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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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November 13th, 2011, 19:13 Posted By: wraggster
Call of Duty: Elite has completely tripped over its own popularity as servers continue to struggle with demand. But surely Activision knew it would be big, right?
 Call of Duty VP of production Daniel Suarez has sought to clarify the perception that Elite was simply completely unprepared for what would seem like an inevitability - millions of gamers all rushing in at once."We knew MW3 was going to be big and we planned for a big demand, it's just the infrastructure is struggling to keep up with volume," he told Joystiq.
He went on to say that while the Elite beta test helped them prepare the service, even it could not provide a proper test for the sheer scale of the launch.
"We did a beta, the beta was intended to give us the data on how everything would behave with people hitting different parts of the service and different parts of the site. But when you add the complexities of it being not only an online service but one that has a console component, a PC component, and a soon-to-be-released mobile component, all being released at the same time, it's never been done before at this scale," he said.
He goes on, again, to blame the ongoing outages on the service's overwhelming popularity. "From the planning standpoint, we planned for it to be big. It's Call of Duty, we have all our metrics. We know what our metrics are from Black Ops and MW2 and all the previous Call of Dutys, so we were planning for it to be big. But we just literally had so much influx right now from all the different areas, from the console and the web. It just hit us a lot harder than we thought."
So when will it be fixed? Dunno. "We want to make sure the things we're doing right now remain stable," said Suarez. "Right now we don't have a definitive goal to have everything up by this date, we just don't have that data yet."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ision-answers/
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November 13th, 2011, 00:45 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has lined up a load of tempting discounts for shopaholics looking to scoop a deal on Black Friday.
 The platform holders' discounts bring down the prices of current games, consoles and even Xbox Live subscriptions.Here's the list:
Kinect for $99.99
Three-month Xbox Live Gold sub for $12.99
Gears of War 3 for $39.99
Forza Motorsport 4 for $39.99
Dance Central 2 for $29.99
Kinect Sports 2 for $29.99
Xbox 360 consoles will also see reductions of $50 to $100, reports Destructoid.
Black Friday, for our British readers, is a day when hordes of Americans line up outside department stores all night in the freezing cold, before stampeding over the poor guy in charge of opening the doors at 4am in a mad frenzy to snap up goods at ridiculously discounted prices. It's f***ing insane.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-black-friday/
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November 13th, 2011, 00:39 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft had a good October. With 393,000 Xbox consoles sold in the US, last month saw 21% growth over the same month last year. Of course, Kinect was released last November so, when given a chance to talk with Microsoft product manager David Dennis about sales numbers, I asked if he thought monthly sales numbers would exceed last November and December's.
"The rule of thumb you can look at," Dennis explained, "is you take October and you double it and that's your November and you double your November and that's your December." With that rule of thumb in mind, our napkin math puts this November's Xbox 360 sales at 786K, far short of last November's staggering 1.37 million Xbox consoles. But Dennis said that there's "an incredible amount of momentum behind the platform right now," and Microsoft is hopeful that Kinect can strike holiday gold a second year in a row.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/11/mi...-the-holidays/
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November 12th, 2011, 01:35 Posted By: wraggster
Poor vision and awareness may afflict some of Skyrim's population, but your bellowing, dragonborn protagonist is meant to have 20/20 vision. Blurry textures on the Xbox 360 version, which aren't replaced with higher-quality versions as they come into closer view, may be a symptom of having the mammoth RPG* installed on the hard drive, Bethesda now suspects.
"Skyrim uses a lot of dynamic streaming systems, including textures," says a Bethesda community manager posting on the official forums. "We've seen a few reports of certain textures temporarily scaling down on the Xbox 360, and not scaling back up. We have verified that this issue does not occur when playing off the disk and when the game is fully cached (not installed)." For now, it seems the streaming glitch can be avoided if you play directly from the disc, and imagine the loud whirring emanates from Dovahkiin's vocal chords warming up.
