 10/30/2006 11:33:03 AM , Rating: 2
If you think 720P looks good, put your HD on 1080i.




RE: Gears of War trailer
By Chris Peredun on 10/30/2006 11:42:52 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, the interlacing and poor quality during fast motion should make your HDTV look like crap in a jiffy.

Unless you have a 1080i native CRT or a 1080p capable set, 720p > 1080i.


RE: Gears of War trailer
By thejez on 10/30/2006 12:10:58 PM , Rating: 2
1080i native crt here... so so sweet...


RE: Gears of War trailer
By Krakn on 10/31/2006 10:22:13 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, my 57" Hitachi HD RPTV is 1080i native, everything looks sweet!


M$ only hurting themselves...
By Krakn on 10/31/2006 10:02:42 AM , Rating: 2
Honestly, the only reason I use XBL is to check out game demos and trailers, I have no interest in the online multiplayer aspect. If I have access to those demos and trailers, I am far more likely to buy those games. If I'm kept from accessing demos and trailers just because I'm not ponying up for their Gold package, I just won't buy those games.
Yes, it's only $50/year, and I think that's a great deal for those who go online to play against other gamers, but for me, this is only another incentive to hack my firmware and pull my 360 off of XBL completely.
'Nuff said.




By Trisped on 10/31/2006 11:53:24 AM , Rating: 2
So they are giving me, in essence, free adds. Really think about it. What does Live Gold give you that you don't get for free on a PC? Free game videos? You can usually find those on the game companies site and 100 other mirrors. Free demos? If a demo is available, it can be found the same places the trailers are. Demos of arcade games? Just like the ones you can get online for free that work in your PC web browser? Oh, I know, everyone pays for gold because it lets them play online and has an "inovative" matching system which balances out teams. But wait, it doesn't have a matching system. That is made by the game programmers. Well, we still have online play. Wait, don't I get that for free from EVERY online PC game except MMOs? The only reason MMOs aren't free is because they are server intensive, where things like Halo and racing games just need to keep a list of open servers and their status. This media hasn't changed since the early days of online play, and Microsoft has decided to charge us for it?

Live is just a rip off. I hope that Sony and Nintendo do have good online plans, unlike last generation. That will force Microsoft to empower theirs or die in the gutter. As I see it if Sony and Nintendo had made a real online service last generation Gold would be free, and Platinum would be $50 a year, but would give you a 10% discount on market place purchases as well as a free music, and arcade demo each month.




Typical DT bias
By TheDoc9 on 10/30/06, Rating: -1
RE: Typical DT bias
By Aikouka on 10/30/2006 10:18:53 AM , Rating: 5
Yes, I pay $50 a year for my Gold Membership, I think it deserves a couple perks that I'll never use anyway :). But with all this hype over the Gears of War video... maybe I'll have to download it. I originally passed the game off as "just another FPS", but people seem pretty excited over it.

I think the added perks are a good idea though. People saw the only difference between the two as Online Play and no Online Play, and that wasn't a big deal for most people. So now that the playing fields are a bit askew, people may see more value in upgrading and therefore make the change. Performing the upgrade will also have more people online playing against others and possibly enrich the environment a bit more. I've had some fun on XBL and if there's a huge thriving environment, I can have even more fun :).


RE: Typical DT bias
By thegrimreaper3 on 10/30/2006 10:25:49 AM , Rating: 2
if you don't like DT why the hell are you here? there are plenty of other tech sites to get your info from so stfu...


RE: Typical DT bias
By ogreslayer on 10/30/2006 10:58:30 AM , Rating: 2
Actually it wouldn't be; but hey feel like there is undue bias against Sony. Every DT article about them has been totally fair. Its not DT's fault that the CEO can't reign in his executives and stop them from spewing straight horse#$!% from their mouths.

$50 is about the price of a magazine subscription with demos discs(12 issues of Official Xbox Magazine are $25 and do not come close to giving the content level available on the marketplace, they do come with magazines but they are only good for times you don't have access to a computer. Plus each issue is 9.99 on the newsstand IIRC and Playstaion Mag is $40 a year.). They need to differentiate the services because they are to0 close in respect to available content. It used to be either don't pay don't play. Then with the 360 they made basically everything free save the multiplayer. You aren't paying for anything; so it takes some audacity to whine about getting it later. However, IMO it should be the other way around and the multiplayer should be free and you pay to get the demos and trailers and XBLA trials earlier or exclusively.

Oh, and IF Sony did do it they would be wrong since they said they were gonna basically rip XBL make it 'Better' and most importantly FREE.


