Last, but certainly not least, is Xbox 360's proposed online economy, which will encompass a major aspect of Xbox Live next generation. Built on the premise of microtransactions, Live subscribers will be able to spend points to purchase additional content for games from publishers and other gamers. You can accumulate points, essentially currency from your Xbox Live wallet, by buying cards from retail outlets (e.g., a 10,000 point card), or directly online by charging it to your credit card. Either way, you trade real money for play money on Xbox Live, and spend it on stuff like game demos, soundtracks, Gamer Card icons, and extra goods for your favorite games. But the one thing you absolutely cannot do is redeem these points back into cash.
Allard is enthusiastic about microtransactions because it's a complex feature that developers can take advantage of, but not have to directly worry about coding implementation. "We've got the marketplace browser built into the guide," he tells us. "So check it, you pause Halo 3, you press the Xbox 360 button, boom, up comes the guide, you go and you say, oh, there's a [Perfect Dark Zero] download that just came on, great. You go pay to download the thing and you're downloading in the background, boom, you go back to Halo and you finish up your game. The thing's going in the background. Multi-core, system's always on, online, and connected." More than any hardware innovation, Xbox 360's online services truly define next-generation gaming. Microsoft, it seems, has truly come full circle.
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