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Yesterday's zeitgeist-iest Black Friday shopper—the California Walmart-woman who allegedly pepper-sprayed a crowd of fellow Xbox seekers, creating the scene captured in this video—surrendered to the authorities Friday night, but was released without charge. Before she left the police station, officers asked her for pepper-spraying protips. More »
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If you're a hacker, you can't trust anyone. Even the fellow gamers in an Xbox forum. That's how an 18-year-old leader of the notorious hacking group Lulz Security got tripped up, according to one of his comrades. More »
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Hello there, you, sitting in front of your computer! Are you feeling a little embolism-y? You might want to stand up and walk around for a minute before you read this story. Just saying. More »
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Here you have all the ingredients for a disaster - a very physical video game, an intensely focused dad, and a little kid whose face just happens to be within accidental smacking range. More »
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This cat has found a new playmate in the game Kinectimals for Xbox. But do you think they will become best friends for life? More »
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As the owner of a pug, I can attest to the accuracy of this video. Watch as a real pug completely freaks out at the sight of a virtual, Xbox 360 pug and tries to... scratch it? Anyway, watch inside. More »
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Since he was going on the G4 network, Children's Hospital's Rob Huebel thought he'd bring in his porn ravaged Xbox sporting the infamous "red ring". This clip is pretty gratuitous if you can't handle electronics abuse. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5622882&view=rss&microfeed=true Remember the 3DO? Or the Power Glove? It's easy to forget that the lineage of today's Playstations and Xboxes is filled with so many odd mutants never fit for mass consumption. Here's a look into the awkward, gawky past. More »
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Wanna sell Xboxes? Here's a girl with a nice ass, on the YouTube, playing the Xbox. Virally! This marketing concept could also work for, you know, anything. Everything the jihadists say about us is true. [Copyranter] More »
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Last week we showed you video of a girlfriend destroying her boyfriend's Xbox with his golf clubs. This week it's the boyfriend's turn to destroy something of hers. More »
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A tipster points out that fancy Xbox Live "Gold" subscribers are offered an amazing selection of animated New Yorker cartoons. Animated! What better target audience that Xbox Live addicts? Click to watch this completely inexplicable media crossover in action. More »
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Yale junior Jesse Maiman is suing US Airways for $1 million because his Xbox came up missing from his checked baggage. Excessive? Not when you consider that Xbox saved his friend's very sanity. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5168159&view=rss&microfeed=true Microsoft's Department of Losing Money — the Xbox and Zune division — has reportedly frozen hiring. [Silicon Alley Insider] More »
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So much for radical transparency. Microsoft's embrace of honest online criticism stopped at VentureBeat blogger Dean Takahashi's insanely long story about how the software giant launched its Xbox 360 game console despite production flaws. The story had one source brave enough to go on the record: Robert Delaware, a contract game tester, who talked about a bug he encountered during testing phases persisting as the Xbox went into production. Now he's out of a job and faces a civil suit from Microsoft for violating a nondisclosure agreement. More »
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Microsoft and Rock The Vote today announced a partnership to allow Xbox 360 owners to register to vote via Xbox Live, which I'm sure sounds almost as fun to gamers as learning how to get girls drunk so they'll go to strip clubs in Grand Theft Auto IV. There's also going to be some polls and a chance for users to "voice their opinions," says the press release, which also handily points out that because it claims 12 million users, "if Xbox Live were a state, it would rank as the country’s seventh largest, giving it approximately 20 electoral votes." (Photo by Sebastian Fritzon) More »
