14 DAY TRIAL // The New Xbox Experience comes on November 19 and Microsoft is eager to advertise it by launching a promotion aimed at those who get stuff from the Xbox Live Marketplace. The big prize is 500,000 Microsoft Points, which a lucky gamer will be able to use to get even more stuff from Microsoft. There will also be five first place prizes, which offer 50,000 points, ten second place prizes worth 10,000 and thirty third place prizes delivering 5,000 Microsoft Points.
If you want to take part in the promotion, you have to go through the following steps. You need to register your Gamertag using a “Download & Win” gamer picture that is available for free from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Then, you need to purchase and download at least one item on the Live Marketlplace in the period between 6:00 Pacific Standard Time on November 19 and 12:00 Pacific Standard Time on November 23. The categories which are eligible for the sweepstakes are Movie, TV Show, Full Arcade Game, Xbox Originals Game, Game Add-On, Music Video. It's currently not known when the users are announced.
The aspect which shows how much Microsoft wants to increase Marketplace sales is that you can basically have more chances by just buying more items during the period of the sweepstakes. After all, the Redmond giant receives more money from you and you have more chances at getting the prizes, which is a win-win situation. And there's some free word of mouth publicity related to the Xbox 360.
The New Xbox Experience is set to make the interface of the gaming console easier to use. There will be more pieces of information available on all the content offered and they plan to integrate Netflix in order to make the device more of a multimedia center. The new design is more user friendly and Microsoft hopes it will attract more casual gamers.