Lumines Live! is getting into the holiday season with 20 new skins and all new music tracks for the game's Challenge mode. Called the Rockin' Holiday Pack, the special theme pack is available for 400 MS points in Xbox Live Marketplace.

 

The skins range from Halloween to Christmas, and the new soundtrack includes varied genres including heavy metal, UK rock, and more. Xbox Live Gold Members can also get the Breeze and Heavenly Star skins for free until November 14. Lumines Live! itself also received a price drop and is now currently available for only 800 MS points.

It may not add a lot to the gameplay, but you'll certainly have fun trying out some new skins while playing the game. GameTrailers has a video featuring new downloadable content for Lumines Live! that should make fans of the game clamor for more DLC.

Q Entertainment's new DLC, called the Tokyo Club Mix Pack, features four new tracks and skins from different artists, including "Heavenly Star - SOS Remix" by Genki Rockets and "Cosmic Humming" by Muku.

More importantly, if you buy the Tokyo Club Mix Pack, between June 27 and July 17, part of the price you pay will go to helping save the planet, with the money heading to climate protection NGOs and causes.

In any case, here's the video. Enjoy the vid, wait a few days, and then buy the DLC, if you feel like grooving to some new music, okay?

 

If you're going to purchase Lumines Live!, then you may have a chance to save our planet. Apparently, the developer and publisher of the game, Q Entertainment, has hooked up with Live Earth. This organization is dedicated to preserving our planet from global warming and mass climate changes.

To help out, you can purchase the Tokyo Club Mix Pack (also known as the SOS Charity Campaign Pack) for a paltry 350 Microsoft points on Xbox Live between June 27 and July 17. A portion of your purchase will then be donated to "climate protection NGOs and causes."

The downloadable content will net you four new beats and visuals from four DJs, artists, and even VJs. It includes "Heavenly Star - SOS Remix" by Genki Rockets, "House66" by Sugiurumn, "4x4 Bricks" by Techriders, and "Cosmic Humming" by Muku.

If you own Lumines Live, there is no reason (aside from being broke perhaps) not to log on and purchase this pack. Aside from getting the cool skins and beats, you'll be saving the planet in the process. Now that's what we call a perfect combo.

One of the largest debates concerning Microsoft's Xbox 360 involves the existence, and more importantly the implementation of microtransactions. Well folks, here's a bit more for you to chew on.

To compensate for the microtransaction mess that happened with Lumines Live!, they released the Heavenly Star skin for free and reduced the price of the Vs. CPU / Puzzle Pack to a mere 100 points – that US$ 1.20!

The problem though, is that Japanese gamers aren't getting that much love from Microsoft. With the upcoming release of Lumines Live! in Japan on March 7, none of the discounts that North American gamers have received will be available. The Vs. CPU / Puzzle Pack is 300 points there, and Silicon era reports that the Heavenly Star Skin there is up an extra 150.

Is the price increase because Japanese Xbox Live folk don't complain as much? Is it because there's less of them? If you think about it, Japanese Xbox 360 gamers have every right to complain. Especially after that whole Aquazone thing. Maybe it's a cultural thing or something? Sigh.

Look before you touch, buy, and/or download is always good policy, so it helps to have these screens of the new Lumines Live!download packs from Q Entertainment and Marketplace on the 24th of January, and on "special" promo prices to boot (just to show you that they care...).

Lumines earned itself quite the notoriety for its unique "play-by-installment" feature. Perhaps the special "low" prices (free for Gold in one case) are Q's way of making amends. At least until a month later, when they yank the prices up when the promotion period comes to an end. Hey, that was in the press release.

Here are the details:

• The new Heavenly Star skin (free for Gold) to complement your Heavenly Star iTunes download;
  
• the new Puzzle/Mission pack (100 points for now), because you definitely love a new challenge (especially after all the time to clear the old ones); and
• the long-awaited VS CPU pack (also 100 points for now). You know how people have been waiting for this.

A few more screenshots after the jump. Click on the "Full Article" link below.

Good things come in threes, and Lumines Live! will definitely not be an exception to that because three new game goodies will be downloadable on Xbox Live next Wednesday!

Oh yes indeedy, three new packages of Lumines Live! content will be up for grabs on XBLA beginning Wednesday, Jan. 24, at exactly 9 a.m. GMT (1 a.m. PST). Two of them (add-on packs) will be available at promotional prices, and one of them will even be free for all XBL Gold Members BUT for a limited time only.

That said, here are the new stuff you can look forward to downloading come January 24:

Heavenly Star Skin
Cost: Available for free for Gold members from Jan. 24 - Feb 21, 2007.

VS CPU Pack
Cost: 100 MS Points starting Jan. 24 – Feb 21, 2007. (After February 21, they'll cost 300 MS Points)

This new game pack includes a skin as well as character designs that match the theme of each of the stages. A special bonus skin is waiting for you at the very end of the challenge.

Puzzle/Mission Pack
Cost: For a limited time only, 100 MS Points starting Jan. 24 - Feb 21, 2007 and will cost 300 MS Points after February 21.

