Hasta La Gadget!

Halo 4 is on the horizon, and just like most of the Halo games before it, we can expect an offering of DLC map packs to keep us playing well into the next year. Today, Microsoft announced the Halo 4 War Games Map Pass, which is just the company’s fancy name for those DLC season passes that seem to be so popular these days. By purchasing the Halo 4 War Games Map Pass, you save 15% on the cost of buying each of Halo 4‘s three map packs separately, so this is a good idea for those who already know they’ll be buying all of the Halo 4 DLC 343 Industries and Microsoft put out.

The Halo 4 War Games Map Pass comes with a price tag of 2000 Microsoft Points ($25), which means that the individual map packs will cost $10 (800 MSP) each. Microsoft also gave us the names of these three maps packs today: Crimson, Majestic, and Castle. Crimson features the Wreckage, Harvest, and Shatter maps; Majestic includes the Landfall, Monolith, and Skyline maps; while Castle will be adding the Daybreak, Outcast, and Perdition maps to the game.

Even better is that we were given release windows for all three packs today. Crimson will be out in December, Majestic in February, and Castle in April, so we’ll begin getting DLC shortly after Halo 4‘s release. There aren’t any specific release dates for these map packs available at the moment, probably due to the fact that none of them have been finished yet.

If you pick up the Halo 4 War Games Map Pass, Microsoft will also toss in a few extras on the side. Purchasers will get the Scanner and Strider helmets to use in-game, along with a new Falcon emblem that would otherwise be unobtainable. Microsoft’s announcement originally said that the Map Pass is included as part of the Halo 4 Limited Edition console bundle, but in the time since, 343′s David Ellis has clarified that it will be bonus with the Limited Edition game only, not the console. Will you be buying a Halo 4 War Games Map Pass?

Halo 4 War Games Map Pass detailed and priced is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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We’re just a few days away from Microsoft‘s big Windows Phone 8 launch event, and today we’re receiving a bit of encouraging news about the Windows Phone Marketplace. All About Windows Phone has announced that the Windows Phone Marketplace has passed the 125,000 apps milestone, with a total of 126,530 apps being published to the marketplace in the past 20 months. It’s important to keep in mind that these aren’t official numbers from Microsoft, but All About Windows Phone has been right on the money when talking about published Marketplace apps plenty of times in the past.

Of those 126,530 apps, 113,170 of them are available for download in any combination of 60 different countries, while 101,517 are live in the US. The UK isn’t far behind the US, with 96,265 apps live on its own app store, and France rounds out the top three with a total of 92,887 apps on its Windows Phone Marketplace. That 126,530 figure means that around 215 apps are being published to the Windows Phone Marketplace per day, which certainly isn’t bad.

The number of developers has been steadily climbing too, with a total of 30,000 developers publishing an app on the Windows Phone Marketplace at some point in time. Windows Phone managed to hit the 125,000 milestone faster than Android, which took 26 months to get there, but iOS ultimately came out on top in the race to 125,000 apps, taking only 18.5 months to reach the milestone. That has to be pretty encouraging, but then there’s still the fact that the Windows Phone Marketplace lags pretty far behind the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store in terms total published apps.

Unfortunately for Windows Phone users, AAWP says that the rate at which apps are being published to the Windows Phone Marketplace has slowed down in recent months. This is likely because developers are preparing for the launch of Windows Phone 8. If you have a few minutes on hand, be sure to read through AAWP’s full report, as it’s a very interesting piece!

Windows Phone Marketplace surpasses 125,000 apps milestone is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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