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Xbox News is a site that brings you the very latest Original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One news, the latest games and releases, Part of the
DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network.
THE LATEST NEWS BELOW
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September 16th, 2019, 20:50 Posted By: wraggster
The Gears of War franchise keeps turning, as Microsoft has declared Gears 5 "the biggest launch week of any Xbox Game Studios title this generation," saying that more than three million players played in its opening weekend.
Those numbers were bolstered by the game's inclusion in the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, with Game Pass Ultimate subscribers able to play starting September 6 and all Game Pass subscribers able to play the game for free at the September 10 launch for those who purchased the retail or digital game on its own, September 10.
The previous highwater mark for Game Pass launches (at least among titles Microsoft announced numbers for) had been shared by Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4, even of which saw 2 million players in their respective launch weeks last year.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-in-first-week
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August 26th, 2019, 23:16 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox owners who have hooked up a Kinect or made use of Cortana's voice commands may have had their audio recorded and then listened to by Microsoft contractors.
Vice reports that a number of contractors have come forward anonymously to admit part of their job was listening to recorded audio from Xboxes as far back as 2014. This was in response to a Motherboard report attesting that similar listening in occurred for Skype and Cortana audio on PC and mobile.
"Xbox commands came up first as a bit of an outlier and then became about half of what we did before becoming most of what we did," said a former contractor. They added that most of the audio they listened to came from children.
While much of this audio was taken from deliberate user initiations such as "Xbox on" or "Hey Cortana," though some of it was clearly accidental. The contractor added that most of the Xbox audio was also fairly benign compared to the Skype and Cortana audio on other platforms, the latter of which included material that "could clearly be described as phone sex." The audio also reportedly included fewer accidental initiations as time went on.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-xbox-consoles
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August 21st, 2019, 18:45 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has 'no plans' to release more exclusive Xbox games on other consoles.
It comes after the firm announced, via Nintendo, that it will publish Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition on Nintendo Switch. The game was previously exclusive to Xbox One and PC.
Nintendo and Xbox have been collaborating over the past 12 months, including the introduction of Microsoft's Banjo-Kazooie into Nintendo's Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Nintendo also called out 'our friends at Microsoft' for supporting the release of Cuphead on Switch (although Microsoft has told GamesIndustry.biz that Cuphead was never an exclusive Xbox IP, and is the property of developer Studio MDHR).
Xbox has also recently acquired a number of studios that have released, or will release, games on Nintendo Switch -- including Obsidian, Double Fine and Ninja Theory.
However, in a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, Microsoft has played down future releases.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...intendo-switch
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August 19th, 2019, 23:09 Posted By: wraggster
DS4Windows v1.7.15 is released. DS4Windows is a portable program that allows you to get the best experience while using a DualShock 4 on your PC. By emulating a Xbox 360 controller, many more games are accessible.
DS4Windows Requirements
* Microsoft .NET 4.5 or higher (needed to unzip the driver and for macros to work
* DS4 Driver (Downloaded & Installed with
* Microsoft 360 Driver (link inside DS4Windows, already installed on Windows 7 SP1 and higher or if you've used a 360 controller
* Sony DualShock 4 (This should be
* Micro USB
* (Optional)Bluetooth 2.1+, via adapter or built in pc (My recommendation) (Toshiba's bluetooth & Bluetooth adapters using CSR currently does not
DS4Windows changelog:
Changed to allow gyro steering wheel mode to work when outputting to VJoy output axis while Use DInput Only is enabled. Contributed by mika-n
Fixed packaging problem. Bezier Curve editor is now bundled like it should have been in recent releases.
https://github.com/Ryochan7/DS4Windows
http://www.emucr.com/2019/08/ds4windows-v1715.html
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August 14th, 2019, 18:39 Posted By: wraggster
Taking another step towards the platform agnostic future, Xbox first-party studio boss Matt Booty said the company's games won't all necessarily be Xbox exclusives.
Speaking on the Game Informer Show last week, Booty said if a recently acquired developer like Double Fine wanted to stay multiplatform, Xbox would likely allow it.