According to Bethesda, a solution is being prepared for installed Skyrim in the next title update. The patch notes for the most recent update are availablehere.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/11/be...ssues-on-xbox/
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November 12th, 2011, 01:09 Posted By: wraggster
Activision has confirmed that modern Warfare 3 has shattered the record held by Call of Duty: Black Ops to become the biggest entertainment launch of all time.
In total the game sold a staggering 6.5m units in just the UK and North America alone in its first 24 hours on sale, amassing sales of $400m in the process.
It’s the third year on the trot that a Call of Duty release has set day one entertainment launch records – an all-time first.
"We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories," Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated.
"Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time."
CEO Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg added: "Call of Duty is more than a game. It's become a major part of the pop cultural landscape. It is a game that core enthusiasts love, but that also consistently draws new people into the medium. It is the most intense, adrenaline pumping entertainment experience anywhere.
“I would like to thank our incredible teams at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games for making a brilliant game. But most of all, I would like to thank our millions of passionate fans worldwide. We made this game for you."
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/moder...ch-ever/087304
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November 11th, 2011, 23:27 Posted By: wraggster
One-to-one Kinect control may offer gratifying feedback, but it isn’t sufficient to make players feel truly connected to onscreen characters, according to Blitz Games’ Nick Adams.
Delivering a talk titled ‘Designing for a Radical Control Method’ atBradford Animation Festival 2011 this week, the design manager drew on challenges faced by the studio during development of the Xbox 360 version of Puss In Boots, a game based on the upcoming Dreamworks film.
“We had to make the player feel connected, we had to make the player feel like a hero,” he explained. “This is where we came up against a problem, because Puss in Boots is Zorro in cat-form: he’s dynamic, he’s got flair and every one of his poses has been lovingly crafted by Dreamworks animators, so he always looks awesome.
“Most players don’t exhibit that same degree of flair.”
Despite a potential lack of elegance, however, players usually believe their performance to be significantly more polished than observers might – a hurdle Adams described as "egocentric bias". To illustrate his point, he referenced YouTube phenomenon .
“I can’t speak for this guy – I’ve never met him and I don’t know what was going on in his head, but he probably thought he looked quite cool,” he told attendees.
“Other people didn’t see him in the same way.”
When Blitz initially added Kinect to the game, it used a system called avateering, which maps the exact skeletal movements of the player directly onto the character.
“We really wanted to create this one-to-one bond with the character, but after trying it, it didn’t really work, and it didn’t look cool,” he admitted. “So somehow we had to go beyond one-to-one, but we had to do it in such a way that we didn’t break the bond.”
The initial solution was a system Blitz Games dubbed ‘semi-teering’, which is based on gesture-driven animations. Instead of mirroring players' movements, the game instead recognises gestures then plays one of a number of pre-canned animations.
“Rather than make the player look worse, we were making them look better – taking what they were doing and exaggerating it,” said Adams.
But semi-teering threw up its own problems: “We were reading the gesture, and then when it finished we’d play the animation,” Adams continued. “But you end up with lag. It looked good, but it just didn’t feel right – you were in this uncanny valley of animation. Sword fighting is such a fast dynamic action that any lag is going to feel horrible.”
The final piece in the puzzle was pre-emptive gesture recognition, wherein the game makes an educated guess at what the player is going to do and prepares an animation early. Halfway through the player’s movement, the full animation, which is usually between two and four frames long, is triggered which in turn leads to a more satisfying experience for the player, with apparently-realtime feedback.
“This was probably our greatest success in the game,” said Adams. “It’s the core mechanic that people are going to judge it on.”
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/blitz-g...rol-not-enough
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November 11th, 2011, 23:23 Posted By: wraggster
Activision has declared Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 the most successful entertainment launch of all time.
The Infinity Ward-developed shooter, released for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on Tuesday, shipped 6.5 million units and grossed $400 million in the US and UK alone in its first 24 hours on shelves, the publisher said.
If Activision's figures - provided by Charttrack and retailers - are correct this will be the third year in a row that the Call Of Dutyseries has broken the same record. Last year's Black Ops grossed $360 million on day one; in 2009, Modern Warfare 2 brought in $310 million.
CEO Bobby Kotick said: "There has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening-day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings, two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time."
