LIVE Activity for week of 6/25

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (UU’s)
1 Gears of War
2 Forza Motorsport 2
3 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Vegas
4 Guitar Hero II
5 Call Of Duty 3
6 Oblivion
7 GRAW 2
8 Crackdown
9 Shadowrun Demo
10 Shadowrun

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1 Prince of Persia
2 Band of Bugs
3 UNO
4 Pac-Man C.E.
5 Carcassonne
6 Worms
7 Castlevania: SOTN
8 Mad Tracks
9 Soltrio Solitaire
10 TMNT 1989 Arcade

Original Xbox Top Live Games
1 Halo 2
2 Battlefield 2: MC
3 Counter-Strike
4 Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
5 Call of Duty 3
6 Madden NFL 07
7 Splinter Cell Chaos
8 Rainbow Six 3 BA
9 FIFA 07
10 Forza Motorsport

These lists are based on global unique users connected to Xbox Live or in the case of Arcade, full versions purchased this week. If the Xbox 360 list and the original Xbox list were combined, then Gears of War continues to be the top Xbox Live title. The arcade list is based on full versions purchased.

U.S. Video Marketplace top downloads for week of 6/25

Theme and Pictures: Tenchu Z

Canada Day 2007 Theme and Pictures

Eternal Sonata Trailer (HD)

Rainbow Six Vegas Black Pack Update (good news)

Ubi has send me the official word on the RSV Black Pack (which went MIA earlier this week) and it is good news:

‘Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Black Pack Downloadable Content for Xbox 360 Live was originally intended to be free content for the fans of Rainbow Six Vegas. We apologize for the error. All players who purchased the Black Pack will be reimbursed automatically.* The Black Pack will be posted Saturday June 30th and will be free of charge. Also, as a token of our appreciation for the Rainbow Six community, we are making the Red Pack free as of Friday July 6th as well. Thanks for playing and we hope you enjoy this free content.’

Make sure your account information is up to date so we can properly apply the credit!

As I understand it the content should go out after 0300 PT.

Edit: * All players who purchased the Black Pack will be reimbursed automatically within 8 to 10 weeks.

MLB 2K7 Olympic Stadium (Free)

Celebrate the Red White and Blue

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/events/redwhiteandbluedrago n/default.htm

Anyone pick up an iPhone today?

Trailer: Official Trailer - NCAA Football 08

Name: Official Trailer - NCAA Football 08
Price: Free
Availability: Canada and the U.S.
Dash Details: Check out the official launch trailer for NCAA Football 08 - the most complete college football game ever! In stores July 17th. Visit ncaafootball08.com for more details.

My new HD capture card

A couple people have asked what I am using to get Hi Def screenshots like these. In the couple of days I have had it, my new Black Magic Design Intensity Pro is working great. I currently have the Xbox 360 Elite in my office connected to this card via HDMI, and I am able to grab screenshots like the ones I did for the GTA Theme. Although the picture on the website does not show it, the Pro card has component in/out (via a breakout cable) as well as HDMI in and out. Once you figure out the quirks of the install (like changing the input via the control panel  – who knew it installed a control panel applet since the support docs don’t mention it!) it works great. I  tried installing it on my Mac, but I did not have the right card slot (time for a new Mac?) so I dropped it in my Vista Ultimate machine (yes they have Vista drivers) and it’s been solid.

I will say this though, you need an extremly high end PC to do motion HD video capture. I don’t recommend you try and play your Xbox 360 using this card and previewing it on your PC. There is a tiny bit of lag…just enough to screw you up when you try to play. For screenshots, it works great.

[BlackMagic Design Intensity Pro card]

GTA IV - Trailer 2 'Looking for that special...'

The following ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ content is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace:

Name: Trailer 2: Looking For That Special Someone (HD)
Price: Free
Availability: Not available in Asia or Mexico
Dash Details: The hugely anticipated, new installment in the ground-breaking Grand Theft Auto series is set to arrive in October 2007. Watch the second HD trailer now. Grand Theft Auto IV is now finally on the horizon.
Size: 46.3 MB (approx.)

Not near your Xbox 360? You can grab the HD trailer from Xbox.com as well.

Theme: GTA IV Theme 1

Name: GTA IV Theme 1
Price: Free
Availability: Not available in Asia or Mexico
Dash Details: The hugely anticipated, new installment in the ground-breaking Grand Theft Auto series is set to arrive in October 2007.

Also, today at 10am PT the new GTA IV trailer will hit Marketplace…I’ll post when that is available.

Edit: I added a couple of theme screenshots to my Flickr account. (this also gave me a good excuse to try me new HD capture card)

Trailer: The Bigs

Name: The Bigs Trailer
Price: Free
Availability: Canada and the U.S.
Dash Details: Check out the epic arcade action baseball at its best with the Bigs™ official trailer!

Major Nelson's Dedicated G4W LIVE Server

As promised, I have set up a dedicated server for some LIVE enabled Games for Windows. I figured this would be a good way for blog readers to meet each other on LIVE for some gaming and exchange gamertags. Using the creative gamertag of Hryb (which I needed to grab anyway) I was able to borrow a high end gaming rig, throw Vista Ultimate on it, install Halo 2 Vista and we’re good to go. Currently, the server is using the default H2V playlist, which is kind of lame, but I did not have time to tweak any of the game modes today. I am open to anyone who may want to create a custom H2V playlist and email it to me. If it’s any good, I’ll load it up for everyone to enjoy. Also, don’t bother sending a playlist with any Shotty Sniper modes. ;)

The server will not be up all the time, as I use that PC for other things. I am only running one server at a time, so hit my servers profile page and check the ‘Current Status’ to see if I am online, and what game I am serving. Right now, it will be either Halo2 Vista or Shadowrun.

Don’t send any friends request to that ‘tag, as I am not accepting any friends on that ‘tag there nor will I read any of the messages you send to it. This ‘tag is strictly for running a server for the community.

Shadowrun fans: tomorrow I’ll rotate in a Shadowrun dedicated server

Have fun and I’ll see you in there.

Marketplace roundup for June 27, 2007

In addition to the Marketplace content that went live earlier today, the following content is now available as well.

Please check the Xbox 360 Marketplace for additional details: