Category: Gaming

Better Know a Gamer, just got BETTER!

Posted on by admin

We admit it, there’s been a lot of us “getting behind.” I’ve fallen into the traps of headlines and hit counts, rather than actually doing what I set out to do. Well no more.

Our flagship segment, Better Know a Gamer, is going to to be made even easier. One of the early problems was a glitch in the mail server eating our messages… then it became a bit of a sloppy mess and I was losing email addresses just because of my own foolish actions. People volunteered, others were nominated, but the questions weren’t getting sent out. Well now I want you to know that you can nominate yourself, or nominate others – entirely through automation. That’s right, by visiting the Better Know a Gamer Submissions page, you can enter your gamertag, the gamertag of the person you’re nominating, and their email address – they will then receieve the BKAG questions! Once they reply to the email and I have their answers, it’s just a short matter of time before I post the whole thing up on the site.

See how easy it is!? Now, get to nominating – keep me busy!!! 🙂 Nominate ALL of your friends, if you want! Just keep the list growing! I’ll highlight all ten million Xbox Live users if you want me to! It’s up to you! 🙂

Visit the Nominations Page now!

First day of Spring… Dashboard Features?

Posted on by admin


It’s officially the first day of spring, and even though people have been begging for a new dashboard update since January, little is known about what we can expect from the Spring 2008 dashboard update. Some people think this time around may be just a few clean ups and tweaks… simply tidying up after all of the major overhauls of the previous pair of updates (adding the entire marketplace blade, integrating with LiveMessenger, Friends of Friends, Profiles…). Perhaps some attention paid to the “Achievements” button on the games blade (which, after enough games played by an individual, becomes an almost painful browsing experience). Some people think that this update (as rumored with the last several) will finally include some form of formal clan support. Some people think there will be a way to hide YOUR name from showing up on someone ELSE’S Friends of Friends list. Some people think there will be the ability to add a custom background to individual blades of the interface, rather than selecting one picture for all of them. Still, others, expect larger friends-list support.

The list of suspected dashboard features goes on, but we’re keeping our ear to the ground for anything even semi-official. Some “very” cool (according to Major Nelson) features have been in the works that didn’t make it into the last update may be included in this one. So cool, in fact, that he had to take some time to explain the coolness effect to “e.” All of this can be found in an older podcast… but who cares about all that… we just want the meat’n’taters. I’ll keep my eyes and ears wide open for you all, you keep checking back here.

Until then, feel free to start a discussion about what kinds of features YOU would like to see in this or future dashboard updates. We all love filling out a wishlist!

[Update 1]: 34% sales boost in Feb puts 2008 on track…

Posted on by admin


2008 is looking like it’s going to be another historic year for video games. Reuters (by way of USA Today) and The Associated Press (by way of The New York Times) are reporting that Video games are selling 34% better than the were this time last year. Is it that there are more games, better games, or just flat out more gamers? Ever increasing mainstream popularity among video games is certainly worth consideration, and was the topic of discussion in a recent GamerScore Blogcast episode. Based on those NPD numbers everybody likes to toss around, you can’t deny Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is partly to thank for this huge boost in game sales.

[Update 1]: As a side note, market analyst Jesse Divinch and pals predect that the 360 will regain its long held sales lead over the Playstation 3 in March and April, but they also expect the 2nd place contest to remain close.

The Xbox Live Police

Posted on by admin

I’ve never been huge on just linking off to other people’s sites, I really like to provide good analysis and news updates of my own. You know, unique content (what an idea, right?). But this article is just a bit too good to pass up.

Kotaku is running a story on The Xbox Live Police – the people working behind the scenes to make sure that, when we file a complaint, Xbox Live users can get their just desserts. Operative word being “just.” Sure, everyone has filed their share of complaints, but these are the people who take them seriously.

From the article:
Any complaint that’s not a duplicate, however, gets looked at. Every single one. In many cases, the violation is clear, and they can move on to any possible punitive steps. But for others, things can get messy. Where does good-natured [smack]-talking end and genuine offensive behaviour begin? Just because someone finds something offensive, does that mean it is offensive?
…Keep reading on Kotaku.