All of my good friends in places beyond the United States will be pleased to know that the Video Marketplace is set to debut in your region on December 11th. Yay for you! A little taste of Hollywood via your Xbox 360 is finally here for the world. The countries include the fine folks in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany and Canada. (no word on Holland)
Here is a list of possible titles for the debut.
300
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Zodiac
The Matrix,
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Reloaded
Ocean’s Eleven
The Perfect Storm,
Swordfish
Three Kings
Training Day
The Fugitive
Risky Business
Space Cowboys
Eyes Wide Shut
Analyze This
Demolition Man
Eraser
Executive Decision
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Mars Attacks!
Clash of the titans
Superman III
Dead Calm
*Titles may be subject to change.
Just when you think a caption is the only way to score a copy of Crackdown, in comes Warner Bros. and Microsoft with another way! Microsoft is teaming up with Warner Bros. to bring gamers a sneak peek at the new movie 300, releasing March 9th nationwide. There are five (5) videos from the movie out for download in the Xbox Live Video Marketplace that contain five (5) codes that you must enter for a chance to win Crackdown. How many will win? You guessed it…300 lucky gamers will each win a copy of the game!
Download the videos, watch the clips, get the codes and enter them at www.300-crackdown.com. Just fill out the contest registration form with the codes and you’re done. Once registered, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a chance to win one of 300 copies of Crackdown. The contest begins now, and goes through Mar 19.
I’m extremely pumped for this movie! For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer, head over to the official 300 movie site now. The movie is directed by Zach Snyder and based on a comic by Frank Miller of Sin City fame. It looks incredible. Visually, it’s just stunning. I’m happy to see Microsoft partner up with this movie! There’s an HBO first look airing on it as well.
Enough mumbo jumbo…head out to the Video Marketplace and get those 5 codes! (thx for the director update Jane)
I know many of you have been wondering about the Video Marketplace in other places besides the US. Many of you have gone to great lengths trying to enjoy what the Video Marketplace has to offer while wondering why it’s not in your local region.
Well the VM team has listed a few reasons as to why the decision was made to currently have it available in the US only. I wanted to share those reasons so that you all can hopefully understand that some decisions are more complex than you think.
Here are a few of the reasons listed here on the Xbox.com message boards:
-While MSFT is a big company, but we don’t have unlimited resources to do whatever we want, we have to prioritize where and how we do things.
-The US is the biggest market, I think you would all agree that makes it a priority
-Most US content that is licensed digitially is produced and distributed by the same company - think about South Park - Comedy Central produces and distributes it. This makes it MUCH easier to license it because it is the same company and they aren’t going to fight about who gets the proceeds from the digital sale.
-Almost all US content distributed abroad is distributed by local companies that are seperate from the producing company, increasing the complexities and basically requiring that the producer and the internatioanl distributor amend their deal before they can do something with us.
-Securing local content would deal with that, but then you have the fact that we only have so many people working on this and the time and resources it takes to do 1 deal with a US partner for 700 hours of content for the US market is about the same as it would take to do a deal with a local partner with probably less content for a much smaller market - so the math clearly points you to focusing on US first.
-Lastly, there are more infrastructure requirements you need to have in place to do international well and we felt it better to get everything straight in the US before we add complexity with other markets and languages.
It makes sense to me. I hope it helps those of you in Canada, UK and other markets understand why it’s not currently available.
For those of you not connected to Xbox Live or broadband etc, I put together a quick walkthrough of how to access the Video Marketplace as well as some other navigating tips. I also want to note that for everyone experiencing issues, the Video Marketplace team is actively responding to several issues in the Xbox.com message boards. They’re working to get things situated for everyone.
I can imagine the thousands and thousands of people trying out the new feature so I may just wait until the dust settles before I head out to get Poseidon. Anyway, for those interested, head down below for the link to the walkthrough.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deZGOibrGow]
Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll try to track down any answers that you may not have been able to come across from the message boards.
I know I mentioned this already but it deserves its own highlight so to speak. Major Nelson just revealed the news and the Xbox Live Video Marketplace is now officially live! I know you want the pricing details and I’ll post them now but be sure to hit up Elle’s look into the Video Marketplace which tells you some much needed information concerning Usage Rights etc.
Pricing Summary
TV Content Standard - 160 Microsoft Points
TV Content HD - 240 Microsoft Points
Library Movies Standard - 240 Microsoft Points
Library Movies HD - 360 Microsoft Points
New Movies Standard - 320 Microsoft Points
New Movies HD - 480 Microsoft Points
*After purchasing a high definition TV show or movie, gamers can download the standard definition version at no additional charge.
How do I get to Video Marketplace?
To access Video Marketplace, sign in to Xbox Live, then:
On the Media blade, select Video Marketplace, or
On the Xbox Live blade, select Xbox Live Marketplace, Media and Entertainment.
Do I have to wait for my download to complete before watching it?
No. You can start watching some videos before they have finished downloading. After starting a video download, watch for a notification that says the video is ready to play, then press the Xbox Guide button on your controller. If you miss the notification, select your partially downloaded video from your active download list or from the video area on the Media blade. Fast forward, reverse, and skip can’t be used until the video has finished downloading. All playback commands are supported after the content has been completely downloaded.
Usage Rights
You can download two kinds of content from Video Marketplace: Purchase and rental. What is now called purchase is pretty much what you’re already used to. You download the video and you can view it on your console with any profile. In addition, you can download and view any video on another console as long as you’re signed in to Xbox Live®with the profile you originally downloaded it with. Most of the time you’ll see a “does not expire” tag when you check the info for this kind of video.
FAQs on the new Video Marketplace are already up within the community. I’ve been waiting for this. I hope the HD movie selection is good!