"I think that the question is less binary about, 'should it be on Switch, should it be on PlayStation?' and more, 'does it make sense for the franchise?'" he said.
"In other words, is it a kind of game where it would benefit from the network effect of being on a bunch of different platforms, or is it a game where we can best support it by putting resources and making sure that our platforms, things like xCloud and Game Pass and Xbox Live, are really leaning in to support the game?"
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-party-studios
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August 14th, 2019, 18:35 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox, Google and Epic will all deliver talks at this month's GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit in Seattle.
ID@Xbox chief Chris Charla will be discussing Game Pass and the power of subscription services in his talk: 'Optimizing new business models to maximize sales.'
Google will be talking about Stadia and outlining how developers can work with the cloud streaming platform. They will also be meeting with developers in 1-1 meetings.
Finally, Epic's Christian Allen is going to detail some of the company's own investment concepts, including MegaGrants and Unreal Presents.
The trio will join Valve and Kickstarter on the bill. Tickets are on sale here. The event takes place at the Westin Hotel in Seattle on Wednesday, August 28.
Alongside these speakers, a number of major companies will be meeting and networking with indie developers. Attending companies include Nintendo, Sega, Ubisoft, TinyBuild, Gearbox, Daedalic, Digital Extremes, MTG, Jagex, Team17, Fellow Traveller, Nicalis, Sold Out, Those Awesome Guys, Versus Evil, Snail Games, Kowloon Nights, Giant Games, The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, Leia Inc, Super.com, 11bit and Xsolla.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...peaker-line-up
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August 12th, 2019, 21:30 Posted By: wraggster
It's one step forward, one step back for the Halo TV adaptation as Variety today reported that the Showtime series has fleshed out its main cast, but it has also slipped from a 2020 window into the first quarter of 2021.
The cast will include Natascha McElhone, Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac, and Kate Kennedy, who will join previously announced actors Pablo Schreiber and Yerin Ha. McElhone will star as the series' AI Cortana, as well as the scientist who created Halo's Spartan soldiers in the first place. Schreiber plays the most famous of those Spartans, series protagonist Master Chief.
Production will start in Budapest later this year. And while the series had previously been planned as running for ten episodes, that has been trimmed to nine.
A live-action Halo adaptation has been a long-running goal of Microsoft's. A film with Peter Jackson was executive producer was originally announced in 2005, though it reportedly fell apart over budgetary issues the following year. The current TV series has been in the works since at least 2014.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...pushed-to-2021
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August 12th, 2019, 21:19 Posted By: wraggster
The Entertainment Software Association has said that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are working on new policies to require loot box odds disclosure on their systems.
Entertainment Software Association chief counsel of tech policy Michael Warnecke announced the news this morning at the Federal Trade Commission's Inside the Game workshop on the loot box issue. The comments came after Warnecke recapped the industry's previous attempts to address loot box concerns: an in-game purchases label on retail titles and platform-level spending controls on consoles and the EA Origin PC storefront.
"That said, we are doing more," Warnecke said. "I'm pleased to announce this morning that Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have indicated to ESA a commitment to new platform policies with respect to the use of paid loot boxes in games that are developed for their platform. Specifically, this would apply to new games and game updates that add loot box features. And it would require the disclosure of the relative rarity or probabilities of obtaining randomized virtual items in games that are available on their platforms.
"As well, many of the leading video game publishers of the Entertainment Software Association have decided that they are going to implement a similar approach at the publisher level to provide consumers this information and give them enhanced information to make purchase decisions."
Apple mandated lootbox odds disclosure for iOS games in 2017. Google followed suit with Google Play requirements earlier this year.
Update: The ESA has provided more details on the loot box disclosures, saying that platform holders are targeting to implement them in 2020. The trade group released a list of its member companies that have pledged to release loot box disclosure odds on all new games by the end of 2020. That list includes Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Bethesda, Bungie, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and Wizards of the Coast.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...dds-disclosure
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July 30th, 2019, 21:20 Posted By: wraggster
Last weekend's "Year of Doom" QuakeCon was supposed to be a celebration of id Software's seminal shooter, but a couple issues took the shine off one of the event's big surprises: the immediate release of Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3 on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.
