XBox360 Fall Update - XBox1 Game Downloads!

Mr E

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/13/fall-xbox-360-dashboard-update-revealed-download-halo-december/

Official Xbox Magazine has the scoop on the Fall Xbox 360 dashboard update, and you better believe it's a doozy. UK-based CVG reports that the December 2 update will allow 360 owners to download and play Microsoft-published Xbox 1 games on their 360s.

Let's say that one more time: come December 2, you will be able to download full, original Xbox games to the Xbox 360. The initial list of available games includes Fable, Indigo Prophecy, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, Burnout 3, and, of course, Halo: Combat Evolved.

Games will cost approximately 1200 Microsoft Points, or $15 USD. Microsoft plans on re-releasing as many Xbox 1 titles as possible through Marketplace. Look out, Virtual Console.

Scruff

just beat me too it!

not just games, HD films on demand too.

more at CVG

The Fall Xbox 360 dashboard update has been revealed to our colleagues at OXM from Microsoft and it's looking very good indeed with gaming classics and films on demand.

December 4 is the date you'll need to watch out for; that's the day you'll be able to download and play Halo. Yes, Halo as in the Xbox game, through Marketplace, on your Xbox 360.

Microsoft is introducing games it has published for the original Xbox on XBL Marketplace, with the eventual plan to bring as much of the back catalogue across as possible.

Games cost about 1200 Microsoft points (about ten quid), which according to us puts them a little over what you'd pay for them second hand.

The initial list of downloads includes Halo, Fable, Fahrenheit, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex and Burnout 3. All good then, apart from maybe Crash.

And if that wasn't enough, films on demand, though not confirmed for the December 4 date, aren't far away. Studios such as Warner Bros are potentially lined up for the service, so we can look forward to films such as The Dark Knight, The Assassination of Jesse James and I Am Legend appearing eventually.

Films will cost less than a fiver and come in 720p resolution. You have 14 days to start watching a film once it has downloaded. Once you started watching a film, you have 24 hours to finish it. After that, the film deletes itself from your hard drive. It's basically an online rental service then, like the US Video Marketplace.

time to get the 120gb hds?

TheDoc

that is brilliant, i think that definatly warrants getting en elite for people now for the bigger hard drive.

Think i might even purchase a 120 gig hard drive, seen them floating on ebay.

kaimera

Cool.

Just in time for my broadband to arrive.

event

Films will cost less than a fiver and come in 720p resolution. You have 14 days to start watching a film once it has downloaded. Once you started watching a film, you have 24 hours to finish it. After that, the film deletes itself from your hard drive. It's basically an online rental service then, like the US Video Marketplace

dont like that bit though

FutureGuy

Before I start getting excited, will this be available in Ireland?

Mr E

Yep, CVG (where the story broke) is a UK magazine.

Vic Vinegar

Wahoo, bloody sweet! i wonder if the xbox games will have achievement points built into them. Unlikely, but it would be nice! (i'm an achievement whore! )

humanji

Isn't fall the US term for Autumn? And isn't December in Winter? So, isn't this a Winter update? Should I just walk away?

robinph

Will definately be needing the bigger hard drive now I think. Not interested in the movie rentals really though but I'm sure there will be some old games that will take my fancy. Not seen anywhere selling the 120G drive seperately yet though, only the 20G for the still rediculious €100+.

Retr0gamer

Give us Panzer Dragoon Orta in HD!

starman100

How large a DL will be your typical 720p HD movie be? My BB is straining at the seams as it is (ever since €ircom extended the DSL range to cover outlying areas). The country does not have the BB infrastucture to cope with this technology.

madrab

feck downloadable movies i wanna play strangers wrath!!!!

bucks73

Was just reading this too on team xbox. Will have to look into the bigger hard drive alright.

grizzly

Anyone know what other features are included in this update?

grizzly

starman100 wrote: »

How large a DL will be your typical 720p HD movie be? My BB is straining at the seams as it is (ever since €ircom extended the DSL range to cover outlying areas). The country does not have the BB infrastucture to cope with this technology.

I going to guess about 1.2gigs

jester77

Had a quick look for 120Gb harddrives, €150 ... ouch... although that was just the first place I looked so it probably can be gotten a bit cheaper. Still a crazy price for just a hard disk!

johnnyflav

It may be cheaper to just upgrade your xbox. Trade in the old and get the new, doubt it would be that much more than the separate hard drive would cost.

