Microsoft is bringing music content to Xbox Live with its announcement of a partnership with music provider last.fm. The last.fm service will be available freely to Xbox Live gold members later this year.

The company also announced upcoming changes to the Netflix Xbox Live service. The service will now allow users to queue up video directly from... Read more

The beta for Microsoft's Xbox Live game show MMO "1 vs 100" will begin Monday, June 1, the company announced today.

The large-scale game will see one player competing against a mob of 100 others in a series of trivia challenges for a Microsoft Point prize. The live game is hosted by Chris Cashman, with "Extended Play" sessions open for competition when the show is not airing.

1 vs 100 offers contestants an increasingly high payout as the trivia progresses. The longer the single player answers questions correctly, the more the prize increases, with the "mob" of 100 thinning as they answer incorrectly. The single player can choose to take the prize at any time; if the "one" answers a question incorrectly, the mob splits the purse. The max payout stands at 10,000 Microsoft Points ($125).

The Xbox Live crowd can also compete, with the top three audience members taking home prizes at the end of each show. The top crowd members also raise their chances of being selected to play as a mob member, or as the one.

Microsoft today dropped an Xbox 360 statbomb, showering figures on a range of metrics including the fact that the Xbox 360 has now sold over 30 million units worldwide.

After combing through financial reports and rooting around in bins, Shacknews offers the following list of worldwide lifetime console sales:

1. Nintendo DS - 101.78 million units (as of March 31 2009)
2. Nintendo Wii - 50.39 million units (as of March 31 2009)
3. PSP - 50 million units (as of February 13 2009)
4. Xbox 360 - 30 million units (as of May 28 2009)
5. PlayStation 3 - 22.91 million units (as of March 31 2009)

Microsoft also boasts it leads current-generation consoles in attach rate, with 8.3 titles being bought per console, as well as sales for third-party developers--$5.9 billion.

On the community front, Xbox Live's 20 million active accounts have downloaded nearly 1 billion pieces of Marketplace content. Sony announced in February that the PlayStation Network had 20 million registered users, though this includes forum and PSP accounts.

Though Microsoft refuses to provide the exact breakdown between free and paid Xbox Live accounts, Seattle P-I reports that over half of the Xbox Live accounts worldwide were Gold-level accounts as of February 2008.

At that time, 56% of the worldwide Xbox Live subscriptions were of the Gold variety, a figure that dipped from February 2007's 60%. Gold subscriptions were a bit higher in North America, with 60% of North American Xbox Live accounts Gold in February 2008--a statistic that was said to have "remained relatively flat" over the previous year.

The figures come from an internal Mircosoft spreadsheet viewed by Seattle P-I.

A Gold-level subscription enables players to play games online with other Xbox 360 owners, while the free Silver accounts enable owners to access... Read more

Following word that an expired Windows Live ID could wreak havoc with one's Xbox Live account and force the creation of a new account, Microsoft has pledged a fix.

"We are actively working on an update that will allow you to link your Gamertag to a new Windows Live ID if it becomes dormant," said Microsoft in a statement to Shacknews.

"An Xbox LIVE Gamertag is unrecoverable from the system only when the associated Windows Live ID has become dormant and the Gamertag has been deleted from all Xbox 360 consoles," the company explained. That means those already hit by the issue can recover their old accounts and achievements, so long as they haven't been deleted.

Previously, Microsoft indicated that those affected could not recover their old accounts, and would have to make an entirely new account if they wished to play games online.

Problems stemming from expired e-mail addresses have led to a small number of Xbox 360 users being forced to create new Xbox Live accounts if they wish to play online, reports GamesIndustry.biz.

The issue emerges if the e-mail linked to one's Windows Live ID, such as Hotmail, expires. Windows Live Hotmail accounts are disabled after 120 days of inactivity.

Upon its expiration, the e-mail address is deleted along with any linked Xbox Live accounts, apparently leaving holders unable to change the linked Windows Live ID or purchase an Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to play online.