Gamers who were quick to download the titles may have missed the fine print on the store pages, which specifies that a Bethesda.net account is required to play. Some chafed at the requirement of an additional account sign-up being required to play games that have no online component to them (the first two Doom games only support local co-op, and the Doom 3 re-release is a single-player title). A company representative soon acknowledged that was an oversight.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...om-re-releases
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July 29th, 2019, 21:23 Posted By: wraggster
The cloud partnership between Microsoft and Sony was "all driven by Sony," according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Speaking to Fortune, Nadella explained the origins of the partnership with Sony, which the two companies formed in May.
"First of all, it's all driven by Sony," he said. "They looked at who are all their partners that they can trust. In fact, it turns out, even though we've competed, we've also partnered.
"Basically and fundamentally the fact that we have a business model in the areas that they're partnering with us, where we're dependent on their success. So we will do the best job for them, whether it's in cloud or whether it's in AI or what have you, in order to make sure that Sony can succeed with their own IP creation."
The partnership will influence Sony's games business, but Nadella also highlighted silicon chips and cameras as areas that "can use more cloud computing power."
Historically, Sony and Microsoft have been rivals in the games market, but their partnership reflects a broad shift away from physical products and towards digital services.
In a recent article, Rob Fahey speculated that these changes could signal the end of direct competition between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo -- generally known as "the console war."
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...driven-by-sony
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July 26th, 2019, 16:15 Posted By: wraggster
When you hear talk of "tech giants" in the news, you've probably got a shortlist of the companies that spring to mind. Perhaps it's the "FAANGs" -- Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google. Perhaps you mentally add the likes of China's Tencent or Japan's Softabank to the list, or pencil in space for the likes of Tesla.
There's one giant, however, that's bigger than them all, and yet rarely gets mentioned in the same breath. There's only one trillion-dollar company in the world right now, and it's neither Amazon nor Apple (though they're both reasonably close to the line). As I write this, the only company valued at over a trillion dollars ($1.076 trillion, to be exact) is none other than Microsoft.
That valuation got a little bit of a boost this week from yet another incredibly solid earnings report. Almost everything the company is doing right now is a success; the Azure cloud platform is the most important driver of growth, but it's also seeing growth across plenty of other business segments, driven primarily by a smooth and well-managed transition of its core business software products into cloud services. Even LinkedIn, which the company acquired back in 2016, is doing remarkably well. It's not just about a single solid quarter, though. Microsoft's growth trajectory has been clear for some time, with CEO Satya Nadella's vision for the company -- and his capacity to actually execute it successfully -- turning out to be exactly what it needed.
The Xbox division isn't a particularly bright spot in this story right now, though much of that is attributable to the fact that Xbox is pretty much officially in its generational transition period right now. Xbox hardware sales are down almost 50% year-on-year, but Microsoft's commitment to gaming feels more solid now than it has at any point in the past few years.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...profit-opinion
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July 23rd, 2019, 17:19 Posted By: wraggster
OpenAI today announced that it is accepting $1 billion in investment from Microsoft as it pursues its goal of creating artificial general intelligence.
As part of the partnership, Microsoft and its Azure platform will become OpenAI's exclusive cloud provider. Additionally, the two companies will work together to create Azure AI technologies and create platforms within Azure that can scale to artificial general intelligence.
"OpenAI is producing a sequence of increasingly powerful AI technologies, which requires a lot of capital for computational power," OpenAI chief technology officer Greg Brockman explained in a blog announcing the partnership. "The most obvious way to cover costs is to build a product, but that would mean changing our focus. Instead, we intend to license some of our pre-AGI technologies, with Microsoft becoming our preferred partner for commercializing them."