Activision also said it had donated $3 million to the Call Of Duty Endowment, the nonprofit corporation it set up to help veterans adjust to civilian life through training and work placements.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/modern-...-launch-record
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November 11th, 2011, 23:02 Posted By: wraggster
Today marks the release of Skyrim, the fifth installment of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls series. The game is set about 200 years after the events of Oblivion, at which point the province of Skyrim is embroiled in a civil war, and dragons roam the skies. Early reviews for the game have been largely complimentary — one at Rock, Paper, Shotgun artfully details all the things the reviewer hasn't yet done, despite playing the game for over 30 hours. Quoting: "I seriously worried Skyrim would, for all its talk of lavishness, depth and dragons, continue the transformation into a trudging, consolified action game filled with clunky acting. It does not. It slams on the brakes then reverses at dangerous speed back into Morrowind territory. Some things are lost (e.g. Persuasion is a sadly watered-down, irregular affair now mostly to do with shopping), many things are changed (e.g. recharging magic items can be done anywhere) and it’s certainly not as weird (no flying or Siltstriders), but it truly reclaims that sense of being in another world, rather than a generic soft-focus, over-familiar fantasyscape." An addendum goes into more detail on the specifics. If you're curious how the game looks in action, Giant Bomb has posted a ~52-minute quick-look video with commentary.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/1...rn-with-skyrim
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November 11th, 2011, 01:49 Posted By: wraggster
Running out of avant garde ways of making music? Then perhaps this BeatWheel hack for Kinect, made at a recent Music Hackday in Boston, will give you some fresh ideas. Music samples are separated into eight segments, which encircle the user like a clockface. You then control which part plays by waving your hands around like a severely caffeinated Bernstein. Check out the shadowy BeatWheel demo after the break.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/10/k...-the-windmill/
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November 11th, 2011, 01:34 Posted By: wraggster
A recent spate of Xbox Live account hijackings involving unauthorised FIFA Ultimate Team pack purchases are not due to a system exploit or hack, Microsoft has clarified.Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, Microsoft's online safety director Doug Park insisted that the problem didn't represent "a new attack vector"."It's not a hack, it's really just a different way to monetise stolen accounts," he explained."Any service has compromises. Facebook has compromises, WOW has compromises. What they're really doing is trying to make money off those compromises. So FIFA is a very popular title - it's just a new way for the bad guys to make money. It wasn't, based on our investigation... we didn't see anything new. It was just a different avenue."When pushed for more information on exactly what the thieves are up to, Park suggested that a run-of-the-mill data phishing scam was the cause, though wouldn't go into specifics."I'm not getting into super detail on that, but there are the basics of account compromise. There's phishing, there's social engineering, there's malware. Based off of the industry today, most of it comes off malware and phishing. If they get the accounts, they sell it," he said."That's really all they were doing. Whether it's FIFA, or an account with a PlayStation subscription, or an account with a Live subscription, it's all basically the same thing."So, what is Microsoft planning to do to ensure it doesn't happen again? Xbox communications director Craig Cincotta chimed in, insisting that protecting its users from security threats is "ingrained in the DNA" of Microsoft's business."You come in every day and try to stay ahead of these things. There are teams of people who are thinking about this day in, day out," he explained."You try to get to the place where you're most prepared and most well informed. That's a constant state. It's not like it's, 'Oh, we've solved that security thing'. No. You just constantly do it."Part of it is the responsibility to our user base. If we're going to provide people with the types of functionality and experiences they want, it's our responsibility to stay ahead of the types of exploits that we need to protect people from."The FIFA issue first raised its head last month, when a significant number of users reported that their accounts had been taken over by cyber thieves and were being used to purchase FIFA Ultimate Team content packs, presumably for re-sale.At the time, Microsoft announced that it was "working with our impacted members directly to resolve any unauthorised changes to their accounts."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ere-not-a-hack
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November 11th, 2011, 01:29 Posted By: wraggster
Halo Reach owners not interested in next week's Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary release can still enjoy its revamped maps via a DLC add-on, Microsoft has announced.Released on 15th November for 1200 Points, the Anniversary Map Pack includes six multiplayer stages (Battle Canyon, Breakneck, High Noon, Penance, Ridgeline, Solitary) and one Firefight map (Installation 04).For those who are planning on picking up the remake, according to the official Halo site, playlists will start going live on the afternoon of 14th November (UK time) - just in case your copy of the game arrives a little early.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...pack-next-week
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November 11th, 2011, 01:23 Posted By: wraggster
[h=2]
If you're part of a niche group of people, you can possibly take an early stab at Ninja Theory's controversial reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry. According to a post onNeoGAF, an invitation is hitting the inboxes of some of the top Devil May Cryplayers, offering to pay for travel and hook them up with a free lunch in exchange for some input on the new game.
