Ben Schefers bought his first Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Xbox 360 console four months ago to play games remotely with his friends. But the 33-year-old database manager now spends more time using it to play movies, television shows and documentaries.

“It’s something that my wife and I can both agree on,” he says, adding that he plays Xbox 360 games only a few times a week–and often only after his wife is asleep. Each night, he and his wife, who live in Berkeley, Calif., spend an hour or two catching up on TV shows with the console. “It’s kind of taken over from our DVD player,” says Mr. Schefers.

Videogame consoles like the Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 were designed primarily to play games, but the gadgets are increasingly evolving into multimedia home-entertainment devices as manufacturers add nongame features.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

It’s oh-so enticing: you find a copy of a brand new game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on a pirate site and the temptation to download it is too strong.

Well, that temptation may have cost up to 1 million users of Microsoft’s Xbox Live the ability to use that service. According to a report in InformationWeek, Microsoft has banned as many as a million players from Xbox Live for altering their consoles in order to play pirated versions of games.

This week, Activision’s new Call of Duty was released, and InformationWeek speculated that because pirated versions of the game appeared on various sharing sites in advance of the release, the game’s developer may have exhorted Microsoft to enact the bans.

“Xbox 360 consoles are equipped with digital rights management technologies designed to detect pirated software,” InformationWeek wrote, “but some players have successfully ‘modded,’ or modified, their machines to circumvent DRM protections.”

Even if someone has been banned, their Xbox will still play offline games, InformationWeek said. But it’s not at all clear if the bans are permanent or if Microsoft will allow those who have been booted from Xbox Live to return at some point down the line.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But in a statement received by InformationWeek, the company said, “All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live.”

And on the Xbox support page, Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, has addressed some of the circumstances that could lead to a player’s being banned.

“Players who find their Gamertags banned from Xbox Live have wound up in that situation due to violations of the Xbox Live Terms of Use,” Major Nelson wrote. “The Xbox Live team monitors players for not just cheating, but also for things like threats, racism, profanity, and just being an all around poor sport and ruining the game for others.

“When a Gamertag comes up as violating our policies for online behavior, the person who owns that Gamertag is punished by being banned from the service. Keep in mind, this isn’t just a ban on a particular game. This is a ban on the Xbox Live service as a whole, so you won’t be able to go online at all during your ban. Initially, you may be banned for a day, a week, or depending on severity, permanently! Kiss that $50 goodbye.”

Copyright ©1995-2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Fantasy video games and heavy metal music seem like a perfect marriage, given that both often rely on Tolkien-esque imagery and create elaborate, male-centric alternate worlds.

But while games use metal songs in their trailers, during play the soundtrack usually transitions into orchestral music. “Brutal Legend” on the other hand, a game for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that’s being released tomorrow by Electronic Arts (ERTS), is all metal, all the time.

The game’s creators, Double Fine Productions, have assembled what may be the most extensive metal soundtrack anywhere–108 songs by 75 different bands covering a range of sub-genres.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

On Wednesday, a startup called OnLive that’s generating a lot of buzz–and skepticism–in the videogame world raised a new round of financing from AT&T (T), Warner Bros. and others. We spoke to OnLive founder Steve Perlman, a well-known serial entrepreneur, about the investment (which wasn’t quantified) and some of the implications if OnLive or startups like it are successful.

OnLive has developed technology that it says will allow consumers to play graphically rich videogames without owning high-end PCs or consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that are normally required for such titles. Instead, OnLive plans to run games on powerful remote servers in data centers and pipe high-definition game graphics over the Internet to consumers, who can play them on low-end PCs and Macs or through an inexpensive OnLive device connected to their televisions.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Sometimes the good news is the bad news. Or vice versa.

Consider, for instance, today’s call on Microsoft (MSFT) by Caris & Co. analyst Curtis Shauger.

In a research note today, Shauger warned that weakening Xbox sales were likely to hurt top-line results for both the fiscal first quarter ending September and for the June 2010 fiscal year. Shauger trimmed his Q1 revenue forecast to $12.3 billion from $12.8 billion; for the full year he goes to $59.1 billion from $59.9 billion. The cuts specifically reflect lower expectations for Xbox 360 sales, which he says are getting hit by a combination of Microsoft’s price cuts on the consoles, weaker end demand and competitive pricing moves by Sony (SNE) on the Playstation 3.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

In the near future, consumers will be playing videogames without controllers, giving directions to lifelike avatars and waving files from screen to screen a la “Minority Report,” according to Microsoft (MSFT).

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the software giant’s online audience business group, made these predictions during Mixx, an interactive advertising conference in New York. His first demo was of Project Natal, an Xbox 360 initiative that focuses on controller-free gaming.

Gamers kicked their opponent by making a roundhouse of their own, and drove in a racing game by air-steering. Some videogames, like soccer, will take advantage of full-body motion capture, and a skateboarding game will let players scan their own board, which their avatar can then step on.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

On the same day that Microsoft Corp. reported some of its worst financial results ever earlier this summer, a dozen buses left the company’s headquarters campus. During rush hour, they headed toward the highway as a phalanx of police officers on motorcycles shut down the on-ramps ahead, clearing the path to a local museum.

