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PSA: How fake is Don Mattrick's Twitter? So fake

by Xav de Matos { Jun 27th 2009 at 10:00PM }

A quick public service announcement to any and all tipsters sending us links to Don Mattrick's official Twitter account: It's fake. Sure, it would have been nice to reveal new Halo: Reach related details, but the only news out of the Twitter account is that there is no news at all. Really, we're not surprised with such masterfully crafted tweets as: "We're currently working with a third party studio on a new xbox 360 exclusive game engine to showcase unmatched graphical fidilty." Yes, "fidilty."

Microsoft's (real) Twitter expert Major Nelson -- aka Larry Hryb -- tells us he is currently working with the Twitter team to have the account removed. With so many fake accounts, it's no wonder Twitter is testing a new "Verified Account" label. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Don Mattrick for inspiring a phony Twitter account, following good company such as artist Kanye West, ass-kicker Chuck Norris and all of the Pokemans.

Xbox 360 guide to offer blades, no solid explanation of how

by Randy Nelson { Jul 14th 2008 at 8:45PM }

The upcoming refresh of Xbox 360's user interface is mighty bold ... but what if you have a real soft spot for the oh-so-passé assortment of blades? Ambiguous news! Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten passes along word – via Major Nelson's blog – that the new Xbox "guide" will retain the blades-based interface, although it's still a little confusing as to exactly how.

In his update, Whitten says: "For everyone who loves the blades interface, it's not going away," and that "every feature and option [the blades offer] is available right from the guide." Confused? You're not alone. It sounds to us like a sort of "classic view" will be offered ... but, at the same time, like the guide will simply offer the same features. We took a vote and came up 50/50 on it. We'll be sure to press Microsoft for more details as E3 plays out.

[Update: Microsoft has demo'd the revised blade functionality to the media. Pressing the Xbox Guide button now brings up a more compact version of the blade-based "dashboard," rather than the traditional single pop-out Guide blade.]

Microsoft brings Chobot, 'IGN Strategize' to XBL

by Randy Nelson { Jun 25th 2008 at 4:00PM }

Not to be trumped in the online flesh-and-blood female host arms race by Sony and Qore's Veronica Belmont, Microsoft has announced a partnership with IGN to bring its popular "IGN Strategize" segments to Xbox Live, hosted by IGN host/celebrity Jessica Chobot (who may or may not lick a 360 controller).

Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's "Major Nelson," made the announcement this morning via his Twitter feed. A brief preview clip of himself and Chobot chatting has subsequently hit the "Inside Xbox" section of Live. IGN Strategize will soon join the other regular Inside Xbox segments and focus on tips, tricks, and strategies, hence the name.

Top 25 pop-u-lar Xbox gamertags

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jan 7th 2008 at 11:00AM }

Microsoft's Trixie (Christa Phillips) released a list of the top 25 Xbox Live gamertags in 2007 over the weekend. The list is compiled "anytime the gamercard or profile is called up," with more "hits" resulting in a higher placement. Topping the list is obviously none other than Major Nelson, known in real life as the vowel-deficient Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's director of programming, the guru and go-to man for Xbox related issues and announcements -- especially when things go horribly wrong with the service.

We're not exactly sure who a lot of the people on the list are (which can also be found after the break with an appropriate video clip), but Ms. Trixie comes in at number three behind other Microsoft personality Eric "e" Neustadter. Xbox Live "cheater" Gilbert Arenas bounced in at number six, while Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 developers made eight and nine respectively. Also, former X3F writer David "Knuckles Dawson" Dreger made number 19. Now, let's see if you all can fill in the rest of the names behind the gamertags.

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Major Nelson speaks about recent Xbox Live issues

by Griffin McElroy { Dec 30th 2007 at 1:30PM }

Many of you might have noticed a bevy of problems facing Xbox live over this past week: An unresponsive marketplace, the inability to recover a gamertag (or even sign in), and aggravating matchmaking wait times, to name a few. Major Nelson issued a statement last night explaining that while there have been no complete outages of the service over the past week, "problems like this are not acceptable," and that they are working to get the service back to normal. Sadly, no time frame was provided on when repairs to the service would be complete.

There's been no official statement on why the service has been so shoddy lately, but if we were the guessing type, we blame it on the holiday season. We're sure that tons of people found a 360 under their trees (or candles), and immediately tried to hop online; only to collide with the millions of vacationing gamers who were already playing. Technology has come a long way, but the internet can still only hold so many racial epithet-slinging Master Chiefs before things start breaking down.