However, they are still able to download items from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Microsoft is investigating the problem, but at present, the only solution is to make a new Xbox Live account using your "preferred email address"--which leaves users starting anew without their friends list, achievements, and history of downloaded content.

To commemorate the first downloadable expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV, Microsoft has announced that all Xbox Live members will be able to partake in Grand Theft Auto IV online multiplayer from 9 AM PST on February 17 to 11:59 PM PST on February 22.

Traditionally, Xbox Live multiplayer access is barred to those with free Silver accounts, restricted only to those that have paid for or redeemed a Gold-level membership.

Microsoft stressed that the promotion only applies to those playing Grand Theft Auto IV or the downlodable Lost and Damned expansion, which requires the GTA IV disc to play.

One of two promised Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable episodes for Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned hits on February 17, priced at $20.

Following the addition of streaming Netflix support to Xbox Live last year, Microsoft today announced that over one million users have since activated accounts to watch movies and television using the service.

The Netflix streaming video service launched alongside the New Xbox Experience on November 19. The program offers 12,000 streaming standard definition and several hundred HD videos to Xbox Live gold and Netflix subscribers.

Last month, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter predicted that the service would hit one million users sometime in 2009, calling the initiative a "gold mine" for Netflix.

The Xbox 360 has sold over 28 million units worldwide since its 2005 launch, manufacturer Microsoft announced today.

The Xbox 360's lead over Sony's rival PlayStation 3 hardware now exceeds 8 million units, the company claims, with the Xbox 360 outselling the PS3 in Europe by over 1 million. Microsoft's wording suggests the PlayStation 3 has now sold around 20 million units worldwide--in October, Sony revealed the the PS3 was then nearing 17 million.

Before the holiday season kicked off, Nintendo's Wii had sold 34.55 million units.

Microsoft also boasted the latest figures for Xbox Live, stating that the online service now has 17 million active members, recently hit a new record with 1.5 million users online concurrently, and has accumulated over $1 billion in revenue since November 2005.

Microsoft has secured the exclusive rights to distribute the second season of The Guild, a series of short internet shows centering around a group of MMO players.

The free, ad-supported second season of The Guild will premier tomorrow on Xbox Live, MSN and Zune. The first season is already available on Xbox Live.

The Guild star/creator/writer/producer Felicia Day--seen most recently in the web hit "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"--has retained intellectual property rights in the deal, while also picking up a licensing fee. Day was pursued by several media companies before finally settling with Microsoft.

In honor of Election Day, Microsoft has released the results from an Xbox Live poll taken in October.

Microsoft's official Gamerscore Blog published its results from Halloween weekend, and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has extended his lead over Republican John McCain to 53% to 33%, with 14% answering "Undecided/Other."

Today's numbers update polls from September which showed Democratic candidate Barack Obama ahead of Republican candidate John McCain by a 12-point margin.

The numbers do not coincide with major national polls, which show Obama leading by no more than 11 percentage points.

The Shacknews editorial staff once more wishes to implore all eligible American voters to go out and vote.

Gamers may soon be a little shielded from voice chat stupidity on Xbox Live, as Microsoft has been granted a patent for real-time censoring in voice communications.

Microsoft applied for a patent on an "automatic censoring filter" in 2004, according to Ars Technica. In the technology, speech-recognition software scans what's being said in real-time and distorts the audio stream if it becomes probable that obscene language is about to be used.

The gaming corner of the internet is quick to speculate that the technology will come to the profanity-laden Xbox Live, but an application in greater demand of the trick is television. Once brought to market, the technology is expected to be sold to television networks, who could rest easy knowing they're automatically avoiding fines by the FCC for airing indecent content.

Ars speculates that what satiates an easily offended American television audience could also be used by governments easily offended by politically-motivated speech.

In short, stopping 12-year-olds from screaming racial epithets during Halo 3 matches is the tip of the iceberg--and probably not the main reason--for Microsoft's patent. The science behind the tech, reproduced from the patent application, follows... Read more

Xbox Live is experiencing intermittent outages in the wake of an all-day planned downtime back on Monday.

"Users will not be able to connect or log into Xbox LIVE," reads the official Xbox.com support page. "We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," it continues.

