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Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 Spring update was recently released, and Microsoft trumpeted the 125 improvements in the patch, but reports from users on the official Xbox.com forums show a bunch of users having problems with games, the dashboard, and video playback after the update. Now, despite the number of posts in the forums, this could be a small number of people affected with this. On the other hand, Microsoft has a known platform on which they fully control the hardware, so one would expect fewer issues in deploying a major patch like this than on PCs. One of the suggested fixes was to clear the Xbox 360 hard drive and re-download the affected content using the new cache clearing code built into the dashboard. However, this hasn’t seemed to fix the issue in all circumstances, and for some gamers, they can’t re-download the content because it is no longer available from the Xbox Live marketplace. At any rate, it looks like discontent is growing in the forums right now, but there’s no real smoking gun that suggests a root cause.


Read More | Xbox.com “Freezing after update” forum thread


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Do you often find your trash talk lacking? Do you feel like you can’t get a word in edgewise on Xbox Live?  Are you sick of being berated by masters of smack? Your hook-up has finally arrived.  Check out Fireborn’s “How to talk Smack on Xbox Live”.  Enjoy the educational video and remember, on Xbox Live its not how you play, but what you say!


Read More | YouTube


Perfect Dark Zero MapsMicrosoft Game Studios and Rare today announced that they will be expanding the already extensive and exciting multiplayer experience of “Perfect Dark Zero” by adding four new battleground maps available now for download on Xbox Live Marketplace.

The four new maps, Plaza, Rooftops, Trench, and GasPlant will provide gamers with the ability to further their mission of becoming the Perfect Agent. All maps will be fully functional with all existing scenarios. Gamers can purchase these exciting new maps for 500 Microsoft Points from Xbox Live Marketplace beginning today.


Oblivion
Bethesda has made the final version of the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion patch available for download. The download updates the PC version to 1.1.511, and the Xbox 360 (English) version will be available tomorrow on Xbox Live. There are numerous fixes to issues gamers have been seeing, including hardware fixes and optimizations for users with SLI and Crossfire configurations, numerous bug fixes to areas within the game, and a ton of fixes to quests that were broken or otherwise had errors in the original. There is the introduction of a new “Very Low Quality” rendering mode for users with low-end video cards. In addition, the patch notes list a number of ways users can optimize their game performance, modifications to get a wired Xbox 360 gamepad working with the PC version of Oblivion.


Read More | Patch Download
Read More | Patch Notes


Live ANywhereQUALCOMM announced June 1st that it will be supporting the Live Anywhere movement through use of it’s BREW software.  If you are using a Verizon Wireless cell phone and playing games, you are using BREW.  The announcement was made at the annual BREW developer’s conference in San Diego, and is good news for Microsoft.  Previous to this announcement Live Anywhere was a great theory but lacked visible backers in the wireless industry.  These showings of support by QUALCOMM and by proxy Verizon Wireless has lent credibility to the idea that I can purchase a game on the Xbox Live Arcade and gain the ability to play the game on your phone or interact on the go with your friends on Live.  Yet to be laid out is what consumers will have to pay Verizon for this access since Verizon is unlikely to just hand out access to their distribution service and lose revenue from games purchased on Live.  On the upside, combined with the free XBL gold weekends that Verizon has given out, the company may be showing a commitment to the gaming community and thus attracting more gamers to it’s multitude of services.


Read More | IGN


Xbox Live VisionAccording to Xbox Addict and computerandvideogames.com, the Xbox Live Vision Camera will come bundled as a set with a wired headset, a month of Xbox Live Gold access, and the Live Arcade game UNO. Sounds like about the right price point, especially when compared with Sony’s Eye Toy. No word yet on whether you’ll be able to buy the camera without a bundle or if the camera may be bundled with other games.


Read More | computerandvideogames.com


Xbox 360Despite Peter Moore’s dismissal of Xbox 360 backwards compatibility as a mainstream feature, there will be a new compatibility update coming from Microsoft in the next few weeks which is expected to add support to “at least a dozen titles.” The Xbox 360 marketing guys at Gamerscoreblog pinned down the compatibility team and got the skinny on the update; the next release is in testing now, and they are still fully committed to getting as many titles as possible on the backwards compatibility list. Here’s hoping the next update gets gamers more titles like Mech Assault and nothing with the word Barbie in the name.


Read More | GamerscoreBlog


If you were wondering how the Vision Camera would work in UNO, her eis your answer. Maestro1, a camera beta tester, showed up in a game where another player quickly grabbed 40 seconds of video. Not much to see in the video itself, other than a dog standing still for quite a while, then simply walking away - but still cool nonetheless. The Xbox Live Vision Camera is set to launch in North America and Europe on September 19, 2006.


Read More | CheapAssGamer


Phantasy Star OnlinePSO-World has managed to grab an interview with Takao Miyoshi, producer of the upcoming update in the Phantasy Star Online series, Phantasy Star Universe. While the sequel promises that everything in the game will be bigger and better than before, the biggest development will be the new offline gameplay, featuring a more well-developed storyline that should offer hours of single user play, much more than has previously been offered in the past. Also briefly discussed were the new racial abilities integrated into the game, and the new vehicles like player-controlled fire-breathing dinosaurs. In terms of the online world, the old lobby system will be replaced by larger in-game worlds, that can host up to 1000 people. The segregation of the PS2/PC users and the Xbox 360 users was also touched on, and interestingly, the final decision on splitting the game servers has not been set yet; hopefully, all PSU users will be able to play in the same server environment. No Wii or PS3 support is currently in the cards, but from the interview, it sounds like this may still be a possibility, leveraging the special controllers for both. Phantasy Star Universe should ship in the US in the latter half of 2006.


Read More | PSO-World.com


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In case you missed the Peter Moore interview that was posted over at Gear Live, check it out by clicking above. Peter goes into detail on subjects like Lumines Live, the HD DVD drive, Xbox Live Vision camera, and more. Especially interesting are his thoughts on the PlayStation 3, and how Sony is using it as a juggernaut to push the Blu-Ray format.

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