Major Nelson is community's Person of the Year

by Dustin Burg { Dec 19th 2007 at 11:30AM }

With an award to prove it, our good friend Larry Hryb (a.k.a. Major Nelson) is officially enjoyed by the major-ity (haha!) of the gaming community.

GameDaily's 2007 Persons of the Year awards just wrapped and for the first year ever they handed out a Reader's Choice award. GameDaily asked readers to tell them who in the gaming industry was worthy of the Reader's Choice honor and after tallying the votes Mr. Face of Xbox himself and Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry Hryb came out on top beating notables like Ken Levine and Jade Raymond. You can read Major's thank you post over on his blog, so be sure to stop on by and tell him how uber awesome he is. Now our chances of getting him to accept our friend request will be zilch to none ...

[Thanks, EdogLost]

GameDaily 'Persons of the Year': #1 - 3 and readers' choice

by Alexander Sliwinski { Dec 18th 2007 at 11:15PM }

GameDaily concluded its "Persons of the Year" feature today by announcing Nintendo America's COO Reggie Fils-Aime took the top spot; Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb took the readers' choice award. Fils-Aime bested Activision CEO Bobby Kotick (#2) and Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos (#3) because of the Wii's phenomenal success in the States. GameDaily had previously announced #4 and #5, which went to Aaron Greenberg and Jeff Gerstmann respectively.

Major Nelson -- guru of Xbox -- received the readers' choice award after politely directing his loyal readership to GameDaily's website. Before Major Nelson stepped up his campaign, Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond was in the lead. Too bad Raymond didn't win though, GameDaily ended up having "Men of the Year" awards rather than "Persons of the Year."

Read -- 2007 Persons of the Year #1
Read -- Persons of the Year: Readers' Choice Unveiled

BioShock music list posted by Major Nelson

by Alexander Sliwinski { Oct 12th 2007 at 1:00PM }

Still can't get the background tunes form BioShock out of your head? Well Major Nelson, courtesy of BioShock's Ken Levine, has posted the track list for the game (found after the break). As those who have played BioShock know, the music is as much a part of the game as anything else. And considering we'll never be able to listen to The Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker again without imagining the Sander Cohen masterpiece fight, the team at 2K Boston obviously did a great job in their musical selection for scenes within the game. Not since the use of Bach in Gyruss can we distinctly recall a classical piece being so memorably tied with a video game.

We're curious to see what musical selections 2K Boston will make for our return to Rapture. All we really want is some scene in BioShock 2 of Big Daddies dancing to David Bowie's Magic Dance from Labyrinth. Can't remember it? You'll find that after the break too.

Continued →

Major Nelson asks gamers, 'Sup?

by Dan Dormer { Oct 5th 2007 at 2:24PM }

Over at the house that Major built, Larry Hryb has alerted gamers to a Microsoft pow-pow taking place early next week. Those in attendance include Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, and David Vaskevitch, Chief Technical Officer, just to name a few. Hryb wanted to know, "What would you say to the leaders of services at Microsoft?" So far, the post has received over 400 user comments, with a variety of topics being broached by readers.

The discussion has focused on such lively topics as the "shafting [of] Canadians," general "price of Xbox Live," and ever-so-broad buzzword "innovation." However, some folks appear so damned excited that they're unable to issue coherent suggestions -- tried spell checker? Case in point: Tobe (USA) writes, "u should say that, in the next dashborad update, trails and full games should be seperated in the catagory section of XBLA games." Maybe someone should suggest that Microsoft get up on some educational games, eh?

The Joystiq Weekend: September 15 - 17, 2007

by Ross Miller { Sep 17th 2007 at 11:59PM }

Having also been in situations where we've missed flights due to lost essentials (e.g. plane tickets, photo ID), we can only express deep sympathy for Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb, who is not going to Tokyo Game Show this year due to a missing passport. Unfortunately, the Major didn't find out until he was in the terminal. Ouch. If you find his passport, be sure to let him know. Otherwise, check out the highlights for the weekend:

Joystiquery
Joyswag: 10 invites to the Call of Duty 4 Beta
Podcast Rodeo for Sept. 16: Yes, ear
Reminder: win the ultimate Halo 3 setup from X3F
Today's cuddliest video: LocoRoco Cocoreccho trailer
Today's seriously 32-player Wii FPS: Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: DIY Omegathon edition

