With an estimated 4.4 million players, Bungie has an obligation to provide a quality multi-player environment for Halo 3 gamers. Fortunately, that's exactly what they are doing. Bungie recently announced a lot of changes to the way Halo 3 servers match up gamers. The most important change: There will be a lot less "shottie snipers" lying around, to the disappointment of whiny 10 year old brats around the world. The rest of the changes, which are already incorporated into Xbox Live...

• Big Team Battle matches are now 16-player affairs.
• In the Team Slayer playlist, the appearance of Shotty Snipers has been greatly reduced.
• Now, when players veto Shotty Snipers, the game that results from the veto will not be Shotty Snipers.
• In one-sided VIP matches, the attacking team will now see a waypoint for the VIP they are hunting.
• In Lone Wolves, Slayer gametypes will appear more frequently.

Consumers report that Xbox Live is being pushed to the limits, presumably due to the high number of gamers playing Halo 3 online. Various Xbox Live users have experienced inaccurate game stats, performance slowdown, inability to access friend lists, and an inability to perform system updates. After experiencing trouble on Tuesday night, one gamer reputedly called Microsoft's help line in which a representative responded by saying that Xbox Live was experiencing network difficulties. The issue appears to be intermittent, however, as several gamers reported no problems outside of inaccurate stat data such as number of players online. Hundreds of thousands of Halo 3 owners have flocked to Xbox Live in an effort to play online since the game launched on Tuesday.

The lucky few who got to play the Call of Duty 4 beta, which promises to be the greatest thing to hit Xbox Live since Halo 2, will have to stop playing the game by September 30th. Fortunately for the true Call of Duty 4 aficionados, Infinity Ward is raising the level cap and unlocking additional content on September 28th. Thanks to the results of the Beta, Infinity Ward now has a full list of things they wish to add/remove from Call of Duty 4. The most serious changes include "adding a sensitivity slider, cracking down on map exploits, and improving matchmaking optimization to reduce lag". Infinity Ward gives a tantalizing hint as to when they will release the final version of the game: "Are We Gold Yet?"

Ahead of the highly-anticipated launch of Halo 3, Microsoft has released updated statistics related to its Xbox 360 console. More than 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold across the 37 countries where it is currently available. According to NPD data, US gamers have purchased more software for the Xbox 360 (24.3 million units) than for the PS3 and Wii combined (19.8 million units). There are more than 250 games available on the Xbox 360, and the console has the largest games attach rate of the current generation at 6.3 games sold per Xbox 360 owner. Xbox LIVE is currently available in 25 countries across the globe. The most popular games played over Xbox LIVE worldwide include Halo 2, Gears of War, Hexic HD, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas, Call of Duty 3, Call of Duty 2, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 3 - Advanced Warfighter, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Crackdown, and PGR3. The Xbox 360 console was launched worldwide in November 2005.

It seems as though you are not allowed to put the word 'Linux' in your Xbox Live Motto. There is no obvious reason behind this, but this almost certainly will put the Linux community up in arms. Most Linux users/enthusiasts probably do not like the idea of Linux being associated with a countless assortment of other profanities and obscenities.

It seems as though Xbox Live is becoming a very popular media distribution point, as more television shows and movies find themselves on the user-friendly service. Family Guy, the show full of non sequitors, dysfunctional characters, life lessons learned the hilarious way, and "all the awkward flashbacks you can handle" is going to start showing up on Xbox Live tomorrow. On September 2nd, only the first two seasons will be available, but the entire show should eventually find itself on there. There is no word as to how much each episode/season will cost.

Microsoft did more than just show off their Xbox Live user base: they listed the ten most popular games in Xbox Live Arcade. Microsoft sorted the list by three categories: Most players, longest time played in one session, and longest time played total. The game with the most players is the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, while the longest-session game was Jewel Quest, and the longest-played game was Uno. Check out the rest of the list below.

At Gamefest 2007, Microsoft made a speech regarding just how successful Xbox Live is. Microsoft's Game Developer Group general manager Chris Satchell says that there are currently 7.1 million paying Xbox Live users, who have downloaded 45 million things off of Xbox Live. Furthermore, the attach rate for Xbox Live Arcade titles is over 7 titles per user, on average. Satchell points out that the Xbox Live Arcade attachment number has doubled in the past four months.

