If you’ve ever dreamed of being a video game tester (don’t lie, you have), Microsoft wants to give you a little taste by opening up another round of calls for the 2012 Xbox LIVE Update Public Beta. According to a blog post by Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, the interest in beta testing was...Read more...
We've covered OnLive, the plucky little cloud gaming company that recently partnered with Ouya and had plans to drive cloud gaming to a ubiquitous future. Now, that future is suddenly in doubt; a report from Mashable claims that the entire company's staff has been fired. Reports from Twitter and Kotaku have backed up...Read more...
The ESA has released its yearly report on the state of gaming in 2012 and it shows significantly different trends than what we saw in years past. For this year's report, the ESA updated its questionnaire to reflect the growth of tablets and smartphones as gaming devices, rather than screening respondents based on...Read more...
Over the weekend, a forum member at Assemblergames.com claimed to have access to an early Xbox Durango development kit. The user, who went by DaE, attempted to sell the box online for a cool $10,000, apparently believing that he had a better chance of pulling the sale off in a forum as opposed to putting it on Ebay...Read more...
One of the biggest questions swirling around the Kickstarter-funded Ouya console is whether the device would be able to build an adequate game library. Ouya explicitly eschews the vendor lockdown imposed by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, in favor of a hackable architecture. You're encouraged to buy the product, take...Read more...
Bob Feldstein, AMD's VP of strategic development and former overseer of the company's console relationships and licensing agreements has left Sunnyvale for greener pastures in more than one sense of the word. Feldstein has taken a position with Nvidia, AMD's archrival in the graphics business. Every time AMD has...Read more...
Although mobile and social gaming is all the rage, gaming on a living room console connected to your TV has always been a thoroughly enjoyable way to while away the hours alone or with friends. In recent years, the Xbox (alone and with the Kinect), Wii, and Playstation have dominated living rooms. Now there’s...Read more...
A leaked 56-page presentation spilled the details of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 720 game console, but what's even more telling is how Redmond's legal team is handling the situation. The document first appeared on Scribd and sat there for all the world to flip through, right up until Covington & Burling LLP, a law firm that represents Microsoft...Read more...
When it comes to Star Wars, the gaming industry has a long history of cranking out titles of uncertain quality. For every brilliant title like Knights of the Old Republic, we've seen several clunkers (Kinect Star Wars anyone) and a few outright failures like Republic Heroes. LucasArts demonstrated a new Star Wars game...Read more...
At its big press event at the E3 conference, Microsoft boasted a tricked-out stage ideal for demoing games and invited a gaggle of celebrity guests that included Joe Montana, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Usher. The company unveiled a slew of new games from a variety of developers, so let’s just list the lot of them, shall we? Halo...Read more...
Bethesda Softworks, designers and distributors of normally excellent titles, are bringing out a "new" version of Doom 3, Doom 3: BFG. The new package includes "remastered" graphics (more on that gem in a moment), the Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil add-on, seven new levels thrillingly titled "The Lost Mission" and...Read more...
Game designer Richard Browne has come out swinging in favor of the rumored antipiracy features in the next-gen PlayStation Orbis and Xbox Durango. "The real cost of used games is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of games available to the consumer," Browne writes. "The real cost of used games is the death of single...Read more...
In a long, rambling, and entertaining blog post, the Halo team announced a launch date for Halo 4 (er, wouldn’t that actually be Halo 8?). November 6th, 2012 is the big day when the game launches worldwide, and it marks the beginning of a new trilogy in the Halo series. The date was not chosen by accident...Read more...
The rumor mill is still churning out quite a bit of information on new consoles this week, including new data on Nintendo's upcoming Wii U. According to unnamed developers, the Wii U actually isn't as powerful as the Xbox 360 or PS3, despite boasting HD graphics and significantly improved hardware. According to...Read more...
HBO GO, as rumored, has now launched on Xbox. The service officially launched this week on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE, the online entertainment service for Xbox 360. With HBO GO on Xbox, consumers will be able to instantly access more than 1,400 titles, including every episode of every season of the best HBO shows – streamed to their...Read more...
There's been a lot of chatter the past few months about what Microsoft's next-generation Xbox might look like, as well as repeated speculation that the device could tip up at the upcoming E3 Exposition. According to the head of Microsoft Corporate Communications, Frank Shaw, the company is flattered by the rumors but has no plans to launch...Read more...
HBO GO is perhaps the most fully-featured TV streaming platform out there, but it requires a user to be an HBO cable subscriber to use it. In other words, cord-cutters need not apply. But if you just so happen to subscribe to HBO, and you just so happen to own an Xbox 360, there's some good news you should know about. Microsoft and HBO will...Read more...
Microsoft isn't too keen on discussing the Xbox 720 or whatever it plans to call its next generation game console, and apparently the Redmond outfit isn't all that keen on optical drives, either. We've heard reports that the next Xbox iteration might ditch optical storage hardware entirely, and now at least one...Read more...
Just in case you were looking a buzzkill after the chaotic euphoria wrought by CES, here it is: According to the Guardian, dozens of Foxconn workers in the city of Wuhan protested the company’s plan to close the Xbox 360 production line they worked on by threatening to jump from one of the six-story factory...Read more...
Since 2003, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has played host to both a dizzying array of gadgetry and more serious presentations from major computer manufacturers. The fusion occured after Comdex, which had been the major yearly computing show for decades, faltered and was folded into CES. CES remains a major draw each year, but some of...Read more...
Microsoft sure is stretching the life of the Xbox 360. Despite being on shelves for years and years, the company continues to come up with new and innovative ways to make it feel like a brand new console all over again. The introduction of Kinect added an entirely new level of depth and control, and now Microsoft's...Read more...
Every so often, a game is monumental enough to warrant a limited run of themed consoles. Halo is one, and evidently the newest version of Call of Duty is another. Shortly after seeing a new multiplayer demo before the rapidly-approaching Nov. 11 release, there's now proof that a custom edition CoD-themed 360 (320GB)...Read more...