Originally Posted by aaronrodgers Of course it's millions of pages of Music game DLC xD Was hoping someone could think of some non music game DLC packs off the top of their head like the two examples I gave. Thanks, though.

There's a column on the left on the page that shows the games that have eligible content. There's only a couple of dozen. I don't think that the games you listed have DLC that qualifies. I don't think that it's music related DLC but DLC for games in the music genre.

Originally Posted by FriskyTanuki They want more control over the servers and everything else that can be done with that. Edit: Do you have a link to more info about this? I've never heard about this until a few days ago and it seems like more of a myth made up by the anti-EA sentiment that was growing with the EA Xbox Live deal announced at E3 2004 and the NFL exclusivity announcement a few months later. The only articles I can find about the deal don't mention a thing about Microsoft being forced to stop making sports games as a result of the deal.

I can't find one except this interview by IGN that kinda dances around it. Thought it was generally known this was the case but I don't have a hard article as of yet.
http://sports.ign.com/articles/502/502713p2.html

Also when EA announced the partnership at E3 that year, during a demo w/Donald Trump, he made a crack at MS's NFL game. Also 2 months after EA's announcement, MS shut down the studio that made all of the team sports games.

I am out of Gold membership on the 11th!

On the dashboard it says if I renew with a card from a b&m that I will get 600 MS points!

Any good deals on 12 month cards?

Figured I'd play a quick round of Bullet Soul to try it out. Heck of a lot of fun but beating it in on my first play is somehow a little disappointing. Awesome that it kept raining achievements though. I'd give it a B+ in the few minutes I played. Worth the import. Going to have to snag the DLC from the JP market and find out what it's all about.

Can't see any leaderboards. I guess that's because of the region issue. Got a high score of ~6.475 Million. Not terrible.

Originally Posted by MSUHitman I can't find one except this interview by IGN that kinda dances around it. Thought it was generally known this was the case but I don't have a hard article as of yet. http://sports.ign.com/articles/502/502713p2.html Also when EA announced the partnership at E3 that year, during a demo w/Donald Trump, he made a crack at MS's NFL game. Also 2 months after EA's announcement, MS shut down the studio that made all of the team sports games.

I don't see anything about it being a result of the EA deal, so this all comes off as conspiracy mumbo-jumbo, no offense. The logical reason for the closings would be that their sports games mostly sold like crap and the increased success of Sega Sports and EA Sports on their system made it much less of a sustainable avenue compared to the games that sold well for them. Here are some lifetime-to-date NPD sales figures that I found up to July 2004:

XBX AMPED: SNOWBOARDING 536,585
XBX AMPED 2 110,672
XBX LINKS 2004 124,488
XBX MLB INSIDE PITCH 2003 60,221
XBX NBA INSIDE DRIVE 2002 219,456
XBX NBA INSIDE DRIVE 2003 179,824
XBX NBA INSIDE DRIVE 2004 86,034
XBX NFL FEVER 2002 588,427
XBX NFL FEVER 2003 343,310
XBX NFL FEVER 2004 165,886
XBX NHL RIVALS 2004 45,835
XBX RALLISPORT CHALLENGE 284,081
XBX RALLISPORT CHALLENGE2 56,836
XBX TOP SPIN 216,100

Each of those series plummeted with the sequels and the new attempts at NHL and MLB bombed hard, so Microsoft seceded from the market and sold off the two IPs worth anything (Top Spin and Amped) to Take Two/2K. So one could say that EA (and Sega) forced Microsoft to give up on sports, but not because of an agreement to get EA on Xbox Live unless you can find some factual proof to prove it.

Originally Posted by airco Of around 240 points, I think. It should be on the Dashboard

That rebate isn't available to everyone, only a select few.

Originally Posted by tylerh1701 That rebate isn't available to everyone, only a select few.

The select view being... people who buy one of the games? I honestly can't find the deal anymore, since MS seems to hate letting people know when they have sales or specials (the DotW still only shows Battlefield on the Dashboard), so maybe.

Originally Posted by airco The select view being... people who buy one of the games? I honestly can't find the deal anymore, since MS seems to hate letting people know when they have sales or specials (the DotW still only shows Battlefield on the Dashboard), so maybe.

I've never seen it, so I don't think it was available to everybody.

Originally Posted by airco The select view being... people who buy one of the games? I honestly can't find the deal anymore, since MS seems to hate letting people know when they have sales or specials (the DotW still only shows Battlefield on the Dashboard), so maybe.

Someone mentioned that it was only for people who had never purchased an XBLA game before, but I can't source that either.

What I do know is that for myself and the vast majority here, no offer was made available.

I also have never seen this deal.

Already have Guwange and Virtual On, and the Rewards points should essentially make Nin2-Jump free for me. Awesome. Might splurge on some points for Haunt... not sure if I should.

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Originally Posted by FriskyTanuki I don't see anything about it being a result of the EA deal, so this all comes off as conspiracy mumbo-jumbo, no offense. The logical reason for the closings would be that their sports games mostly sold like crap and the increased success of Sega Sports and EA Sports on their system made it much less of a sustainable avenue compared to the games that sold well for them. So one could say that EA (and Sega) forced Microsoft to give up on sports, but not because of an agreement to get EA on Xbox Live unless you can find some factual proof to prove it.

Those of us who bought NFL Fever 2004, NBA Inside Drive 2004, NHL Rivals 2004, Top Spin, and Links 2004 at full price for our Xbox behemoths know the story all too well. EA announces they're coming to Xbox Live, and the MS titles dry up on the store shelves. This left EA & Sega to duke it out over the NFL license, and we all know what happened there ... http://www.gamespot.com/features/bat...e-nfl-6115180/

More explanations from those of us who remember how stuff works ...
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/xbox-live3.htm

And some ancient news so you can follow the money ...
March 29, 2004 ... "We're cancelling all XSN titles, including football, basketball, and racing."
April 23, 2004 ... "EA is bringing football, basketball, and racing to Xbox Live."

