Microsoft offers Euro-360 referral bonus
Word of mouth is powerful advertising, and Microsoft is looking to reward European gamers whose gift of gab convinces friends to plunk down the scratch for a new Xbox 360. Until December 14, Microsoft is offering Xbox 360 owners who bring a new convert to the flock a referral bonus of 10 free Xbox Live Arcade games, with the same 10 games being given to the new 360 owner as well.
By going to the promotion's official Web site, filling in a form with their systems' serial numbers, and submitting proof of purchase on the new Xbox 360, gamers will receive e-mailed redemption codes for free downloads of Every Extend Extra Extreme, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting, Bomberman Live, Marble Blast Ultra, Spyglass Boardgames, 3D Mini Golf Adventures, Small Arms, Assault Heroes, and Zuma Deluxe. With each participant receiving the same 10 games for free, the regular price of those 20 downloads would be 14,400 Microsoft points ($180).
It should be noted that the offer is only open to residents of the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway.
Fuente: GameSpot.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
Xbox y nuevo control parental
Fuente: Diario TI
Según versiones extraoficiales, Microsoft se dispone a instalar un temporizador en la consola Xbox 360. El dispositivo permitirá a los padres programar tiempo máximo de juego, a niveles diario y semanal. Diario Ti: La información ha sido filtrada anteriormente por varias fuentes, pero en esta oportunidad estaría contenida en material promocional de Guitar Hero III. El denominado Parental Timer (temporizador parental) estará disponible a partir de diciembre de 2007 en el servicio Xbox Live.
La iniciativa se inscribe en la línea pro familia adoptada por Microsoft para su producto Xbox desde el lanzamiento de Xbox 360 Arcade. Sin duda el producto ocasionará airadas protestas entre algunos quinceañeros que deberán suspender inesperadamente una sesión de juegos debido a que su cuota diaria ha sido consumida. Pero así es ser menor de edad.
Fuente: Diario TI
Según versiones extraoficiales, Microsoft se dispone a instalar un temporizador en la consola Xbox 360. El dispositivo permitirá a los padres programar tiempo máximo de juego, a niveles diario y semanal. Diario Ti: La información ha sido filtrada anteriormente por varias fuentes, pero en esta oportunidad estaría contenida en material promocional de Guitar Hero III. El denominado Parental Timer (temporizador parental) estará disponible a partir de diciembre de 2007 en el servicio Xbox Live.
La iniciativa se inscribe en la línea pro familia adoptada por Microsoft para su producto Xbox desde el lanzamiento de Xbox 360 Arcade. Sin duda el producto ocasionará airadas protestas entre algunos quinceañeros que deberán suspender inesperadamente una sesión de juegos debido a que su cuota diaria ha sido consumida. Pero así es ser menor de edad.
Fuente: Diario TI
El sentido "Terrorista" de jugar Halo 3
Fuente: Wired.com
I used to find it hard to fully imagine the mind-set of a terrorist.
That is, until I played Halo 3 online, where I found myself adopting -- with great success -- terrorist tactics. Including a form of suicide bombing.
This probably bears some explanation. I'll begin by pointing out a basic fact: A lot of teenage kids out there play dozens of hours of multiplayer Halo a week. They thus become insanely good at the game: They can kill me with a single head shot from halfway across a map -- or expertly circle me while jumping around, making it impossible for me to land a shot, while they pulverize me with bullets.
I can't do those things. I haven't got enough time to practice as they do: I'm an adult, with a job and wife and kid, so I get maybe an hour with Halo on a good day. I wind up sucking far, far more than most other Halo 3 players, and despite the best attempts of Xbox Live to match me up with similarly lame players, I usually wind up at the bottom of my group's rankings -- stumbling haplessly about while getting slaughtered over and over again.
So after a few weeks of this ritual humiliation, I got sick of it. And I devised a simple technique for revenge.
Whenever I find myself under attack by a wildly superior player, I stop trying to duck and avoid their fire. Instead, I turn around and run straight at them. I know that by doing so, I'm only making it easier for them to shoot me -- and thus I'm marching straight into the jaws of death. Indeed, I can usually see my health meter rapidly shrinking to zero.
But at the last second, before I die, I'll whip out a sticky plasma grenade -- and throw it at them. Because I've run up so close, I almost always hit my opponent successfully. I'll die -- but he'll die too, a few seconds later when the grenade goes off. (When you pull off the trick, the game pops up a little dialog box noting that you killed someone "from beyond the grave.")
It was after pulling this maneuver a couple of dozen times that it suddenly hit me: I had, quite unconsciously, adopted the tactics of a suicide bomber -- or a kamikaze pilot.
