Xbox 360 posts

For some reason there's a flood of gaming news coming from the App Store this afternoon. So we've rounded it up for you to take in all in one read:

• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [iTunes link] has reached the top-grossing spot on the store in just two days, which means it's probably taken over the previous record holder. Good news for full-scale gamers: we can expect to see more direct ports from other handheld platforms like the DS and the PSP. Still not sure if GTA is worth the $10? Stay tuned for our review later tonight.
• Sega is releasing an Ultimate Genesis Collection on the App Store, which is more or less an official emulator. You get Space Harrier II with the free download, and then in-game purchases allow you to pick up other Sega games: Sonic for $6, Ecco the Dolphin for $3, and so on. They've released these games separately before, but this will give them a one-stop hub for official versions of older classics.
• Assassin's Creed II Discovery, the iPhone version of the Ubisoft hit, will reappear on the App Store in February at $9.99. In this interview with Appmodo, producer Ben Mattes talks about the iPhone and what Ubisoft plans to do with it.
• Finally, Magnacarta II is an RPG for the Xbox 360 that now has a character guide iPhone app. We've seen PC titles release complimentary apps before, but this is the first instance (I know of) where a console game has supplemented their release with an iPhone guide. Something to keep an eye on.

Exciting news all around! Looks like some major developers are finally starting to figure out some interesting and profitable ways to take advantage of Apple's handheld platform.

360 Live [App Store link] certainly isn't the first Xbox 360 app to hit the iPhone, but it's definitely one of the most full-featured, offering gamertag management, complete friends list access, messaging capability, games library browsing (with achievements and all), and even a CoverFlow-style friend browser just for good measure. It is pretty darn impressive -- if there's anything you need to do with your Xbox Live account (Gold account required for messaging) while away from your actual 360, this app will let you do it.

There is one issue: it's $1.99. Technically, that's not bad -- an app like this is probably worth the $2 especially if browsing your friends' games is something you do often. But the catch is that Microsoft recently stated that all apps that tag in to Xbox 360's online service must be sold for the low, low price of free. So one of two things will probably happen here -- either the app will drop down to free (in which case, you might as well save your $2), or Microsoft might end up blocking it, either on the App Store or in the actual Xbox Live connection. Hopefully, whatever happens, we'll end up with a solution

Mac users who have wanted to share audio, video, and pictures with their Xbox 360s have had to depend on Connect360 from Nullriver Software. Now, however, there's a new option: Rivet from Cynical Peak Software. Frankly, it does about the same thing as Connect360, running in your menu bar and allowing you to share media to your Xbox 360, though it does add a few convenient features.

According to the developer, Rivet allows you to "supply multiple search paths for your media" and display your folder media folder hierarchies properly (instead of in a long, flat list). So if you've been frustrated by those limitations, Rivet is worth a look. In my brief testing it worked just about as well as Connect360.

Rivet is $18.95 and a demo is available from Cynical Peak Software.

As the resident Xbox 360 fanboy I had reservations about touching this one, but my Mac love triumphs over all and so I bring you news of a cool tutorial on streaming media from your Mac to a PS3. This method is basically built around the MediaTomb open-source UPnP media server. The tricky part is installing MediaTomb on your Mac with fink and setting it up for the PS3 from the command-line. But once you do, you should be able to stream audio, video, and pictures from your Mac over the network. Needless to say, I haven't tried this myself, but I am intrigued by this note: "Currently MediaTomb does not fully support the XBOX360 as it acts differently from the PS3, but the code is already there to make it work in future versions." I guess we 360 users will just have to make due with Connect360 for now.

[via Digg]

A while back in our TUAW Guide to Xbox 360 and Mac we mentioned the forthcoming Spring Dashboard update on the 360 was to bring updated video codec support. Well that update dropped last week and Nullriver has correspondingly updated their Connect360 software (which we've mentioned before) that allows streaming video (and audio) files from a Mac straight to a Xbox 360. The newly supported codecs include full HD (1920x1080) H.264 in both the MPEG-4 and QuickTime containers (in addition to the previous WMV). This, of course, is substantially higher than Apple TV's support for 720p video, making the Xbox 360 likely the best full HD video extender available (though the Xbox is disappointingly loud compared to the Apple TV).

