Posted 11/12/09 at 08:30:30 AM by Paul Lilly

Director of Programming for Xbox Live Larry Hryb (better known as Major Nelson) is a few weeks late on this one, but we still give him props for a pretty hilarious Achievement issued to Microsoft: Shipped Windows 7. Unlocking the novelty Achievement adds a billion points to Microsoft's Gamerscore (even if Apple gets the assist).

"We've been a little busy around the Xbox offices getting ready for the Facebook, Twitter, Last.FM, and Zune Video marketplace release coming up. We did, however, wanted to recognize the occasion the best way we know how: with an Achievement! We had a banner made up for everyone on the LIVE team to sign, then we hung it up in the lobby of the main Windows building," Hryb wrote on his blog.

Well played, Major Nelson.

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Posted 10/19/09 at 11:15:55 AM by Paul Lilly

Here's some potentially bad news for Xbox 360 console gamers - according to market analyst Michael Pachter, the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription will shoot up to $100 per year, perhaps as early as 2011. What the hell?

"You can't hook into Xbox LIve Gold if he's playing on a PC," Pachter said on how Microsoft seemingly abandoned the PC as a gaming platform. "That's the other problem - you really want to hook every gamer who has a 360, you want them to buy all their games on 360, play everything multiplayer, pay you 50 bucks a year so that, in a couple of years, it's a 100 bucks a year."

While the numbers might be up for debate, Pachter seems convinced that Gold subscription prices are definitely on the rise. But is he off his rocker?

Current Gold level subs run $50 per year, or half of where Pacther predicts pricing is headed towards. In return, gamers get access to online multiplayer gaming, the ability to stream Netflix movies to your console (provided you're also a Netflix subscriber), and a few other odds and ends. Minus a few proprietary features, it's all stuff you can do on the PC for free, so it would be a tough sell to up and double the price of a sub in a 24-month time span.

Would you pay $100 for an Xbox Live Gold subscription? Hit the jump and sound off!

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Posted 02/13/09 at 02:32:09 PM by Andy Salisbury

It looks like everyone’s favorite online DVD rental service has seen 6 percent growth in just one month, and they’re now boasting over 10 million subscribers.

While many of these subscribers remain the average, web-queue using type, a significant portion of the newcomers are thanks to Xbox Live. To date, over one million people have downloaded the Xbox Live client, allowing the online streaming service to take huge prescient, and bringing in a mighty profit.

This number is expected to grow from here to 10.1-10.3 million subscribers by the end of Q1 of this year, and all the way up to 10.6-11.3 million by the end of this fiscal year.

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Posted 12/16/08 at 11:00:00 AM by Alex Castle

In the Holiday 2008 issue of Maximum PC we published a list called “9 Things Microsoft Got Right.” It was a lovely list, of course, but thanks to the space limitations of the print magazine we weren’t able to go into much detail about each of the items on it. We decided that the topic was interesting enough that it deserved more than that, so we’ve rewritten it for the web, with more information and analysis.

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Posted 04/16/08 at 05:00:50 PM by Michael Brown & Will Smith

It turns out that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is good for more than just playing games and streaming the occasional transcoded video file. Indeed, the game console can also be a source of movie and TV-episode downloads using Microsoft’s online store, Xbox 360 Marketplace.

Click Read More for more. 

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Posted 01/24/08 at 06:57:34 PM by Will Smith

Games for Windows Live is an embarassment, it's time for Microsoft to embrace the community platform on the PC that works: Steam

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Posted 06/11/07 at 05:24:16 PM by Will Smith

Common VPN software can keep you from logging into your Live account from your PC. Will Smith tells you how to remove it

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