Update: Infinity Ward's 1.3 million number is referring to the average number of gamers (not games) that log onto Xbox Live daily to play CoD4. Apologies for the confusion.
The Xbox Live supremacy mud-slinging gets taken to a new level today with Infinity Ward comparing how many Xbox Live gamers log in to play games ofCall of Duty 4 versus its rival Halo 3. And let's just say there are bunches.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Infinity Ward producer Mark Rubin revealed that nearly 1.3 million gamers games of play CoD4 each and every day via Xbox Live alone. That gigantic number eclipses Halo 3's gamer base which hovers around the 1 million mark every day. Rubin also wanted to make sure that we understood that the 1.3 million number was just gamers who play on the 360 and that "there's even more on the other platforms [PS3 and PC], but we just don't have the same numbering system. Overall, even without the other consoles, we are beating the competition."
You hear that Halo 3 fanboys? You better start logging more games, gathering up your friends and relatives or claim Xbox Live defeat to your CoD4 conquerors. CoD4 has been highatop theLiveleaderboards for the past few months now and has been getting cocky. And rightfully so.
According to a post on Gamescore Blog and the message we got when we logged onto Live, Xbox Live and Xbox.com will be down for maintenance on April 1 from 2-5am PDT. Before you start making your "Spring Dash Update is Nigh!" signs, we're being told this is a routine process that will go on in the early hours of the morning. In the meantime you should play the Battlefield: Bad Company beta or Halo 3 online or Call of Duty 4 multiplayer. Wait. Oh no! What will we do?!
Today, at 5:00PM eastern (2:00PM pacific), Xbox Live Game with Fame gets a healthy coat of orange paint going Nickelodeon with two Nick stars gaming it up with fans. Roxy Hunter's own Aria Wallace and Zoey 101's Victoria Justice will be on Xbox Live playing Guitar Hero III and DDR: Universe 2 under the gamertags NickGWF1 and NickGWF2. So gather the kids, gather the adults, shoot a few friend requests and show those Nickelodeon stars how brutal Xbox Live can really be. Do us proud.
In preparation for a baseball season that seems to span eleven of the twelve calendar months, Major League Baseball 2K8 is holding a bunch of Xbox Live festivities as part of their MLB 2K8 Opening Day Weekend.
Scheduled to bat-off (eh?) on April 4th and run through April 6th, baseball fans and not-so baseball fans will be able to register for a Play & Win (where oodles of Microsoft points can be won), download the already available MLB 2K8 demo and have a chance to play with the game's creators during the April 4th Game With Developers. All the funnery kicks off next Friday, so file those cleats to mini-daggers and add some cork to your bat ... MLB 2K8 Opening Day Weekend is near.
Going down this weekend on Xbox Live is a Rainbow Six Vegas 2 High Stakes Weekend featuring a sweepstakes, Play & Win prizes, a PEC contest and some super entertaining Game with Developers funnery. And if the embedded "training video" that you see above hints at anything to come, then we're in for some interesting yet enjoyable good times. The weekend-o-RSV2 fun kicks of tomorrow, March 28th and runs through Sunday, March 30th, so we advise preparing by entering the RSV2 sweepstakes and getting your Play & Win registration completed. Oh, you may also want to play some RSV2 before Saturday, because that's when the Game with Developers kicks off. Good luck and be sure to show those Ubisoft Montreal "gamers" how it's done. Huzzah!
This story is proof that karma and technology go together like chocolate syrup and vanilla ice-cream. Jesse McPherson, a 26 year-old engineer from Philadelphia, was shocked to find his Halo 3 edition Xbox 360, big-screen television and Apple G4 Powerbook stolen from his home upon returning from the recent SXSW event. After dealing with local authorities, who seemed more interested in taste-testing donuts than helping, Jesse took the matter into his own hands to solve the crime.