WellyJ

grizzly wrote: »

I going to guess about 1.2gigs

Not a great guess,

DVD movies are around 4.5GB per 2 hours of video

720p video I would guess you would be talking 8-9GB at least per movie.

jester77

WellyJ wrote: »

Not a great guess,

DVD movies are around 4.5GB per 2 hours of video

720p video I would guess you would be talking 8-9GB at least per movie.

I'm sure they will encode them, 8-9GB's would take a few hours to download which people won't wait around for (unless caching/streaming is used). I'd say they will encode them down to around 2 or 3GB's.

00sully

WellyJ wrote: »

...

720p video I would guess you would be talking 8-9GB at least per movie.

I doubt they would be that much, i thought HD Vid uses new compression? at standard MPEG2 they might clock up 8-9gig but not with MPEG-4 AVC or H264,

it will probably be more like 4-5 gigs for a 2 hour movie not too bad!

actually just read the following on vid sizes.

# Downloads are in VC-1 (aka WMVHD) at 720p, 6.8Mbps video with 5.1 surround.
# An average HD movie download should be between 4-5GB, and a two hour SD movie would be 1.6GB.
# An average 1 hour (44 min) HDTV download should be about 2.2GB, and an average 1/2 hour (22 min) HDTV download should be about 1GB. A 1 hour SDTV download should be about 600MB, and a 1/2 hour SDTV download should be about 300MB.

bucks73

johnnyflav wrote: »

It may be cheaper to just upgrade your xbox. Trade in the old and get the new, doubt it would be that much more than the separate hard drive would cost.

Probably. I think to upgrade to the Elite costs about €200. 120 gb hard drive and HDMI would make it a better option than just new HD.

syboit

Wonder what the download speeds are like, downloading game demo's at the moment is painful

Fingleberries

Looks like CVG jumped the gun with their announcement. They've pulled the page from their site - but not before everone jumped on it.

MS are supposed to have some massive announcement this week for the 2nd Birthday for XBox Live Arcade. Probably this was it and CVG were supposed to keep stumm until afterwards and MS weren't too happy and got them to pull it - but not quick enough for the internet not to notice.

WellyJ

DivX on PS3 is much bigger news for me anyway!

Fingleberries

WellyJ wrote: »

DivX on PS3 is much bigger news for me anyway!

PS3 just lists DivX files in a folder at the moment, and doesn't play them.
While we're on the Rumour mill this week ... Rumour: Is Xbox 360 Getting DivX

EDITED: Oh - looks like PS3 DivX support is confirmed HERE

brianon

Fingleberries wrote: »

PS3 just lists DivX files in a folder at the moment, and doesn't play them.
While we're on the Rumour mill this week ... Rumour: Is Xbox 360 Getting DivX

EDITED: Oh - looks like PS3 DivX support is confirmed HERE

Also from Kotaku...

DivX Technology to be Added to PLAYSTATION®3

DivX Ecosystem to Expand Significantly with PS3

TOKYO & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DivX, Inc. (NASDAQ:DIVX) today announced that DivX® video technology will be integrated into PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE). The popular computer entertainment system will be added to the ecosystem of devices that currently support DivX video playback. To date, over 100 million DivX Certified® products have been shipped into the market, and it is anticipated PS3 will significantly expand that number.

"We are excited to work with Sony Computer Entertainment to bring DivX to PS3," said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. "Our technology will expand the multimedia functionality of PS3 by enabling users to enjoy access to the broad library of content in the DivX digital media format."

Products that bear the DivX Certified logo have undergone a rigorous testing program to ensure a high-quality DivX media experience that includes reliable video playback and excellent visual quality. DivX is currently working to certify PS3 and deliver a superior digital media technology to consumers in the near future. Current PS3 end users will be able to add DivX functionality to their systems via a separate system software update at a forthcoming date. PS3 game title developers will be able to utilize DivX's decoder technology by updating the system software of PS3's Software Development Kit to version 2.00, which was released by SCE on November 2nd.

To learn about DivX technology, please visit www.divx.com.

WellyJ

Fingleberries wrote: »

PS3 just lists DivX files in a folder at the moment, and doesn't play them.
While we're on the Rumour mill this week ... Rumour: Is Xbox 360 Getting DivX

EDITED: Oh - looks like PS3 DivX support is confirmed HERE

?

