Xbox Live adds Holiday Snow Globe
Avatar nonsense for "festive" "season".
Microsoft has added an animated snow globe to the Xbox frontend to celebrate what it likes to call the holidays.
It follows the addition of a free "Winter Holiday Theme" for all Xbox Live Gold members (the ones who pay) earlier in the week.
Unlike the theme, the snow globe doesn't require a download - it just shows up automatically in a special new seasonal Spotlight channel called Happy Holidays.
Select it and the 2D snow globe shows up and automatically fills with Avatars of you and your friends. Press A to shake the globe unconvincingly, or X to shuffle the Avatar line-up, while a trebly, insistent rendition of Jingle Bells bothers your ears and non-denominational season's greetings scroll across the top of the screen in a variety of languages.
Details are on Major Nelson, or you could just fire up the Xbox to have a look, but we can't recommend it.
"This will give you a chance to enjoy a little Holiday spirit with your Xbox LIVE friends in very NXE way," said the Major.
"This is like, one of the coolest things ever," said commenter H20 n1gh7sh4d3.
Bah humbug.