After booting up a new Xbox 360 Jesse was shocked to find threatening messages from Xbox Live user I iRandom I claiming to be one of the perpetrators of the crime and demanded cash for the safe return of the Xbox console (coupled with ignorant NSFW language, of course!). After submitting his story to digg, which included an image of the second suspect in the theft that was taken from a local pawn shop's security monitor, Jesse was shocked to find over 7000 users had launched the event to the top of digg's main page.
After a barrage of threatening messages to the admitted thief's account from random Xbox Live users and dialog with the brave thief's own mother (His mommy got involved? Ultimate bad-ass!), Jesse's Xbox 360 console was returned in working condition (the Powerbook was also returned on a separate occasion). What, you may ask, were the officers of Jesse's local precinct doing in the time he solved the crime? Who knows, but hopefully it was updating their resumes to include sloth as a major skill.
Fresh from his much deserved vacation, Major Nelson sends word that last night, Microsoft dealt with Gamerscore cheaters / boosters with a highly concentrated dose of punishment.
Those gamers who Microsoft targeted as being the greatest Gamerscore abusers have just had their entire Gamerscore wiped to a more appropriate 0GS. This wipe also prevents abusers from being able to go back and earn Gamerscore from already unlocked achievements, but they'll still be able to live a pure life and earn new achievements in the future. But we have to say the best punishment of all is the fact that all Gamerscore cheaters will now carry a mark of shame (seen above) that's branded on the cheater's Xbox.com Gamercard. How fashionable. You can learn more about the punishment, how cheaters are targeted and what goes down over on Xbox.com. Also, be sure to heckle anyone you see sporting the mark of shame. Give it to 'em good, make 'em cry!
Even though we already received information about its existence last week, this time it's official with both EA and DICE announcing that a Battlefield: Bad Company multiplayer beta will be kicking off next Tuesday, March 25th on Xbox Live. Beta access is open to North American and UK residents with access keys being handed out via IGN's Founder's Club, Club IGN, File Planet and other IGN owned websites including TeamXbox. Also, North Americans can obtain a Bad Company beta code by being one of the first 5,000 to head to GameStop and plop down a Bad Company pre-order.
As far as multiplayer specifics go, the Bad Company beta will feature two multiplayer maps (Ascension and Oasis) and the multiplayer mode "Gold Rush". And just like betas before it, DICE will use all the data they mine from their Bad Company beta to further tweak and improve upon the game before its release. Remember, the multiplayer fun kicks off on March 25th and will run through April 25th with access being made available through various IGN websites as well as Gamestop pre-orders. Now go, run forth and obtain a beta code soldier!
Well that's adorable. It turns out that not only is your Xbox 360 a perfect platform for fragging n00bs and otherwise pwning the denizens of Xbox Live, but it's also a fertile place where love can bloom. Behold Victoria Marie Figueroa, the product of a relationship sparked over Xbox Live between Stacy and Mike, two gamers from Georgia and New York, respectively. The two met playing Rainbow Six Lockdown and, according to Stacy, "hated each other." Apparently they got over it.
While the story is definitely sweet, it also presents the perfect opportunity to deliver some advice: under no circumstances should you place an infant on top of an Xbox 360. Those things get hot. Also, there's no telling what kind of damage a baby could do to a 360 if left untended.
Last month, we mentioned that registration for the Xbox Live Halo 3 Championship Tournament was open and now tonight, the tournament will kick off.
Sketch posted a quick note over on Bungie.net announcing that the tournament's matchmaking playlist will go live tonight at 9:00PM pacific (midnight eastern). And, per the tournament's rules, the playlist will be available until March 17th when all the semi-finalists will be determined. So, if you live in the U.S. and you haven't already, register your gamertag over on Xbox.com, fire up Halo 3 and dish out the pwnage, because there's a $50,000 check with your name on it. Good luck!
Alright, a quick disclaimer: this post is not about an Xbox 360 game. it is about a Wii game. Thank you. Now, if you own a Wii (and some of us do here at X3F), chances are you have picked up (or plan on picking up) Super Smash Bros. Brawl. If you have done this, you'll know that it is one of the few games that supports online play. If you know that, you probably know that it does not support any kind of voice chat. So, how do we fix that? With Xbox Live of course! After the break we have come up with a quick guide for getting your Brawl on complete with voice chat.
