Downloads aplenty for Xbox Live!

Microsoft's Xbox Live! won't just be an online gaming service, oh no. Big, but hardly surprising, plans are afoot to offer free content for titles that use the multiplayer platform. Yup, thanks to high-speed Internet connections you'll be able to rack up new arsenals, download new levels and keep up to date with the latest virtual sports rosters - good eh?

Big-hitting shooter Unreal Championship will be one of a number of Xbox Live! titles to benefit from what are essentially downloadable freebies. Word going round suggests that new weapons, levels and character skins will be just a button click away, substantially updating the version on the shop shelf. Similarly, action title MechAssault will benefit from new guns, maps and most excitingly new 'mechs.

Apparently many of the Xbox top sports franchises will also make use of the download and update capabilities of the console and Xbox Live!. You'll be able to get new rosters and, in some cases, new kit to adorn the players in the likes of NBA 2K3, NBA Inside Drive 2003, NFL Fever 2003 and NFL 2K3. And if that isn't enough, we've heard that at least NBA 2K3 will keep in line with the latest fashions on the basketball court by allowing you to grab new looks for teams if they happen to change in real life.

Sound good? It certainly does. Presumably these won't be the only Xbox Live!-enabled titles that'll get free downloadable content either. Cor, it'll be just like having Christmas almost every day of the year.

While Xbox Live! in the US has been given the confirmation thumbs up for an autumn release - and Japan looks a dead cert for autumn too - we're still waiting to hear the fate of Europe. We are expecting an announcement from Microsoft pretty soon, but until we get definite word we'll just have to hang around on those tenterhooks.

Stuart Bishop