I have seen so many dashboard updates, some better than others, but this new one seems to be the best one yet. Finally games are closer to where to start and tv/movies is back a tab or two from where it was before. Much better in my opinion, and the fact that you can pin things to the dashboard is really cool.

One thing I was hoping they would do, and still haven't is clean up the add-ons section a bit. I don't play any music games, but every day or two have to go through screen after screen of new add-ons for these games. It really makes it a hassle to try and find the things I actually want to buy. Often, of the 100 "new add-ons" shown, there are 75 or so music related songs or trial songs for games like rock band, guitar hero, and now the dance games. I remember one time I had to scroll through about 5 pages of nothing but songs in order to find what I was looking for.

I am hoping that with the new console, it will have some sort of toggle, or be smart in some way as to know that I am not interested in these things and not show them to me all the time. I know they have really good tracking systems for lots of things, and you can see some at the xbox rewards site when you log in, so I am sure they could easily figure out who wants this and who does not.

Seems a bit nit-picky I guess, but I am just so sick of the endless scrolling over the years, but other than that, I think they may have finally gotten it right.

Now if they could only get flash working with internet explorer, we'd be set.

So there was a big problem when Street Fighter x Tekken came out because there were many characters found on the disc. People got pissed, and I think capcom responded by saying that they will have to reconsider the way they are doing things..

What do they do? Dragon's Dogma comes out loaded with on disc, locked out content.

Both of these games have been out for months, and yet I am still seeing DLC come out for them, and the DLC is usually the size of an unlock key, not actually containing any content. Usually 108kb or whatever it is.

Now Resident Evil is out, and again, there is some stuff on the disc. I don't know much about this one, but this is getting rediculous.

I am just hoping that Capcom does start releasing DLC that itself has locked content, which requires even more DLC to unlock parts of other DLC's. Can you imagine?

So the other day on a different site, I read about something new THQ has planned for WWE 13.

This news is pretty brutal, and I wish I had kept the link because I can't find it now, but anyways, apparently in WWE 13 there will be special moves that wrestlers use which will only be available as paid DLC. Not only is that bad enough, but players will have to wait a few weeks after the release for them to come out?

This is terrible because in all previous wrestling games, moves were all available from the start. Not just that but these are signature moves that these wrestlers are known for and if you are playing the game you will want to use them as your favorite wrestler.

If this goes well for THQ, it will be bad news for all because other companies will take notice for sure. If this goes bad for THQ, then that is also not good. THQ is a great company and I love their games, and am dying for South Park: The Stick of Truth in 2013.

I don't know what the budget for the game was compared to previous versions.. but from the commercials run every break on RAW and Smackdown it must be far less than the older games. The graphics are ok, but seem strange in a way I just cannot explain, and the wrestlers move around a bit clunky, and the ropes are strange.. It might be a rumor.. but I heard that this may be THQ's last WWE game, or Yuke's last one. I am not sure if that's true or not.. but damn..

I don't know what to expect, but I hope this is not going to become normal.. Yuck.

I have been a member of xbox gold subscription for 6+years. I have put so much money into this service that it blows my mind. Anyways, they announced a few months ago that a new achievement point based reward system was coming. Everyone I know has been wondering since the release why achievements did not give a bonus of some sort, but finally there is one.

The absolute maximum you can get as a bonus is 2% off any purchase per month.. if you have over 25k achievements. Well.. ok, if this is just the start, that is ok.. but if this is it and that is all.. well, very dissapointing.

I just broke the 100K achievement club a couple weeks ago, before the announcement.. I was pretty much in a race to get that last 1k to get me over the 100k line, expecting 100k would be something special in an upcoming bonus program. Nope.

I understand that giving a huge bonus to everyone will cost a lot to microsoft, or rather, cost a lot of potential earnings I suppose.. however, Playstation Plus has been kicking the crap out of Xbox Live for the past year in their savings area. Now Xbox live is a better service than PSN, but, the PSN+ really puts Xbox Live to shame, big time. Microsoft having everyone be required to pay to play games vs PSN's free with a + for a bit extra.. PSN must pay a lot more overall for their servers.. yet they are giving away many games for free on a weekly basis.