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Having dropped Apple's iTunes store in a dispute over pricing, NBC Universal will soon start selling downloads of TV shows like The Office and 30 Rock for its Zune media player. If NBC chief Jeff Zucker manages to scrape some sales out of Microsoft's handheld also-ran, it will be a miracle — and the surest proof yet that content, not hardware, is king. Don't hold your breath. Microsoft's Zune has always seemed like a parody of Apple's iPod. Want to buy songs? Well, first you buy "points" from Microsoft, which you can then exchange for music at some bizarre exchange rate. Nothing about its user interface seems quite right compared to Apple's polish. The system for TV shows is no better. Though Microsoft also makes the Xbox, shows downloaded to a Zune won't play on the videogame console unless you're adept at fiddling with cables. By going with Microsoft, Zucker is betting that technology doesn't matter, design doesn't matter, and market share doesn't matter. He must really believe in his prime-time lineup. (Photo via Fake Steve Ballmer) More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=387606&view=rss&microfeed=true Microsoft and Netflix may partner to offer movie downloads over Xbox Live. An announcement would likely come tomorrow, at the Game Developer's Conference. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is a member of Microsoft's board of directors. [MSNBC] More »
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When the concept of viral marketing first began circulating in the tech-boom '90s, it was, while still deceitful and annoying, at least more creative than it is today. You got the feeling that all those young web-friendly ad rats really put some thought into the funny little videos and games and stuff that they were using to conceal their unwanted sales pitch. Now, though, the standards for what's "viral" have, like most other things on the interweb, come down to one thing: boobs. This promotion for Xbox 360 [via Adrants] has just a cursory nod to humor, wit, and plot, before going right to the stripper taking off her top. Aaaaaaaand... then throw in the ad at the end! Bonus lameness: It was emailed with the message "Please find the attached viral." Geez, that's totally blowing the big secret, guys. Full NSFW video, which you must forward to all your contacts, after the jump. More »
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I'm as ready as anyone to declare Sony the victor in the epic high-definition disc battle. Its Blu-ray, now supported by Warner Bros., looks set to best Toshiba's HD-DVD. In Hollywood, where they still care about the industrial process of shipping plastic discs by the millions to retail stores, this matters. In the Valley, we've long since moved on. Sony executives still dream of formats, hardware, and an empire of lock-in. To them, "software" means the creative content screened in theaters, dropped into CD players, or played on a videogame console. That's why they're doomed to lose the real war. More »
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J Allard, VP of Microsoft's entertainment and devices devision and one of the gurus behind the Xbox and the Zune, has some crazy plans that he hopes will put Microsoft on top of entertainment — and it has nothing to do with discontinuing the brown Zune. In his ramblings to Saul Hansell of the New York Times Bits blog, he revealed he's looking to create an entertainment-distribution service that will do all the heavy lifting for content providers. Microsoft's online gaming service and the Zune's Internet interface are built on the same platform. The implication? More »
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Microsoft remains in high spirits after its Entertainment and Devices division, responsible for the Xbox and Zune, posted a profit last quarter. This division hasn't made it into the black in years. Papa Steve Ballmer is so proud, he's planning "an upscale campus" for the product group. No doubt Redmond hopes to spur these slackers' performance by making corporate rock stars like J Allard and Robbie Bach feel drunk with power. (Note to Ballmer: Don't take that literally. Actually including a bar may not boost productivity.) What message is Microsoft sending to its less troubled children? If you want nice things, start losing money. More »
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At least Microsoft owns up to its inferiority. Early next week a band of dejected Microserfs from across the company, from chief software architect Ray Ozzie on down, are meeting to discuss the company's floundering Web services like Windows Live Search and Hotmail. During the two-day powwow, they'll be discussing strategy and trying to figure out how to get Google addicts excited about the Microsoft's Live offerings. To help fuel discussion, Larry Hyrb, director of Xbox Live programming and official videogame-community spokesperson (who posts under the alias Major Nelson) asks Xbox users, "What do you think we don't get? I know Google may be better in some areas, but what makes them better? What makes us not as good?" I'm sure the minds at the Googleplex are resting easy to learn that Microsoft is still trying to figure out how to even copy Google well, let alone out-innovate it. More »
