Items tagged with Xbox 360
As time marches onward, new developments and technologies come along, requiring the sunsetting of that which came previously. It appears that time has come for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as Rockstar has announced the shuttering of Grand Theft Auto Online on December 16th for the antiquated yet beloved consoles. Around 2005 and 2006, the original Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were revealed, bringing gaming into more people's living rooms. Then in 2010, both consoles got a facelift with a "slim" version that gave upgrades and fixes to both platforms. Three years later, GTA V and GTA Online released on both consoles, beginning the saga of one of the most played video games in current history....
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Over the weekend, we got out first glimpse at the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) remaster of the classic (and game changing) GoldenEye 007. GoldenEye 007 was originally released for the Nintendo 64 console back in 1997 and quickly became one of the platform's most popular games. A 2-hour walkthrough of the game was posted to YouTube showing the game running with vastly improved graphics at 4K resolution and 60 fps. The remaster was originally developed back in 2007 by Rare, but it was cancelled due the sheer number of parties involved with licensing and copyright matters. “The main reason it didn’t happen was because there were too many stakeholders,” said GoldenEye composer Grant...
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We love free games with no strings attached, and that's just what Microsoft has in store for Xbox One and even Xbox 360 gamers today. If you’re a fan of the popular Crackdown series of games, Microsoft is making the original Crackdown available for free today. The game was originally released for the Xbox 360 platform, but thanks to the Backwards Compatibility program, Xbox One users can also acquire the game for free. And as an added bonus, Crackdown is one of a handful of Xbox 360 titles that has been remastered to take advantage of the 4K playback capabilities of the Xbox One X. The original Crackdown debuted way back in 2007 and was a pretty big hit for the Xbox 360. Crackdown 2 arrived...
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One of the greatest appeals of Netflix is that for a monthly fee, you have nearly unlimited access to a wealth of movies and television shows, as well as some seriously entertaining original series. What if a service existed for gaming that was similar to Netflix in terms of its addictive content? Microsoft just launched Xbox Games Pass, a video game subscription service that has the potential to do just. Xbox One owners can pay $10 USD a month in order to access over one hundred different games currently. Gamers will then need to download the games directly to their hard drive and install them on their Xbox One or Xbox 360. They will also need to still maintain an Internet connection. This mode...
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It's been a pretty interesting year for Destiny so far, for better or for worse. The year kicked off in a rather interesting way when Bungie's president Harold Ryan stepped down, being replaced by Pete Parsons, the company's former COO. The move caused a bit of concern among those in the Destiny community, but when the mammoth April update got pushed out, with its revamped Prison of Elders mode, increased Light Level, and the introduction of new items, it helped smooth over some concerns and gave the impression that things would be alright. Thankfully, nothing has changed since then. The future of Destiny looks bright, and its upcoming Rise of Iron expansion looks to be the biggest update to...
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Have you ever spent hours crafting the perfect online user name, only to discover it had already been claimed? Thankfully, Xbox Live users will now have more choices. Microsoft will release nearly one million Gamertags on Wednesday, May 18th at 2pm (EST). They will be available to Xbox Live Gold members with active subscriptions and at least one year of cumulative Xbox Live Gold tenure. The Gamertags will be released over a 24-period so that Xbox Live Gold members in different countries will have an equal chance of claiming one. Xbox Live policy permits one free Gamertag change request in a user’s lifetime, after which they have to pay $10 for a swap. Members are encouraged to keep...
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This past fall, Microsoft surprised the world when it unveiled that a huge number of Xbox 360 games would be playable on the Xbox One. This even came as a surprise to Sony, which unveiled an arguably lackluster version of backwards compatibility, where gamers need to repurchase the games. When Microsoft released the first 100 or so titles for backwards compatibility on the Xbox One, it was hard to tell just how far the company would take things. However, all we really had to do was look to the Xbox 360 itself, which supported a huge number of original Xbox titles (important for those wanting to play Jet Set Radio Future and don't have a working original console, as the first Xbox is the only...
