That's easy! More Live accounts (even Silver) means more Live users that they can claim. Therefore they look like they have a better installed rate for people playing online, and it looks like a bigger hit than it already is.

I wish the option was there for both though. I'd drop the 1500 points or whatever the $15 equilvalent is.

Well 1200 points would be $14.99, although I can't see them selling for that since the MSRP on HD DVD's is usually $24.99-39.99 (street pricing is usually 19.99-34.99).

I got shadowrun yesterday! So let me know when you guys want to play.

Finally caved to the peer pressure?

Any chance we might see The Simpsons Arcade Game on Xbox Live Arcade to coincide with The Simpsons Movie? That would be awesome. I hope it happens.

probably a better chance of seeing it on the VC.

I don't think they release arcade games on the VC, unless they've been ported...to my knowledge, TSAG wasn't.

How come?

yeah and I got it for 30 dollars. It's actually alot of fun.

How'd you manage to get it for $30? I'd probably pick it up at that price.

Well i have Shadowrun from Gamefly now for a little while and will be actively playing. I need that achievement for 100 matches with my dwarf.

edit: damn i would most likely just buy the thing for 30$ as well.

I'm confused about Beautiful Katamari : Will it be a Live Arcade game or a physical in-store purchase? I'll probably get it either way, but I'll be more likely to pick it up if it's in the arcade.

When is Bomberman hitting the Arcade? There's a full page ad in the new OXM magazine, so I have to assume it's soon. They also have reviews of the two Tron arcade games and I'd like to at least pick up Discs Of Tron as I plopped many a quarter in that game back in the day.

Can anyone say whether there is an advantage in getting an extended warranty through Microsoft rather than through Wal-Mart, where my 360 was purchased?

Deadline is drawing near to order from Wal-Mart, but if MS is just as good or better, I just assume go with that. Price is about equivalent.

And when does the MS warranty go into effect? If I buy the MS extended warranty, am I good for a total of two years or will it take effect after the initial warranty, thereby giving me 3 years?

Thanks for the help, everyone.

General consensus it that the MS one is better and yes, it'll cover you for three years now. I picked up a cheapy one from Overstock, but that was when MS' one was only three months. Now it's a year, I don't know if I'd even bother to extend it. But that's just me.

... On the extended warranty front, I finally got one that really has paid off : I purchased the replacement warranty on my 360 HD-DVD drive at Best Buy in Jan. I figured by early 2009 that they'd be a lot better and cheaper and I could take mine back to BB and use the $200 for a stand-alone model. And I still may. However, my HD-DVD drive was pretty terrible and having a really hard time with certain discs. Yesterday I took it back to Best Buy with the paperwork and told them what was going on. I swapped it out for a new one and got two free HD-DVDs as part of their current promotion with purchase. Now here's the best part : Since I made a direct product swap (same item) and did it within the warranty period (one year) my replacement warranty is still active. Now I have a new drive that seems to work better, two free movies and the plan is still in effect. Sweet!

Gamefly, I cashed in my gc for my membership, so I got it for 12 bucks off their normal price.

Some guy from another game forum I go to was going to sell it to me, but he took too long.

I like the game alot and hope we all can play it online, I like it a little better than gears.

I keep getting kicked out of shadowrun matches because I was doing well, who would have thought?

Oh and does anyone know where, if possile could rent on of the games that you can play on widows Vista? ie Halo 2, Crackdown, Shadown run

July. One of the developers was on Major Nelson a couple weeks ago.

Because we would have heard something by now I would imagine. They've been good about that lately. The only real surprise was Pac-Man:CE. Just a guess, but since the VC is straight ROM dumps it's easier for them than updating a game for the XBLA. Then again, I have no idea who owns it and if they support the VC.

Sweet. A 360 version. From joystiq

Good to see there is a retail version in the works. At this point, I'd never pay $30 for a digital distributed game. Not to mention, I sold my copy of Legends ages ago.

Looks like episodic content for GTAIV will be completely exclusive to the 360... at a cost of $50 million.

from Kotaku

Jesus. If they wanted to throw that much money away trying to outsell the PS3, why not just drop the price of the Premium to $250-300 before GTAIV comes out?

They'd probably lose less than $50 million, an it would probably sell more consoles than downloadable exclusives.

But maybe they plan on a price drop in addition to this.

Not that I know of, but Circuit City has a decent deal running right now, buy Halo 2 ($39.99) and get Shadowrun (PC) free.

Looks like this week's XBLA game is Band of Bugs (strategy game from NinjaBee):

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/06/18/th...onto-xbla-ick/

As a fan of their earlier game, Cloning Clyde, I'm looking forward to playing the trial version.

Is this similar to Little Big Planet where you can make your own levels and share them ?

Sounds like you can make your own levels and share them with friends, but it doesn't seem like it's quite on the same scale as Little Big Planet.