I'm sure you all turned on your 360 and got the update on the 6th and if you are wondering what it was or why it was there since it obviously did nothing to change your dash at all then i got your answer right here guys, it seems the update was just a small bit of ground work to prepare your 360 for future growth.
Major Nelson has reported the following to clear it all up for us: "A few minutes ago, the team released a system update for the Xbox 360 over Xbox LIVE. Sometime over the next few hours when you sign in to Xbox LIVE you’ll recieve a prompt to accept this mandatory update. This update contains code to ‘prepare for future growth of the service.’ There are no other changes or enhancements in this update…in other words no new features."
"To be clear: This is not the new Xbox experience update. That will come in the Fall."
So to recap and beat the dead horse it was just some preparation for the fall update that will include such features as:
* Entertainment without limits: With LIVE Party, bring your favorite games, TV shows, movies, and pictures to life by sharing those experiences with friends, wherever they are around the world.
* Express yourself: With the new Xbox 360 experience, personalize your entertainment like never before. Create your own avatar, designed exclusively by Rare, and jump into a party with friends from around the world.
* "Must See TV" and more: The biggest names in entertainment worldwide, such as Netflix, NBC Universal, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, SCI FI Channel, USA Network, Constantin, and MGM are bringing their content to Xbox 360.
360 Degrees of Entertainment
The 2008 Xbox 360 entertainment lineup of games, movies and TV shows is its best and broadest ever. Whether for fans of action, role-playing, racing, sports, strategy, party, or action-adventure games, Xbox 360 has the biggest blockbusters and the most exclusive content in 2008 and beyond:
* The new game show: The new Xbox LIVE channel Xbox LIVE Primetime represents an all-new way to play. A collection of virtual game shows such as "1 vs. 100," Xbox LIVE Primetime allows thousands of gamers to become contestants from their living rooms, playing together simultaneously, live with content that is always fresh and relevant. The global phenomenon 1 vs. 100 is created by Endemol, the world's largest independent production company and the producer of the hit show Deal or No Deal.
* Blockbusters: Final Fantasy XIII will be available on Xbox 360 at launch in North America and Europe. Xbox 360 is the only place to play the year's biggest games, such as Gears of War® 2, Resident Evil 5, Fable® II, and exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV episodes.
* Music: Xbox 360 is the preferred stage for all the best music games, including Lips, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour and DanceDanceRevolution® UNIVERSE3.
* Family: Xbox 360 gets the whole family playing with titles such as Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts,Scene It? Box Office Smash and Viva Piñata®: Trouble in Paradise.
* Sports: Xbox 360 remains the best place to play sports titles, including leading franchises like Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, NBA Live, NHL 2K, and more.
* TV and movie entertainment: Xbox is home to the best TV and movie entertainment, including exclusive games such as You're in the Movies and 1 vs. 100, exclusive films and TV from Netflix, and the world's largest online library of on-demand high-definition TV shows and movies.
It appears a major leak has taken place for Microsoft's upcoming "Gamer's Day" (May 13-15 2008) So We'll know very soon if it is true or not
The user "grindamasta" on the NeoGAF Forums has found some information about the upcoming gamer's day and has taken screenshots as proof.
"I was looking for the Banjo assets and I found some interesting folders at MS press site. Unfortunately all of them (except Banjo) are empty.. until tuesday I think."
Here are the pictures of what he found:
By the looks of it this is the real deal and you can bet 360-hq will have more information when it is released on Tuesday.
Until then be sure to check out all the new games page's and we even have the new Viva Pinata screenshots to boot!
We received NPD's 2007 U.S. video game industry sales report less than an hour ago and it took Microsoft only a few minutes to send their comments on the subject:
Xbox 360 Drives the Video Game Console Industry in 2007: NPD data released today confirms consumers spent more dollars on Xbox 360 in 2007, with more than $13.7 billion in total consumer spending. Xbox 360 won 2007 with $4.8 billion in total consumer spend compared to Wii with $3.5 billion and PlayStation 3 with $2.2 billion. This wraps up a historic year, with NPD reporting consumers have spent nearly 45 percent of total industry figures on Xbox 360.
Here is a quick snapshot of what is driving revenue for Xbox 360, based on the latest reports from NPD and Microsoft data:
XBOX 360 WIDENS THE GAP OVER PS3 WITH CONSOLE SALES: According to NPD, Xbox 360 sold 1.3 million consoles in December alone, and has steadily widened the gap between Sony’s PlayStation 3 console sales. In December, NPD stated that Sony sold 798,000 PS3 hardware units. Since PS3’s launch in November 2006, Xbox 360 has outsold PS3 by nearly 2:1 on average, bringing a total U.S. Xbox 360 install base of 9.2 million consoles, compared to and installed base of 7.4 million Wii consoles and 3.3 million PS3 consoles.
GAMES DRIVE INDUSTRY GROWTH: Xbox 360 robust games portfolio spans across the highest-ranked AAA titles to the largest collection of “Everyone” and “Teen” rated games. According to NPD, of the top 20 best-selling titles in 2007 for this generation, 11 were on Xbox 360; while only seven were sold on the Wii and two sold on the PS3.