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It wasn't unusually difficult end bosses or rampant cheating in online multiplayer titles that once caused gamers to have nightmares. What used to keep players up at night were tales of the dreaded Red Ring of Death (RRoD)—three red lights around the Xbox 360's power button that indicated the console had entered the afterlife. To add insult to injury, Microsoft also released an XBox 360 update at one point that also bricked more than a few consoles. The whole ordeal cost Microsoft dearly, to the tune of about $1 Billion clean. That figure is the result of extended warranty coverage and subsequent repairs and replacements. In his book, "Xbox Revisited: A Gameplan for Corporate and Civic Renewal,"...
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“Game over, man. GAME OVER!” After over ten years of production, it’s time to say goodbye to the venerable Xbox 360. The console celebrated its tenth birthday this past November and global sales for the console have surpassed the 85 million mark. Early in its life the Xbox 360 was fraught with quality control issues, as witnessed by the infamous Red Ring of Death that struck many consoles (and subsequently resulted in lawsuits). And we can’t forget the HD DVD add-on debacle, which saw Microsoft on the losing side of the next-generation, high-definition optical disc format war. Sony eventually won the standards battle with Blu-ray and Microsoft was forced to hang its head in defeat (the...
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A dispute involving scratched Xbox 360 discs that stems back nearly will be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, which will decide if there's enough cause for Microsoft to face class-action lawsuit. While that sounds like an easy task, lower courts have disagreed on the matter, hence how it was able to reach the Supreme Court.At issue is a lawsuit alleging that Xbox 360 consoles had a tendency to scratch optical discs and that Microsoft knew it was a problem. The lawsuit essentially blames the symptom on a design flaw, one in which there was little to no protection in place to prevent vibrations and small movements from scratching discs and rendering them unplayable.The lawsuit was...
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After complaints surfaced that some backwards compatible Xbox 360 games weren't running properly on the Xbox One, software engineers at Microsoft got busy working on a system update, one that is now available. Early reports are that certain Xbox 360 games are running much better after applying the update. Microsoft's Major Nelson (Larry Hryb) stated in a Twitter post that the changes amounted to a "few behind the scenes bug fixes" and that no new features have been added this time around. He also confirmed that Microsoft didn't provide any release notes for this latest update, leaving Xbox One owners to figure things out for themselves. It appears they have. "Tested on Banjo Nuts and Bolts, Dirt...
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Since launching its "New Xbox One Experience" in mid-November, Microsoft has seen some a great response. Perhaps not surprisingly, it's also found that one of the most-used features of the update is the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. Despite there being a limited number of supported titles, it hasn't stopped players from logging more than 9 million hours to date. Fortunately for those who yearn for their favorite Xbox 360 game to be supported with this backwards compatibility, Microsoft seems to be working very hard to add support for as many games as it can, and as quickly as possible. Today, the company adds support for 16 titles, bringing the total number to 120. The majority...
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Xbox One gamers that aren’t part of the preview program are eagerly waiting for November 12th to arrive. That’s the day that the New Xbox One Experience is pushed out to consoles, which brings a Windows 10-infused UI makeover along with backwards compatibility for select Xbox 360 games. In order to get Xbox One users pumped for the arrival of backwards compatibility, Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra took to Twitter to give us a heads up on what to expect: For those asking we’ll announce the initial set of 100+ backward compatible titles on 11/9, a few days before our launch! — Mike Ybarra (@XboxQwik) November 3, 2015 So we have less than a week before the official list is handed down to us, and a little...
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The hard part about upgrading to a new generation game console is saying goodbye to your vast collection of games on the old one. That's not necessarily the case for Xbox 360 owners. Microsoft is adding backwards compatibility for over 100 Xbox 360 titles on the Xbox One this fall, and sometime in the future, you might be able to play Xbox 360 games on your PC as well.Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox division, stated as much in an interview with Gizmodo Brazil. He talked about the Xbox 360 emulator Microsoft built for the Xbox One and noted that it wouldn't take a ton of work to do it for the PC, if in fact Microsoft decides to go down that road (and right now it hasn't).According to Spencer,...
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Yesterday, we received great news from Activision with the formation of the Call of Duty World League, which will launch in January 2016. Today, however, we’re getting some not-so-great news for owners of last generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gaming consoles. Treyarch announced today that the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will not feature a single-player campaign mode. Treyarch explains that “delivering the best possible gameplay experience on all platforms is always our highest priority,” but that it “could not be faithfully recreated on old generation hardware.” “With that in mind, Black Ops 3 PS3 and Xbox 360 players can continue to look forward to a new experience...
