First “episode” of the Animatrix free on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace

This week Warner Brothers put up the nine animated shorts from the Animatrix DVD on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. If you picked up the Matrix Trilogy on HD-DVD you can download all of them for free, otherwise each episode costs 160 Microsoft Points ($2). To get 360 owners to check out the series Warner Brothers is offering “The Second Renaissance Part 1” free for a limited time. The Second Renaissance is a prequel to the Matrix and part 1 ends with a cliffhanger to entice you to purchase The Second Renaissance Part 2. Technically the first episode on the Animatrix DVD was Final Flight of the Osiris, a CG short produced by Square Pictures. Yeah, the same Square Pictures that made Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It would have been better if Warner Brothers released Final Flight of the Osiris or any other episode for free since they are standalone stories, but there’s less money to be made that way.