Starting this week and running through April 30th, telecom conglomerate Verizion will be sponsoring a Family Game Night Play & Win allowing gamers to bond with their family and win Xbox 360 hardware. To participate, gamers must sign onto Xbox Live each week and play the week's specified family game title (listed here). You'll earn an entry into the giveaway each week you log onto Live to play that week's title and will be one entry closer to 120GB HDD greatness. And to kick off the fun, this week you'll have to play some Harry Potter, so be sure to register first and get to your family gaming. We'll pop the family popcorn!
Update: Some readers are letting us know that Army of Two servers are rolling back online now, but some are still experiencing connection drops and laggy gameplay experiences.
Email is flying in and message boards are lit like the eternal flame about Army of Two. Gamers are livid because EA servers are having multiple issues including the standard lag found in most online games all the way to not functioning at all. In some cases gamers are reporting that the only multiplayer modes currently working are local games, so no online co-op for you.
Message board posters are seem to be having different experiences with the newly released EA third-person shooter, but most agree the overall online experience is not functioning properly. PlayStation users aren't out of the wood either as messages confirm these issues are across the board, not surprising since EA uses their own server farm and does not subscribe to Xbox Live's peer-to-peer method of hosting.
At the time of this story three of our own soldiers of the X3F Army have expressed experiences with all available online multiplayer modes within the game.
Xbox.com is officially calling this month SuperMarch and as part of the planned SuperMarch festivities, Heroes' producer will be on Xbox Live letting you Game with Fame.
Executive producer of the Heroes television series Jesse Alexander (not Jason Alexander) will be on Xbox Live gaming it up in a little Frontlines: Fuel of War. So, if the prospect of fragging alongside Mr. Alexander sounds rather appealing, shoot a friend request over to snapmanifesto and prepare for Frontlines gaming on March 14th from 11:30PM-12:30AM eastern. And note, your abnormal super powers will not be allowed while gaming over Live.
Nearly every news tip this morning has been about one thing, Call of Duty 4. Prompted by an auto-update, gamers noticed that the highly anticipated patch for COD4 has finally been made available. Some of the key elements addressed in the patch include, quick mute system adopted from Halo 3, third-person perspective for spectator mode and new kill cam views for claymore, air strike and grenade kills that are sure to add insult-to-injury.
Potentially, the most sought after fix was host migration. While adding nothing to the overall experience of the game it does act as a virtual Advil for fixing an head-pounding annoyance. Originally, when the host would leave a multiplayer session all players would be booted back to the main menu of the game. With the new host migration feature the game selects a new host and while the map will restart, groups will be able to stay together.
Today's auto-update, coupled with the upcoming downloadable content, is another sign Infinity Ward is reloading their weapons in the battle for Xbox Live seniority.
Today, at 5:00PM eastern (2:00PM pacific), Xbox Live Game with Fame gets a healthy coat of orange paint going Nickelodeon with two Nick stars gaming it up with fans. Roxy Hunter's own Aria Wallace and Zoey 101's Victoria Justice will be on Xbox Live playing 
This story is proof that karma and technology go together like chocolate syrup and vanilla ice-cream. Jesse McPherson, a 26 year-old engineer from Philadelphia, was shocked to find his Halo 3 edition Xbox 360, big-screen television and Apple G4 Powerbook stolen from his home upon returning from the recent SXSW event. After dealing with local authorities, who seemed more interested in taste-testing donuts than helping, Jesse took the matter into his own hands to solve the crime.
Well that's adorable. It turns out that not only is your Xbox 360 a perfect platform for fragging n00bs and otherwise pwning the denizens of Xbox Live, but it's also a fertile place where love can bloom. Behold Victoria Marie Figueroa, the product of a relationship sparked over Xbox Live between Stacy and Mike, two gamers from Georgia and New York, respectively. The two met playing 
Last month, we mentioned that 
