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Xbox Live was announced at E3 2002. It was first shown on the E3 show floor with the game Unreal Championship. It was a revolutionary service offering voice chat, friend lists and user " gamertags" that were consistent across all games. Xbox Live launched in November of the same year without many of the key features but quickly evolved into the premier online service. In just 2 years, Xbox Live reached 1 million subscribers. By the service's fifth year anniversary in 2007, Xbox Live has reached 8 million subscribers. Most recently in May 2008, Xbox Live reached 12 million subscribers.
Xbox Live Gold costs $50 a year and allows you to use all of the features of the service. Gold members can usually play demos and enter betas a few days earlier than Silver members. New Xboxes come with a 1-month free trial of Gold, and many games also come with shorter free trials.
Microsoft's online gaming service. Xbox Live has two subscription plans: Silver, which is free, and Gold, which is subscriptions based.
How it started
Xbox Live was announced at E3 2002. It was first shown on the E3 show floor with the game Unreal Championship. It was a revolutionary service offering voice chat, friend lists and user " gamertags" that were consistent across all games. Xbox Live launched in November of the same year without many of the key features but quickly evolved into the premier online service. In just 2 years, Xbox Live reached 1 million subscribers. By the service's fifth year anniversary in 2007, Xbox Live has reached 8 million subscribers. Most recently in May 2008, Xbox Live reached 12 million subscribers.
Development
J Allard was in charge of the development team on Xbox Live and many of Xbox Live's features were his ideas. J Allard fought hard to make sure each Xbox shipped with an ethernet port on it. That was a unusual idea at the time because broadband was not as popular in 2001 as it is today. Also originally Xbox Live was going to display each players e-mail address instead of a unique "gamertag". J Allard fought hard to keep player's e-mail address hidden on Xbox Live to give players a more safer and secure experience while using the service. In a thinking session when the idea of voice chat came up, him and his team taped a microphone head set to an Xbox controller, which is where the idea for the microphone connecting to the controller came from.New Xbox Experience (NXE)
The NXE was a software uprgrade for Xbox Live which was implemented on November 11, 2008. It streamlined many user interface annoyances with the previous "blade" dashboard and added a new wheel like rotator axis to select friend, marketplace, video and game, spotlight, and primetime tabs. NXE also added Avatars, developed by Rare Entertainment. Many Arcade games have used avatars in game.
New Xbox Experience
Features
- Mottos
- Game achievements
- Reputation ratings
- Gamerscores
- Universal friend list
- Recent player list
Xbox Live - Compliant filing system
- the Xbox Guide
- Windows Live messenger
- Xbox Live Marketplace
- Voice chat
- Video chat
- Multiplayer gaming
- Matchmaking
- Bio section
- Parental controls
- Avatars
Gold and Silver
Xbox Live offers two different versions of their service, Gold and Silver.Gold
Xbox Live Gold costs $50 a year and allows you to use all of the features of the service. Gold members can usually play demos and enter betas a few days earlier than Silver members. New Xboxes come with a 1-month free trial of Gold, and many games also come with shorter free trials.
Silver
Xbox Live Silver is free for any Xbox 360 owner. You are allowed to purchase any content available for download, be it demos, movies, game add-ons, XBLA games, etc. The defining characteristic of Xbox Live Silver is that you cannot play multiplayer games on the network.
Xbox Live games
Edit
| Concept Name: | Xbox Live |
| Appears in: | 412 games |
| First appearance: | Unreal Championship |
| Aliases |