NPD reported that this holiday’s leading multiplatform blockbusters continue to sell better on Xbox 360:
“Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” for Xbox 360 was the leading game last month with 1.5 million copies sold, outselling the PS3 version nearly 3:1.
“Assassin’s Creed” for Xbox 360 was the fourth best selling title, having sold 894,000 units. It outsold the PS3 version more than 2:1.
“Guitar Hero III” outsold the PS3 nearly 2:1, having sold 625,000 copies.
“Rockband” continues to rock the charts, selling 463,000 units for the Xbox 360 platform, compared to 174,000 units for the PS3
To date, 33 third party games on Xbox 360 hit the top 10 list across all consoles compared to five third party games on PS3, and four on Wii. These results confirm that third party partners create better games and reap more sales on Xbox 360 than any other platform.
In its fourth month on the market, Halo 3 continued its strong performance and was the sixth best selling title in December, selling another 742,000. In 2007, NPD projects that Halo 3 has sold 4.8 million units in the U.S. since its launch in September.
Xbox 360 continues to lead in number of games sold per console, setting another record with an attach rate of 7.0 games per console.
XBOX LIVE SETS NEW HEIGHTS: Xbox LIVE’s network is 10 million members strong and growing, achieving membership goals six months ahead of schedule. Only on Xbox LIVE can members experience the largest catalog of on-demand, high-definition content in the U.S., including movies and television shows from our most recent partners: Disney-ABC Television Group and MGM Studios.
UPDATE - Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg tells Next-Gen that top retailers had reported Xbox 360 hardware outages during Black Friday week, as the new Arcade package performs above expectations.
Microsoft announced Thursday that Xbox 360 sold 310,000 units for the week of November 18 in the US. This compares favorably to the year-younger Nintendo Wii, which sold 350,000 units during the same time frame.
It’s highly likely that the gap could’ve been wider if Nintendo was able to keep up with the Wii’s runaway demand.
Regardless, Xbox 360 had an impressive week. Greenberg told Next-Gen that Microsoft’s top retailers sold out of hardware coming out of the busy Thanksgiving shopping week.
“We turned around and replenished those units,” the Xbox 360 product manager said in a phone interview. “We’re seeing thousands and thousands of top big box retail stores reporting outages depending on SKUs, and some reporting outages of the whole Xbox 360 line.”
Microsoft said that it outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 2 to 1 last week, according to retail estimates.
Greenberg also said that the newly-introduced entry-level Xbox 360 Arcade package ($280) is performing considerably better than expected.
“We heard from one of our top retailers that the launch of Arcade was the biggest Xbox 360 sales week since Christmas of last year. It’s performed above what we’ve expected and is a bigger percentage of the mix than what we thought it would be.”
The greatest year in the history of games continues this week with the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Also making a splash this week is the PC arrival of Gears of War and Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am. Are you grabbing any of these this week, or are you holding out for something more grand? Let us know what your plans are below.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 360, PS3, PC, DS
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - 360, PS3, Wii, DS
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - Wii
Gears of War - PC
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am - PS2 Read more for the entire listing.
A new Scene It? DEMO is now available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. The demo weighs in at 619MB and is not available to Asia.
“Scene It?” brings the fun of movie trivia to players of all ages with new movie clips in high definition as well as five new puzzle challenges never before shown in a “Scene It?” game.
"Scene It?" also ships with four new Xbox 360 Big Button Pads and will be available this holiday season, only on Xbox 360.
Game Features
New puzzle challenges: The Xbox 360 game includes more than 1,800 questions not seen before in any otherScene It? game. It features five new types of puzzle challenge that are sure to keep you guessing all night long.
Game types: Enjoy "Credit Roll," where you guess the film based on the list of characters and actors, "Child’s Play," where you guess the name of the film based on a child’s drawing of a film scene, and "Quotables," where you are challenged to finish a famous line from a featured film. In addition, all 21 puzzle types have been designed to provide the ultimate multiplayer experience on Xbox 360.
Big Button Pad: Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action is shipped with four new wireless Big Button Pads, so each player has his or her own buzzer. Making games such as Scene It? more approachable for all types of players, the Big Button Pad takes its inspiration from the game show buzzers of yesteryear but uses the latest infrared technology to minimize the chances of an argument over who answered first.
Hi-def visuals: The game offers a wide assortment of movie clips in HD format, as well as hundreds of stills and audio clips from your favorite films.
Minimal repeats: The Xbox 360 version keeps track of questions that have already been asked and minimizes repeats so you rarely get the same question twice.
HQ Network: 8,351 | 
Guests: 4348 |
Members: 0
Here is a quick snapshot of what is driving revenue for Xbox 360, based on the latest reports from NPD and Microsoft data:
It’s highly likely that the gap could’ve been wider if Nintendo was able to keep up with the Wii’s runaway demand.