RE: Typical DT bias
By bplewis24 on 10/30/2006 12:22:15 PM , Rating: 1
How ironic that you actually proved the poster's point that you were replying against.


RE: Typical DT bias
By tarv on 10/30/2006 12:22:04 PM , Rating: 2
The Sony bias has been along time in the making. I for one have basically become very skeptical of Sony. They over promise and under deliver so much compared to old glory days for them. This is not a daily tech only issue, Sony has some serious pr problems now and alot of their arrogance is catching up with them across all divisions of the company.


RE: Typical DT bias
By NotAok on 10/30/2006 1:06:08 PM , Rating: 2
What's amazing though is how biased and ignorant a lot of the hardcore sony fans are too. No matter what they stick up for sony. I personally can't wait for the ps3, but i'll tell you what... a lot of those big shots at sony are complete assholes and spit out nothing but garbage.

Sony is just lucky that they have some amazing developers supporting them or they'd be screwed.


RE: Typical DT bias
By akugami on 10/30/2006 4:34:34 PM , Rating: 2
Now...the PS3 had nothing but excitement and every gaming and tech site reporting on it had nothing but positives to say about it. At first. And hey, Sony fanboys didn't say any of these sites (like Joystiq, Dailytech, Engadget, etc) were bias or anything. That was until the pricing issues and various asinine comments and various c*ckups from upper level management at Sony started to come out. Then all of a sudden these formerly neutral and unbiased sites became anti Sony web sites. Go figure.

I laugh every time someone says a site is bias for or against a company since most web sites are actually quite neutral. Pretty much all web sites that cover news are quite neutral. They only report the news for the most part though any news is of course colored by the person who wrote it. There are obviously sites like nvnews.net or nzone.com that cater to nVidia or planetgamecube.com and n-sider.com that cater to Nintendo but when you visit these sites, you already know what you're getting.

And as for Sony's vaunted 3rd party developer support. I'm of the opinion it's reaching an all time low and the only time it's been lower is before the PS1 was released. Publishers follow public perception very closely when developing games for particular systems and if everyone and their grandmother is raving about the Wii, it doesn't matter if it's the weakest system, there is going to be developer support for it. Especially if the Wii does well and equals or surpasses the PS3.

Believe it or not, the Wii's relative lack of power may even be a bonus for small startups. These startups are usually where the more innovative and genre changing games come from. Not the tried and true formulaic gaming that comes from the likes of Eidos or Electronic Arts. With a much cheaper development kit for Nintendo's Wii and smaller graphics requirement a startup can work on a game and not have to worry as much about the graphics and get the gameplay done to perfection while someone on the PS3 and 360 will obviously want to do major work on the graphics. Sometimes to the detriment of good gameplay. One has to remember that some of the biggest names in gaming were small developers at one point trying to differentiate themselves from the pack.


RE: Typical DT bias
By Wolfpup on 10/30/2006 1:41:17 PM , Rating: 2
What's ridiculous with this is we're talking about PROMOTIONAL material here. Microsoft isn't posting demos and trailers because they like you, they're doing it to sell product. It's absurd to artificially prevent people from seeing/playing them because they're not paying for the privilege of seeing ads.

And to the person saying you "used to have to pay for this"...huh? It's always been free on PC.


RE: Typical DT bias
By IceTron on 10/30/2006 3:22:47 PM , Rating: 3
People will complain even if someone gave them a free car, they'd bitch about the color.

$50 a year rounds out to less then $5 a month to download and play stuff on Live and getting access to stuff first, so if you Silver account people can't swing it, tuff shit and wait in line.


RE: Typical DT bias
By kamel5547 on 10/30/2006 5:31:47 PM , Rating: 2
Um... it hasn't always been free. Do you remember the days before the ease of internet dustrubution? I remember paying to get shareware and demos shipped to me.


RE: Typical DT bias
By GoodRevrnd on 10/30/2006 4:14:16 PM , Rating: 2
This isn't any different than what places like Fileplanet have been doing for god knows how many years.


RE: Typical DT bias
By FITCamaro on 10/31/2006 10:08:02 AM , Rating: 2
I'm not on it, but $50 a year for unlimited access to online play and first shot at new content is more than worth it. The typical MMO is at least $150 a year ($13 x 12 roughly).

You can still get stuff through the Silver membership just you'll have to wait a little longer. It's like that with Fileplanet too. I have a subscription to it and get access to some stuff others don't and get access to the fastest servers. What is it with people and expecting everything to be free? Stuff takes money to make. You don't stay in business by giving everything away. What is so hard to understand about this? Do any of you work for free at your job?


"If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." -- Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes









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