Today's outage for Microsoft's online gaming service and marketplace adds to unexpected downtime that happened on Tuesday night.

The support page does not estimate how long the downtime will last.

Xbox Live will be going down for maintenance next Monday, September 29 at 2:00AM CDT, and the downtime could last up to 24 hours.

"As a result, Xbox LIVE and the 'My Xbox' section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode ... the remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions," wrote Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson.

"This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which will be available later this fall," added Hryb, in reference to the Xbox 360 interface overhaul due later on.

He stressed that the avatar-spawning update will not arrive when the maintenance is completed, so gamers have nothing to look forward to other than the resumption of service as usual.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in a poll of Xbox Live users performed by Microsoft.

Microsoft's official Gamerscore Blog reported nearly 100,000 participants in the poll, which was conducted through the Xbox 360's homepage for the Rock the Vote campaign. The results were as follows:

• Obama--Biden: 43%
• McCain--Palin: 31%
• Undecided: 13%
• Other: 13%

The results are not in line with major national polls, which show Obama and McCain running at a near statistical dead heat. Microsoft, however, touts the results as "[providing] insight into a unique subset of young engaged citizens."

The company also said that 55,000 voter registration forms have been requested in addition to 350,000 downloads of Rock the Vote-related content ranging from videos from party conventions to avatar Gamerpics supporting both candidates.

Microsoft Europe today announced a new program that will allow select members of the Xbox Live community to see upcoming films before their theatrical debut.

Known as the "Xbox Live Film Club," the initiative steams from a recent partnership with Paramount and will launch with a special sneak preview of Tropic Thunder, which hits the United Kingdom on September 19.

By following the entry guidelines on the official site, UK Xbox Live members can win the chance to see the film early. While Microsoft allows Xbox Live members to stream movies from the online Xbox Live Video Marketplace, winners will need to attend a real-life event instead of enjoying the unreleased flick from their living room.

Presently, the Film Club program is not available for Xbox Live members in North America, though Shacknews has contacted Microsoft for more details.

Despite Microsoft's past efforts to prevent Xbox Live account hijacking, the theft of Halo 3 multiplayer producer Joe Tung's account has pulled the issue back to the forefront.

The hijacking was not the result of sophisticated computer wizardry, but rather "social engineering," the act of creatively lying to customer service representatives to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. Xbox Live stores credit card information, and while hackers are unable to steal that information for their own use, they can make unauthorized purchases from a stolen account

Tung is far from alone, as account hijackings are not uncommon among players of Bungie's online behemoth Halo 3. He is not even the only Bungie employee to be a victim of such thieves. But his position makes his case the highest profile to date.

Microsoft claims it previously retrained customer service employees ... Read more

Rockstar's open world shooter Grand Theft Auto IV clocked in at number one on the charts in Xbox Live online activity, Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb's revealed on his blog.

For the week starting April 28, the title beat out Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Bungie's Halo 3, which clocked in at second and third, respectively. Rankings are based on the number of unique users playing online while connected to Xbox Live.

GTA 4's top ranking knocks Call of Duty 4 off of a solid three-month streak at number one in online activity. The last game to supplant Call of Duty 4 was Halo 3 back in early January, shortly after the holiday blitz of new users hit Microsoft's online gaming service.

Microsoft has corrected the Xbox Live Gamertags of confirmed cheaters, citing violations of the company's terms of use, Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb wrote on his blog today.

Accounts which Hyrb described as "the most serious offenders" were today stripped of their Gamerscore, resetting the total to zero. Moreover, those accounts will not be able to regain any previously obtained achievements—this does not, however, forbid the earning of future achievements in other games.

Violators have also been marked as cheaters on the Xbox.com community page, as evidenced in a sample provided by Hyrb. Infamous achievement hoarder StripClubDj, who was once lauded for being the first Xbox Live gamer to breach the 100,000 Gamerscore milestone, was among the marked accounts.

"Xbox Live remains committed to keeping the service free of cheating in order to maintain a fair and level playing field for everyone," Hyrb wrote.