BrokeMyController has reported this week on a newly discovered Microsoft patent, one that will bring about automated DLC purchasing system to the Xbox 360.
The patent would work as follows: You and friends are on Xbox Live and one of your buddies asks you to join a game for multiplayer. Unfortunately you don’t have the latest map pack DLC. The new system would send up a prompt screen, asking that you purchase the DLC to accept your friend’s invite. Hit “yes” and the DLC will download and install, without the need to head over to the Marketplace, and you can get back to playing the game with your buddies.
Currently, if you are invited to a game for which you are missing DLC, you are “required to back out of the commenced multiplayer session, manually locate the desired content, purchase the content, install the content, relocate the inviting players, prepare his own request to join their game,” says the source, which is clearly a hassle.
The full patent here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20100056268.pdf
Result for: playing the game
Is there anything you can’t blame video games for? A recent trial saw a 19 year old sentenced for multiple sex attacks against women. The teenager from Ashford, Kent reportedly took to the streets drunk and stoned looking for women. In one case he broke the arm of a woman in her 40s by dragging her down a hill before sexually assaulting her. In a search of his home, police found a video game that they evidently thought was significant enough to note.
It was, of course, one of the Grand Theft Auto series of games. Remembering that the teenager was reportedly drunk and high at the times of the two attacks that he admitted, the Prosecutor, Eleanor Laws (yes, the Prosecutor!) noted that the amount of time the defendant spent playing the game “may go some way to explaining his attitude towards women.”
Perhaps the prosecutor should consider another line of work where her opinion is professional and not intended to make an excuse for a sex offender as she did, in fact, weigh in on a debate that is unresolved by experts who actually study it. He is also 19 years old, this is not a case of a minor being exposed to a game rated for an adult. He is an adult. Or maybe I am wrong, and the Prosecutor only intended it as personal opinion.
Judge Philip Statman noted in his judgment, though “it is not for this court to enter into this controversy as to whether such conduct is encouraged by pornographic material and video games such as Grand Theft Auto which seems, in my judgment and from what I have heard and read, does show scant respect for women.”
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Result for: playing the game
Microsoft has announced that it is hoping to build an advertising network into its Zune media players, giving advertisers a direct connection to consumers.
As explained by Yahoo, “the company demonstrated the concept using a phony Doritos mockup. In the example, a user could befriend a musician through the Zune social page on a Doritos’ sponsored concert to view news and updates on the artist’s profile.”
Once you are added to that list, users can email said profile to other friends and download select tracks from the website to play on the Zune. “When the recipient receives the email through Microsoft’s Hotmail service through their mobile phone, a brief ad will trigger, followed by a short game similar to Asteroids.”
If the user does well playing the game, then they earn a free bag of Doritos chips, and downloadable maps to nearby stores that sell them.
Although it is still in “planning” stages, Microsoft says the program is not “something that is far in the future” and just needs some solid back-end infrastructure.