As it builds toward artificial general intelligence, OpenAI has been tackling smaller, more narrowly defined AI problems along the way. Some of those have been in games, where the company used machine learning to create a team of AI agents that beat DOTA 2 world champions Team OG in two straight matches earlier this year.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...lion-in-openai
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July 19th, 2019, 16:15 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft closed out its fiscal year with year-over-year increases in revenue and income overall, though its gaming segment is beginning to feel the effects of the end of the console generation.
For Q4, Microsoft reported revenue of $33.7 billion, up 12% year-over-year, and net income up 49% year-over-year to $13.2 billion. Operating income was up 20% to $12.4 billion.
The More Personal Computing segment, which includes Gaming, saw revenue up 4% year-over-year to $11.3 billion, though gaming revenue dropped 10% to $2 billion. Xbox software and services revenue was down 3%, but the big highlight for this segment was that Xbox hardware revenue declined 48% year-over-year due to a decrease in console sales volume.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-in-q4-2018-19
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July 19th, 2019, 16:12 Posted By: wraggster
The head of Microsoft has said the company is preparing for video games to grow beyond the current traditional industry.
But he notes that the platform holder's strength is still in high-end gaming experiences.
During an earnings call following its most recent financial results, CEO Satya Nadella was asked how gaming fits into the company's overall plans in the coming years.
"We are in gaming because of what we believe are going to be the secular changes in the gaming addressable market for us," he said, according to a transcript on Seeking Alpha.
"Going forward, we think that any endpoint can in fact be a great endpoint for high-end games which is where our structural position is."
Nadella pointed to the success of Game Pass and the "supporting mechanism" that help it grow, such as game streaming and the Xbox Live social network.
Earlier in the call, he noted that Xbox Live's monthly active users rose to a record 65 million in the last quarter, "with the highest number of mobile and PC users to date."
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...itional-gaming
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July 15th, 2019, 20:12 Posted By: wraggster
WoJ XInput Emulator v2.0 is released. This is a Emulator of Keyboard, Mouse and Xbox 360 Controller for Windows.
Main Features:
1. Supports XInput gaming controllers with customizable vibrations.
2. Supports DirectInput gaming controllers with customizable vibrations.
3. Supports playing with multiple joysticks simultaneously.
4. Soft Axes movement together with "Dual-Speed Axes" feature for precise aiming with joysticks.
5. Supports any smartphones and tablets with HTML5 web-browser as Touch Gamepads. (Cross-platform)
6. Supports Orientation with X,Y,Z Axes (Flight Simulators) and customizable Vibrations for mobile devices.
7. Layout Editor for creating user-defined HTML layouts for mobile devices.
8. Playing with joysticks and mobile device simultaneously. (Telescopic gamepads)
9. Xbox 360 Controller Emulator for any other gaming controllers, with vibrations.
10. Full control of Windows by Xbox Controller.
11. Radio-player controlled from the system tray or by joysticks.
http://www.worldofjoysticks.com/
http://www.emucr.com/2019/07/woj-xin...lator-v20.html
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July 9th, 2019, 17:43 Posted By: wraggster
Here is announcement for the English translation for Thousand Land on the Xbox. Now a full English translation setup is available for the game! If you like strategy games, this is definitely worth a try. Customize your playing field with upgrades & traps and take over the enemy field to advance yourself further. Along with your small helpers called APOs you can summon large beasts to assist you in the fight which are called TELAs. We hope you enjoy the work done as this has taken quite some time to bring to completion!
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2669/
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July 8th, 2019, 17:50 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox Game Pass is the first time that the subscription model has made economic sense for game developers, according to Playdead and Jumpship co-founder Dino Patti.
Speaking on a panel hosted by GamesIndustry.biz at Gamelab 2019, Patti touched on a subject that often gets lost amid the noise around Microsoft's first-party studio acquisitions. While Double Fine, Obsidian, inXile and the rest will be making content for Game Pass, third-party studios face a different reality.