Microsoft had rented the museum for a private party and a screening of the most recent “Harry Potter” movie. After the film, the roughly 600 attendees received a free Xbox 360 video-game console.

Read the rest of this post at the original site

U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories were down 23 percent in May to $863.3 million, according to market research firm NPD. It was the first month with sales under $1 billion since August 2007.

Hardware sales were hit the worse, down 30 percent. Software sales were off 17 percent, while accessories were down 25 percent. For the year to date, sales overall are down 7 percent, with hardware off 6 percent, software 8 percent and accessories 5 percent.

Among the consoles, the Nintendo Wii sold 289,500 units, down from 340,000 in April and 601,000 in March. That was followed by the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 at 175,000, flat with April.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Last week, when the hardcore gamers of the world were supposed to be firing up The Lost and Damned, a new, downloadable episode of Grand Theft Auto IV, I instead decided to spend more than $400 for the privilege of playing a $10 game. I bought a PlayStation 3–a system I had consciously avoided to date in favor of the Xbox 360 and the Wii–so that I could download Flower, a little marvel of a game that casts the player as a series of petals floating in the wind.

What’s remarkable about Flower is the sensation it creates, from start to finish: simple, almost indescribable, joy. Kellee Santiago, the president and co-founder of thatgamecompany, the game’s publisher, says in an accompanying behind-the-scenes video that Flower is “the video game version of a poem” and that its purpose is to create “an emotion” in those who play it. Flower, which at least for now is exclusively for sale on the PlayStation Network of downloadable games, is not unique in that ability–other games successfully create fear, or nervousness, or exhilaration (or controller-hurtling anger)–but it is the only game I’ve played that made me feel relaxed, peaceful, and happy. What’s the point of it? Only that. Which is plenty.

Read the rest of this post

The Xbox 360’s exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV add-on, “The Lost and Damned,” debuted yesterday to generally positive reviews. That’s good news for Microsoft–especially considering how much the company paid for rights to the extra downloadable episode.

Seth Schiesel’s New York Times review gives you a good sense for what $25 million buys a console company these days.

“’The Lost and Damned’ suffers from a few curious and unfortunate design decisions–players often have less freedom than in the original–that will probably prompt most to return to the original game after completing the new episode’s main story. But there is no question that it is the most fully realized, thoroughly produced and substantial downloadable add-on yet released for a console game. Anyone who enjoys Grand Theft Auto IV should get it.”

Read the rest of this post

Microsoft (MSFT) announced plans to open retail stores, hoping to boost visibility of many of its products and its brand. The move seems to be an effort to mimic the success that Apple (AAPL) has had with its retail stores. The news is just too tempting not to have some fun with. So here are some yet-to-be-officially-revealed details about the Microsoft stores.

Read the rest of this post

Games are starting to catch up with movies in this respect: Low-budget titles from indie studios have the same chance to succeed as blockbusters. And the indie game makers are about to make their biggest strides yet as Microsoft (MSFT) prepares to sell user-generated games on the Xbox 360 game console.

The launch of the Xbox Live Community Games Channel on Nov. 19 represents the biggest step yet toward embracing games made by professional independent developers, amateurs, students and ordinary gamers. The games launched on the channel, which will start in the dozens, will be available for 14 million-plus Xbox Live gamers to purchase for fees ranging from $2.50 to $10. The game channel is a part of a big makeover for the Xbox Live online gaming service.

Anyone who uses Microsoft’s $99 XNA Game Studio Express tools can create games that run on the Xbox 360 or the PC. More than a million tool sets have been downloaded.

Read the rest of this post

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) shares are sliding following this weekend’s debut of Guitar Hero World Tour, the latest version of the company’s popular music game. UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter says his assessment of the first day of sales was mixed: near sellout sales of Wii and Xbox 360 versions of the game at many locations, with PS3 kids often in stock. He said the guitar-only and game-only versions of the games were shipped in larger quantities but did not seem to be selling as well as the full version of the game. He also says that a small minority of buyers is reporting issues with the drum kit that comes with the game.

On a broader subject, Schachter says the videogame industry is likely to be recession-resistant, but not necessarily recession-proof.

Read the rest of this post

There’s a new member of the “Not Ready for Primetime Players”: The Xbox 360. Microsoft has delayed the launch of “Xbox Live Primetime,” its programmed series of interactive games with real-world prizes, until the spring. Microsoft managers say the delay is necessary in order to ensure a smooth launch of the system’s new user interface.

Read the rest of this post

It will go down as a mere footnote in U.S. election history, but Barack Obama has become the first presidential candidate to buy billboard space in the virtual landscape of video games. Over the past 10 days or so, reports have filtered in from players of the driving game “Burnout: Paradise” who were caught by surprise by the candidate’s visage beaming down from a roadside ad reminding them that the polls are now open for early voting and directing them to VoteForChange.com. Turns out the signs are just part of a buy that involves nine Xbox 360 titles from Electronic Arts and take advantage of relatively new technology that allows advertisements to be dynamically inserted into Net-connected games.

Read the rest of this post