Wow, the promises made at E3 are coming to fruition: The UFC is coming to your Xbox dashboard in a big way on December 1st. Finally you will be able to order UFC Pay Per Views through the Xbox in HD (UFC 140 is the first available live show), you will be able to view what I assume to be an extended back catalog of Zuffa owned fights, and even predict live UFC matches and compare your fight prediction record with your friends. Very, very cool. I’ve been wanting to get my Xbox avatar more involved in my real life, and it looks like this is how I will do it. Of course this means I will have to change the MiddleEasy avatar from the Audrey Hepburn default character they gave us a year ago. Or will I?
Here is what the rest of the UFC press release broke down for us:
- Live and On-Demand Video – Event previews, UFC Countdown, press conferences, weigh-ins, interviews, workouts, highlights, and more, together for the first time on your big screen.
- Streaming HD Quality in 720p – UFC fans demand stunning HD viewing, and Xbox LIVE brings the most premium streaming HD to the big screen.
- Pay-Per-View with Ease – The biggest pay-per-view fights available to all Xbox LIVE members in HD and SD pricing options. Purchase directly with your credit card, Microsoft Points not required.
- Interactive Fight Card with Predictions – Size up the fighters with the tale of the tape and view their past fight results. Predict upcoming fights, compare results with friends for points and bragging rights, and see where you stand against them on the leaderboard, all accessible while watching the fight so you’ll never have to leave the excitement of the Octagon.
- Control the action with Kinect – Focus on the fight instead of looking for the remote. Navigate through the video content, bring up the Interactive Fight Card, or play, pause, and rewind that big punch, kick or submission…all with the magic of Kinect.
So we gain points by predicting fight cards correctly eh? I hope you can use those points on avatar gear or even UFC Undisputed stuff. With the rough launch and lack of quality anything for the Kinect, I wonder if this will be enough of a “killer app” for me to buy a used one. Here are a couple of entries from my UFC on Xbox wish list:
- The Entire PRIDE Library – Zuffa owns it, so sell it. I have all of the Dream shows and I would be extremely willing to shell out a few bucks for each Pride event to be on my hard drive. While we are at it, throw in the WEC catalog and WFA too.
- Avatar Gear – Nothing makes me question my manhood more than dressing up a digital representation of myself before I got out with the guys and play a game of Full House Poker. Let me throw on a WEC shirt with the classic PRIDE baseball hat and I promise to never take it off.
- Reasonable Pricing – As it stands now, you can watch a 30 second fight for the same price as a 15 minute fight on Xbox live ($2 or 160 Microsoft points). I know that Microsoft is stringent on it’s Live policies but this needs to change.
- UFC TV – There is no reason why this shouldn’t be on the Xbox. Change camera angles, hear the corners and more. I want it on my television, not my computer.
- Watch with Your Party – I hope this is in the features since it’s so obvious, but I will put it here just in case. I’ve never watched Netflix with a party, but I know I will watch UFC Pay Per Views or even individual fights with one. Lobbies are cool, but I don’t want to talk to people I don’t know. If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t be alone at home on my Xbox wearing a headset. I would be alone at a bar wearing a headset.
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