Items tagged with Xbox 360
We love free games with no strings attached, and that's just what Microsoft has in store for Xbox One and even Xbox 360 gamers today. If you’re a fan of the popular Crackdown series of games, Microsoft is making the original Crackdown available for free today. The game was originally released for the Xbox 360 platform, but thanks to the Backwards Compatibility program, Xbox One users can also acquire the game for free. And as an added bonus, Crackdown is one of a handful of Xbox 360 titles that has been remastered to take advantage of the 4K playback capabilities of the Xbox One X. The original Crackdown debuted way back in 2007 and was a pretty big hit for the Xbox 360. Crackdown 2 arrived...
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One of the greatest appeals of Netflix is that for a monthly fee, you have nearly unlimited access to a wealth of movies and television shows, as well as some seriously entertaining original series. What if a service existed for gaming that was similar to Netflix in terms of its addictive content? Microsoft just launched Xbox Games Pass, a video game subscription service that has the potential to do just. Xbox One owners can pay $10 USD a month in order to access over one hundred different games currently. Gamers will then need to download the games directly to their hard drive and install them on their Xbox One or Xbox 360. They will also need to still maintain an Internet connection. This mode...
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It's been a pretty interesting year for Destiny so far, for better or for worse. The year kicked off in a rather interesting way when Bungie's president Harold Ryan stepped down, being replaced by Pete Parsons, the company's former COO. The move caused a bit of concern among those in the Destiny community, but when the mammoth April update got pushed out, with its revamped Prison of Elders mode, increased Light Level, and the introduction of new items, it helped smooth over some concerns and gave the impression that things would be alright. Thankfully, nothing has changed since then. The future of Destiny looks bright, and its upcoming Rise of Iron expansion looks to be the biggest update to...
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Have you ever spent hours crafting the perfect online user name, only to discover it had already been claimed? Thankfully, Xbox Live users will now have more choices. Microsoft will release nearly one million Gamertags on Wednesday, May 18th at 2pm (EST). They will be available to Xbox Live Gold members with active subscriptions and at least one year of cumulative Xbox Live Gold tenure. The Gamertags will be released over a 24-period so that Xbox Live Gold members in different countries will have an equal chance of claiming one. Xbox Live policy permits one free Gamertag change request in a user’s lifetime, after which they have to pay $10 for a swap. Members are encouraged to keep...
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This past fall, Microsoft surprised the world when it unveiled that a huge number of Xbox 360 games would be playable on the Xbox One. This even came as a surprise to Sony, which unveiled an arguably lackluster version of backwards compatibility, where gamers need to repurchase the games. When Microsoft released the first 100 or so titles for backwards compatibility on the Xbox One, it was hard to tell just how far the company would take things. However, all we really had to do was look to the Xbox 360 itself, which supported a huge number of original Xbox titles (important for those wanting to play Jet Set Radio Future and don't have a working original console, as the first Xbox is the only...
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It wasn't unusually difficult end bosses or rampant cheating in online multiplayer titles that once caused gamers to have nightmares. What used to keep players up at night were tales of the dreaded Red Ring of Death (RRoD)—three red lights around the Xbox 360's power button that indicated the console had entered the afterlife. To add insult to injury, Microsoft also released an XBox 360 update at one point that also bricked more than a few consoles. The whole ordeal cost Microsoft dearly, to the tune of about $1 Billion clean. That figure is the result of extended warranty coverage and subsequent repairs and replacements. In his book, "Xbox Revisited: A Gameplan for Corporate and Civic Renewal,"...
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“Game over, man. GAME OVER!” After over ten years of production, it’s time to say goodbye to the venerable Xbox 360. The console celebrated its tenth birthday this past November and global sales for the console have surpassed the 85 million mark. Early in its life the Xbox 360 was fraught with quality control issues, as witnessed by the infamous Red Ring of Death that struck many consoles (and subsequently resulted in lawsuits). And we can’t forget the HD DVD add-on debacle, which saw Microsoft on the losing side of the next-generation, high-definition optical disc format war. Sony eventually won the standards battle with Blu-ray and Microsoft was forced to hang its head in defeat (the...
