Anyone who has been a member of XBox Live for the past few years has been aware that they could purchase some classic XBox games via download through XBox Originals. This would lay the groundwork for the recently deployed Games on Demand program that contains XBox 360 gems like Grand Theft Auto 4, Mass Effect and Oblivion. Stored to the player’s hard drive and tied to their XBox Live account, the customer never has to touch a disc to play their favorite games.

Also added to this list has been the XBox exclusive Fable II which came out last year on retail discs. The way Fable II is being sold to customers is an entirely new way to distribute previously released full retail games as it takes an episodic format. Through Games on Demand, players can download the first of five chapters in the game for free.

Instead of giving a traditional demo which would stand apart from a retail copy, players get to experience the full first chapter of the game and save their progress throughout at no cost. Should the player enjoy what they play, they will be able to continue purchasing chapters through the in game menus. The only setback of this first chapter of the game is that it won’t receive full online XBox functionality until players have purchased additional chapters.

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Set to go live on August 11th, the Summer XBox Live update adds three new features for players to use to expand their XBox Live experience.

Part 1: Games on Demand

Much like the XBox Originals program which has slowed down as of late, players will be able to download full XBox 360 games to their hard drive after purchasing a digital copy off XBox Live Marketplace. Unlike installing the game from the disk, players will not need to insert a disc in to the drive to play the game as all licenses will be saved to the hard drive as well.

To make transactions easier, players can use credit or debit cards to purchase games instead of being forced to use Microsoft points and causing extra unnecessary steps in the purchasing process. Prices have not yet been released for the following titles which should be live when the update launches.

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