Connect360 remains $20 and a demo is available.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

This week's Ask TUAW takes us into questions about printing Finder window contents, assigning programs to the corner of your screen, bringing up the Finder with a HotKey, integrating Apple productivity programs, recording TV on your Mac and editing AVIs . Remember new Mac users and Switchers who are enjoying our Mac 101 series should feel very welcome to post questions for Ask TUAW; we're happy to take questions from all levels. As always, please submit your questions by commenting to this post or using our tip form.

A while back we posted on the cool open source Guitar Hero clone, Frets on Fire. Well I'm a pretty big Xbox 360 fan, and one of my favorite games on the 360 is the recently released Guitar Hero II, which ships with a USB X-plorer guitar-shaped controller. So of course the first thing I did when I got it was plug it into my Mac to see if it would work with the Pref360 controller driver, but alas it did not. Disappointed, I contacted the author of that driver, Colin Munro, to see if he could help me get it working. And sure enough, with a little bit of editing of the driver plist, we got it going (that is to say, I followed his directions exactly and it worked).

I asked Colin if he would go ahead and add native support for the X-plorer for the next release of Pref360, and he has now done exactly that in the just released version 0.05. Furthermore, it works great with Frets on Fire (look here for the Mac version); just install Pref360 and then go into the Frets on Fire button setup and you should be able to assign the fret and strum buttons (the whammy bar is not yet supported in Frets on Fire). Now you have access access to all the fan created songs for Frets on Fire on your Mac.

Coincidentally, MacRecon recently reported that you could use the X-plorer with USB Overdrive ($20). However, Pref360 is donationware, and it works with Frets on Fire. So unless you have some other need for USB Overdrive I'd suggest going with Pref360, which is a free download from Tattiebogle.

Thanks gortman (mac recon)!

Update: fixed preposition. For those of you having trouble getting Frets on Fire to run, I would suggest trying out one of the older builds. Version 1.1.324 from back in November is running fine for me on an Intel Mac. Look here and scroll down.

In many of the recent reviews of the Apple TV, the Xbox 360 was often mentioned as a competing Media Extender product. Having recently bought a 360, I thought it would be good to discover the ways in which my two pretty white boxes can work together. In this TUAW Guide to Xbox 360 and the Mac, I'm going to discuss some of both the hardware and software compatibilities between the machines. If you've ever been curious about the Xbox 360 read on, and if you're an old hand my Gamertag is matonmacs, send a friend request my way; maybe we can get a TUAW clan going!

TUAW reader Bryan Hughes writes in to tell us that after many unsuccessful attempts, he was unable to connect wirelessly to his Xbox 360 via the new 802.11n Airport Extreme. Over at a discussion at Apple Tech Support, other users report no problem connecting their Wiis and Playstation 3s to the Airport Extreme network but that the Xbox is another matter.

The Xbox 360 apparently will not recognize any network with security, whether WEP or WPA and Microsoft's tech support apparently is telling customers that Apple routers are not recommended. So would you be willing to entirely disable security on your wireless network to connect to your Xbox? That's apparently one way of making the connection work. Some readers report that turning off security and closing their network (not advertising the SSID) and using MAC address filtering work. You can join the Xbox/Airport Extreme discussion here.

The other day Microsoft announced that you will be able to buy and rent TV shows and movies directly from your XBox 360. The twist is that they are offering the videos in standard def and HD (720p will be the max resolution).

Now, I know you're wondering why I am blogging about this on TUAW. What I'm hoping this will do is force Apple to offer higher res movies and shows on iTunes. I have all this broadband just waiting to transfer HD content!

I don't own an XBox 360, but I hear that it is the best thing to come out of Redmond for a long, long time. Now, if you are a Mac user and an Xbox 360 owner you might be keen to hook up your XBox's controller to your Mac for some Mac gaming fun. Sadly, you have been out of luck in that regard, that is until Colin Munro whipped up some OS X drivers for it. Now you can gleefully kill things on your Mac and not have to get used to another control (it even supports force feed back).

Thanks, Harrison.

If you're one of the Crazy Ones who fought their way through hordes of game-addicted line-dwellers at Best Buy to get their hands on one of those swanky new Xbox 360s, this may interest you: Nullriver -- the same company that brought you Amaryllis and PSPWare -- has developed an app called Connect360 that actually lets you stream music and photos from your Mac to your Xbox 360. It automatically indexes your media, which you can then access over the network via your Xbox Dashboard. (But while it does index your iTunes library, I don't think it will play music purchased from the iTMS.)

You can download a trial of Connect360 from Nullriver's website -- or you could purchase it for a measely $10. Give it a try and let us know how it works, ok?

[via Gizmodo]