I posted a news tip on this but there is some mainstream press on Yaris:

Here

"Destroy enemies"? Toyota encourages violence, road rage, etc? Sweet, I need to get a Yaris now!

Anyway, who can complain about 2 games for 1200 points this week?

Everyone here knows I have been waiting for Puzzle Quest so I don't really neeed to comment on that.

Yaris could possibly be fun. I wonder how that actual feel of the game will be. Will it be more like Mad Tracks or Street Trace? or just a generic kart feel? Eh, it is freeso no reason to not try it.

1200 points? yikes. That better be a good demo.

I have recently changed my xbox language setting and got some achievements.

Then I realized those last achievements were PERMANENTLY in that new language, even though i returned the setting back to my original language.

So my achievements are in a language mess. I thought all the user interface was coherent.

Did anybody else notice this behaviour? Is it a BUG?

 

"1200 points? yikes. That better be a good demo."

Amazon

 

$5 cheaper than any other version, no taxes, no shipping, no gas to pick it up and full online play (unlike some versions).

1200 points is also less than buying a used copy for DS or PSP.

Just to play devil's advocate:

No box, no manual, no physical game to play 20 years from now after my 360 HDD goes kaput.

That said, $15 is worth it. (^_^)

@ prym3

Yeah, I saw the tip after the fact. This morning was crazy. But thanks for adding it as a comment!!

Tomacco that must have been a nice slow burning "I told you so" when the release of Yaris was finally here =D

I always believed you

It's going to be the first time since Double Dragon that I'll be downloading something from the XBLA. Quite honestly, Yaris looks like it could be some fun.

Sorry guys had to edit some of the URLs to make the page look reasonable.

I'll certainly be grabbing both of these Wed. Morning, and Hexx it's more relief then anything that I wasn't crazy :)

"Apparently Yaris is only free/available in the U.S./Canada."

Again?! Oh well, I think I'd rather play PGR4 anyway ;)

Puzzle Quest is a must buy.

I was a bit undecided whether to go for the PSP or XBLA version of Puzzle Quest, but after dezombie mentioned the PSP version was a little glitched, and I remembered all the other PSP games I've been meaning to get through, I think the cheaper and prettier XBLA version is probably a better bet. I'm not picking it up on Wednesday, though, I've got plenty of retail games to play and work is a little hectic at the moment, so my free time is low. I'll probably get it in a few weeks when things quieten down.

I'm faced with a dilemma on the Yaris game, though (I'm not based in the US, but I have a US account that can download free games). I like to think that I don't really care about achievements, they're just an amusing bonus on a game, but the only reason I would get this would be for 40 or 50 free gamerscore points, because from the screens, the game looks pretty awful. I don't have the time to play low-budget churned-out advertising games. Heck, I don't have the time to play all the full retail releases I've bought recently.

True, but at least with a disc-based version I would be able to replace my DS/PS and still be able to play it. My family & I have been locked out of our $150+ worth of XBLM content three times now due to their (previously, hopefully) defective hardware.

IF you can maintain a connection, Xbox Live isn't down, and the purchasing Gamertag is logged in, you *might* be able to play your XBLA games. Achievements, add-on content and free content still experience a variety of issues, regardless of whether you're logged in or not.

I'll continue to purchase XBLM content until my previously-purchased pool of Points is depleted. After that, I'm not so sure. Hopefully, Microsoft will decide that they need to address this, much as they did (belatedly) with the hardware itself.

I totally understand your frustration with the current DRM situation for XBLA games. I've been stung as well.

However, there *IS* a workaround. It's annoying, but if you nag your customer service rep a bit they will guide you through the process of creating a dummy Silver account and adding enough points to re-purchase ALL of your XBLA games again on your (presumably) refurbed 360 so that you can play everything offline again.

Annoying? Yes. But it beat the alternative I think.

"True, but at least with a disc-based version I would be able to replace my DS/PS and still be able to play it. My family & I have been locked out of our $150+ worth of XBLM content three times now due to their (previously, hopefully) defective hardware."

DRM is a serious issue with this generation of consoles. At least MS replaces points for lost content so you can rebuy it. Not a graceful solution but better than Nintendo's policy of not replacing lost content due to a warranty replacement (under their warranty).

It is even an issue with PSPs. I own a new slim and a few downloadable demos and trials don't function due to DRM.

Unfortunately the more creative games which are not lowest common denominator will rarely see a retail release which makes it impossible to avoid downloadable distributions if you want anything out of the ordinary.

LD & dezombie,

Having spent months trying to DRM issues resolved, after four replacement 360's, I'm aware of both of the methods being used to provide access to previously-purchased content.

