Xbox Live Sees Over 100,000 Watch Second Debate

Microsoft has announced that over 100,000 people tuned into the coverage of the second Presidential debate on Xbox Live. An average of 35,000-40,000 of them answered 70 poll questions asked in real time throughout the debate.

2,000 undecided voters answered poll questions on Xbox Live, and 51 percent thought Obama won the debate. 28 percent said they were leaning towards voting for the President, while 17 percent gave Romney the edge and 10 percent said they were likely to vote for him; the remaining 32 percent were unsure who won.

Microsoft is encouraging users to engage with the Presidential debates by promising anyone who watches three of the four presidential and vice presidential debates on Xbox Live free Halo 4 armor for Avatars.

Rockstar Plans First Games Collection

The Rockstar Games Collection 1 has been confirmed for a release on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. The boxset will have a suggested retail price of $59.99 and will be available on November 6.

This compilation will include the base versions (sans DLC) of the acclaimed Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire. Also included will be Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City featuring The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony but not Grand Theft Auto IV itself and Midnight Club: Los Angeles Complete Edition with every downloadable real world vehicle and city section released since launch.

Source: RockstarGames.com

Nihilistic Software Becomes nStigate Games

Nihilistic Software announced that it is shifting away from retail boxed game development. The Resistance: Burning Skies and Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified developer will re-form as nStigate Games and will be focused on downloadable, on-line, and mobile games.

“Over the next couple months we’ll get leaner as some of our talent finds new homes, and emerge as a smaller and more focused company,” said the company in a statement. “Nihilistic will fade into the sunset the way it started; a collaboration of talented folks dedicated to transparency and respect for employees.”

Dance Central 3 – TV Spot

Dance Central 3 is here, and with the help of visual ID and branding work by Ayzenberg Group, it’s better than ever! This TV spot looks at a variety of situations being resolved with a dance contest, suggesting all the light fun and real dance moves that are in the game itself!

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Stratosphere Jumper Breaks Social Media Barriers

Felix Baumgartner’s 24-mile skydive on Sunday not only broke five Guinness World Records, it set a few new peaks in social media traffic.

In the U.S., Discovery Channel had exclusivity on broadcasting the event on TV but more than 130 digital outlets streamed it. This may have set the stage for an impressive online showing.

YouTube reported that Baumgartner’s jump set a new record for them, drawing 8 million concurrent video streams. Viewers tuned into YouTube as he ascended in the balloon, and the live cast’s virility grew as the jump drew closer.

Facebook numbers were equally impressive. Red Bull’s Facebook post of a triumphant Felix on his knees after touchdown generated nearly 216,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments less than 40 minutes after posting. During and after the jump, half of the trending topics on Twitter were about the event, surpassing all political and celebrity trending topics.

Hollywood otaku Wil Wheaton tweeted about the jump, “It’s pretty amazing that I can watch, live on my computer, a man riding a balloon to the edge of space so he can jump out of it. #TheFuture.”

Source: Washington Post {link no longer active}

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE

Which social media platform did you interact with most during the jump? See which fared the best on our Facebook Poll. {link no longer active}

Xbox 360 Dashboard Update Adds To Media Capabilities

The new dashboard for the Xbox 360 has officially released to certain regions, with the expectations being that it will be available worldwide soon. The new UI has an updated layout with more tiles, a combined TV & Movies channel and a Sports destination.

Also added are recommendations and ratings for increased discoverability, and pinning for some limited dashboard customizability. Also added for Xbox Live Gold subscribers is Internet Explorer with support for HTML 5 videos.

“What about Xbox SmartGlass That’s coming too, but not until Windows 8 launches on October 26,” noted Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb. “When the Xbox SmartGlass app launches on tablets, PCs and smartphones, it will include key foundational experiences for interacting with your Xbox 360, such as dashboard and app navigation and Internet Explorer control, like text input, scrolling and pinch and zoom.”

Apple Invites Us To See A Little More

Apple has sent out invitations for their October 23 media event, as expected, and it’s classically understated in Apple fashion. The teaser “We’ve got a little more to show you.” is expected to be hinting at the iPad mini with a 7.85-inch screen.

The event comes two days before Microsoft will officially announce the price of their Surface tablet. However, it is expected that the iPad mini will instead compete with the $199 7-inch tablets such a the Kindle Fire HD from Amazon, Google’s Nexus 7 and Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD.

Source: Washington Post

Pizza Hut Goes Populist With Toppings Question

Pizza Hut backed off its attempts to crash the second presidential debate with the offer to provide pizza for life to a person asking a toppings question to the candidates during the town hall debate which topping they prefer. Instead, they are shifting their offering to the masses, asking them to vote at PizzaHutSocial.com {link no longer active} on what pizza toppings they like with a random voter receiving pizza for life.

“We’re no longer asking a few hundred attendees at the town hall presidential debate on Oct. 16 to pose the question, rather we’re bringing the question — sausage or pepperoni — to millions of Americans,” said Pizza Hut CMO Kurt Kane.

It is unknown if this move was done because of push-back against the idea of commercializing a respected part of the democratic process or whether the change was a reflection that such a question had an almost infinitesimal chance of being asked, given rules agreed to by both campaigns {link no longer active}.