Next month, Microsoft’s Xbox One will celebrate its second birthday, which makes it as good a time as any for a software update that will finally allow users to play some of their old Xbox 360 games on the console. [More]
xbox 360
Don’t Expect To Play Your PS3 Games On A PS4 Anytime Soon
By 6.19.15
Owners of Sony’s PlayStation 4 hoping the company would follow in Microsoft’s footsteps and add backwards compatibility to allow PS3 games to be played on the newer console shouldn’t hold their breath, as executives for the electronics company say they have no immediate plans to implement the technology. [More]
Xbox One Getting A Lot More Useful With Backwards Compatability
By 6.15.15
When Microsoft and Sony announced their current slate of gaming consoles in 2013, neither manufacturer included backwards compatibility, meaning all your Xbox 360 and PS3 games still needed the old console to play those games. Today at E3, Microsoft finally announced that the Xbox One will include the ability to play previous-generation games on the current-gen console. [More]
Microsoft Also Ditching Mandatory Kinect Purchase For Xbox One
By 5.13.14
The Xbox-related news is pouring out today. First came the report that Xbox Live members may no longer need to upgrade to Gold subscriptions just to watch streaming videos. Now comes the announcement that the motion and voice-sensing Kinect is not so vital to the Xbox One as Microsoft had originally envisioned. [More]
Microsoft Wants To Run More Political Campaign Ads On Xbox
By 3.10.14
You know those ads that you ignore on your Xbox dashboard? President Obama used them as part of his re-election campaign in 2012, and with midterm elections on the horizon, Microsoft is doing its best to try to convince more politicians that these spots are ideal places to run targeted campaign and other political ads. [More]
Xbox One Could Use Cloud To Let You Play All Those Xbox 360 Games You Paid For
By 9.5.13
When designing the upcoming Xbox One gaming console, Microsoft made the conscious decision to not make the device backwards-compatible, meaning that all the Xbox 360 games consumers have spent billions of dollars to acquire over the last eight years can not be used on the Xbox One. Realizing that this might miff some gamers, a Microsoft exec now says the idea of backwards compatibility hasn’t been completely ruled out. [More]
You Have Until 2016 Before Microsoft Stops Pretending To Care About Your Xbox 360
By 9.4.13
Now that we all know that the Xbox One will hit stores on Nov. 22, the big question is how quickly the many millions of Xbox 360 consoles will become obsolete, especially when you consider that the new console will not play the games that Xbox users have spent the last eight years purchasing. [More]
Xbox 360 Update Bids Farewell To Microsoft Points In Favor Of Real Money
By 8.26.13
Tired of paying for Xbox Live content with Microsoft Points? Your life is about to become so much easier, or at least more consistent. Just like you buy things in the real world with local currency, a new update to XBox 360 will have you plunking down whatever the going rate is in your local currency for all things Xbox Live. Any leftover points will also be converted to their equivalent cash value. [via Engadget] [More]
Amazon Offering $10 Game Trade-Ins For Customers Who Want To Upgrade Their Xbox
By 8.20.13
One of the big knocks against the upcoming Xbox One gaming console is that it not backwards-compatible with titles for the Xbox 360, meaning you’d need to keep your old console hooked up to your TV if you want to play all those games you’ve acquired over the years. To ease that pain for some customers, Amazon is offering a $10 trade-in program on a handful of Xbox 360 games that will also soon be released on the Xbox One. [More]
New Grand Theft Auto Game Will Steal 8GB Of Your Xbox 360’s Hard Drive Thanks To Mandatory Install
By 7.2.13
First the good news about the upcoming Xbox 360 version of GTA V (or Grand Theft Auto 5, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) — even though it’s shipping on two discs, you’ll be able to play the whole game without swapping discs in and out. The bad news, especially for those with smaller or full-up hard drives — GTA V will require that you install the entire 8 GB of the first disc, whether you want to or not. [More]
Microsoft Exec: If You Don’t Want To Always Be Online, Keep Playing Xbox 360
By 6.12.13
Following Sony’s crowd-pleasing announcement that its upcoming PS4 gaming console will not require the user to constantly be online, one might have hoped that Microsoft would ease up on that continually connected model for its Xbox One device. But no, the company is sticking to its guns, basically telling anyone concerned about this issue to kiss off. [More]
4 Early Concerns About The Xbox One
By 5.23.13
Earlier this week, Microsoft finally got around to showing off Xbox One, the console some gamers have been waiting for since the Xbox 360 came out eight years ago. The company made sure to highlight all the cool bells and whistles of the upcoming device, but also skipped over a number of issues that are already giving some folks reason for concern. [More]
Verizon’s Redbox Instant Video Service Launching New App For Xbox 360
By 2.6.13
Entering the already busy arena of online streaming video services, Xbox 360 announced yesterday that it’s teaming up with Verizon to offer the company’s Redbox Instant Video exclusively on its gaming consoles. It’s always good to have options, and it seems companies are going to continue coming up with competitors for Netflix, Hulu and Amazon’s video services. And when companies compete, we win. Hurray! [More]
No One At Best Buy Actually Wants To Sell Me An Xbox
By 12.5.12
In the last year, Best Buy has been attempting to market itself not just as a place to go to purchase electronics, but as a store where you’ll find helpful and informed employees. That’s not exactly the impression one Consumerist reader got after his last visit to the store. [More]
Time Warner Cable Dangling Free Xboxes To Entice Customers To Sign Up At Best Buy
By 11.7.12
People want free stuff. Cable companies need new customers. Best Buy really, really needs shoppers to set foot in its stores. These three facts have all resulted in a promotion that has TWC offering up free Xbox 360s to new customers who sign up for its Triple Play package while visiting Best Buy. [More]
Microsoft Confirms $99 Xbox 360 For Those Who Love Pricey Monthly Subscriptions
By 5.7.12
Last week, it was rumored that Microsoft would be slashing the price on its Xbox 360 game console to a mere $99 with the asterisk that you also sign up for two years of its Xbox Live Gold online service. The company officially announced the offer today, and confirmed just how huge that asterisk is. [More]
Expert: Credit Card Data On Old Xbox Hard Drives Is Vulnerable (Updated)
By 3.30.12
If you’ve ever gotten rid of an old Xbox 360 hard drive, a determined hacker could find a way to extract your credit card information from the device. As part of a study meant to expose Microsoft’s lax protection of consumer data, researchers bought a refurbished Xbox 360 and used hacking tools to plunder the device for info that identified the previous owner, as well as the owner’s credit card details. They say old data isn’t safe even if the hard drives have been formatted. [More]
