Items tagged with Xbox
Sony and its PlayStation 4 won the console wars for the current generation with higher sales numbers than Microsoft's Xbox could muster. Sony announced back in January that it has sold a total of 92 million PS4 consoles since its debut. Sony is aiming to continue its sales domination with the PS5 and has been bragging about the hardware and price point it is targeting with the next-gen device. Sony has confirmed that the PS5 will be powered by an AMD Zen 2-based Octacore Ryzen processor. Microsoft has no intentions of letting Sony get away with winning the sales crown in the next generation of the console wars and to prevent that it is beefing up the hardware inside the next-generation Xbox....
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Rumors about the Xbox One S All-Digital edition console have been flying over the last few months. Last month rumors pegged the global launch date for the digital-only console as May 7. A few days ago, another rumor pegged the price at about $260. Microsoft has now gone official with details, pricing, and launch information on the Xbox One S All-Digital edition and proven most of the rumors right. The console is up for preorder right now, and the part of the rumor that was false is the $260 price. Before you get worried, the console is cheaper than rumors suggested with an official MSRP of $249. Whether that will prove enough cheaper than the existing Xbox One S with the Blu-ray drive integrated...
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The big news in the Xbox world over the last couple of months has been the pending arrival of the new disc-free Xbox One S game console. The game console is aimed at digitally downloaded games and game streaming. Microsoft's new disc-free console has been previously tipped to launch on May 7 globally. As the software giant gears up to launch its least expensive Xbox console ever, it is also gearing up to launch a new Game Pass Ultimate service, according to rumors, that would combine Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass for streaming games at a discounted price of $14.99 monthly. Alleged hardware specifications and pricing details on the disc-free Xbox One S All Digital have leaked now as well....
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GameStop is feeling the pressure after a recent earnings report was bad enough to send the company's stock tumbling down. The future of GameStop locations around the country isn't looking bright as the gaming industry starts to transition from physical discs for games to streaming. In the here and now, GameStop has a sale going on that gamers can take advantage of to get extra credit on trade-in systems and discounts on other merchandise. With the Spring Sale underway through April 20, PS4 Pro or Xbox One X trade-ins will nab a $250 store credit. Trade in a Nintendo Switch or standard PS4 and get $200 credit. The less desirable Xbox One S will get $150 in trade credit. Other notable...
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Fans of the game franchise Crackdown who are currently playing Crackdown 3, but haven't had the opportunity to play the older games in the franchise, will be glad to hear that the developers have made Crackdown 2 free to play for all Xbox gamers. The original Crackdown went free for Xbox gamers late last year. However, game has also gained backwards compatibility with Xbox One now, so you can play it on the current-gen console without having to get out your old Xbox 360. In addition to making Crackdown 2 backward compatible and free, the developers also have a bunch of announcements for the latest game in the franchise, Crackdown 3. Updates include a Crime Map update that turns any...
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Being a PC gamer can be a challenge in today's console-centric world. Cool games launch first on consoles, and the PC gamer has to sit and wait until a launch date is announced, sometimes months or even years after the game landed on the console. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a perfect example; that game is still not available for PC gamers, but has been out for console gamers for months. It appears that Microsoft is now gearing up to merge Xbox and PC gaming in a much more cohesive manner. We talked about a Windows 10 preview build not long ago that promised gaming improvements. It appears that some of that improvement will come in a new method allow PC gamers to play Xbox games on Windows. Hints...
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Sunshine and swimming weather are not the only reasons to be excited about summer being only a few months away. It is also when the annual E3 convention in Los Angeles will take place, and Microsoft may use the event to announce a couple of upcoming Xbox game consoles codenamed "Lockhart" and "Anaconda." In case you might be wondering, Microsoft is definitely not finished releasing new Xbox consoles. Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming and head of the Xbox brand at Microsoft, left little doubt about this in the comments he made in November about Xbox's future. "The reason I love the consoles that we build is because I think we can build very special consoles. I see it today with...