It's not just that I'm willing to sacrifice my life to kill someone else. It's that I'm exploiting the psychology of asymmetrical warfare.
Because after all, the really elite Halo players don't want to die. If they die too often, they won't win the round, and if they don't win the round, they won't advance up the Xbox Live rankings. And for the elite players, it's all about bragging rights.
I, however, have a completely different psychology. I know I'm the underdog; I know I'm probably going to get killed anyway. I am never going to advance up the Halo 3 rankings, because in the political economy of Halo, I'm poor.
Specifically, I'm poor in time. The best players have dozens of free hours a week to hone their talents, and I don't have that luxury. This changes the relative meaning of death for the two of us. For me, dying will not penalize me in the way it penalizes them, because I have almost no chance of improving my state. I might as well take people down with me.
Or to put it another way: The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes -- haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away -- just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.
I do not mean, of course, to trivialize the ghastly, horrific impact of real-life suicide bombing. Nor do I mean to gloss over the incredible complexity of the real-life personal, geopolitical and spiritual reasons why suicide bombers are willing to kill themselves. These are all impossibly more nuanced and perverse than what's happening inside a trifling, low-stakes videogame.
But the fact remains that something quite interesting happened to me because of Halo. Even though I've read scores of articles, white papers and books on the psychology of terrorists in recent years, and even though I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an "aha" moment that I'd never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus behind the act.
And the truth is, I'm probably going to keep doing it. Because when it comes to online Halo -- I still suck.
Fuente: Wired.com
I used to find it hard to fully imagine the mind-set of a terrorist.
That is, until I played Halo 3 online, where I found myself adopting -- with great success -- terrorist tactics. Including a form of suicide bombing.
This probably bears some explanation. I'll begin by pointing out a basic fact: A lot of teenage kids out there play dozens of hours of multiplayer Halo a week. They thus become insanely good at the game: They can kill me with a single head shot from halfway across a map -- or expertly circle me while jumping around, making it impossible for me to land a shot, while they pulverize me with bullets.
I can't do those things. I haven't got enough time to practice as they do: I'm an adult, with a job and wife and kid, so I get maybe an hour with Halo on a good day. I wind up sucking far, far more than most other Halo 3 players, and despite the best attempts of Xbox Live to match me up with similarly lame players, I usually wind up at the bottom of my group's rankings -- stumbling haplessly about while getting slaughtered over and over again.
So after a few weeks of this ritual humiliation, I got sick of it. And I devised a simple technique for revenge.
Whenever I find myself under attack by a wildly superior player, I stop trying to duck and avoid their fire. Instead, I turn around and run straight at them. I know that by doing so, I'm only making it easier for them to shoot me -- and thus I'm marching straight into the jaws of death. Indeed, I can usually see my health meter rapidly shrinking to zero.
But at the last second, before I die, I'll whip out a sticky plasma grenade -- and throw it at them. Because I've run up so close, I almost always hit my opponent successfully. I'll die -- but he'll die too, a few seconds later when the grenade goes off. (When you pull off the trick, the game pops up a little dialog box noting that you killed someone "from beyond the grave.")
It was after pulling this maneuver a couple of dozen times that it suddenly hit me: I had, quite unconsciously, adopted the tactics of a suicide bomber -- or a kamikaze pilot.
It's not just that I'm willing to sacrifice my life to kill someone else. It's that I'm exploiting the psychology of asymmetrical warfare.
Because after all, the really elite Halo players don't want to die. If they die too often, they won't win the round, and if they don't win the round, they won't advance up the Xbox Live rankings. And for the elite players, it's all about bragging rights.
I, however, have a completely different psychology. I know I'm the underdog; I know I'm probably going to get killed anyway. I am never going to advance up the Halo 3 rankings, because in the political economy of Halo, I'm poor.
Specifically, I'm poor in time. The best players have dozens of free hours a week to hone their talents, and I don't have that luxury. This changes the relative meaning of death for the two of us. For me, dying will not penalize me in the way it penalizes them, because I have almost no chance of improving my state. I might as well take people down with me.
Or to put it another way: The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes -- haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away -- just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.
I do not mean, of course, to trivialize the ghastly, horrific impact of real-life suicide bombing. Nor do I mean to gloss over the incredible complexity of the real-life personal, geopolitical and spiritual reasons why suicide bombers are willing to kill themselves. These are all impossibly more nuanced and perverse than what's happening inside a trifling, low-stakes videogame.
But the fact remains that something quite interesting happened to me because of Halo. Even though I've read scores of articles, white papers and books on the psychology of terrorists in recent years, and even though I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an "aha" moment that I'd never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus behind the act.
And the truth is, I'm probably going to keep doing it. Because when it comes to online Halo -- I still suck.
Fuente: Wired.com
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