M$ Details Free-To-Play on 360, First title due in Sept

The platform holder plans to publish Japanese studio Toylogic's online brawler Happy Wars as its first free-to-play game later this year, followed by action-RPG Ascend: New Gods from Toy Soldiers maker Signal Studios.

Both will be available free of charge to Xbox Live Gold subscribers, but they'll "leverage the Microsoft Points system" through microtransactions.

"We're always looking at ways to push the boundaries of the console and our digital platform," a Microsoft spokesperson told our friends at OXM. "Bringing true free-to-play gaming experiences to Xbox 360 is a natural extension of that.

"With the ongoing success of the model on PC, and the interest from both our consumers and our partners looking to explore this system on console, it simply made sense to deliver this experience through great games that would take advantage of it.

"In this pilot program, Microsoft Studios will support free-to-play gaming with Happy Wars, due out in September, as well as the recently announced game Ascend: New Gods which will ship in several months.

"The free-to-play model and games experiences will be available to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers, as many of the games planned will be multiplayer games by nature (an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription is required for multiplayer gaming). The games that use the free-to-play mechanic will leverage the Microsoft Points system."

Free to play although you still have to pay for gold to use it lol

and buy add ons no doubt lol

Bet this is a test case - next gen will have to see more FTP titles funded by micro transactions. You only have to take a look at Team Fortress 2 on PC to see that handled properly, FTP can raise plenty of income and keep gamers much more comitted to a title without the need for online passes etc.

It certainly seems to be the way the industry is heading, Crytek for example recently stated that after Crysis 3 most of their PC output will move to FTP

Dc uni erse worked well on ps3 too.

Personally struggle with the whole concept of F2P. I have tried these games, mainly on my iPad but I just don't bother paying to unlock the content via microtransactions, then I get bored very easily as generally the games tend to get too difficult to progress after a while.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still prefer to pay for the 'full' game up front and be done with it, fuck DLC and Microtransactions.

Those with the dashboard beta can play Happy Wars now by going to the "more" section of the beta channel on the dash

Ok I'm a little shocked, I held out little hope of these being much cop but Happy Wars is actually a huge amount of fun!

The game comes with some well paced tutorials and a single player campaign, The jist of the game itself is kind of a cartoony melee take on battlefield.

Each team starts at a base, with the map harbouring 3-7 points to control, The idea being to take control of the 3 points and destroy the enemy base, You get 3 classes, Warrior, Mage and Cleric.

The Warrior is your main fighting force with stong attacks and the ability to guard other players.

The Mage has weak melee and long range attacks but can also deal damage in wide areas.

The Cleric can heal team mates, build defenses and siege equipment for taking down the enemy castle.

Each character is completely customisable with weapons and armour offering different stats and abilities, This is where the F2P will come in as microtransactions will allow you to buy better weapons and armour. HOWEVER M$ have been suprisingly nice here and those of us that choose not to pay can still get all of these items, The game includes "Happy points" these are won during matches and you can use them to level up and customise your character and items OR you can use them on the "Happy Spinner" to aqquire new items and weapons that you would usually pay for.

Think I'll have a look at this later

A quick note to those that do give this a go, There is currently a bug linked to "Hot time" (Hot time is 30 mins of double xp that occurs every hour and a half) If your in a match when hot time begins you'll be fine as long as you stay in the same lobby but anyone in the menu won't be able to play for the 30 mins that hot time is active. This is because the menu options currently crash the game while double xp is enabled, M$ are working on fixing it asap...

Other than that it's pretty bug free for a beta...