News
Breaking news: Racer Colin McRae dies in helicopter crash
Itagaki shows off Ninja Gaiden II aqua city level
New games this week: Eternal Sonata edition
Yoshi Story, Super Thunder Blade, World Class Baseball on Virtual Console
Future Weapons to feature Halo 3 tonight
Intel picks up Havok for $21M
TurboGrafx-CD games coming to Virtual Consoles worldwide
Sony unveils Karraker replacement Scott Steinberg
Grade-grubbing GameStop manager gets suspended
Chinese online gamer dies after three day stint
Dave Perry: PSP Lite a 'head in the sand' move for Sony
WoW character sells for nearly $10,000
Xfire shows off their latest Xstatics
Nintendo shuts down official forums "indefinitely"
Oklahoma violent game law overturned

Rumors & Speculation
Reuters: Sony in talks to sell chip manufacturing to Toshiba
Rumor: Rumbling Sixaxis to debut at TGS
Rumor: Halo 3 ending leaked onto net

Culture & Community
Don't move, just listen: Automatic Mario goes anime music
Sealed game collectors hoarding all the cool toys
Book critic plays BioShock, says it's not quite "art"
Cliffy B: BioShock is my game of the year
Pimp your Wii with Talismoon's new cases
MTV drops new Multiplayer blog (plus BioShock Vs. Mode)

COD4 dev becomes most popular gamertag

by Ross Miller { Sep 11th 2007 at 3:55AM }

Move over Major Nelson, thy reign has come to an end. According to Xbox.com, the most popular gamertag honor has been transferred to fourzerotwo, a lowly developer working on a little-known-game entitled Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

How did this underdog best the Voice of Microsoft's console? We expect a full-on popularity assault by The Major (real name Larry Hyrb). This fight isn't over, you can bet your gamerscore on it.

Unlock Xbox winners to get a special visit

by Dustin Burg { Aug 15th 2007 at 5:30PM }

If you entered your XBLA game idea into the Doritos sponsored Unlock Xbox contest be prepared, because winners will be getting a special visit soon. The Xbox community's very own Major Nelson is off on a mysterious trip around the country on a mission to surprise five lucky Unlock Xbox winners by stopping by their homes and telling them the good news. Major can't tell us exactly where he's headed, because that would of course ruin the whole "surprise" element, but be rest assured he's getting the first class travel treatment wherever he goes. And if you end up not getting a visit from Major, head over to the Unlock Xbox website August 20th when the top five ~~better~~ winning game ideas will be announced.

Bitter dregs: A brief round-up of new Xbox 360 DLC

by Justin McElroy { Aug 9th 2007 at 10:31AM }

This post is not necessarily for you. You may have already read the headline and moved on actually, in which case, thanks for visiting, please enjoy our other posts. But there are a handful of readers out there who will see the below information and triumphantly pump their spindly fists in the air and bolt for the couch, praying that they have enough points to make the purchase. It is for them that we present the following ~~bitter dregs~~ news.

In the first batch, there's new DLC for Band of Bugs. It's 250 points ($3.12) and will get you new levels and units and some other stuff. There are new games for Soltrio Solitare for just 150 points ($1.87). Also, 300 points ($3.75) will get you (and we're not making this up) "12 new river tiles" in Carcassonne! Finally, there are about a bajillion new costumes for Rumble Roses XX, and each one's going to cost you 80 points (too much) so you better start stocking up, pervo.

OK, that should cover it. Thanks for bearing with us.

Xbox 360 gets backwards compatibility update

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jul 12th 2007 at 11:15PM }

Taking a moment away from E3, Major Nelson updated his blog to give the latest information on Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. The whole list of new titles can be found after the break, and you can always go to Xbox's site to get the full list.

This would typically be the part where we'd say something about how silly it is that the Xbox 360 has backwards compatibility issues in the first place, but now he's not the only guy in town with a problem. There aren't that many original Xbox games that are still worth worrying about. Our concern is more with the new version of the PS3 which will have "limited backwards compatibility," especially when there was nothing limited about its compatibility before. Oh well, if you're planning on getting the PS3 and you have a favorite old game on the system, make sure to check it will still work -- or got get yourself a current PS3 model while you still can.

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Stuntman: Ignition demo crashes into Xbox Live

by Justin McElroy { Jul 12th 2007 at 6:30PM }

C'mon, everybody! Sing along!

Well, I've never really sold that well, but I've frustrated plenty. It's true that you can try me for no pay, a-hey-hey. I've gotten burned over long load times after blowin' up for the 20th time, but at least I'm not as bad as on GBA, a-hey-hey. You might say you're gonna buy me, you may think I'm really lame, but I'm the Stuntman demo that just came out today.

OK, so we're no Lee Majors, and the demo is actually for Stuntman: Ignition (try working that into a lyric!). But it's E3, cut us some slack. We're actually curious to see what you guys think of this one. So ... what are you waiting for? Go play and discuss!