However, Ninja Theory has yet to confirm any invites have been sent. A similar thread on the developer's own forums lacks any comment and our solicitations have gone unanswered thus far. We'll let you know if there really is such a thing as a free lunch.[/h]
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November 11th, 2011, 01:20 Posted By: wraggster
While Modern Warfare 3 appears to be continuing the trend of stable, successful Call of Duty multiplayer launches, the much-ballyhooed Call of Duty Elite service hasn't fared so well. Despite a beta and a solid indication of the platform's requirements, Elite has been down since launch day. While Activision and Beachhead Studios continue to toil away on the problem, they've added another update to the CoD Elite status page letting eager gamers know what's what.
"And for our premium members who are Founders, know that granting your status and delivering your in-game benefits in MW3 is a priority," the statement reads, addressing the early paid adopters of Elite. "Also, to ensure that every premium member receives their full money's worth, we are immediately and automatically extending your membership to Call of Duty Elite by 30 days at no additional cost."
So that means your one-year membership is now a thirteen-month membership. But what if you haven't bought Elite yet? "If you're still considering becoming a premium member, we're going to extend Founder eligibility until the end of the month," the statement continues, "and you will also receive the additional 30 days of access."
So that's thirteen months of Elite and a one-month extension on Founder eligibility. A decent enough consolation package for premium members, but the free users will have to simply wait for Elite to get back online before they can start tweaking their loadouts from work.
Stay tuned for an interview with Activision on what's happening with Call of Duty Elite.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/10/ca...berships-bump/
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November 11th, 2011, 00:47 Posted By: wraggster
By 2016 all forms of entertainment will be interactive, says Xbox Live's Robin Burrowes.
The Xbox Live product chief backed up his statement with stats from recent Xbox surveys, which showed that 42 per cent of people use social networks while watching a TV programme.
He says: "All forms of entertainment will be interactive within the next five years. The living room is becoming more multi-task."
He then revealed how console gamers are now using their home devices, and stressed the importance of not confusing consumers with too much content.
He said that 79 per cent of European console owner watch DVDs or Blu-rays on their consoles, while 45 per cent stream music from the likes of Xbox and PS3.
After going through the timeline of Xbox Live - from 2002 to today - Burrowes said that gamers are spending 60 hours per month on average over Xbox Live and that 42 per cent of Xbox Live members in the US are spending one hour watching TV and movies on their Xbox every single day. Up by 300 per cent year-on-year.
Burrowes then stressed the importance of not confusing users with the sheer amount of content, before pitching Xbox Live's new dashboard as a solution.
"Convergence is in progress," continued Burrowes. "But there is a lot of complexity and consumers won't compromise. There is a lot of quantity out there right now, there's half a billion apps out there, but when it comes to the living room we believe it is quality over quantity.
"Consumers are getting confused. Our belief is that Xbox Live in the living room can be a key differentiator and can redefine things."
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbox-...e-years/087281
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November 10th, 2011, 01:07 Posted By: wraggster
The next Xbox console is codenamed 'Project Ten' and will release next year, the latest rumour report claims.
Technology reporter Paul Thurrott makes the claim in the Windows Weekly video show, in which he claims Microsoft will be "going the Apple route" with its next console.
