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Microsoft Corporation registers domain names for ‘Xbox Summer Stadium App’

Xbox Summer Stadium App

Microsoft has picked up two new domain names this week hinting at an upcoming ‘Summer Stadium’ app for the Xbox.

On April 30, 2012, Microsoft registered the hyphenated domains, xbox-summer-stadium-app.com (Whois) and xbox-summer-stadium-app.net (Whois), through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

With baseball season in full swing, now is as good a time as any to release a stadium app for the Xbox. But it’s unknown at this time whether the app will be used for sports or music concerts taking place this summer.

MLB.com has a number of apps, including At the Ballpark which offers mobile check-in, social media, offers, rewards and exclusive content.  It also provides other information like current game details including team schedule, ticket information and sales and promotional event listings.

At the time of this story, Microsoft has not announced anything about the Summer Stadium app for the Xbox.

Currently, the domain xbox-summer-stadium-app.com does not resolve to a web page, while xbox-summer-stadium-app.net redirects visitors to Bing.

(Image of Xbox Live via Xbox.com)

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Disputes National Arbitration Forum News Trademarks Video Games WIPO

Neither Sony, Nintendo, nor Microsoft own the domains for their next consoles

xbox 720

The console wars are heating up, but there’s just one problem: the three major companies don’t own the matching domains to their next-generation consoles.

Nintendo doesn’t own WiiU.com, Sony doesn’t own Playstation4.com, and Microsoft doesn’t own Xbox720.com.

Will the companies submit a domain dispute, file an anti-cybersquatting lawsuit, or pay a large sum of cash to get the domains?  Well, it’s unknown whether Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo are considering any of these options, but what is known is that owning the domain names couldn’t their hurt online marketing efforts as the console wars heat up.

That being said, how are the domain names being used today?

Today, Playstation4.com re-directs to PSX Extreme, a video game website that has been covering Sony Playstation news for years.  PSXExtreme.com and Playstation4.com are both owned by Poise Media Inc., according to WHOIS records.  The domain was first registered in 1998, but Poise Media didn’t acquire the name until late 2008.

Xbox720.com is registered to a Jeremiah Germany of New York, who monetizes the domain using Google Adsense for Domains.  Over the years, the domain has been host to a number of different sites ranging from a Les Paul guitars site in 2006 to a Google Custom Search page in 2008.  However, since 2009 it appears the owner of Xbox720.com has been earning money using Google Adsense for Domains.

The owner of WiiU.com, who remains hidden behind WHOIS privacy, has the site set up as a Shopping.com affiliate web page.  I wrote about WiiU.com back in June, after Nintendo announced the console at E3 without owning the domain.  In August, Nintendo filed nearly 20 trademark applications (several including images) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the word Wii U.

All three console companies have used a variety of methods in the past to reclaim trademarked names, and in recent years, they have often filed complaints under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). 

In nearly all the complaints, the domain names have been ordered transferred.  So given the track record to date, it’s likely when the trademark lawyers finally get around to going after these domains, they’ll use the UDRP.

Recently, Nintendo gained the rights to SuperMario.com, over 25 years since it had released Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.  The company filed a complaint with WIPO which it won in late September. 

Microsoft has filed and won dozens of Xbox-related domain disputes going back to 2003.

And though Sony Computer Entertainment has only filed a handful of disputes, it has won all 4 that it did submit.  Those cases involved: playstationx.com, sonyplaystation2.com, sonyps2.com, psone.com, pspcn.com,  and pspmovie.net.

Sometimes, however when companies want a domain and don’t want to risk losing a dispute or are impatient for the time it takes time for proceedings to complete, they will pay cash — as Microsoft likely did with Halo4.com.

I’ve reached out to the owner of each domain name to see if they’ve been contacted by the respective console company, and will update this post if I hear back.

(Concept design of Microsoft’s next-generation console ‘Xbox 720’ by Tai Chiem)

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News Video Games

Nearly a month after acquiring domain name, Microsoft starts redirecting Kinect.com to Xbox web page

Xbox Kinect

Earlier this month, I was the first to report that Microsoft acquired the domain name Kinect.com for its controller-free add-on for the Xbox. 

However, if you typed the URL, kinect.com, into your browser’s address bar in the past 30 or so days, you were taken to Bing’s search engine results page for the keyword “Kinect.”.  The exact URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=kinect&form=MSSRPD

Today, Microsoft released its second-quarter results which were helped by the success of its Kinect game device. 

“Sales at the company’s entertainment-and-devices division jumped 55% on the success of the company’s Kinect motion-based controller, which were a hit during the holiday season and boosted sales of Xbox 360 consoles. Operating profit for the division has surpassed $1 billion so far this fiscal year.”, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Though the change looks to have taken place in the past week, redirecting the domain name Kinect.com from Bing’s search engine results to the Xbox Kinect page appears to coincide with the release of the company’s second quarter results.