The Xbox Netflix app will be unlocked this weekend – meaning that those with just an Xbox LIVE Silver membership will be able to utilize the app (as long as you have a Netflix subscription). Usually, you must have an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription to access Netflix.

“If you’ve been yearning for more of the Bluth family, look no further. The new season of Arrested Development finally premieres this Sunday, May 26. And it gets even better. Starting today, Xbox Live Gold will be unlocked* for the weekend for Netflix members in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. Basically, we’ve made it ridiculously really easy for you to catch up on the first three seasons of Arrested Development. If you’re not a Netflix member, fear not,” says the Xbox Wire.

The new season of Arrested Development drops (all 15 episodes) at 12:01 am PT on Sunday. Netflix offers a free 1-month trial right now, so it looks like the perfect storm for Xbox LIVE Silver members who want to watch via their Xbox. If you want to get caught up, you have until then to stream the first 3 seasons, which are all available on Netflix.

This sort of deal promotes binge watching – but be careful. According to Arrested Development’s creator, that could make it less fun. Marathonning is hard to resist, however. So, do what you want.

Gamesindustry.biz reports that Microsoft has recently applied for a patent that would hand out achievements to TV viewers. Similar to how achievements encourage players to complete specific objectives, TV achievements will be used to incentivize viewers to watch more content. Here’s the description:

“Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content. To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content. Additionally, by tying the awards and achievements to particular items of video or advertising content, viewers may be encouraged to increase their viewership of the content, thus increasing advertising opportunities,”

Speaking of advertising opportunities, the patent application says the Xbox One may use Kinect to get viewers to interact with the program. One of the examples has the viewer holding up a particular object that may coincide with what’s on the screen. The TV show would then reward the viewer with an achievement for being a blind loyal consumer.

The most interesting part of the application is a little section that says TV achievements may not just be points that go towards a Gamerscore. Instead, Microsoft may offer users digital and physical rewards for watching shows and scanning in items.

For now, this is just a patent application. There’s no guarantee that this will show up on the Xbox One. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it after Microsoft put so much emphasis on television at its unveiling event.

In an update on the official Major Nelson blog, Hryb confirms that the Xbox One will be able to play used games. Unfortunately, he doesn’t say much more than that:

We know there is some confusion around used games on Xbox One and wanted to provide a bit of clarification on exactly what we’ve confirmed today. While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail.

Beyond that, we have not confirmed any specific scenarios.

Well, that’s nice to know, but it doesn’t really clarify anything. What’s keeping Microsoft from just coming out and discussing its used game policy with the Xbox One? Transparency is incredibly effective when gamers everywhere are tearing your new console a new one just because they think that it won’t play used games. The above statement confirms that used games will be playable, but it doesn’t serve to address any of the specific concerns being raised on message boards across the Internet.

Well, Hryb does address one specific scenario:

Another piece of clarification around playing games at a friend’s house – should you choose to play your game at your friend’s house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your profile.

Wait, so does that mean that there is a fee when not signed into the account that activated the game? How much is this fee? Is it the full price of the game? We need these details and Microsoft remaining vague only serves to frustrate.

At this point in time, it seems that we’ll have to wait for more details around E3. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll hear anything more at that point either. The mixed messages being sent yesterday makes it seem that those within Microsoft don’t even know the used game policy. We might not hear anything until we’re a month or two away from launch. Now that would be unfortunate.

Xbox executives discuss how Xbox built the all-in-one games and entertainment system for today and the decade ahead — Xbox One. Xbox executives Yusuf Mehdi, Phil Spencer, and Marc Whitten discuss how Xbox One puts you at the center of all your games, TV, movies, music, sports and Skype.

As an added bonus, here’s that “Xbox Anthem” video that Microsoft opened the Xbox One unveiling event with. It’s totally worth watching for the random appearances from Hideo Kojima and J.J. Abrams. Will they be creating content for the new console, like Steven Spielberg’s live action Halo TV series?

GimmeGimmeGames reports that the Xbox One only sports an HDMI out. That means the console will not be able to connect to displays with component or composite ins. Of course, there are converters that convert digital signals to analog for those still rocking a component connection, but Microsoft won’t be supporting it out of the box.

It’s hard to imagine that gamers still play HD consoles on an SDTV in this day and age, but a number of examples prove they still exist. They also may be interested in the Xbox One. That interest will require them to upgrade to an HDTV before jumping into the next generation of gaming. Thankfully, HDTVs are not quite as expensive as they used to be.

The last generation introduced digital audio and video to game consoles, but they still had support for analog connections. The Xbox One ditching analog signals may be a sign that the PS4 will be doing the same. We haven’t seen Sony’s hardware yet, however, so we don’t know if that will be the case.

Lack of SDTV support isn’t the only issue facing Microsoft’s latest machine. The company has been sending mixed signals regarding its stance on used games with the Xbox One. We’re still waiting on a definitive statement, but signs are pointing to it allowing used games within certain parameters.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for confirmation on this specific issue, and will update if we hear back.