In Puzzle Mode, you must try to create a certain shape by using the blocks. In Mission Mode, you will be given a mission to clear all blocks within a specified amount of moves. With an additional 90 puzzles to solve and 40 missions to clear, you won’t want to miss this Pack. (The first 10 puzzles and missions are included in the Standard Edition; by purchasing the Pack, the total number is 100 puzzles and 50 missions.)

We know that there's a lot of you who are big fans of Lumines, be it Lumines 2 on the PSP or Lumines Live on X360 via the Xbox Live Arcade. Actually, so many things have been said already about these two versions. Being on different platforms, not to mention from opposing companies, things such as those can't be avoided.

At any rate, we have something today that will make both sides happy. If you are a Lumines fan, it is highly probable that you are familiar with the in-game hit song Heavenly Star. Developer Q Entertainment excitedly announced today that the song is available for download both in U.S. and Japan via iTunes. According to the company's Chief Creative Officer, Tetsuya Mizuguchi:

We are delighted to introduce our first self-produced song Heavenly Star on iTunes. It is an important element in Q Entertainment's global entertainment and distribution strategy. As the world's most popular digital download store, iTunes is a key platform for serving our existing audience as well as introducing our work to others around the world.

Heavenly Star is currently being employed as the background music for the PSP version. On the other hand, it will be introduced to Live early this coming January as the Heavenly Star Pack. The said track was performed by the band Genki Rockets and was produced by Mizuguchi himself.

Since it'll be snowing like crazy and the weather will most likely be hypothermia-inducing in the days and weeks to come, why not entertain yourselves in the warmth of your living room couches? And while you're at it, win an HD plasma TV or MS Points, why don'tcha?

What on earth are we talking about here, you ask? Xbox Live Arcade Challenge, baby! From December 17th up to the 23rd, you'll be able to battle it out with other XBL users as you go head to head with them in Lumines Live!'s Time Attack Mode. If you weren't successful on being the best puzzle gamer, you'll get another chance to redeem yourself in the XBLA realm because on on the 24th up to the 30th, you can continue the brawling in ranked matches in Small Arms.

But before you get those competitive juices flowing, you should know that before the competition launches, the Small Arms leaderboard will be reset to provide a level playing field. Fair enough, right? So anyway, if you're planning on joining the Xbox Live Arcade Challenge, make sure you register and read the official rules by clicking on the read link below. You might wanna check out the complete list of prizes too, just in case.*winks*

We mentioned it in passing earlier, while covering news on the Lumines Live Advance Pack for the Xbox 360, but it's time to lay out all the cards. The folks at Siliconera picked up word that the Lumines Live Advance Pack isn't as advanced as people think. Mostly, it's because all of the content is also going to be a part of the PSP's Lumines II.

A representative of Buena Vista Games told Siliconera the following: "We can confirm that all the skins in Lumines Live will be in Lumines II - plus more." Note how that quote says, "plus more". Lumines II already has more planned content than its other incarnations, with more skins and additional music, so despite our feelings toward the Xbox 360 version of Lumines, we can't help but think about how hollow that feeling is now, especially when all that content is paid for in one go.

One thing we can say about Lumines Live though, is that with an Xbox 360, you really can't beat the multiplayer accessibility the game currently has in that form. Our love for Q Entertainment's frantic and frenetic puzzle game is strong, but our love for a reasonable means to enjoy our favorite games is even stronger.

In the wake of all the customer complaints, all the game media coverage - all the deleted forum threads and dubious customer support emails? - it was only a matter of time before a major media outlet would sit down with Microsoft itself to get their point of view. 1UP talks to XBLA's Greg Canessa to clear up this muddled picture of pay-per-game-pack, and how Live Arcade games are priced in the first place.

Micropayments is a new territory Microsoft is exploring with game publishers, Canessa explains. Lumines Live! for one thing, is unlike any Arcade title before it: "Kind of in between an Arcade game and a retail game, in a way." Tetsuya Mizuguchi was in fact insistent on creating an XBLA Lumines experience that would be superior to the PSP Lumines.

But the basic pack for 1,200 points? Canessa insists that it was neither a "misstep" nor a screw-over. He insists that the game had "all of the play modes in it" - in other words, a full game in itself. "No one ever says, 'Game over. Sorry, you're screwed.' No, you can play Lumines all you want." Again, it's all about providing the customer choice. If you want more of this play mode, or that skin, then download it when available.

But Q Entertainment was the one who had the reins when it came to creating the "base pack" and the pricing, he claims. "It is their game, Microsoft's duty is that we own the overall platform... This is (their) title and some of the specifics there are what (they) decided to implement." The publisher sets the price of the game; Microsoft only offers price tiers as a sort of guideline or suggestion to help publishers to make their decisions.

Not that they're ignoring the consumers with all of this happening. Canessa assures that they're listening to consumer feedback and will work out the "kinks" when there are "kinks". (Nothing about any emails from Customer Support to Xbox forum members, though.)

The argument over the fallout of Lumines Live! by-the-numbersdownload can probably go on forever, with people who think it's a great means of offering consumers choice, and others who think it's a total rip-off. But we go back to what 1UP said before: in the end, it's still an advertising screw-up. It's how people define what "base pack" or even "full game" means - as Canessa so inadvertently demonstrates here.

And it goes back to the most important question in both economics and gaming: are you satisfied paying 1,200 MS points for what you just downloaded? Opinion's still pretty divided on that one though.