Xbox Live updated, 360 Netflix exclusivity touted

Can you buy them used elsewhere cheaper? In a number of cases, sure, probably. But there are some people who don't like buying used games. For quite a while I was one of them. I still do it only rarely and usually only for games around a $14-or-lower price because of the nuissance of bad discs. I worked in rental for long enough to see how other people treat discs. It's not pretty. But Games on Demand is more about convenience than cost. You are more likely to buy something if you don't have to leave the house for it. This is why Amazon is so successful at selling things that are readily available in brick-and-mortar stores locally for comparable prices. Add in the additional convenience of digital delivery and you've got a great customer experience. The immediacy of a local purchase with the convenience of an online one. It's win-win. It's that kind of convenience that is going to be the tipping point for somebody who has been curious about Viva Pinata, but just backs off from having to go up to the guy at Wal-Mart and asking him to open the case for him.

@thekey I think 20 million people find it quite acceptable.

WOW u people are funny..............

Ok so now Onlive announces they're coming out with games on demand service. M$ learns about this, makes an aditional deal with Netflix. Now beats onlive to the punch and does the same exact type of serivce. (with more cost.) Oh boy now M$ is in the hot seat with Australia and New zealand. man M$ is begining to piss me off, even more.

i bought 2 things for my avatar but other than that im not buying anymore stuff for it, unless they come out wit maybe cod4 or waw shirts or something, and i thought the games on demand thing, u could pay points. I can find those games at gamestop for lower prices, the games are used but its still cheaper

"You pay for Live, You pay for Netflix. And you're touting "no additional cost" gee thanks! Were you thinking of charging us more?" Of course they were. Thats what they've been doing since 2002. And it's completely unacceptible. When PC, PSN online gaming is free.

The games on demand is interesting. However, right now I can find all those games new for a lower price. Hopefully, MS will put games from other territories (Japan or U.K.) on the service.

"The Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience, available to Xbox Live Gold members who are also Netflix unlimited plan subscribers, at no additional cost." You pay for Live, You pay for Netflix. And you're touting "no additional cost" gee thanks! Were you thinking of charging us more?

The game download prices are a little high but the other day when I had the flu and couldn't get out of the house.... I would have bought a new game.

Dose anyone know when we can start unlocking avatar content in games? My $5 lightsaber is cool and all but I'd rather not pay if I can just play a game.Also will they be special items or just unlock things you can buy?

I like how you can buy games that you can get in the shop for a few pound for a whopping £20 a piece, and you dont even get the box/instructions to go with it lol.

I thought for sure I wasn't going to buy any of those dumb accessories for my avatar. About 2 minutes after I downloaded the update, $5 flew out of my pocket and now my avatar is playing with a lightsaber. I know, I'm dumb. Microsoft has to be making a killing on this already. The improvements to Netflix are superb.

OK, why does it matter that my avatar can watch movies MST3K style? That doesn't even make sense. Unless they heckle and make fun like MST3K; otherwise, what's the point??

"exclusive partnerships" are a loser for the consumer. They just keep costs up. I can't figure out why these things are a feature.

The Last.fm deal with Microsoft is likely 1 main reason that all of the GameSpot home page stories go directly to the reviews/videos/et cetera of the Xbox 360 versions of the games. Since my 360 has been disconnected from the internet for most of the year and there isn't anything here that improves my experience, I might not even update until the rest of the promised features release... who knows? I might do it if I get bored, but I have to move my console closer to my router so I can plug it in and download the update. Not sure that's something I want to waste my time with any time soon. _

GoD cost more for the same reason everything costs more at 7-11 than buying the identical item at a grocery store. It's for the convienience. If you want to pay less, you gotta go out of your way, or spend some time shopping around. 7-11 isn't going anywhere, and if there are people out there willing to pay the prices Microsoft is asking, GoD isn't going to change either.

When MSFT adds [Search] on the X360 Netflix, I'll clean up my Queue of the 400 movies I added to it.

I think its great that awesome games like Mass Effect, Prey, and Perfect Dark Zero can be purchased for only $19. But I'm a little bit confused why Lego Star Wars costs $29..I can buy it at Wal-Mart for only $19. I'm not trying to sound picky, but there are some other things I don't understand. For example, I admit that Call of Duty 2 is the best World War 2 simulation ever made. In fact, Call of Duty 2 is my favorite game ever released in the Call of Duty series. But, you can buy Call of Duty 2: Game of the Year Edition new at Wal-Mart or Target for only $19. Why does it cost $29 here? I think it should cost only $19, just like Mass Effect, Prey, Perfect Dark Zero, Ridge Racer, and the others. Same thing for Rainbow Six: Vegas. It costs $19 is you buy the disc new from Wal-Mart. So, why not sell it for $19 online, just like with Mass Effect. I think this is an experiment to see if game can be sold at $29 instead of $19. I'm not buying any of the $29 games because of this.

ive read most of the posts on this issue and for someone like me, nrly 30, works and doesnt think the pricing is too bad its a case of if you want it,get it. In no shape or form Ms are saying give us your money. I love halo, but i wont be getting all that avatar stuff as it looks to me for kids. Why people are so hepped up over cutomising an avatar is beyond me. Who is gonna care now or in the future that you added some stuff to a digital character, christ! Arguing over the pricing for the stuff is totally pointless. if you have the cash . . hell go crazy but noone really cares. My next point is the games on demand. This for me is a total waste of time, i have the 120gb hard drive . . and i dowload EVERYTHING near enough on xboxlive and i have 42g left. Why i would want to chock up my hd with a 4-10 g game (assuming we are working of hd disk capacity) is beyond me and i feel sorry for the 20 gigers. Again i have to agree with the posters with the actual pricing of the games. I can get all of the on demand games for £8 - £15 AND then have a hope in trading it in (although i dont trade games . . .EVER), this pricing contrary to the above is ridiculous . . .whats with the 2-3 year old titles as well? Yeah. MS are delivering a brialliant service. xbox live cannot be faulted. halo, gears, forza cannot be faulted. This however is just a feeder for the xbox fans who want to see *new" updates, it hasnt really done much.

OMG seriously guys, 13 thumbs down! I was just saying I like PSN Movie Renting system Better /Opinion and my XBL!!!! Avatar looks good for FREE!!!

good idea but what about me and a handful of people who won't be able to download these games because of the crappy 20gb hard drive? I am not buying a new hard drive as there are way overpriced so this is a completly pointless update.

Well, having read the posts regarding GoD pricing, i have to say, i totally agree with everyone here, my only hope is that MS actually listen to what we are saying. The only 2 hurdles i currently see MS needing to get over are A: Storage Capacity and B: GoD pricing, they simply need to provide greater incentive for me to hand over my digital cash in exchange for a product that A: i can purchase cheaper (in solid form), and B: compromising my already pityfull storage capacity (20gb MS HDD). The real frustration for me is that i would love to get all my games 'On Demand' but i simply dont have any available space to put it, and ill be damned if they think im going to buy a 120gb drive for £120+. So come on MS, listen to what we (your customers) are saying, do us all a favour and get it sorted. One last requirement: Enable NTFS support on external HDD's, as FAT32 is no where near as robust.

i wouldnt mind buying ah couple of these games but, i'm thinkin about my storage and right now i'm down to 5gigs on my 20gig and i refuse to buy a 120gig at those rediculous prices, if they were really smart they would offer more storage at a more reasonalble price, then maybe i would buy more stuff from the market place.

Oh great! We can buy 360 games without going to gamestop! Too bad they take up too much room on a 20 GB hard drive and cost more than at gamestop. Not to mention Netflix users have to be 18+ before using the service, so quite a few people are excluded from the mix.

As everyone else has noted here, the prices for games on demand suck. What is up with the 30.00 price tag on Call of Duty 2? That is an old game that can be purchased for 12 bucks from second hand stores. They want 30 bucks for Bioshock as well. You can buy it new at Gamestop for 19 bucks and for less used. Most retailers still sell it for 30 bucks new so that isn't so far off. Rainbow Six for 30 though is another huge rip-off. WTF, MS?!!!

