Since the launch of the Xbox 360, Xbox Live users have gotten used to the free demos that are regularly made available, but every once in a while the Official Xbox Magazine gets exclusive rights to distribute a demo on its pack in demo disc. Past exclusives have included F.E.A.R. and TimeShift.

360 owners who wanted to play these demos would need to then shell out $10 for a newsstand copy of the magazine; not exactly an exciting proposition. The infrequency of these exclusive demos hardly justified maintaining a subscription to the magazine either.

A newly announced service, OXM Digital, could benefit those who want to play the exclusive demos but don't want to shell out $10 for a magazine that is going to end up in the garbage faster than an empty bag of Doritos.

OXM Digital will be a monthly 200 MS Point ($2.50 USD) download that will contain the exclusive demos and some other exclusive content, like interviews and videos, from the OXM demo disc.

I can't say I like the idea of being charged for a demo and, ideally, OXM would shut down-like it's PlayStation counterpart (OPM)-and there would be no exclusive demos, but as long as they're still around, having the option to pay $2.50 for the content is certainly better than paying out $10 for the entire mag. The problem with this kind of thing is that, if successful, it will result in more and more exclusive demos being made available for a price.

The September issue of OXM will have an exclusive demo of Beautiful Katamari but it has not yet been confirmed whether it will be part of the upcoming OXM Digital #1.

 [via Xbox 360 Fanboy]