August 17th 2009 1:35 pm PT

What about today’s deal of the week?

Halo 3 Splatter Premium Theme for 160 points. *yawn*

I cannot wait to get this game, all the reviews point to awsome!

Will try this for sure, but i dislike the 1200 MS PT trend on these new xbla titles.

I hope that means Bubble Bobble Neo will launch next week I´m waiting it since it launched on japanese marketplace.

I think this week´s deal is the first dlc content from GTAIV for 1200 points.

deal of the week is?

Looks awesome, cannot wait for this one. I think it will make up for the piss poor Teenage Mutant Turds.

If the deal of the week really is a discounted theme, it could be the lamest one yet. I don’t blame you Larry, if you don’t post that one, lol.

Will be picking up Shadow Complex for sure. Looks great.

Major mentioned in the show that the Deal of The Week is a Halo 3 Premium Theme for 160 MSP. MAN I’M ALL OVER THAT!

The deal of the week is a damn theme?? What a F’N joke.

explains the fear about making the post. Can’t wait til the boards blow up on this one

I’m hoping bubble bobble neo is next week. I just hope they haven’t used too much of the wii code and kept the horrid slowed down jump mechanic.

Looking forward to Shadow Complex. Not looking forward to paying $15 AGAIN for a freaking arcade game. At least this one looks like it’s worth it.

major – can you comment on why the Arcade 360 is going up by £30 in the UK,AND all the arcade games being taken out?…some say its the weak pound,but others say the pound is stronger than it was this time last year,…but even if the pound is weaker .. £30!!!..and you are taking out the arcade games as well????…c’mon
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were you guys feeling left out because Activision have jumped on us as well?
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not doing yourself any favours if tomorrows rumours are right in the SONY camp

instant purchase even w/o downloading demoversion. wait since e3 for this game.

Shadow Complex has already received some fantastic review scores. Looking forward to trying it out!

People shouldn’t complain about $15 XBLA games.

They should complain about the QUALITY of unworthy $15 XBLA games.

Basically, XBLA games should be priced accordingly. So Turtles for $15 would’ve definitely been too much, but Shadow Complex at $15 is a steal.

The Deal of the Week for The Lost and Damned is next week (cut to 1200 points) and then after that, Penny Arcade Episode 2 will get a price cut like the first one got.

I’m definitely getting this one, even though 1200 ms points seems to high should be 800.

Awesome! I have been waiting for this.

Here you can find over 130 screenshots of Shadow Complex… http://pressakey.com/gameinfos,321,screenshots,1,,Shadow-Complex,.html

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/dealoftheweek/

It is the Halo Theme. The old one.
=(
Might get Shadow Complex if I like the demo

Cannot wait!
Should be one of the best XBLA games.
Instant buy, screw the demo.

Lol, no post about the “deal” of the week because even Major is ashamed of it?
Seriously, it’s like they’re mocking us because we complain about “deals” on add-ons… a theme… -_-
And next week… another add-on… so lame…

it’s already out?

I now eagerly await deals of the week for gamerpictures and avatar accessories :/

Shadow Complex is gonna be a blast, can’t wait for Wednesday.

What is the avatar reward for Splosion man? So far I only unlock a gamer picture and a premium theme…

What’s the reward for my avatar?

To those wondering about “It’s already out?” — To properly equipped press and some Microsoft executives it is. The “retail” build is not out yet, but I presume that will be along on Wednesday as is usually the case for XBLA releases. I’m very much looking forward to this one!
And since there is no proper topic/post for this, I want to protest this week’s deal. 36 percent off a dashboard theme is frankly insulting and I reject it in the strongest possible terms. If you’re going to offer discounts on such… niche content as this, please expand your offerings to have a Deal on each category of item each week. That is, one Game, one DLC Pack, one Theme, etc. each week. That, I could live with!

@Lites

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showpost.php?p=2234676&postcount=54

I emailed Twisted Pixel and got this reply a few days ago:

Regarding the avatar, you know what they say, good things come to those who wait. We know you’re excited for in-game awardables and so are we! Through no fault of our own, we’re all going to have to wait a little bit longer but Splosion Man will still be the first game to support this exciting new feature. Stay tuned (and thank your Avatar for their patience!)

Great way to end the summer of arcade. I hope this game is as good as it is made out to be. It sure looks fantastic, and I can’t wait to try it.

