Goodbye, Xbox Live Marketplace. Hello, Xbox Games Store.
Microsoft officially killed off the former this past Friday, rebranding it to the latter in an effort to simplify the company's multiple platforms well in advance of its big console launch later this year.
"That's right, [Xbox Live Marketplace] is now called the Xbox Games Store, and will sit alongside the Xbox Music Store and Xbox Video Store. This is to make it easier for consumers to find content both on Xbox 360 today and Xbox One when it launches in November," said an unnamed Microsoft representative in an interview with Joystiq's Sinan Kubba.
Otherwise, it's almost the same ol' online store that gamers should be used to interacting with at this point. What's a little different, as of this week, is that those looking to purchase media, games, add-ons, or any of the other heaps of digital offerings found on the store will no longer find themselves chained to Microsoft's antiquated "points" system.
The company officially sacked "points" in an Xbox 360 update last Monday. All digital purchases hereafter will use standard dollars and cents for the transaction, instead of forcing gamers to buy a replacement currency in annoyingly misconfigured chunks of point blocks.
Anyone who had points attached to their account as of Monday will now find that their digital currency has been converted into the cash equivalent. As an added bonus, Microsoft won't be taxing any purchases that one makes with this converted cash. But don't dawdle ? you'll only have until June 1 of 2015 to spend your supply.
If you happen to be hoarding physical Microsoft points cards ? for whatever reason ? Microsoft plans to continue accepting these points codes "until further notice." Of course, you won't actually get points; just converted currency.
All of these changes come well in advance of the November launch date of Microsoft's big successor to the Xbox 360, the brand-new Xbox One console. And with the new console comes a new focusing on "games" within Microsoft's digital store. Instead of splitting games into various channels based on their type ? indie games, Xbox live Arcade games, retail games, et cetera ? Microsoft now plans to list games as-is. Just "games."
"We don't make a distinction between whether a game is a 50-hour RPG epic or whether it is a puzzle game or whether it is something that fits halfway between the two," said Microsoft corporate vice president Phil Harrison in an interview with Eurogamer earlier this year.
Additionally, Microsoft's recently announced ID@Xbox program will allow independent game developers to self-publish on the Xbox marketplace. Er. Xbox Games Store.
No comments:
Post a Comment