At first I thought Avatar items would be silly, but after seeing the COG armor, I don't think it's silly, and I will be buying that armor for my Avatar. MS is doing this because it worked for Sony and Nintendo. THey are just keeping up with the competition. As far as MS putting money where it counts, I agree to an extent, storage is an issue and they need to tackle it very soon. However, the lag in games is not the responsibility of Xbox live. Remember the developers are responsible for incorporating multiplayer into their games, how they do it is soley up to them. If games are laggy it's because they run off a players connection solely. Which is what Gears 1 and all the Call of Duty games run off of. Now Bungie may be the only company with dedicated servers but that was their choice. If you have a problem with laggy games, upgrade your own internet connection, or complain to the developers for not putting their profits into their games. Xbox Live is not responsible for the lag. You sign in to Xbox live and all it does is give you access to multiplayer through their network. How you connect to the games is based on the game itself. Unfortunately due to high development costs companies like Epic have decided not to use dedicated servers to host the games themselves, thus eliminating lag unless you have a really bad connection. Don't blame MS because your parents won't purchase a 30MB connection or better so you can play games.

Thank you, Microsoft! The new update is great. I LOVE the new Avatar items and Games on Demand. And of course, Netflix is even better. Further justifying the XBL fee I pay. :D

Everytime I hear news like this it makes me want to walk up to Mr. Sony, turn him around, slap his face, grab him by his collar and yell "Look at what Microsoft is doing, man! They are providing its users with quality online services on a regular basis and what the hell are you doing for me? Nothing! Take a leaf out of their book and provide already and stop fannying about with your PSP Go's and the like and sort out our online services! For the love of God, man!" At least I would like to. Great new features for the 360 though. Looking forward to picking one up at some point in the future.

Really lovin' the new Netflix streaming. My wireless signal is usually between average and good and streaming HD TV shows has been a struggle. Now with the new update, it streams 100% with no "slows in performance" and starts up much quicker than before. GREAT UPDATE!!

w/e it z......@the end of the day........Microsoft rulz wen it comes 2 software...... guys just compare the new dashboard with XMB & the answer is there.... Things keep on getting better and better for 360 owners.......& may be this is time 4 Sony to leave this vdo game business 4ever...........

I gotta admit I thought paying for avatar clothes was stupid. Which it is actually but I couldn't help wanting the lightsaber. The Netflix update is amazing.

I found this update to be very dissapointing, not only are the really old games overpriced but so were the virtual clothes which frankly no one but you and your friends can see and i am pretty sure they dont give a damn. And before some of you say "stop whining if you dont want it dont buy it" I dont like the way M$ is heading, I would rather have less lag in games and clearer voice chat than a virtual basketball.

The only things I could appreciate were the avatar updates which were neat. No microsoft points for Games On Demand so can't use the service and not a member of netflix. Still, the avatars and achievement things are nice.

I love the update, I'm not sure if anyone here got to try it out, but the Netflix Party feature is pretty fun, admittedly a little hokey and not the way I will watch all of my movies, but still very fun none the less! I cant wait for facebook and last.fm updates! These are all reasons the I do not mind paying $50 a year for such a great service!

I should have clarified my last statement, as it seems I was attacking Sony Fanboys, well I should have put fanboys in general, 360 fanboys included! Stop whining about HAVING to pay for dlc for avatars and such! You don't HAVE to pay for anything, just don't buy it and stop your whining!

@Uzriz You're right its stupid, I've seen similar pricing on steam and other digital retailers though, I've no idea who does their pricing but the idea of digital downloads is to reduce packaging and postage costs as well as point of sale costs thus be a cheaper alternative... yet we see retail games cost less...? bandwidth isnt that expensive!

