Download Xbox Games and Play Them on Your Xbox 360 Through the Fall Update

It appears that we'll witness an Xbox 360 major system update on December 4, courtesy of Microsoft and it'll bring a couple of hot new features we're sure you'll dig. One of the most important is the possibility of downloading original Xbox games and playing them on your Xbox 360. They'll be available for about 1,200 Microsoft Points each ($15) and the list includes major cult games like Halo, Fable, Crimsons Skies: High Road to Revenge, Burnout 3, Indigo Prophecy or Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.

The update also brings a cool new feature called "Films on Demand", some sort of online movie rental service, that allows you to watch motion pictures on your console paying for the content as you enjoy it. It seems that the movie will be available to watch for two weeks after its rental and you'll be forced to finish watching it in 24 hours time if you already pushed the "Play" button. According to the latest rumors, Warner Bros is also involved in this initiative, providing a huge films catalog.

Aside from the above-mentioned features, the 360 will receive DivX support and a parental timer. So, which one will you use first? Will you download Halo, check out the official Warner Bros movie list or just test the DivX support? Through the December update, Microsoft's console will reach the status of a home entertainment system, competing with Sony, that's trying to do the same thing to its low-selling PS3. After all, the 360 has just managed to kick the PS3's a*s in the sales department right where it hurts: in the homeland, Japan.

At least Microsoft fixed any compatibility issue with the release of the new Xbox game download service. Will Sony do the same to make up for the lack of backwards compatibility of its 40GB PS3?