Not far off a 100,000 Xbox Live users voted in the unofficial Xbox Live Rock the Vote election poll. According to Eurogamer, Barack recieved 43% of the votes with McCain managed 31%., afurther 13% of registered memeber said they were undecided.
Below is a visual aid 
With Rock Band 2 almost upon us, it’s kind of strange to think that those down under have yet to officially have the first Rock Band, However come November they will have it. It’s apparently going to be priced at $250AUD (~£115).
I really like Rock Band and I’d be kind of pissed off if it was only just available now, let alone November. Also with Rock Band 2 being backwards compatible with DLC and hardware it seems like it’s hardly worth forking out for Rock Band 1 at all, unless there’s particular songs on there you’re fond of.
Something I almost envy about Playstation 3 owners is the fact they don’t have to pay to for their online service. I’ve been renewing my gold subscription on credit card for the last 3 or four years and although it’s once a year it’s not cheap. However now you can renew your Xbox Live subscription online through http://www.instantlivecodes.com/. This service is a lot cheaper thatn buying a subscription card from a store, plus it’s far less hassle as you don’t even need to leave the house. For example 12 months Gold subscription costs £25, and that includes one bonus month, thats about £15 cheaper than paying for a card in a store like Game. You’ll often see deals similar to this on eBay, however these are often scammers trying to rip you off.
instantlivecodes.com is Paypal and Google Checkout verified so you know your payments are going to be safe, secure and fast. So next time your subscription is about to end, don’t renew the subscription through the Xbox Dashboard (and end up paying inflated prices plus credit card interest) and don’t go and queue up at your Local Game or Gamestation store, visit http://www.instantlivecodes.com/ and purchase your subscription.
Accorsing to some sources shortly there will be an annoucement that Google is to acquire Source game engine developers Valve, which would also include the Steam game distribution platform. Quite why Google would purchase Valve is a mystery to me? Maybe Half Life 2: Episode 3 will be free?
More information on Google possible buying Valve can be found here
The recent Xbox 360 price cut announcement is expected to boost the sales of the console considerably. The reduction in price makes the Xbox 360 the cheapest current generation games console on the market.
The price cut was accidentally leaked by retail store Woolworths and is confirmed as below:
This brings the Arcade unit within the reach of a much wider audience, however the value of this package is questionable. I personally bought the core package on the Xbox 360 release day as it was the only available, within 3 days I’d bought a Hard Drive, without it you’re kind of restricted, especially now with the Xbox Live Video Market Place and some of the size-able demos available. Even the Xbox Live Arcade games are now farily large. I do actually own a 512MB memory card as well, but thats mainly so I can use my profile and saved games on other people consoles.
The timing of this price cut is especially good, it’s weeks away from the Christmas shopping period starting, and with the current “credit crunch” people aren’t going to be looking to spend too much this year. When parents are weighing up the PS3 Vs 360 the Xbox may be looking far more attractive this year. (especially with Gears of War 2 on the horizon)
First there were rumours of Guitar Hero World Tour including a Keyboard instrument, that was denied by Neversoft, now Neversoft project director Brian Bright has revealed that the new intrument is actually a feature of the game rather than a piece of hardware.
The feature will basically allow players to transfer MIDI data to the game using a MIDI sequencer, this basically means you could create the sound of any instrument you want. Appanrently this is exlusive to the PS3 version of the game though (fuck!), this is due to apparent “hardware issues”. The Xbox 360 version will be limited to a drum track.
Initially i thougth well that’s a bit shit, seems like a really good feature that us 360 owners are going to be missing out on. Then on second thoughts who the fuck owns a MIDI sequencer anyway, the type of people that do own hardware like that tend to be the ones who hate games liek Guitar Hero and Rock Band i.e. actual musicians.
I just came across the last part in a three part interview with Peter Moore on Guardian Technology.
There’s some great information in there related to the end of the Xbox 1 and why Microsoft pushed the Xbox 360 so early on, according to Moore the hard drive in the original Xbox made it incredibly expensive to produce and so extremely difficult to lower the price on the console overall. Hence the reason for ending the production of the Xbox 1 somewhat prematurely in some peoples opinions. This also explains Microsoft’s decision to have a optional Hard Drive on the Xbox 360.
Read all three parts to the interview below:
The xbox 360 will soon be hosting an election poll that will allow members to vote and show who they’ll be supporting in the upcoming US General Election. I’m not sure what the demographic for Xbox live is, but i’m sure it’s probably fairly young, however it’ll be interesting to see what the results are when they’re posted on Xbox.com next week.
As a UK resident and UK Xbox live subscriber I doubt I’ll be able to view the any of this via my dashboard, however according t reports the system works by letting the users vote via Live and then also let them show their support for their chosen candidate by downloading a gamerpic of them. Xbox Live has over 12 Million active memebers according to Microsoft, so overall this could provide really good insight into the young american voters.
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