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Already Bought Undertow? Grab 800 Free Microsoft Points

mike — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:06:27 +0000

Grab 800 not-quite-free Microsoft Points from 1-800-4MY-XBOX. Microsoft started giving away Undertow downloads as a cover-their-butts freebie to make up for the holiday Xbox Live outages.

It’s not exactly a blockbuster game, but it’s free to everyone and nice for those of us who never saw any outages because we’d gorged ourselves on pie and were napping though most of a multi-generational, family event. Early reports were that the lack of choice was even harder on users who already paid for the game. They were supposedly out of luck on getting any freebies or paybacks.

Microsoft may not be remotely close to a customer-friendly company, but they may be learning fast. Today’s reports are that if you already own Undertow you can call 1-800-4MY-XBOX and have the original purchase price (yes, 800 points) refunded to your account. No one around here has a copy of Undertow to cash out (or the patience to fake like we have one so we can confirm the rumor), but please let us know your results. Also, is the service rep. on the other end as friendly as “Mark” is from Kotaku’s original report?

[via Kotaku]

PS3 Currently the Only Blu-Ray 2.0 Player

mike — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:04:22 +0000

The top-selling Blu-ray player by a huge margin is Sony’s PS3. That should be good news to all current owners, since the PS3 is (supposedly) the only Blu-ray player currently on the market that’s compatible with the Blu-ray 2.0 specifications. If you’re currently an owner of another Blu-ray player, suck it up, the bad news is you may need to shop for a new deck or take it in for some sort of crazy parts install.

What makes the 2.0 spec so hard to meet? Unless you’re reading this on an iPhone your PC already meets the requirements: two secondary decoders, 1GB of local storage, and an internet connection. The Playstation 3 meets all those requirements, with its hard drive and Ethernet port covering the last two items and the extra graphics horsepower covering the decoders. On the other hand, I figure most PC and laptop Blu-ray R/RW’s probably meet the standards too. If you dropped the cash on one of those hold your breath and hope your manufacturer is around long enough to dish out the firmware upgrades.

[via Ars Technica]

Impending: Activision Announces Guitar Hero III Replacement Discs Coming Soon…

mike — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:15:51 +0000

Activision is pre-announcing the release of replacement Guitar Hero III discs for the Wii. No bonuses or add-ons to make up for the mistake, but at least they’re not going to charge for shipping. Call Activision at (866) 780-8286 during their lame call center hours to pre-register for a replacement disc.

Second Life Needs a Band-Aid. Down Jan 9th.

mike — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:03:35 +0000

Second Life has had recurring asset issues and server outages since this Wednesday’s update. The “asset cluster” needs to be expanded to resolve the issues. Unfortunately the issues will probably continue for a whole week, since the restart and downtime Linden Labs has scheduled aren’t until next Wednesday.

If you’re compulsive enough to be playing then or make it a habit to play from work then watch out for the scheduled outage. 6am – noon PST, Jan. 9th.

“All” Xbox LIVE Members to Get Free Game Download

mike — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:37:36 +0000

All that holiday downtime equals a free Xbox LIVE Arcade game to every member of the service. It’s not going to heal all the extra time spent with family for gamers with days off and new gifts to play. It’s still a whole lot better than how Microsoft handled the original Xbox 360 bricking problems … plus the scratched discs, overheating problems, bad technical updates patches, red ring of death, etc.

Back to typical fashion, no specifics on when you had to be signed up by or if there are restrictions on what games are eligible. Check the original letter (and the lack of details) from Xbox LIVE’s General Manager at Major Nelson.

Major Nelson Finally Asks: Is Your Xbox LIVE Fixed?

mike — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:11:32 +0000

Major Nelson, Microsoft’s official Xbox PR-blogger, has been dropping status updates for days. He’s finally posted to Twitter that Xbox LIVE looks pretty good to him. He’d like to know what the rest of us think:

LIVE is looking pretty good now….how is it for you guys-n-girls?

If you’re down hop over to the Major Nelson blog and let him know. If you’re finally up forget about it and keep playing.