Microsoft has announced they have signed a movie deal with NBC Universal that will bring 30 catalog films to the Xbox Live Marketplace for European regions.
The titles are immediately available in the UK and Ireland and will be available in France, Germany and Spain soon.
“NBC Universal has a fantastic reputation in the film world and have some true blockbusters in their portfolio,” notes David Gosen, VP of marketing for Xbox Europe. “We are delighted to be working with them to bring major titles from Universal Pictures into Xbox Live living rooms - this is all part of our ongoing strategy to make Xbox a major entertainment hub.
“This agreement makes the Xbox Live film offering bigger and better than ever. For Xbox, we want to ensure that we have the best entertainment content available - Xbox Live has grown into one of Europe’s largest providers of on-demand high-definition movies and we’ll continue to grow the content offered through the service.
“Working with NBC Universal is further proof of our goal to be in business with the best in the entertainment industry.”
Result for: xbox live marketplace
Harmonix and MTV Games have announced that Judas Priest’s 1982 classic album, “Screaming For Vengeance” will be the first complete album to be added to Rock Band’s downloadable content catalog on both the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store.
The album will hit XBL on April 22nd and the PSN two days later. Each track will cost $1.99 USD for individual songs or $15 USD for the full album.
Although full album releases were promised before Rock Band even hit retail shelves, this is the first available album, 5 months after the game’s release. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos says “…a big reason that it’s taken us so long to get them to market is that the actual technical delivery of the assets required for any one song - they’re actually pretty complicated. You’re often dealing with masters for the older stuff that were recorded on analog. Often it takes a long time to even locate those masters. The right takes and the right edits have to be found, and in some cases old gear that’s not in use anymore has to be resuscitated to transfer the stuff to digital.”
Rigopulos also says $1.99 will be standard for individual tracks but the album prices will be variable. “There’s not going to be a standard album pricing. It’s going to be a function of how many songs are included in the album…essentially there will be a volume discount apply.”
The companies also revealed that the next full album will be the self-titled album from “The Cars.”
Result for: xbox live marketplace
Microsoft has announced that it has struck a deal with PBS to have some of the broadcaster’s TV series available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
XBL users can download Ken Burns’ Jazz and America series as well as “Wired Science” and “Scientific American.” PBS added that XBL users will have access to over “8,500 hours of programming from 45 content producers.”
“Non-fiction programming has performed very well on Xbox Live,” Ross Honey, general manager of Microsoft’s media and entertainment group, added. “The addition of a premiere brand such as PBS will not only enhance our overall video offering but will strengthen a content category that our users demand.”
Microsoft has been adding more and more media content to its Marketplace over the past six months including a huge deal with Netflix and another large deal with NBC-Universal.