I will be online waiting for this one to come out.

it’s out?

Report: Xbox 360 Failure Rate Reaches 54%
New survey says Microsoft’s Red Ring of Death contines to rise.
by Jim Reilly

August 17, 2009 – If your Xbox 360 hasn’t broken down yet or suffered from the dreaded red ring of death, then consider yourself pretty lucky.

A new survey published in Game Informer’s print edition indicates the Xbox 360 failure rate has climbed to a shocking 54.2%. The magazine surveyed nearly 5000 readers, asking them about their experience dealing with broken consoles.

Here are their findings:

Console failure rate

Xbox 360 – 54.2%
Playstation 3 – 10.6%
Wii – 6.8%

Percentage of console owners who suffered a second hardware failure after the original repair.

Xbox 360 – 41.2%
Playstation 3 – 14.7%
Wii – 11%

Percentage of people who rate their customer service experience “very helpful”

Nintendo – 56.1%
Sony – 51.1%
Microsoft – 37.7%

Percentage of respondents whose friends have had console hardware failures.

Xbox 360 – 69.9%
Playstation 3 – 12.4%
Wii – 6%

The magazine also makes a few notes about their results:

The reason the Wii has the lowest hardware failure rate could be because console is played the least of the three. 41.4% of Wii owners surveyed said they play the console less than one hour a day, meanwhile the majority of Xbox 360 (40.3%) and Playstation 3 (37%) owners say they play their console on an average of three to five hours day.

Also, only 3.8% of respondents said they’d never buy another Xbox system because of the failure rates.

How have your experiences been?

@sharrock ~ uuummmm those number are unreliable when you actually look at the number of Gold members that are currently online. The percentage changes with the amount of people you survey. So I highly doubt those are close to the real numbers. But actually that was very informative..

I wont buy this game because I really dislike gears of war and the unreal engine, and won’t support anything that uses them. Wouldn’t even play this trash if it was free

@lites

Are you an idiot? The percentages are percentages of the 5000 people surveyed, not percentages of the entire populaion. But if you know anything about statistics, you would know that the sample percent should be fairly close to the global percent (although maybe not in this case since the sample was readers of a game magazine). Nevertheless, failure rates are high, and Microsoft repairs suck balls. We don’t need stats or surveys to tell us that!!

If any of you follow @Microsoft_Xbox on Twitter, they also say that the “Deal of the Weak” is Halo Splatter Spree Theme for 160 points…36% off. After the complaints about last week’s “Deal”, I’m not sure what to think now. I couldn’t even view the theme if I wanted it…just had to send my Elite in for repairs today. Got two blinking red lights…from overheating.

Can’t wait for this.

Reviews so far – http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/shadowcomplex

Maybe the deal of the week is on its way out. Please, that would be the greatest news.

@x8Sharrock3x
I must extremely lucky because I own three of them and never had a problem. I just wish that the people who got the RROD multiple times would take the hint and wouldn’t come back but, no such luck with that.

In all My family, three of us, have had seven 360 red light us so far. in less then two years.
I have never had any problems with my PS3, but to be fair the ps3 is played very little other then blu-ray movies.

I remember that Major Nelson was going to forward our complaints of the DOTW to the department responsible. Looks like this week DOTW was the response.

But anyways, Shadow Complex is an instabuy for me.

CARNAGE RULES, what exactly do you mean with “I just wish that the people who got the RROD multiple times would take the hint and wouldn’t come back but, no such luck with that.”? It sounds like you think people who’ve had the 3 red lights should stop getting repairs or replace their busted consoles? What on earth makes you think that way? Is it some kind of superiority complex because you’ve had a lot of luck with none of your 360′s dieing on you?

If my current 360 (a refurb, my 3rd console after 1 gave the 3 red lights and one suffered from fatal DVD drive failure) dies I’ll buy a new arcade and just throw this one away as it won’t have warranty for much longer.

The arcade game is probably going to be good, deal of the week is a new low, UK Arcade SKU price increase is out of order, Carnage Rules is a bad troll, Marketplace prices are overally too high, Dustin Krieger says “sweat” a lot, the manufacture quality of the Xbox 360 is poor, children should not be on Live, the sun rises in the morning, and the second and third Matrix films weren’t as good as the first one.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse. M$ does it again a new low.