It may be a little unfair to call EA Sports Executive Vice President Andrew Wilson a “fist bump in human form,” but he did come off as a little too bro-tastic during yesterday’s unveiling. In fact, that seems to have been a theme during yesterday’s unveiling – entertainment for those who are classified as “bros.” Twitter seems to have picked up on it as well.

If you want to see a more true to life version of the unveiling (that’s still hilarious), check out the condensed version of the unveiling from this morning.

YouTube user Darkbeatdk has condensed the hour long Xbox One unveiling into a minute and a half video that emphasizes what’s really important about Microsoft’s new console – TV.

There are bound to be a number of abridged parody videos of the Xbox One unveiling, but it’s going to be hard to top this one. Sometimes the truth is funnier than any parody.

[h/t: Kotaku]

Judging from the trailer, Call of Duty: Ghosts will be packed with all of the action Call of Duty fans are used to. Though no multiplayer gameplay was shown at the event, it’s a given that Infinity Ward has tweaked the combat in ways that will both delight and infuriate Call of Duty veterans.

Aside from the trailer itself, one of the big reveals of the Xbox One conference was that Call of Duty Ghosts will feature dog soldiers. Other new features include the ability to lean around corners and slide.

Microsoft encouraged fans to continue the discussion on Twitter with #XboxOne and they did. People were talking about everything from the console’s TV functions to the still confusing used games policy.

I will say, the best thing that’s come out of today is that I more excited than ever for Killzone: Shadow Fall. #XboxOne

— Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) May 21, 2013

The instant switching on the #xboxone looks really good. Not really sure how TV will work outside of US. As our TVs have integrated Tuners.

— Muhammad Skaka (@productfeedback) May 22, 2013

Games locked to 1 account = other household members can’t play a game registered to someone else’s account. That’s a huge problem. #xboxone

— GameJournos (@GameJournos) May 22, 2013

I’m nerding out over the #xboxone and the amazing features. Split screen like my @surface pro? With Madden and an @nfl game? Yes please!

— Mike Ross (@IAmMikeRoss) May 22, 2013

Is it just me of did today’s #xboxone press conference target the ‘Bro Gamer’ almost exclusively?

— Zak Grim (@ZakGrim) May 22, 2013

Microsoft seems so confused and unsure on the used game issue because until this afternoon it actually forgot what videogames are. #XboxOne

— Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) May 21, 2013

At least Microsoft made the controller matte black #xboxone #aSmallvictory

— Michael Gallarello (@mjgconcepts) May 22, 2013

Can #xboxone wipe my ass for me?

— Bee (@itssbee_) May 22, 2013

If you want to follow all the Xbox One madness on Twitter, hit up the widget below:

Tweets about “#xboxone”

The Xbox One will kind of block used games from being played on the console. Now, what does that mean? It means that every game must be installed on the system. The game disc you buy in the store is merely a means of getting that information installed on the hard drive. Of course, what’s to stop from multiple friends all sharing the same disc, and getting the same game?

Wired explains:

“…each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner.

Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.”

Of course, it seems that Microsoft itself is confused as to the extent of its own used game policy. On the official Xbox site, a QA page (which has since been removed) says the following about used games on the Xbox One (courtesy of NeoGAF):

We are designing Xbox One to enable customers to trade in and resell games. We’ll have more details to share later.

Adding more layers to the confusion, John Hicks, Editor of Official Xbox 360 Magazine, tweeted out a few details regarding the policy:

On second hand games: you buy disc, it installs, you play from HD. Sell disc, it installs to new console and deactivates your install.

— Jon Hicks (@MrJonty) May 21, 2013

Again, at no point when I was talking to MS did they say there was a fee for used games. They said used games were important and supported.

— Jon Hicks (@MrJonty) May 21, 2013

So, what does this all mean? What we can pull from this mess of misinformation and confusing statements is that Microsoft will indeed have a policy regarding the use of used games on its console. It’s not going to be as simple as buying a used game and popping it in.

Now, the statements from the Microsoft itself and Hicks suggest that the next Xbox won’t be entirely anti-used games. Instead, the next Xbox may only charge a fee if you have no intention of sellin the game.

For example, you may be charged a small fee if you lend the disc to a friend and they install it on their system. You still get to play the game, but they get to as well after paying said fee. Now, that fee may not be present when buying used games because the person who sold the game previously forfeited the original license and had the game uninstalled from their system.

It should be noted that the above example is pure speculation based upon what we’re seeing from a variety of sources. We won’t know anything for sure until Microsoft clarifies the situation itself. The official QA said that we would hear more about Microsoft’s used games policy soon, but it may want to address it sooner rather than later to dispel all the confusion surrounding the Xbox One and its used game policy.

UPDATE: And the plot thickens. An official Xbox Support twitter account is now saying that there are no fees associated with used games on the Xbox One.

@modronfixer No fee, correct – and they just got that information wrong. As soon as we saw, we contacted them to correct it. ^EM

— Xbox Support 3 (@XboxSupport3) May 21, 2013