We'd love to meet the person who's choosing what games to re-release as Xbox Originals. Because, to be perfectly honest, we just don't get how they're deciding which games will get the treatment and in what order. Take, for example, this new coupling, arriving on your 360 on June 16:

• Guilty Gear XX #Reload (1200 Microsoft Points, WW except Europe): "Guilty Gear X2 #Reload makes its Xbox® debut, and, for the first-time ever, introduces online play with head-to-head Xbox Live™ support! Play over 20 different combatants and hidden characters, and devastate your opponents with an arsenal of eye-popping, jaw-dropping moves and combos-it's good to beat each other!"

• The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (1200 Microsoft Points, WW except Germany, Japan, and Korea): "Explore the origins of the one and only powerful purple dragon in The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. Uncover Spyro's secret history as you embark on a dangerous quest to face off against the ultimate creation of the Dark Master, Cynder."

Really guys? Spyro and Guilty Gear? We've only got two questions -- well, no, we have dozens, but here are the two we're dying to ask: Just how big does a dartboard have to be to fit all the Xbox games on it? And which blindfolded intern is chucking the darts?

Microsoft's Xbox Originals collection on Xbox Live continues to slowly grow, with two new titles to add to the list next week: Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse, and Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows.

Stubbs the Zombie is an under-appreciated 2005 release from Wideload Games, featuring a satirical film-noir approach to the zombie genre. Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows is, well, another Gauntlet game, this time handled by veteran Doom designer John Romero. Reviews for Gauntlet were, at best, a mixed bag, so Stubbs looks to be the cream of the crop in this Originals installment. Both titles are due for release Monday, May 19 for 1200 MSP each.

We know you're keen to see what super spy Sam Fisher was up to before he started digging Linkin Park CDs into his wrists, so we wholeheartedly suggest you check out what many consider to be his best espionage entry, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. And if you absolutely can't find it on Xbox for less than 15 bucks, know that it's now available on the Xbox Originals download service.

If you'd rather not choke terrorists or contemplate why nobody can see a man with a Christmas tree on his head, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System should provide your "shoot first, shoot some more and then forget what you were going to ask" fix. Other fixes include (but are not limited to) "robots," "gun-toting robots" and "gun-toting robots shooting gun-toting robots." It's $15 (1,200 MS Points) for this one too.

Major Nelson informs that secret agent Sam Fisher and some robots have been discovered covertly trying to sneak onto the Xbox Originals lineup. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Metal Arms: Glitch in the System will be available for 1200 MS points ($15) a piece beginning next Monday (except in Korea and Japan).

As usual, it behooves us to mention that unless it's 3AM and you've got the hankering for an Xbox Originals game, it's probably best to take a look around the intertubes (or a favorite gaming pawnshop) for a better deal.

With Psychonauts and Indigo Prophecy already on Microsoft's Xbox Originals service, we're alarmed to think that we might have something in common with a gigantic corporation: A soft spot for overlooked games rich in narrative. Compounding this realization is next week's addition to the downloadable back-compat lineup, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.

The sequel to 1999's modern adventure classic (just entitled The Longest Journey) sees new protagonist Zoe stumble across the divide between Stark, a world driven by technology, and the whimsical fantasy realm of Arcadia. Though we can't say Dreamfall is a sterling example of adventure gameplay, it does succeed admirably as an interactive novel. If superb writing and multi-faceted stories draw you in, Dreamfall is well worth the trip (also: mash past the dreadful combat sections). If the 1,200 MS Point ($15) asking price doesn't sit well with you, there are plenty of other options as well.

Update: Microsoft has told us that the press materials were updated for an internal marketing request. The publisher "currently has no plans" to bring Conker: Live and Reloaded and Jade Empire to the Xbox Originals lineup.

Original post:

Hot on the heels of some new Xbox Originals releases comes word that more may be on the way. Specifically, Conker: Live & Reloaded and Jade Empire may soon be appearing as downloadable titles on Xbox 360.