"With subscription models, there are two angles: the consumer angle and the developer angle," said Dino Patti, who departed Playdead in 2016, and has since co-founded both Jumpship and Coherence. "Consumers want as many games as possible, as cheaply as possible... But the developer needs to look at what [the deal] gives them.""With Game Pass, Microsoft is doing it correctly for the developers"
Dino Patti
Microsoft's first-party studios will be judged by a certain set of metrics, of course, but for third-party studios to be involved with Game Pass, the deal has to make sense upfront. In that respect, Patti said, previous subscription services like OnLive and Gaikai fell short even despite the technical limitations of streaming. Game Pass is not a streaming service, but from Patti's point-of-view Microsoft has got the most important aspect right.
"For me -- and I might be a bit biased -- but I think the way the business is with Game Pass is the first time subscription is what could be considered fair for developers," he added. "All other business models that have been suggested with subscriptions have never worked out, because they didn't know what developers actually need.
"With Game Pass, Microsoft is doing it correctly, I feel, for the developers."
According to Paradox Interactive's Fredrik Wester -- another panellist at Gamelab 2019 -- a common mistake that many people make is to compare Game Pass to services like Spotify and Netflix, as if they are "the same thing with the same business model."
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...for-developers
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June 27th, 2019, 17:32 Posted By: wraggster
DS4Windows v1.7.11 is released. DS4Windows is a portable program that allows you to get the best experience while using a DualShock 4 on your PC. By emulating a Xbox 360 controller, many more games are accessible.
DS4Windows Requirements
* Microsoft .NET 4.5 or higher (needed to unzip the driver and for macros to work
* DS4 Driver (Downloaded & Installed with
* Microsoft 360 Driver (link inside DS4Windows, already installed on Windows 7 SP1 and higher or if you've used a 360 controller
* Sony DualShock 4 (This should be
* Micro USB
* (Optional)Bluetooth 2.1+, via adapter or built in pc (My recommendation) (Toshiba's bluetooth & Bluetooth adapters using CSR currently does not
DS4Windows changelog:
Norwegian Bokmål translation provided by @DandelionSprout
Loosened enhanced precision curves
AdvancedColorDialog change improved responsiveness of application for some reason
Removed color dialog dependency from design for some forms. Allows DS4Form and Options forms to open in Design mode while targetting x64
Added easeout cubic curve option
https://github.com/Ryochan7/DS4Windows
http://www.emucr.com/2019/06/ds4windows-v1711.html
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June 24th, 2019, 21:22 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Gears of War 5 has ditched loot boxes and the season pass, developer The Coalition has announced.
DLC maps are free for matchmaking and private play, according to a post on the Gears5 website.
You earn content via the new Tour of Duty system, and all store purchases are direct, so there's no RNG.
Tour of Duty is a seasonal progression system that involves Daily Challenges and Medals. These let you rank up and earn customisation content, such as character skins.
"The path to each piece of content earnable is clear - you will know what you need to do to earn each specific customisation item," reads the post.
There is no premium, pay-only content for Tour of Duty, the post clarifies.
There are Supply Drops in the game, which you get just for playing. Supply Drops are a random item drop from a pool of content called Supply. If you get a duplicate card, it's automatically turned into Scrap, which in turn is spent on crafting Supply items you don't have or upgrading character skills. You cannot buy Supply Drops and Supply Drop content with real-world money.
What you can buy with real-world money is customisation content, via the premium in-game currency called Iron. You can earn some Iron through each Tour of Duty to spend in the Store. But everything in the Store is direct purchase. No Gear Packs, as in previous entries in the series, and "no randomness".
"We are committed to ensuring we preserve a fair competitive environment across our modes, so there will be no items in the store that provide a competitive advantage for real-money purchasers, i.e. no pay to win."
But! You can spend real-world money on what's called Boost, which provides "accelerated progression for a period of real-world time" such as a day or a week. Boost gives you double multiplayer XP, double character XP for Escape and Horde modes, and double speed Supply Drop progression.
This all sounds welcome if you're interested in getting Gears 5 when it comes out in September. The XP Boost sounds a little worrying, and the suggestion is you'll be able to pay to get Supply Drops quicker. But a The Coalition rep stepped in on reddit to say "supply is based on time... so not boostable".
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