Items tagged with xbox one
Digital assistants are everywhere these days—maybe you routinely summon Siri on your iPhone to set a reminder or ask for directions, or perhaps you call on Alexa to fire up your playlist on your Echo speaker (or tell jokes through Jimmy Fallon). What about Cortana? Microsoft is still fleshing out its own digital assistant, and it appears Cortana is learning a new trick—support for multiple users. Where this makes the most sense is on the Xbox One, a game console at its core, but also a home entertainment hub. Microsoft has long promoted the Xbox as more than just a gaming machine—they're...
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We're beginning to hear a little bit more about Microsoft's next-generation Xbox gaming hardware. Although we don't have an official name for the console, the device is currently being developed under the codename Scarlett according to various reports. So, what will Scarlett bring to the tablet? Well, according to Microsoft Insider Brad Sams, it will be based on AMD's upcoming 7-nanometer Zen 2 microarchitecture, which should be no surprise. Zen 2 forms the basis of Rome-based EPYC server processors, and will also underpin AMD's third-generation Ryzen 3000 Series mainstream...
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If you missed out on the Black Friday deals that were out there for Xbox One consoles last month, you have another chance to get a good discount for the holidays. Microsoft has deals on Xbox One bundles that started over the weekend offering $50 off the regular price. The bundle prices are good at all participating retailers. The discounted bundles include $50 off the Xbox One S Fortnite bundle that consists of the game, the Eon cosmetic set and 2,000 V-bucks for buying items in the game. If Fortnite isn't what you are after, another bundle includes Xbox One S Battlefield V with the same discount....
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One of the reasons why Fortnite continues to be so popular is because developer Epic Games is putting in a lot of man- and woman-hours updating the title, constantly adding new features and stomping out bugs nearly as quickly as they appear (there's a lesson here, Bethesda). That's the case with the latest update, which also introduces some performance enhancements on various devices. On select iPhones, for example, there is an option to run the game at 60 frames per second. The Fortnite version 6.31 patch apparently includes optimizations for Apple's burly A12 Bionic silicon, as found on the recently...
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It has already been established that the Xbox One X is not the end of the road for Microsoft's efforts in the console space, and that future models will be released. Take it from Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who indicated at E3 earlier this year that he is "very excited" about the future of Xbox. What comes next, however, might be a break from tradition—there is chatter of a disc-less game system being in the works. This is not the first time the topic of a disc-less Xbox console has come up. Spencer said in 2014 that there were internal discussions about ditching the disc drive on the Xbox One...
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Contrary to some of the speculation that is out there, the Xbox One X is not the the end of the road for Xbox. Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming and head of the Xbox brand at Microsoft, confirmed as much during E3 earlier this year, and now he's followed that up by saying he is "very excited" about the future of Xbox. This has not always been a given. Game consoles have become more PC-like with the latest generation of game systems, and have also gone the way of incremental upgrades, like the Xbox One S followed by the Xbox One X. On top of it all, there has been a resurgence in...
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Gamers haven't liked that Microsoft has seemed to turn a cold shoulder on the PC gamers out there in favor of developing games on the Xbox consoles in recent years. Microsoft has been trying to alleviate those concerns with talks of renewing its commitment to PC gaming for years, but nothing has ever come of that promise. Things are changing with Microsoft now announcing that it has purchased a pair of PC-centric game development studios that focus heavily on RPG games: Obsidian and InXile. Microsoft's acquisition announcement is not only good news for PC gamers in general, but for fans of Obsidian...
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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...
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Last month we talked about mouse and keyboard support coming to the Xbox One. Microsoft made its intentions very clear when it announced that support for the mouse and keyboard would be implemented at the hardware level, but game developers could choose whether to add support in each game. Almost exactly a month later, Xbox Insiders in the Beta Ring can try out the controls. The caveat about mouse and keyboard support is that it has limited capability at this point; only Warframe offers support at this time. Microsoft is a bit confusing in its announcement stating that it has "enabled mouse support...
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Are you in the market for both a new Xbox One console and Red Dead Redemption 2? Well, you're in luck because Microsoft has teamed up with Rockstar Games and a number of retailer partners to give up to a $100 instant discount when you purchase an Xbox One S/Xbox One X bundle and the highly anticipated open world game set in the Wild Wild West. To get the full discount, you will need to add both Red Dead Redemption 2 and an eligible Xbox One console to your cart. First up is Amazon, which is offering $80 off the NBA 2K19 Xbox One S and Xbox One X console bundles. The reason why Amazon...
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When you sign up for the beta on a highly anticipated video game, playing said game comes with a litany of embargos and non-disclosure agreements. If you sign those agreements, and then turn around and break them, bad things can happen. An Xbox One gamer who was participating in the beta for Bethesda's Fallout 76 learned this lesson the hard way. To gain access to the beta, all payers had to click to agree to an NDA that prevented them from taking photos, video, or allowing someone else to watch them play the game. The player participated in the beta last Saturday and tried to become famous...
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Just as Microsoft previously started rolling out its October 2018 Update for Windows 10 PCs (and then paused it to investigate reports of missing files), there is also a new system update available for Xbox One consoles that is packed with new features. One of them is an Xbox skill for Cortana and Alexa. To celebrate the latter, Microsoft has teamed up with Amazon to bundle a free third-generation Echo Dot with select Xbox One X and Xbox One S consoles. "Anyone who buys a qualified Xbox One S or Xbox One X bundle at Amazon.com will also get a new Amazon Echo Dot, but don’t wait too long because...
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Gamers have a lot to look forward to as 2018 winds down, and one of the most anticipated games on the docket is Red Dead Redemption 2. This is a game that fans of the franchise have waited years to play, and the launch is almost here. A new rumor about the game is making the rounds today that tips a feature you won’t see unless you ditch the mini-map guiding you around the world. Word is that when you turn off the mini-map, the dialog that NPCs dole out will change. With the map disabled, the NPCs will give you directions to help you navigate around the world. That dialog is said to...
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Microsoft is talking up the future of gaming, and it says in that future you will be able to play any game you want, on any device you have at hand. That is very different from the world of gaming we have today, where each of your devices has its individual gaming ecosystem. Microsoft says that Project xCloud will change all of that and place the gamer at the center of the gaming experience. A key step in bringing Project xCloud to reality is allowing developers to bring their content to the platform. Microsoft says that the developers of games for the Xbox One available now, and the games of the...
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