Not exactly new, although still in beta, I wanted to mention 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live. It’s a console port of the trivia television show, which I’ve never seen but is similar to say a Who Wants to be a Millionaire with audience participation. As I commented on NewTeeVee a few weeks back, 1 vs 100 has me pretty excited – it represents the first true interactive television experience as far as I’m concerned, given the reach of the Xbox Live network and mainstream appeal of a trivia gameshow. Why watch a Jeopardy when I can participate directly?
Gameplay is pretty straightforward. There’s “The One” (player on the podium), the “mob” of 100 who compete against The One, and the “crowd” which is usually the rest of us. Multiple choice trivia questions are presented, points are tallied. Real prizes are up for grabs for The One or members of the mob (depending how the match plays out), although so far I’ve only seen Xbox video game downloads and Microsoft Points. The show is hosted by two human hosts, one is live (Chris Cashman) and the other (Jen Taylor, aka “Cortana”) may not be. We participants are represented by our personal avatars and we can chat within our quartet, although I’ve never donned the mic for this game.
I’m not sure if 1 vs 100 offers Achievements – figured my round-spanning 15 correct answers streak would be good for something. But no dice. And I wish could change my answer to recover from those occasional itchy trigger finger moments (point bonuses for quicker responses). As an occasional trivia buff, I also wish MS had partnered with the NTN or licensed You Don’t Know Jack – as fun as 1 vs 100 currently is, it could feature deeper, more diverse gameplay and with more bite.
At the moment, 1 vs 100 is free to Xbox Live Gold members and augmented by commercial advertisements – mainly Sprint (Go Pre!). Hopefully, with enough participants Microsoft will find the advertisers to simultaneously keep it free, bump the prizes, and expand the winner pool once officially released.
(The video I shot above isn’t a true representation of the game: “Extended Play” isn’t hosted live and doesn’t actually feature The One. But, it should be enough to get an idea of how this works.)
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