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Microsoft is cooking up something for GDC that will make gamers very happy. It has an entire GDC session where it will debut and talk about its new cross-platform development platform that will bring support for Xbox Live to platforms including Android, iOS, and the Nintendo Switch in addition to the Xbox and PC platforms that it already supports. Notice there is no mention of support for the PS4 from Sony. Microsoft noted in its GDC session description that when the new SDK rolls out for all the other platforms, it will reach over 2 billion devices, a massive gain from the 400 million gaming devices it reaches right now. There are a few Microsoft games out there now that have support for Xbox...
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Each year when E3 rolls around, we are never sure exactly what will be at the show. Companies come and go from the gaming event as it has shrunk over the years from its heyday where virtually every major gaming company used to participate. At E3 2019 we already know that Sony and the PlayStation crew won't be attending the show. Without the pressure of having to compete with Sony, many wondered if that meant that Microsoft and the Xbox group would skip the show as well. Well, Microsoft Executive VP Of Gaming, Phil Spencer has stepped up and made Microsoft's presence and participation at E3 2019 this year very clear. Spencer has stated in an interview with Larry Hyrb, that the Xbox presence at...
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When it comes to AMD's Zen 2 processor architecture, the company has only confirmed two product families to date. The first announced was the company's second-generation EPYC family of server processors, and last week at CES the company previewed its Ryzen 3000 family of mainstream desktop processors. Now, thanks to hardware leaker APISAK, we may have out first glimpse at an alleged APU that will form the heart of next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony. The APU is reportedly called Gonzalo, and has been identified online with the following part number: 2G16002CE8JA2_32/10/10_13E9. AMD Gonzalohttps://t.co/uSTurBfcx3 — APISAK (@TUM_APISAK) January...
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There is quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding the high-end console scene, in terms of what kind of upgrade paths Microsoft and Sony might be considering. What we've seen with the current generation of consoles is a series of incremental upgrades, like the Xbox One S and Xbox One X. That said, there are plenty of rumors pointing to true successors, namely a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett. At least one developer believes these next-generation game consoles will ship with less than 16GB of RAM. Faster hardware is a given—we fully expect next-gen consoles to come equipped with burlier graphics chips and upgraded processors, especially now that 4K resolution gaming has been thrown into the...
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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 processors. Zen 2 should provide quite the boost in performance compared to the current Xbox One...
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Bethesda's online RPG Fallout 76 hasn't even been available for two full weeks yet, but given how much there has been to talk about, it's felt like a lot longer. That is unless, of course, you are one of the players who decided to hop into the online Fallout universe, one that is plagued with more bugs than you can shake a rifle at. As a quick recap, the game launched with a massive patch weighing in at 56GB. Days earlier, Bethesda penned a letter on its website to warn fans that the game would be buggy. This move was likely unsurprising to everyone who read it, as a buggy launch has become standard fare for Bethesda. Fallout 76 takes the number of issues to the next level and many...
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Gamers looking for something new to play on their Xbox One have a special Free Play Days weekend coming up that will let you play a couple of cool games at no cost to see how you like them. Free Play Days on Xbox run from November 8-11, which is Thursday through Sunday. The two games that are free to play are PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 (PES 2019). The best part is that players who don't have an Xbox Live Gold membership will be able to play online with their friends during the event, without having to purchase the online membership. Microsoft is undoubtedly hoping that players will be so enthralled with the free online play that people will join Xbox Live...
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For a long time, PUBG was the game to beat on Steam, and console gamers were very excited when the game finally landed for them to enjoy. The launch date for the early version of the game was December 2017. The game landed on the console and was popular for a while before being gutted by the much more popular and well received Fortnite -- Epic's battle royale gamer cost PUBG half of its player base. PUBG hasn't given up, and the game landed in a special bundle with the Xbox One X. All the while PUBG has been available as part of the Xbox Game Preview meaning that it wasn’t an official release. The official release has now happened with the game hitting version 1.0 and bringing...