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Microsoft has just released a major update for the Xbox 360 that owners are going to want to download ASAP. Most of what's new isn't a surprise, as the company has been talking about the new features for the past couple of months, but there are some extras we weren't expecting. Perhaps the most significant addition with this update is the ability to take advantage of 2GB of cloud storage. This should prove incredibly useful for those who want to backup their saved games to an external source (as in, outside the home), or better still, carry those saved games on over to the Xbox One for titles that are backwards compatible. Another neat addition is one that lets you access Xbox Live from an Internet...
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There will be no Mortal Kombat X for either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 console, not now, not ever. Unfortunately for fans of the franchise rocking one of those last generation game consoles, porting a version over has proved too difficult a task for the developers, so WB Games pulled the plug. "After months of development, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has come to the regrettable conclusion that we cannot release Mortal Kombat X for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Please know our teams worked diligently to meet the quality standards set by the current-gen versions of the game. We were not able to get the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions to the quality expected of a Mortal Kombat game and are...
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Xbox One news has been coming in at a furious pace in the past few months or so. We’ve seen the announcement of game streaming to and from an Xbox One with a Windows PC, a customizable “Elite” gaming controller, a fresh 1TB Halo 5 bundle, and an upcoming Windows 10 infusion for the Xbox One’s UI. Now Seagate is jumping on the Xbox One bandwagon with its $109.99 Game Drive for Xbox, which adds an additional 2TB of storage space. The drive seems to be aimed at gamers who already have a 500GB Xbox One and don’t want to go through the hassle of selling their existing console to purchase a more capacious 1TB model. It would also be perfect for data hogs that find even 1TB of internal storage not enough...
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If you’re a fan of the Gears of War franchise, Microsoft has a treat in store for you. We already knew that Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was incoming (along with the Xbox One Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle), but Microsoft today announced that anyone that plays the game between its launch on August 25 through December 31, 2015 will also gain access to the four previous “Gears” titles — Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment. Access to the games on the Xbox One is granted via the much ballyhooed Xbox 360 backwards compatibility mode, which was first announced at E3. Not only will you be able to play these old favorite on your “new hotness” Xbox One, but...
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News from the Xbox One camp has been incredibly exciting over the past week. The second place gaming console (behind Sony’s PlayStation 4 for this generation) has gained the ability to play Xbox 360 games natively, stream both Xbox One and Xbox 360 games to a a Windows 10 PC, and has even gained an epicly cool customizable controller (albeit one that costs $150). And we can’t forget that Microsoft has introduced a new 1TB Xbox One SKU for $399 while dropping the “old” 500GB console permanently to $350. If that wasn’t enough, Microsoft is running a new promotion next week that will give anyone that purchases a brand new Xbox One console one free game of their choice (the game has to be priced...
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Just days after Microsoft announced that Windows 10 supports Xbox One streaming, word is coming that Windows 10 also supports Xbox 360 game streaming via the Xbox One. That follows Microsoft’s announcement that that the Xbox One is receiving backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360. As we mentioned earlier, Microsoft has an impressive UI revamp in the works for the Xbox One. It will come out toward the end of this year, likely around the Windows 10 launch, at which point you’ll have access to the Xbox 360 game streaming functionality. The holiday season is shaping up to be a big one for Microsoft’s gaming and operating system properties. (Sadly, a holiday arrival of the HoloLens doesn’t seem...
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Did Microsoft just win E3 before Sony even takes the stage? That might be overstating things just a tad, but this is pretty big news for the console gaming community — Microsoft just announced that the Xbox One will be able to natively play Xbox 360 titles later this year. Be still, my heart! Better yet, gamers won’t have to spend one red cent to have access to their catalog of Xbox 360 games on an Xbox One console. If you previously purchased an Xbox 360 title from the Xbox Marketplace, the game will automatically be made available for you to download for free to your Xbox One. The alternative solution is to insert your old Xbox 360 game disc, after which your Xbox One will be able to download...
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