Originally Posted by Chrono Gear Figured I'd play a quick round of Bullet Soul to try it out. Heck of a lot of fun but beating it in on my first play is somehow a little disappointing. Awesome that it kept raining achievements though. I'd give it a B+ in the few minutes I played. Worth the import. Going to have to snag the DLC from the JP market and find out what it's all about.

You'll be able to beat 95% of all Xbox 360 shmups on the first attempt since only a few like Ikaruga and Omega Five limit continues. That said, you have to reach the second loop of Bullet Soul (and most Cave games) in order to see the true boss and ending. That means beating the first loop without continuing and meeting a few other conditions. The true boss is just stupidly evil, much more in line with a Cave game than the rest of Bullet Soul's bosses. And yeah, it'll take plenty of practice to beat the second loop without continuing and/or get the rest of the game's Achievements.

Originally Posted by Bloomy It's a region free Japanese release, bullet hell shooter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushihime-sama_Futari Wonder who does the translations for the marketplace. I know about the r/l and v/b swapping, but don't think I've seen h swapped for f.

The line of hiragana that the Japanese character comes from is the "H" sound line. The other characters in that line are: ha, hi, he, and ho. The 'fu' character, grouped with those other four, does make an 'f' sound but someone who only looked at a character chart and didn't know about pronunciation would likely get that wrong.

Originally Posted by Thrinn I was so glad that we got DeathSmiles 2 via GoD. I really wish they'd do the same with the rest of Cave's games. It seems like Cave and MS are leaving some money on the table.

To learn more about why Cave doesn't dig Games on Demand, check out my interview with one of their producers!

Originally Posted by Cornelius Those of us who bought NFL Fever 2004, NBA Inside Drive 2004, NHL Rivals 2004, Top Spin, and Links 2004 at full price for our Xbox behemoths know the story all too well. EA announces they're coming to Xbox Live, and the MS titles dry up on the store shelves. This left EA & Sega to duke it out over the NFL license, and we all know what happened there ... http://www.gamespot.com/features/bat...e-nfl-6115180/ More explanations from those of us who remember how stuff works ... http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/xbox-live3.htm And some ancient news so you can follow the money ... March 29, 2004 ... "We're cancelling all XSN titles, including football, basketball, and racing." April 23, 2004 ... "EA is bringing football, basketball, and racing to Xbox Live."

So if it weren't for EA, do you really think those Microsoft sports games would've been fine despite poor sales due to EA and Sega Sports dominating the market? The sales say a hell of a lot more about why they stopped making them than the conspiracy theory that suggest EA could tell the platform holder what games they were allowed to make. Please provide some actual proof that Microsoft was forced to stop making sports games as a part of the agreement to get EA on Xbox Live, because all I see is an ailing sports division that wouldn't be able to sustain their existence for much longer due to competition that was only getting stronger.

The NFL thing has nothing to do with it since the NFL didn't want competition and took bids from any publisher that wanted the license (article here). Sony was in that group of publishers bidding for the license, but we all know who won in the end. The NFL has had some controversy over their new-ish policy of exclusive licensing with the American Needle antitrust suit that still seems to be going on.

Just in case anyone is curious, the Black Label DLC does work with Mushihimesama Futari on a NA system, I picked it up the DLC when it was first released on the marketplace.

I'm currently on the fence about VOOT, I've heard the controls for Virtual On are not very intuitive, but I'm very curious about it since the franchise has had such a rabid following. Does the 360 version have a robust single player mode? How's the online community, are there many people still playing the game?

Originally Posted by sykotek I'm currently on the fence about VOOT, I've heard the controls for Virtual On are not very intuitive, but I'm very curious about it since the franchise has had such a rabid following. Does the 360 version have a robust single player mode?

If you want robust single-player, you'll have to get Virtual On Force, which gets a region-free Platinum Hits release very soon. The XBLA version has a straight arcade mode that you can play with your choice of character, and I forget but it might have a time trial or something too.

Cool new thread... But why hasn't this been wikified yet?
No offense to reddjoey. I know he does what he can to keep the thread updated. But here is a few things I noticed just now:

Why is there two sections with "misc sales"? Both with sales on junk avatar items. These are really old and can probably be removed now.

The "Discs that Contain XBLA Games:" section needs to be heavily edited also.

The Family Game Night 3, 4, and Fun Pack games are not discs with XBLA games. They are their own games with 1000 individual gamerscore. Same goes for Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection but at least that has a note.

The Sega Dreamcast Collection is not the only way to get Sega Bass Fishing and Space Channel 5 Part 2 anymore. But it can remain on that list since those are actually XBLA games.

If Alien Breed Trilogy (not available in the US) is on the list then you might as well put the Serious Sam HD collection (also not available in the US) on there also.

Just sayin'...
Sorry if I seem ranty but this is one of my favorite threads on the site so I want it to be perfect!

Originally Posted by tylerh1701 Someone mentioned that it was only for people who had never purchased an XBLA game before, but I can't source that either. What I do know is that for myself and the vast majority here, no offer was made available.

Well, that would explain why I've only seen the offer on my college's communal Xbox. That just makes that deal even lamer than before.

*Looks at this week's deals*

Nothing to see here folks, move along

Originally Posted by yamayama Cool new thread... But why hasn't this been wikified yet?

Reddjoey asked a while ago if people wanted the thread to be wikified. The majority of people felt he was doing a great job with the thread as is.

Originally Posted by eastx To learn more about why Cave doesn't dig Games on Demand, check out my interview with one of their producers!

Thank you very much.