Jerome's TOTs

It’s not much, but it’s always nice to get a gift. Since I’ve been a member of XBox Live since it started (I was even in the beta), I received a little gift of 500 Microsoft points this morning in my Inbox.

It’s the thought that counts!

One of the neat features of Halo 3 is that it takes a movie of your campaign or multiplayer sessions. By going to the Halo 3 theater, you can edit and make some movies and/or take snapshots. You can download your snapshots from the Bungie Halo 3 Web site.

Here are a few snapshots I took of two new cool weapons.

The Flamethrower

The Gravity Hammer

Following the $50 (USD) price cut in the states, Canadians will get a $100 (CAD) price cut for the Core and Premium consoles and a $50 price cut for the Elite. Prices will be effective on August 8, 2007. So, for the Premium, instead of paying $499 you will be paying $399.

Why the price $100 price cut when American only got a $50 reduction. Well, with the Canadian dollar almost at par, it seems like an adjustment for our currency’s strength which wasn’t reflected previously. Also, with the PS3 at $549, Microsoft had to make the pricing more attractive with the new Madden game coming out soon.

Financially speaking, it’s the time to buy the XBox 360 if you were on the fence for a purchase.

However, you might want to wait to pick one up in September to have a better chance of scoring a newer version with the 65 nm chip, which should reduces the risk of a hardware failure. Microsoft recently extended their warranty for the infamous Red Ring of Death problem to 3 years from the date of purchase for this problem. Because of this, in the event of a failure, you are in good hands, but you could be XBox 360-less for a few weeks. This weekend, I was victim of the RRoD. Since I had an extended warranty at Future Shop, I was able to make a deal with the manager to purchase a new XBox 360 and be able to get a refund even if the repair take more than 30 days. I was RRoDed and I’m still gaming!

Source: XBox Fanboy

This just in!

I was watching live Microsoft’s E3 2007 conference and they just announced that XBox Live Video Marketplace for the XBox 360 is going global and will be available for Canada and Europe.

It will be arriving in Canada by end of the year 2007, so Canadians will now be able to enjoy downloadable TV shows and movies, including a good selection of HDTV content. My source was right that it would arrive soon.

It seems that in their live blogging of the event, Engadget did not think it was important enough to mention this.

In any case, the announcement is made even more important by the face that Apple’s iTunes Store, which has been around for much longer than XBox Live Video Marketplace, does not yet offer downloadable TV shows and movie episodes in Canada.

EDIT 2007-07-11, 8:23 AM: Some mention in the Gamerscore Blog.

EDIT 2007-07-11, 9:13 AM: XBox 360 Fanboy made it a news story.

Microsoft recently launched the Microsoft Mediaroom Web site their just renamed IPTV  initiative. A video presentation of the service is available on the site.

Bell Canada has been known to test Microsoft’s IPTV solution for a while now. With Microsoft’s Mediaroom new Web site launch, we can pretty much confirm that Bell will offer the service.

One thing that excites me about the Mediaroom, is the possibility to use the XBox 360 as a set-top box for television and it becomes the ultimate entertainment convergence device. So, if you have both a XBox 360 and an HDTV decoder, you can say goodbye to the need for an HDTV decoder (I’m glad I rent these things).  The wife should be happy with the removal of one electronic device from the entertainment center (or, if you are like me, it makes more place for another device).

Presently, no information has been posted on Bell Canada’s about their support for Microsoft Mediaroom.  When contacted, a Bell Canada representative could only say that the launch date for this new service has not yet been determined.