 "What I'm hearing is [the next Xbox is] going to come out for holidays next year, meaning that they would almost have to announce this at CES, wouldn't they? That's my rumour... that we'll expect to hear something about that."He added: "They're going the Apple route where they want this thing to integrate very tightly with Windows 8 and Windows Phone, which is a problem with the current Xbox."
Thurrott claimed he's been told the next Xbox will feature "embedded Microsoft Silverlight", which is speculated to run the previously announced Xbox Live TV platform.
The claims somewhat match with a rumour from earlier this week, which claimed the next Xbox will run a version of Windows and feature a Zune HD-like hardware platform.
Microsoft has long spoken of its ten-year plan for Xbox 360, which launched in late 2005, but that doesn't rule out a successor launching during the period, according to European Xbox boss Chris Lewis, who said in August:
"We think we're a little over halfway with the life cycle of the console, but that's not to say there won't be an overlap. I'm not going to announce specifically or talk about timing. But you could imagine there could be overlap, it depends. We're not being specific about the next generation at this stage."
Saber Interactive CEO, Matthew Karch, who's currently heading up the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary single-player campaign, told CVG last month he'd be "shocked" if Microsoft doesn't launch its next-gen console before Sony.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ms-new-report/
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November 10th, 2011, 01:04 Posted By: wraggster
EA president Frank Gibeau has apparently confirmed the blatantly obvious - EA will make another Battlefield game.
Twitter feed are currently alight with chatter of a statement made by Gibeau during a keynote at talk session at the University of Southern California.
He said simply: "There will be a Battlefield 4."
Let's see: EA had shipped 10 million copies of Battlefield 3 for launch, and it went on to sell a massive five million copies on launch week - making it the biggest-selling game in EA's history.
Of course, then, EA will be making sequel. But hey, it's good to hear them say it.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...e-world-gasps/
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November 10th, 2011, 00:13 Posted By: wraggster
Battlefield 3 moved past Modern Warfare 2 to become the second most played game on Xbox Live last week.DICE's shooter improved on its third place debut the week prior, but couldn't take down Call of Duty: Black Ops, which clings on at number one. With Modern Warfare 3 now out in the wild it seems unlikely Battlefield will be able to disrupt Call of Duty's perennial domination of the Xbox Live activity chart.Here's the full top 20, as seen on Major Nelson's blog: - Call of Duty: Black Ops
- Battlefield 3
- Modern Warfare 2
- Gears of War 3
- FIFA 12
- Halo: Reach
- Madden NFL 12
- Batman: Arkham City
- Forza Motorsport 4
- GTA IV
- Call of Duty 4
- NBA 2K12
- FIFA Soccer 11
- Halo 3
- NHL12
- NCAA Football 12
- Call of Duty: World at War
- Red Dead Redemption
- Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
- Dead Island
Bleak indie platformer Limbo returned to the top of the Xbox Live Arcade chart, followed by Dungeon Defenders and Pinball FX2.Last week's new release, fun-free arcade throwback BurgerTime World Tour, debuted at 12. - Limbo
- Dungeon Defenders
- Pinball FX2
- The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile
- Real Steel
- Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone
- Daytona USA
- Fruit Ninja Kinect
- NBA Jam: On Fire Edition
- Bejeweled 3
- Castle Crashers
- BurgerTime World Tour
- Toy Soldiers: Cold War
- Guardian Heroes
- Trials HD
- Dead Rising 2: Case Zero
- Dead Rising 2: Case West
- Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
- From Dust
- Orcs Must Die!
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...box-live-chart
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November 10th, 2011, 00:09 Posted By: wraggster
It's not unusual to find good deals on GameFly's free shipping page, but $10 forCrysis 2 is a great deal by any stretch. GameFly is offering several other titles on the cheap as well, including the PS3 version of Portal 2 for $16.19 ($18 on Xbox), Alan Wake for $12, Duke Nukem Forever or Red Faction: Armageddon for $9. You can even snag Dead Space 2, Bulletstorm, Dragon Age 2, FEAR 3 and several other for under $20 each.
And, as the name of the "free shipping" page suggests, shipping is free.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/09/xb...-from-gamefly/
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