Darn I had a good comment locked and loaded for the deal of the week post it was a doozy!

I’m not trolling. I’m just an xbox 360 owner that doesn’t B!tch and complain like you guys. oops, I meant B1tches.

Oh sweet, this comes out Wednesday.
I’m one that will be getting this.

What is up with all these crap deals of the weeks? No one wants themes major nelson. get something people will actually buy you idiot.

I beg to differ on all the complaints on the theme as a deal of the week . I believe it is a nice change for once. I also appreciate the fact they chose a winner such as halo3 , thank you.

Oh well, the Deals can’t be a winner every week, right? But yeah I guess they figured that with a game as popular as Halo 3, there’d be enough suckers, I mean fans buying a theme to make it worth it. At least next week we start getting actual GAME Deals again, with GTA IV’s The Lost & Damned (so good and packed with content that it deserves to be called something better than an “add-on”) on sale for 1200 points, and Penny Arcade Episode 2 on sale for 800 after that.

@metallicorphan
All this stuff will be announced on Wednesday, I don’t think he’ll be able to comment on anything until then. But chances are, it’s because the arcade will have the rumoured internal memory increase. With all the focus on downloadable content/games and things like Forza needing an install for half the content, it makes sense to give the Arcade model more memory.

I also don’t think anyone’s going to jump into the Playstation camp over this. The slim line pricing has already been leaked, and it’s no cheaper than current models (£270 for a 40gb) and the PSP Go has been confirmed to be £250. So no thanks.

Major, Care to comment on Eurogamer’s preview of the gamescon event

“Microsoft isn’t billing its gamescom conference as a massive, platform-level event the way that Sony is, with senior personnel telling Eurogamer that they regard the Cologne event as a European show and won’t be attending in force.”

I think I feel sick… I’m coming down with something…. I think… its.. its SHADOW COMPLEX! Looking for to the remedy with coming Wed, Aug 19!

@WinterSnowblind
If a NetBook can be so slim and a MacBook can be solid and small, WHY can’t a console? Sony is not listening to its loyal followers nor its current users. Backwards compatibility would be a major push for the system. Most see it as “Ooh, let’s put that on the PSN for download, but not release compatibility to the actual original CD!” Hello, there are pawnshops, ebay, etc) that pass on systems that will play those CDs. My point, I WOULD have a PS3 permanently in my house if I could play ALL (not some) of my PS1 titles on the PS3. My Xbox360 makes me happy whether I’m playing a game, watching a movie or just working on my computer and talking to a friend online. I’m not saying which system is best, but I know which best suits me for use. My poor DSi rarely gets powered up since my iPod Touch’s arrival. Sony’s Slimline PS3 is welcomed, but until backwards compatibility is the norm for the system or God of War 3 is released; Xbox360 – 80% Other – 20% (PS1, PS2, Wii, DSi, iPod Touch), I’ll let things remain as they are… Scribblenauts!

@MACP. Just because a gamer likes the deal of the week as a theme doesn’t make them a sucker . Get over it.

@ II W4RLORD II: Sounds like you were one of them. lol

Man, this needs to come out now.

its already out since 10 o’clock gmt+1 and its really really awesome, one of the top 3 xbla title up to date for sure.

Major, while we appreciate the dashboard update. When is Microsoft going to acknowledge that the new update is bricking consoles left, right & centre? Someone needs to check the Xbox forums & see the problems that are going on as it’s getting out of hand.

@MACP. No, but in some strange way I thought that if I got the splatter spree theme that it would help me get the splatter spree achievement that I have been desperately working for on and off for the last year. Rumor had it that is what the theme is, i’ve been to busy to even check yet this week. If that’s what it is I will probably buy it so it pisses me off enough that I will eventually get that achievement. So yeah I guess I might be one of the suckers that buys it.

@ II W4RLORD II: I certainly hope that Bungie didn’t actually make an achievement that requires having a theme. That’d be a pretty sleazy move on their part if that were true.

@MACP. Well , I hope not either ,lol, that would be pretty bad. No, like I said I will use the theme as motivation for myself to get the achievement by the theme pissing me off just thinking about. That’s the main reason I will buy this theme, i’m glad it’s on sale. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the attempt by XBL to change up the weekly deals a bit though.