According to 360sync, Microsoft has recently updated its press materials for both Conker and Jade Empire. Considering neither title is particularly new, and both are already supported by backwards compatibility, it seems logical that Microsoft may be updating assets in preparation for an Xbox Originals announcement.

Of course, it could also be coincidental. X3F reports that Microsoft also updated its press materials for Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero on the same day, suggesting that the updates might simply be part of an early spring cleaning, and nothing more.

[Via X3F]

On February 11, the 360's Xbox Originals will see another small update to its still-slender selection, this time adding Ninja Gaiden Black, Sid Meier's Pirates!, and the Criterion FPS Black to the roster.

Pirates! is the 2004 re-make of Sid Meier's original 1987 adventure game, which sees players taking on the roles of pirates (duh) in the Spanish Main. Black is Criterion's adrenaline-fueled last-gen FPS, with destructible environments and a healthy amount of explosions. Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden Black added a number of features to the original Xbox title, including the condescending "Ninja Dog" easy mode.

All good additions, to be sure, but with Valentine's Day coming only three days later, couldn't they have at least included something a bit more romantic? Like, say, Beyond Good & Evil?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

We know you don't think you need a reminder – after all it was less than a week ago that we told you Burnout 3: Takedown was crashing (in quite a spectacular fashion, mind you) onto the Xbox Live Marketplace as an Xbox Original – but we wanted to make sure you remembered all the details. First, how much does it cost? Bzzt, wrong! It's 1200 Microsoft Points, or $15 of your Earth dollars (yes, we're aware that's $5 more than the actual Burnout 3 disc used). Second, when is it due out? Alright, the 2.32GB title is available right now, you got that correct ... but only because you read the headline first. Which is totally cheating.

If you can't seem to get past Burnout Paradise's "city-as-a-menu" metaphor, we have some good news: Burnout 3, the game that first put the series on a lot of our radars, will be appearing on Xbox Live next Monday, downloadable for 1200 space bux Microsoft points or $14.99.

When we checked and found that you could pick up a used copy of the game for $5 cheaper, we started wondering though: Have any of you bought any Xbox Originals? Are there certain titles you're looking forward to that would put you over if you haven't taken the plunge already? Is Burnout 3 the one? Let us know below.

[Via X3F]

By now, you all know the 'ol Make a Japanese Xbox Live Silver Account to Download the Foreign Goodies trick, right? For the past two years, you've been downloading Japanese demos (Eternal Sonata anyone?) and nobody's said a thing about your reckless blurring of international copyright boundaries.

... until now. Microsoft has seemingly disabled this clever workaround in their new Xbox Originals program. Siliconera tried using a Japanese Live account to download either Puyo Pop Fever or Magatama – two original Xbox titles available on Japanese Xbox 360s – and were greeted with an error "explaining the download was not available in [their] region." So, your money's no good anymore, is that it? The free stuff, they'll turn a blind eye, but as soon as you're waving around those Billy Bucks, everything's different, eh?

Well, not really. This is similar to Microsoft's existing policy on other Xbox Live Marketplace content (think movies or TV shows), where they've enabled region locking by considering the user's IP, not simply the nationality associated with a Gamertag. Are we shocked? No ... but that doesn't make the pain go away.

Things were a little different this year. For their second Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update, Microsoft decided to trickle the features out instead of dropping them on us all at once. Around Halloween, we realized things were awful quiet, so we asked you what you wanted to see in the Fall Update. On November 7, Microsoft kicked things off by announcing the Parental Timer, a feature we're certain you're all eager to try out. They followed that up on November 13 by confirming Xbox Originals, downloadable Xbox 1 games for your 360. On the 26th, they spilled the beans on the social-networky "Friends of Friends" feature, ostensibly to give paranoid folks some time to disable the functionality (which they can do here). Capping it all off a day later, MS Japan dropped some info, notably the ability to set your real name (your real name is xXsmokezmadbluntz420Xx?), your location, and a brief bio – more of that social networking stuff the kids are crazy about.

