Xbox 360 Games on Demand service launches August 11 @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on August 05, 2009

News: Along with tons of new Avatar clothing.

The Xbox Live Summer Update will be available to download on August 11 and Microsoft has detailed all of the new features that gamers will soon be able to play around with.

The biggest addition in the Summer Update is the Xbox 360 "Games on Demand" service. The service will feature full games that Xbox 360 owners can download and play directly from their hard drive. The service will launch with 24 games from Microsoft and a variety of third party publishers. According to Microsoft, new games will be added to the service weekly. The launch lineup will include the following games:

Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft)

BioShock (2K Games)

Burnout Paradise (EA)

Call of Duty 2 (Activision)

Dance Dance Revolution Universe (Konami)

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda)

Fight Night Round 3 (EA)

Kameo: Elements of Power (Microsoft Game Studios)

Karaoke Revolution American Idol Encore (Konami)

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (LucasArts)

Mass Effect (Microsoft Game Studios)

Meet The Robinsons (Disney)

MX vs. ATV Untamed (THQ)

Need For Speed Carbon (EA)

Need For Speed: Most Wanted (EA)

Perfect Dark Zero (Microsoft Game Studios)

Prey (2K Games)

Ridge Racer 6 (Namco)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega)

Table Tennis (Rockstar Games)

Test Drive: Unlimited (Atari)

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (Ubisoft)

Viva Pi?ata (Microsoft Game Studios)

Viva Pi?ata 2: Trouble in Paradise (Microsoft Game Studios)

Those who use Netflix through Xbox Live will be pleased to know that this update will add new functionality to that service as well. Microsoft is cutting the cord and no longer requiring a computer to update your Instant Queue, movies can now be added to your watch list directly from the Xbox 360 Dashboard.

Microsoft also plans to greatly expand the clothing options for Avatars including outfits and accessories from top clothing manufacturers (Adidas, Quiksilver, Roxy, Tokidoki), new clothing styles (Steampunk, Recessionista) and designs based on popular Xbox 360 games like BioShock 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Gears of War 2. Another way to outfit your Avatar will be unlockable clothing in future Xbox 360 releases. Next week's XBLA offering, Splosion Man, will be the first game to feature hidden clothing.

Finally, the Xbox Live system as a whole will include new ways to view, sort and arrange content. There will new options for sorting Achievements and Friend Lists, along with the ability to rate every piece of downloadable content on a five point scale.

We'll have more on everything Xbox Live-related soon.