Many times I have purchased a brand new game on xbox live, only to find out that it is FREE on PSplus! on day 1 release!. Blows my mind.. Microsoft says, ok, you can save 2% on that now... well, ok, but seriously?

Not to mention the birthday gift of 0.25 cents.. in Canada, it is 0.10 cents per microsoft point. so you get 2.5 points (I imagine rounded down?) every year.. This coming in now at the end of the xbox 360 cycle.. Now it may carry over to the next one.. but if you wanted to cash in your birthday gifts for an actual birthday gift.. lets say a cheap 400 point microsoft game, sonic the hedgehog 3 or something. You would have to have 160 birthdays in order to actually get a "present". And that is without rounding down, rounding down you will need 200 birthdays.

I know Xbox Live plans on being around for years to come.. but I don't think most of the players will live to see an actual present out of their birthday gifts..

If you want the cheapest game on Xbox Live India Game section you need 32 birthdays...


I still support Xbox Live, and will continue to be a gold memeber. but I tell you it is every day that I get more and more jealous of PS plus users. WIth microsofts new bonus system, I am even more jealous of PS plus users..

Ok, so it has been years since these phones have been out and all i have been hearing for the past while is cell phone games are the future and consoles / pcs are doomed. I thought I would check it out for myself, see what all the hype is about.

I got myself an android phone, because I don't and never will support apple ever (I have hated Apple since I was a kid over 20 years ago and had to play with a 1 button mouse.. what a joke). Anyways, I have downloaded and tried probably over 100 games. Both demos for full, and ad suported free ones, or actual free ones.

Now, I have to say that out of those 100 or so games, I have deleted 98 of them because they were absolute garbage (at the top list on adroid store). One of those games I kept was not at the top list either, but I tell you it is one of the best games I have ever played. Yes, this is true, on a phone.

The game I played was, well, a bowling one, and Game Dev Story. I bought the full version for $2.50. and I have put over 60 hours into it.. Yes, over 60 hours... Now THIS is a game. I actually feel myself drawn into it and very interested, I can not keep myself away and have to constantly recharge my phone now..

So, my overall thoughts on gaming on smart phones vs console/pc.. Well, while there are a few games that are very worth playing, they have mountains of actual garbage piled on top of them and are almost impossible to find.

The ratio of good to bad games for these phones is around 1:100, on consoles and pc, I would say that is more like 1:9 or 1:10.

After playing some games on my phone.. I really get bored fast and actually think to myself this is enough of this, I want to play a game now, and I load up my PC or Xbox.

I would have to say there there are some definite hidden gems out there on the smart phones, however, if you really want some fun gaming you really should stick to console or pc.

DLC is in basically every game right now, but fighting games are one of the ones where the customer feels the most screwed over.

Many fighting games have DLC characters that can be downloaded and played in the game. Currently there are 2 different methods I can think of that this is happening, One is good, One is bad.. and there is one other one I thought of that would most likely be the best of them all.

1. One method they use is having DLC characters that you can only play as if you buy, and only play against if you buy. This is the worst way of doing this I think, because players don't get to see the character in action or experience it at all, they just have to buy and hope for the best.

2. Another method is where the character is only available to play as if you buy the DLC, yet you can play against the new DLC characters with a free version of the DLC that lets you do so. This way lets players see and experience fighting against new characters which makes you decide if you want to buy or not. Pretty good way of doing it.

3. This way of doing DLC characters for fighting games is not used, but I think it would be the best type yet. Similar to a demo, have new DLC characters free for everyone to play against, and have them free for everyone to fight with up to 5 or 10 times or something. After that, if you still like that new DLC character, you can buy. This way you can fully experience these new characters before buying them giving you a far better chance to see if you like them. All DLC characters should also be totally free to practice with in 1 player practice rooms or training like for the other characters in the game. Would most likely lead to more sales, and happier players. A win for both sides?