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A dispute involving scratched Xbox 360 discs that stems back nearly will be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, which will decide if there's enough cause for Microsoft to face class-action lawsuit. While that sounds like an easy task, lower courts have disagreed on the matter, hence how it was able to reach the Supreme Court.At issue is a lawsuit alleging that Xbox 360 consoles had a tendency to scratch optical discs and that Microsoft knew it was a problem. The lawsuit essentially blames the symptom on a design flaw, one in which there was little to no protection in place to prevent vibrations and small movements from scratching discs and rendering them unplayable.The lawsuit was...
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After complaints surfaced that some backwards compatible Xbox 360 games weren't running properly on the Xbox One, software engineers at Microsoft got busy working on a system update, one that is now available. Early reports are that certain Xbox 360 games are running much better after applying the update. Microsoft's Major Nelson (Larry Hryb) stated in a Twitter post that the changes amounted to a "few behind the scenes bug fixes" and that no new features have been added this time around. He also confirmed that Microsoft didn't provide any release notes for this latest update, leaving Xbox One owners to figure things out for themselves. It appears they have. "Tested on Banjo Nuts and Bolts, Dirt...
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Since launching its "New Xbox One Experience" in mid-November, Microsoft has seen some a great response. Perhaps not surprisingly, it's also found that one of the most-used features of the update is the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. Despite there being a limited number of supported titles, it hasn't stopped players from logging more than 9 million hours to date. Fortunately for those who yearn for their favorite Xbox 360 game to be supported with this backwards compatibility, Microsoft seems to be working very hard to add support for as many games as it can, and as quickly as possible. Today, the company adds support for 16 titles, bringing the total number to 120. The majority...
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Xbox One gamers that aren’t part of the preview program are eagerly waiting for November 12th to arrive. That’s the day that the New Xbox One Experience is pushed out to consoles, which brings a Windows 10-infused UI makeover along with backwards compatibility for select Xbox 360 games. In order to get Xbox One users pumped for the arrival of backwards compatibility, Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra took to Twitter to give us a heads up on what to expect: For those asking we’ll announce the initial set of 100+ backward compatible titles on 11/9, a few days before our launch! — Mike Ybarra (@XboxQwik) November 3, 2015 So we have less than a week before the official list is handed down to us, and a little...
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The hard part about upgrading to a new generation game console is saying goodbye to your vast collection of games on the old one. That's not necessarily the case for Xbox 360 owners. Microsoft is adding backwards compatibility for over 100 Xbox 360 titles on the Xbox One this fall, and sometime in the future, you might be able to play Xbox 360 games on your PC as well.Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox division, stated as much in an interview with Gizmodo Brazil. He talked about the Xbox 360 emulator Microsoft built for the Xbox One and noted that it wouldn't take a ton of work to do it for the PC, if in fact Microsoft decides to go down that road (and right now it hasn't).According to Spencer,...
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Yesterday, we received great news from Activision with the formation of the Call of Duty World League, which will launch in January 2016. Today, however, we’re getting some not-so-great news for owners of last generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gaming consoles. Treyarch announced today that the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will not feature a single-player campaign mode. Treyarch explains that “delivering the best possible gameplay experience on all platforms is always our highest priority,” but that it “could not be faithfully recreated on old generation hardware.” “With that in mind, Black Ops 3 PS3 and Xbox 360 players can continue to look forward to a new experience...
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Microsoft has just released a major update for the Xbox 360 that owners are going to want to download ASAP. Most of what's new isn't a surprise, as the company has been talking about the new features for the past couple of months, but there are some extras we weren't expecting. Perhaps the most significant addition with this update is the ability to take advantage of 2GB of cloud storage. This should prove incredibly useful for those who want to backup their saved games to an external source (as in, outside the home), or better still, carry those saved games on over to the Xbox One for titles that are backwards compatible. Another neat addition is one that lets you access Xbox Live from an Internet...
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