Microsoft has announced that Konami's Super Contra will be available for purchase through the XBOX Live service on Wednesday for the price of 400 Microsoft Points, or $5. While the game will maintain it's classic look, players can choose a less nostalgic enhanced graphics version as they play alone or cooperatively. Super Contra is not the only new title available Wednesday. As reported yesterday Wing Commander Arena, a 3D remake, will be available for purchase for 800 Microsoft Points.

A new firmware replacement for the TS-H943 xbox360 drive features:

• Defeats all current and some future Xbox Live detection attempts
• Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 360 backups
• Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 1 backups
• Boots all Xbox 360 originals
• Boots all Xbox 1 originals on Xbox 360

Use on Xbox Live at own risk!!

As everyone knows Microsoft is planning to attempt to merge PC gaming and Console gaming. This plan will without a doubt fail miserably and ONLY to create tensions between console gamers and PC gamers. Why will it fail you ask? Really it's quite simple. As every PC gamer knows PC gamers have several distinct advantages over Console Gamers ...

It appears that Microsoft has managed to find a way to recognize Xbox360 consoles with modified firmwares (both Hitachi-LG and Toshiba-Samsung drives) and start banning them from the LIVE network. Even people using the new firmwares with disc-jitter added get banned. As a result, consumers who try to login to LIVE with a modified console will get an error code (Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D) when trying to connect to the service. These users will not have their account automatically banned from LIVE, but they will no longer be able to access the service from the modified Xbox 360(console unique ID serial gets banned, not the LIVE account).

Ubisoft has released a bunch of downloadable content for Rainbow Six: Vegas. For 800 Xbox Live points (roughly $10 USD), you can nab yourself two new gameplay modes and five new (three new and two re-done) multiplayer maps.

The new maps are:

• Marshalling Yard
• Roof
• Doscala Restaurant
• Border Town (redone)
• Killhouse (redone)

The two new gameplay types are:

• Assassination ("One team attempts to take out the other team's VIP during an escort mission")
• Total Conquest ("King of the Multiple Hills").

Wow, who was expecting this? Microsoft has decided to make the classic Halo 2 cartoons available for purchase on Xbox Live Marketplace. Currently, you can get the first 5 episodes for 80 Xbox Live points (about $1 USD) each. There are no combo deals as of yet. As more episodes come to Xbox Live Marketplace, we may start to see combo deals, allowing you to get a bulk quantity of Red vs. Blue for a discount price.

However, Microsoft may have a bit of competition from the actual author of Red vs. Blue. $20 will get you an entire season on DVD.

REDMOND, Wash. - April 10, 2007 - Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios today confirmed the multiplayer beta of "Halo 3" will debut to audiences worldwide via Xbox LIVE on May 16 at 5 a.m. PDT and run through June 6 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Coming exclusively to the Xbox 360 console this fall, "Halo 3" is the highly anticipated third chapter in the groundbreaking "Halo" trilogy from legendary developers Bungie. "Halo 3" lets gamers experience Master Chief's greatest battle as he launches an epic mission to stop the Covenant, destroy the impending Flood threat and ultimately save mankind.

The former console entertainment system only service 'XBox Live' gets spread to the PC crowd as well Peter Moore from Microsoft announced lately. 'Windows Live' users will be able to play certain games together with people sitting infront of an XBox. One of the first games will be the Vista version of Halo 2. The release date for Halo 2 will be May 8th.
The cost for this service is 49.95$ a year for the Gold membership. The Silver membership is for free but you won't be able to utilize all the features of course.

Microsoft has announced that there are now 6 million people subscribed to its Xbox Live service. This milestone has arrived four months ahead of schedule, with Microsoft originally aiming to hit 6 million by June this year. Since its launch in 2002, Xbox Live has now notched up a respectable 2.3 billion hours worth of network play between gamers - the equivalent of 260,000 years - with Halo 2 accounting for 710 million of those. More than 70% of Xbox Live users are actively using the market place to download new content, as Microsoft strives to encourage more people online. Xbox Live remains the most successful online service for a console, and represents the changing attitude of gamers as they become more and more accustomed to online gameplay. One interesting thing to note is that Microsoft does not give figures for the number of Gold and Silver members separately - the Silver membership is free but noticeably scaled down, without online gameplay.