Finally, after what seemed an interminable wait, Microsoft was ready to let us in on the big picture. We spoke with Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg about next Tuesday's update and what was still in store. "There are three different categories that speak to a majority of the updates," Greenberg told us.

On Tuesday, Microsoft dropped another 84 original Xbox games onto our 360s, bringing the grand total of backwards compatible games up to 465. With each back compat update, they get closer and closer to hitting every major Xbox title that anyone would care to play again. Couple that with the newly announced Xbox Originals service – digitally distributed Xbox titles for your Xbox 360 – and there's a whole new way to monetize those old games. We imagine increasing that library of older titles is, now more than ever, a priority for Microsoft.

To that end, let's help out the "back compat ninjas" (as they're known) and identify and rank the games we want to see running on the 360. We've started by gathering every single game Joystiq readers listed here, and dropping them into this fancy UnSpun poll. Want to add another? Click on "Add an item to this list" at the bottom of the poll. Something on there that shouldn't be? Ask us to yank it in the comments. Something ranked higher or lower than it should be? Well, that's where you come in.

C'mon, you can tell us. You're an addict, aren't you? You've got a 40K gamerscore and you simply can't justify any gaming time if, well ... you aren't being compensated for it. Bad news then, junkie. The recently announced Xbox Originals (downloadable versions of original Xbox games) won't have achievements. It all makes sense if you think about it: these are unaltered disc images. If they didn't see fit to go in and remove things like demos or trailers that could actually crash your 360 if you select them, it stands to reason they weren't going to add achievements.

Now, the good news. Your gamertag won't be permanently sullied with achievement-related proof that you were playing Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space. Seriously, what's wrong with you?

[Via X3F]

That headline is probably the nicest way to say that it won't be smooth sailing when Xbox Originals drops with the 360's Fall dashboard update. Microsoft has set aside a little page to discuss the "known issues" of the service, which will allow users to download and play Xbox 1 games on their Xbox 360s. The issues range from minor framerate drops, to graphical and sound glitches, to un-supported resolutions, but most problems differ from title to title.

Universally, all Xbox Original titles will present with some choppyness during publisher logos as the games are cached into memory. Additional content like demos and trailers in games are unsupported by the service, and selecting them in an Xbox Originals title (such as Fable, Crimson Skies, and Fuzion Frenzy), will crash the system and require a restart of the console.

Issues like these make the entire service seem a lot less elegant, particularly with options in games that players will have to know not to select. Still, these things are bound to happen when a company tries to force-feed last-gen software to next-gen hardware. Users will be able to choose whether or not the slightly-less-than-perfect Xbox Originals will be worth the 1200 Microsoft Points each come December 4.

To mark the fifth anniversary of the Xbox Live service, Microsoft will be offering Carcassonne (Hexic 2 in Korea) free to all subscribers for 48 hours starting at 12:01 a.m. EST on Nov. 15th (and presumably nothing to the peeps who already plunked down for the virtual board game), along with 500 Microsoft Points to the ten folks who've been on board since 2002 -- see kids, early adoption does pay off! In addition, Microsoft has confirmed earlier reports that 'Xbox Originals' will be made available for download starting Dec. 4th as part of the Fall Update (the update's additional features have yet to be revealed). Each game can be purchased and downloaded for 1200 points ($15).

In its press release, Microsoft explicitly named Halo, Psychonauts, Crimson Skies and Fable as titles for the Xbox Originals initiative, but did not confirm exactly which games will serve as the jumpoff: "This new service will launch with an array of blockbuster titles spanning the most popular genres from action-adventure to classic role-playing games." Third-party reports claim the preliminary lineup will include Halo, Fable, Indigo Prophecy, Crimson Skies, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex and Burnout 3.

[Via press release]