Microsoft is giving all things Xbox Live a bit of a face lift today. The company has announced it's rebranding the long-standing Xbox Live Marketplace as the Xbox Live Games Store, effective immediately.
The reason for the switch, according to an interview a Microsoft spokesperson did with Joystiq claims it's a matter of making the Xbox Live area easier to navigate in anticipation of the next-gen console's launch.
"The'at right, [Xbox Live Marktplace] is now called the Xbox Games Store, and will sit alongside the Xbox Music Store and Xbox Video Store. This is to make it easier for consumers to find content both on Xbox 360 today and the Xbox One when it launches in November."
While simply renaming a functionality of the the Xbox Live features may not seem like a lot, to put it into perspective, the Xbox Marketplace has existed since the launch of the Xbox 360 back in 2005. It is literally a title as old as the console itself.
This isn't the only traditional function on the console that's getting a bump. Today marks the official switch from Microsoft Points to real-world currency to make purchases on Xbox Live.
Previously, Microsoft Points were purchased with real money and then those points were used as tokens to purchase downloadable content. Now the system has changed and the currency system takes real money. What this means is, if a piece of downloadable content only costs $8, users don't have to pay a fixed $10 rate for enough points to buy it.
The company is reportedly making every effort possible to streamline all of the features on the Xbox 360 that have become loose or hard to manage in the past eight years. The company wants users who pick up the Xbox One to have an easy to use but still familiar experience on the Xbox Live Stores when the console launches sometime in November of 2013, just in time for the holiday season.