Microsoft said a while ago that they would start making more games, all of which were designed for multi-player action. According to 1Up, Worms marks the first of those games. For those of you that don't know, Worms is a multiplayer game with "funny little worms fighting it out with rocket launchers". It should become available on Xbox Live Arcade on March 7th for 800 points ($10).

Many of us know the Wing Commander series, which included real actors and spawned a, not very successful, movie. Electronic Arts is bringing the classic space game, which pitted humans versus the cat-like Kilrathi, to the Xbox Live Arcade. The game will feature up to 16-player deathmatches and the best players can compete and climb up a ladder board ranking system. It will be quite different than the original games, "Wing Commander Arena" is purely focused on shoot-em-up combat rather than extensive exploring and missions. The game should be available this summer. There has been no word if Mark Hamil will return to the series.

We've all seen advertisements for in-car game systems, and we've also probably heard of power inverters that allow us to plug our electronics in on the road. However, this clever man has taken this a step further- Xbox Live on the road. Since his town, Mountain View, California, has free wireless internet thanks to Google, he could use it to do all manner of things. By setting up his Xbox 360 to use the towns wireless internet, all he had to do was put in an Xbox 360, an HDTV, and power them using two inverters. He secured the HDTV using zip ties and a mounting bracket. If someone wanted to try this mod from scratch, it would cost $4,000. Someone who already had an HDTV and an Xbox360 would probably spend around $200 ($100 for wifi adapter, $80 for powerful inverter, $20 for zip-ties).

When Guitar Hero 2 is released for the Xbox360 (in March, perhaps?), it will have a ton of Xbox Live content. This means that Red Octane can upload new songs, saving them the trouble of developing an entirely new game. They may also use Xbox Live to let people play online with each other.

Xbox Live Arcade is a very complex piece of software. And what's more complicated are the games that go in the arcade. Of course, Microsoft knows that when they sell over 10 million consoles a year, they need more than just a bunch of simple shoot-em-ups you can find at any bowling alley/bar. And so, they have set requirements for the games that get on their arcade.

• Games must be non-combatant and multi-player.
• There need to be more board games
• There needs to be a lot more original or "experimental" games.

Microsoft has often been criticizing for hosting a lot of old classics that have either been left alone or redone, essentially lacking new content. Microsoft is fixing this as fast as they can, which unfortunately is six to nine months per game.

Microsoft and Old Spice teamed up, and are going to give Xbox Live gamers rewards for, well, playing their Xbox360. If you register for the program by February 12th, you are eligible for a wide variety of awards. To register for the program you need to "Have a valid Windows Live ID linked to your Xbox Live Gamertag; Be a legal resident of the United States (future contests will be available on a global scale) and be at least 13 years old." The awards are divided into three tiers, depending on how seriously you take gaming (Microsoft calls it your "gamerscore").

• Level 1 (Gamers who have an annual gamerscore between 0-4,999 at time of entry): Game Picture, Dashboard theme, Contra for Xbox LIVE Arcade
• Level 2 (5,000-9,999 annual gamerscore): Level 1 Package, 100 Microsoft Points and a contest T-shirt
• Level 3 (10,000+ annual gamerscore): Level 1 Package, 200 Microsoft Points, contest T-shirt and Fusion Frenzy 2 In addition, Old Spice will give Level 1 and 2 the gift of experience by upgrading their Rewards Level for 2007.

One of the major features of Xbox(360) is internet gameplay. Xbox Live is one of the most important things separating the Xbox(360) from competition coming from Sony and Nintendo. However, most Xbox(360) owners do not use this feature. Only 10% of people owning an Xbox had an Xbox Live account, and 50% of Xbox360 owners have an Xbox Live Gold account.

While there are over 4 million owners of the $50-a-year Xbox Live Gold accounts, there are several reasons that this number is not much higher. The first and most important reason is an intimidation factor. Immature players who are pitted against very experienced players may be scared away from Xbox Live. There is also no shortage of "aggressive and sometime verbally abusive players" who can make even the best players stay off of Xbox Live. "A lot of casual gamers are intimidated by online in general, both in terms of the technology and the human competition," said Cole. "That's changing, but it still has a ways to go." In an attempt to make Xbox Live a friendlier service, Microsoft recently started an Xbox Live Video service, as we reported here.