The UK prices are a total rip off lol. I was planning to get a copy of Mass Effect and thought I should wait for the Games on Demand feature to launch. Now I see that the price is £19.99 !! It's half that price from almost every online game site for the UK including Amazon, GAME and Play. Microsoft need to change that price plan or GoD will fail miserabely. Otherwise this was a decent update.

perfect dark zero is 5 bucks now lol xbl is charging 4 times that

Things keep on getting better and better for 360 owners. This is a great update to say the least. My xbox elite when connected via HDMI was giving me some display issues where the display was having some sort of ghosting effect which was really annoying. This has now been fixed by the "Display Discovery" setting included in the update. Myu games now look better than ever via HDMI. Thankyou Microsoft.

while i like all the new features (especially the new avatar addons) i have to disagree on the GoD pricing. i know they have to be supportive of the companies but £20 oblivion? i can buy oblivion, shivering isle and half of the smaller expansions for £15. same goes for mass effect. i bought mine brand new (limited edition as well) a year ago for £9.99. and they want £20? i can see it being good for newer releases since they would still be up there in the £30+ range but really old games like prey (which i brought brand new for a fiver) should be subjected to a below £10 price tag. and i just noticed how the euro market is being screwed AGAIN. $19.99 for prey, and its £20 on XBL here. come on microsoft you greedy ****s at least make the games the same SODDING PRICE!

Downloaded and installed this update, immediately received an E74. Thankfully, a quick reboot has me rolling again.

The thing that really irritates me is that digital distribution was hailed as a way to help developers save a ton of money on distribution costs, and pass the savings on to the customer. Instead, we're actually paying more for less? What gives? For example, just about any big box store sells the game of the year edition of Oblivion for $30 - that's all the DLC included (I think). Whereas I'm pretty sure the $30 download on Xbox Live is just the core game. And even if it was the exact same game, paying the same price is still bogus, because if you go to a store, you have a physical copy of the game, a tangible item that has some (however small) resale value, but a digital download has none. To be even remotely appealing to me, a digital download would have to sell for about 3/4 of the price that I would spend on the real thing.

I would pay 2000 points if my Avatar could stand around in his underwear with a big, hairy beer belly. Beer in hand and puppy dog slippers. But as it is, you can't even view the back of the clothes you buy. Nobody even sees your avatar but you and your friends.

For all the Sony UberFanboys complaining about paying for avatar clothes, the last time I was on the PSN and logged into HOME, they were doing the same thing there, only to an even further extent by selling virtual furniture as well to "pimp" out your virtual bachelor pad... So stop whining already, no one is forcing you to buy anything.

400MPs for some stupid outfit that does nothing? fair enough at 50MPs but 400?!

Dont get me wrong, im all for DD, and understand that no matter weather you like it or not, it is the future of distribution. My issue is simply storage, MS really need to address this issue, and provide alternative methods, most prefferebly being able to store content on external drives / NAS's etc, as i refuse to pay way over inflated prices for a pityfull 120gb drive, i mean seriously, you can purchase a USB2 1TB drive in a caddy for the less than an MS 120gb, what gives. Come on MS, get your arses in gear!

Well guys, i have to admit, when i first heard of this update and the addition of being able to purchase clothes for my avatar i was very sceptical and had a very negative view, as they bare no relevance to my gaming requirements whatsoever. However having browsed the avatar marketplace, i have to say i simply could'nt resist the Pom-Poms : ) Looking forward to seeing how devs implement new avatar items when acheivements are earned. Good fun : )

Kudos to Nosnitsttam. I agree with you 100%. I think its funny how some of you are saying "you expect me to spend REAL money on FAKE clothes!?!?", when in all reality people do this all the time. Especially in MMO's. Microsoft is not greedy. They are, in fact, very smart for offering it. For all of your complaining about how ridiculous these prices are and how absurd the concept is, these avatar items WILL sell big time. I guarantee it. In other news.... not much of an update for me. I don't use Netflix, and not really in to the avatars. And like most others have pointed out: I can buy these "games on demand" for half the price at a local Gamestop or EB. But the option is nice I guess, if I am feeling really lazy