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Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Now that IFA is behind us, the consumer electronics world is turning its attention to Denver, Colorado to see what CEDIA has to offer. We’re expecting hordes of new HDTVs, projectors, speakers, AV receivers and even THX-certified soundproof doors (yes, really), but it never fails that at least something on the show floor completely takes us by surprise. We’ve touched down here in the Mile High City to bring you up-to-the-minute updates, and for the most obsessive coverage, be sure to point your browsers to Engadget HD for the next few days.

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Gaming

It wasn’t all Zune gaming at Microsoft’s GDC keynote this morning — a lot of time was spent discussing Community Games, the new official name for XNA-based games. Amateur devs will get “creator identities” along with their gamertags, and Live members can rate, grade, and discuss your efforts. Of course, as we’ve heard, games can move from the 360 to PCs to second-gen Zunes, which is definitely pretty cool, but it’ll be interesting to see what that means for devs who want to try and take advantage of the 360’s horsepower — will they be restrict their code to a specific platform? While we wait for those answers, it looks like we’ll be able to get a taste of what Community Games have to offer right away — Microsoft announced that the first seven XNA-based games are available immediately, with an open beta to begin in spring and full-on launch by the end of the year. List of games after the jump — but what are you doing reading this when you could be playing?

Update: We just tried downloading RocketBall and the process is totally different than you’d expect. First you have to download the XNA Launcher, which is under New Arrivals in the Marketplace blade — but you don’t need a membership, so skip that, and the XNA ad that displays points you to the wrong thing, so ignore that as well. Then head over to the Games blade and select Games Library, but don’t open the Launcher, cause it’ll just kick you out. Instead, press Y to view the list of games and download one. So far the “YouTube of games” seems a bit convoluted — hopefully the next Dashboard update makes this all a bit simpler.Continue reading First Xbox 360 Community Games to hit Live “immediately”

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Gaming

Of all the weeks to have a major outage of your online gaming service, the holiday and vacation weeks of Christmas and New Years may have to be the worst — which Microsoft has learned all to well over the last ten days. We know you’ve heard plenty about it here at Engadget — but that’s really only because Xbox Live has had such a solid track record over the years, and we’re all just as surprised as you. But while it’s perfectly clear users have been seeing these issues, it’s still unclear exactly how “intermittent” those issues really are. Care to let us know how you’ve fared in our wholly unscientific poll?

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Source: Ryan Block

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Filed under: Gaming

After treading deeply into some crazy Orwellian statusbox doublespeak, it looks like Xbox Live is finally up and running with no lingering issues or caveats. According to Major Nelson, the entire Live team has been working “day and night” to get things sorted, and while we appreciate their efforts over the holidays, we’re still of the opinion that Live members should be getting a free week or month — you gotta deliver when you run a paid service.

Update: Now it’s down again! Status message gives the old line about intermittent issues and engineers working on fixes. Ugh, could the timing on these outages be any worse?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Gaming

We’re starting to think Xbox Live’s holiday strategy was modeled after Newtonian physics: what goes up must come down. Although the Live support site shows the service as being “up and running”, apparently users are still experiencing intermittent issues, sometimes more dramatic than those officially listed. We don’t know about you, but even though only some of us on we were able to get on, even they have been seeing a lot of stalling and freezing — and the unlucky ones are just completely shut out of Live. How are things going out there? Any XBL issues of which to speak?

P.S. -Microsoft, congrats on the great holiday season. You obviously sold a TON of Xbox 360s and Live service contracts. Now be a doll. Give everyone a week (or, say, a month) of free Live service for the ugliness over vacation, ok? These people paid for their service when the other guys offer it up for free.

Read - Live support site: still having problems
Read - Our post about problems from last weekend
Read - Our other post about outages on Christmas day

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Source: Ryan Block

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