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Having finished the fight to bring out hot new shoot-'em-up videogame Halo 3, and in the process helping Microsoft rake in $300 million in sales, Bungie has, as rumored, reclaimed its independence from Microsoft, which acquired the studio in 2000. As part of the deal, Microsoft is holding onto a small equity stake and will continue to churn out Halo titles with the aid of Bungie. Meanwhile, the studio will be free to develop new titles and publish games with Microsoft Games Studio — so there's really no need to overreact. Sure, Bungie put Microsoft's Xbox videogame console on the map — but as the Xbox morphs into a set-top box for the living room, bringing Internet music and video downloads straight to your flat-screen TV, it's not clear that hot videogame titles are what's going to drive sales in the future. More »
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MISSION DISTRICT, SAN FRANCISCO — Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that the world's most anticipated game of all time, Halo 3, launched Monday at midnight. The New York Times wrote about it, ferchrissakes. I was forced to spend an entire evening listening to my roommate disintegrate friends and foes with the Spartan laser through our shared wall. TORTURE! I hate standing in line at launch events, so like an idiot, preordered the game through Amazon.com. It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow. All I can think about is finishing the fight. Honestly, who actually cares about tawdry Valley business matters at a time like this? And then ... then visitors arrived. And my life, unbelievably, got worse. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=304043&view=rss&microfeed=true Microsoft's gaming division has struggled to pull itself out of the red since its inception back in 2001. Its current console, the Xbox 360, has been plagued with manufacturing defects that could cost the company up to $1 billion to fix. But Microsoft expects its blockbuster Halo 3 to end its financial woes by tallying an estimated $140 million upon its release today — a blockbuster some will no doubt tiresomely liken to first-day box-office figures. [BBC News] More »
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There's a new battleground for digitally ditributed content brewing in the most unlikeliest of places — home videogame consoles. Last week there was the rather shocking announcement that Sony's PlayStation 3 would soon be home to movie and television content. Not to be outdone, Microsoft's Xbox 360, which has had video content downloads since last November, is now courting the BBC and all of its TV shows and HD programming. While the soothing tones of the BBC are not usually what we associate with xBox, the deal, which Microsoft is "working diligently on," would add some much needed gravitas to a portfolio currently dominated by South Park and UFC Fights. More »
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Social news filter Digg has spawned imitators, including Reddit and Slashdot's Firehose. Oh, and the late, unlamented Netscape. "Ripping off" is practically a core tenet of Web 2.0, though we suppose it sounds nicer if you call it "iteratively evolving industrywide best practices." One creative Web designer and Xbox fanboy, though, decided the Internet needed a Digg dedicated to Microsoft's Xbox consoles, so he created Diggxbox. As you might imagine, it uses its own version of Digg's user-driven filtering to sort the day's Xbox-related news. It's even adopted cute videogame touches like the Xbox's "red ring of death" as the "bury" button (as Digg's mechanism for voting "no" on a story is known). Cloning Digg is easy, but attracting a fanatical userbase like Digg's is another thing altogether. More »
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Microsoft, apparently sick of taking guff from Windows haters, has banned users of Xbox Live, the Xbox 360 videogame console's online service, from setting their motto to "Linux." Apparently the company views competing operating systems — especially dreaded open-source ones — as "inappropriate" words. Unix is also considered too naughty for public display. Mentions of Apple, iPod, or variations of Mac OS X are, however, permissible. (Photo by zarcx) More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=296251&view=rss&microfeed=true Microsoft is looking to put Blockbuster out of business. How? Having added 100 gigabytes of storage to the Xbox videogame console, enough to store dozens of high-definition movies, it's now undercutting Blockbuster's rental fees for download-to-rent movies. Microsoft's rental charge — about two bucks — is low enough that some think it will hurt DVD sales, too. [MonstersandCritics.com] More »
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Sorry, but am I the only one intensely creeped out by this creative idea from Microsoft? More »
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