Unfortunately, the newer method, console id swapping, isn't being uniformly applied by the service center and only applies to content purchased on your last 360. In the case of my last failure, I received *two* consoles from the service center because the first replacement was DOA. Since I was unable to download my content to the first replacement, none of the rights from my previous 360 were transferred to it. Therefore, when I received the second replacement 360, there were no rights to transfer from the DOA.

I've gone through the second method, Points reimbursement, twice. That's not without difficulties either. First of all, once they've determined that that's the process you'll need to go through, you'll need to wait several weeks while they hand the request off to Microsoft. Also, comp games (i.e. Texas Hold 'Em, Bankshot Billiards 2, Uno, and anything else purchased with a game-specific code) are ineligible for reimbursement. How these games were acquired should not prevent Microsoft from reimbursing one for them, but they do. Either way, it's a *very long & drawn-out process*. Managing purchases from multiple accounts can also get tricky when you've had to do it more than once.

I'm currently battling with Microsoft, through my state's Attorney General's office over the remaining 3200 Points for said comp games (of ~12,000 Points). Microsoft refused to deal with the toothless BBB at all.

As a consumer, who had previously been more than willing to spend quite a bit of money on XBLA games, I'm incredibly frustrated about having to expend this much effort to regain access to what my family and I have already paid for.

Mystakill,

First, thanks for giving me some serious background on your situation. Obviously, your situation is extraordinarily difficult and but I am glad that you are exercising your rights to attempt to acquire what (I believe) is rightfully yours. Good luck with the case.

I personally didn't even know they were swapping console IDs, so that's news to me as well.

And I understand the repair frustration as I'm on my 5th 360 and can surely relate to all the frustrations therein.

I also understand the desire of these companies to protect their products from pirates and other problem cases. That said, I am constantly pursing the point that punished legit users is an unacceptible snag in the system. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Right?

That's why I truly laud companies like Stardock (makers of Galactic Civ, which is great) who choose to put NO DRM on their games because they know that their support and free add-ons.

"I'm currently battling with Microsoft, through my state's Attorney General's office over the remaining 3200 Points for said comp games (of ~12,000 Points). Microsoft refused to deal with the toothless BBB at all."

Good.

I have been lucky and not had any real issues with my 360, but I already know I will probably not buy another system dependant on downloads for games.

Even entirely ignoring the price gouging that happens from some publishers the fact that you have to jump through hoops for their issues is just silly. There is no good reason the games attached to an account are not instantly recoverable by the user when a replacement arrives. The only reason is poor design and planning.

Smart companies plan for the worst such as consoles dying repeatedly. Hopefully this won't happen, but if it does you have a plan.

You need internet access to buy the games, so why doesn't your account page track your specific purchases (or claimed codes)? If it did then when a new console was sent out they could have an automated system which would send out new claim codes for the games you purchased. To keep track of sales they could look up the old claim codes used (if any) on the previous console and line them out of sales numbers. This would also allow the tracking of other useful market information while invalidating old codes to prevent piracy.

More importantly to them, happy customers buy more.

I downloaded Yaris, mainly because it didn't look [i]that[/i] bad to me, and I wanted to try and squeeze some points out of it.

But I can without a doubt say that even though it was free, I regret wasting the 15 minutes of my life I spent with it. I hate to shit on a free game, but man, it's just really bad. Imagine a Sonic The Hedgehog bonus stage level, but steering around...a car... instead of Sonic.

My mini-review of Yaris is as follows; "No. Just no."

I've been suggesting a user-initiated process, such as an updated Gamertag Recovery, whereby the rights for all of your purchased/licensed content are transferred to the new 360. If/when your old 360 connects to XBL, that content should be deauthorized. Period. Seems pretty simple to me.

Microsoft's own Janus DRM system, used by PlaysForSure providers (Yahoo! Music, Napster, BuyMusic.com, etc.), was somewhere in the middle of the current XBLM system and the user-initiated system I've been suggesting. Janus left it up to the providers to determine how many systems you could use "your" content on. Some, such as Yahoo! and Napster also allowed *you* to deauthorize systems yourself. In the event that you were unable to deauthorize a system, the provider would deauthorize *all* of your systems (rather than just the one you wanted) because Janus didn't support named instances (i.e. "Home computer", "Work laptop", "Kids' computer", etc.) You'd then login to their client software and your current computer would be authorized. (I still use Y!M because it mostly works, it's cheap and supports 3 computers)

I have no problem with Microsoft protecting their content from piracy, but they should ensure that consumers can manage their own content rights without having to constantly pester Microsoft to get it sort of done. The upshot is that no DRM system is perfect, but there are definitely better systems than what Microsoft chose to implement for XBLM.

You've got some seriously great ideas (borne of major frustrations) and I will do my best to pass this info on to as many people as I can.