Busy Gamer News

Microsoft forgot the cardinal rule of release management: Never put out a major update right before a holiday. At least if you don't want to risk your team working instead of celebrating with their families. The addition of movies and TV shows on Xbox Live Marketplace last week brought down the network, resulting in slow downloads and glitches such as messages about points being deducted for free files and videos being deleted before their expiration. Microsoft spent much of the long holiday weekend setting things right. In related news, there's a rumor that all Live accounts created to illicitly download games and other content from other regions will be deleted soon. Apparently region control for movies and TV is a bigger concern than it was for just games. There is a bright spot: Gold members can now sign up for the Shadowrun public beta. Simply visit connect.microsoft.com, click Invitations, enter SHBS-6YMT-YKHC for the Invitation ID and MAJOR1 for the beta code. Of course, registering is no guarantee that you'll get picked to participate...