What did you think I meant??

I read all that before posting

Fingleberries

I had only read that DivX support was rumoured to be probably coming to both systems.
At the time of posting, I wasn't aware that it had officially been announced for PS3 today - which is why I went back to correct myself ... and look appropriately shamefaced

kaisersose77

who encodes in divx though? Most of the avi's ppl have are xvid, episodes of Lost etc are xvid. Hopefully it supports xvid aswell but divx is only going to be of use for ppl that already have lots of stuff encoded in divx or start encoding in divx.

Scruff

another supposidly more complete list (taken from 1up forums)

Microsoft reportedly confirmed the news to the Official Xbox Magazine, and revealed its biggest new feature as a service to let you download original Xbox titles like Halo.

Eventually it will make as much of its back catalogue available as possible, but for now the line-up includes Halo, Fable, Fahrenheit, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Burnout 3.

Each game will cost 1200 Microsoft Points (GBP 10.20 / EUR 13.96).

MS also shed some light on its European video on demand service, which will unfortunately not be included in the 4th December update.

However, big studios like Warner Bros. are apparently signing up for the rental service, which lets you download and watch your favourite films in 720p.

You should realise that once you have downloaded a film you can have it for two weeks, and once you begin watching it you will have a day to finish it - it will delete itself after that.


Compatibility with 3rd party wireless controllers
Compatibility with messenger pad
Xbox Live Vision firmware upgrade, sharper image filtering
Many more Vision Cam settings
New screensaver settings - when away from Xbox 360, screensaver will play for optional time, before screen goes dark
New Xbox Live Arcade blade - where you can download, play and learn about Xbox Live Arcade
Brand new “web based adver-games” flash games which aren’t downloaded, but are playable bite sized games, accessed via new Xbox Live Arcade Blade
New Screensaver option in Themes and Gamer Pics option in Marketplace blade
New functionality with Messenger, works with chatpad
New XNA Game Launcher for those that have the program, new options
New language, time and date settings
New “advertising opportunities” in gameplay
Xvid support
New “favourites” option via Xbox Live Arcade, can rate according to preference
IPTV Functionality - support for TiVo like PVR options. Will be able to record TV direct. Options include source by channel, director, actor and distributor
Filter friends list, will be able to filter friends via games
New clan support - will be able to launch clan games direct from dashboard, can “fold” friends into new clan category in friends list
Better translations in settings and other options for Japanese, German and Spanish languages
New quick option to delete via X Button in memory viewer.
Option for having downloadable In-game content not inform when completed download
Option for having video content not inform when completed download
Faster settings for viewing unfinished video content downloads
New option in Games tab - beta and others, will be launcher for MMO and multiplayer betas
New option in Marketplace Games tab, search by letter, can be inputted via text pad or console
Smarter game settings - you can be messaged via publishers about new in-game content for your games
Picture in picture functionality for DVD Drive and some other updated settings
Improved USB Keyboard settings
Improved voice chat settings in game and from dashboard
Faster response times to Redeem Code settings
Option to play a Redeemed Code game straight after redeeming code
Console will now recognise low Hard Drive space, will inform you immediately if can’t download current item, will automatically download next available that is able.
Increased space size for gamerpics and dashboard themes
Themes can now be animated
Themes may now have sound effects
Better slideshow capabilities, new options added. New sound effects and integration with Hard Drive/ PC music capable.
New estimated timer for downloads, informing how long download will expect to take

dunno how real that is but i doubt they will officially support xvid. Would say it will be more likely divx and thereby some\most xvids by cross compatabity between the two.
i have a pmp that supports divx and will play most xvid videos i put on it but not all.

Dman001

so thats why Microsoft release 4200 points card earlier in the week. I thought the movie downloads might come this week. I think ,now, the Xbox has the best game download service.

johnny_ultimate

Looking foward to all these features. Since I refuse to cave in and buy a HDDVD add on, the downloadable movies will be very handy indeed. Plus the downloadable Xbox games are an excellent idea. Hopefully get to play some of the smaller games I never got around to like Farenheit (confirmed ), Shenmue 2 and Jet Set Radio. Plus a press release from Microsoft contained the word 'Psychonauts', so those of you who STILL haven't played it have no excuse now