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Few things annoy console gamers more about cross-platform play than being forced to compete against PC gamers who are using a mouse and keyboard. The mouse and keyboard are sometimes seen as an unfair advantage to console gamers using a gamepad or other type of controller. PS4 gamers who are using a mouse and keyboard are considered to have an advantage over PS4 gamers using a DualShock controller, for instance. Xbox gamers don’t have to worry about that since there isn’t official mouse and keyboard support for the Xbox One. Regardless, Epic Games wants to keep things fair with Fortnite and plans to keep the mouse and keyboard users from slaughtering unsuspecting gamepad...
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Sony unveiled a special edition PS4 to celebrate the sale of 500 million consoles since the PS4 launched. The cool part about that special edition PS4 is that it was housed in a translucent blue chassis that let you see a bit of what’s inside and came with a matching controller. Microsoft is now getting in on the special edition translucent bandwagon with a new wireless Xbox One controller of its own. Rather than a swanky blue color, Microsoft is offering a black controller called the Xbox Wireless Controller Phantom Black Special Edition. The controller is translucent black that fades to a champagne gold color. The translucent chassis isn’t all the controller has that is special;...
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Gamers have been looking forward to Red Dead Redemption 2 for a long time now. So far, we have seen trailers, but it has been mostly cut scenes instead of actual gameplay elements. We now have a new trailer that shows us a bunch of cutscenes and mixes that in with actual gameplay footage, and the game looks epic. The slightly longer than six-minute video gives us a glimpse at most aspects of the game from the poker mini-game to schlepping your way around the open world, fighting hand-to-hand, catching fugitives, and shooting. You can easily tell what is cutscenes and what is gameplay by looking for the little mini map in the bottom right corner. That is really your only indication that gameplay...
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Microsoft's Xbox One was originally launched nearly 5 years ago, which means that many are already talking about what its successor will look like. We're now learning again that the new gaming console family will launch in 2020, likely sometime in the fall as with previous Xbox releases. The console is reportedly being developed under the codename Scarlett, and will be available in two primary configurations. The first console will function pretty much like what we expect from a modern console. It will likely still accept games that can be installed via Blu-ray disc, and will support games that you download from the Microsoft Store. We can expect for this console to pack in a processor and...
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Microsoft has announced the results of its fiscal 2018 Q4 financials and things are looking very good over in Redmond. The software giant saw its gaming revenue grow a massive 39% year over year thanks to big Xbox software sales and services. This fiscal Q4 spanned April 1 through June 30 for Microsoft. Microsoft had 57 million active Xbox Live members for the quarter, which is down from the past two quarters where there were 59 million active users, but up year-over-year compared to the 53 million in fiscal Q4 2017. Microsoft racked up an increase in gaming revenue for the quarter of $643 million representing a 39% gain. That growth was driven by higher revenue from Xbox software and services. ...
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There's nothing like a racing sim game that allows you to slip into the seats of hundreds of different exotic vehicles, but finding a title like this that's also open-world, and offers a compelling single-player and multi-player campaign is a bit harder. Fortunately, there have been some shining examples released even in recent years, including Test Drive Unlimited, The Crew, and of course, Forza Horizon. Since the first title was released in 2012, Forza Horizon has become hugely successful, something evidenced by the fact that a fourth title is coming out in a couple of months, making for a total of 4 Forza Horizons releases in just six years. That kind of expedited development can sometimes...
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Is your launch day Xbox One seemingly a little grey around the temples these days, and you don't see the point in upgrading to an Xbox One S or the more powerful Xbox One X? Well, we know that Microsoft is currently developing its next generation Xbox console, and a new report suggests that the device may be a little over two years away. This information comes from Thurrott, which indicates that the next Xbox is being developed under the codename Scarlett. However, the big news is that there won't just be a single device launched, as was the case with the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Instead, Scarlett encompasses an entire family of devices. The devices will reportedly launch in 2020,...
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