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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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August 13th, 2015, 21:29 Posted By: wraggster
Backwards-compatible Xbox 360 titles could be added to EA Access in the future, the publisher has said.
The paid subscription service currently offers a selection of Xbox One titles each month.
Among this month’s selection is Dragon Age: Inquisition, leading one Twitter user to ask whether the offering could be extended to older titles in the series.
EA responded: “We’re investigating adding backwards compatible EA games to EA Access in the future. Stay tuned.”
Microsoft announced during its E3 conference that the Xbox One would see functionality to play Xbox 360 games, such as EA's own Mass Effect (pictured), added later this year.
In a survey of players following the reveal, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption was revealed as the title gamers would most like to relive on the new platform.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-in...alogue/0154156
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August 13th, 2015, 21:21 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft won’t use the word ‘relaunch’ but that’s essentially what it has done with Xbox One.
It has already cut the price, redesigned the controller and, come November, it will have introduced a new user interface and backwards compatibility, too.
Outside of its casing, the Xbox One that gamers will be buying this Christmas will look nothing like the one launched two years ago.
“You live or die on the innovation you can bring to market on anything you do,” says EMEA boss Neil Thompson.
“What the Xbox and product teams have done an amazing job of is just bringing a ton of innovation to our platform – hardware, software services... When you add all those elements together it can feel overwhelming – like it is a new console.
“When I used to be interviewed about Xbox 360, I would say that the 360 today will be different to the one you bought a year ago. It is exactly the same in this generation and, if anything, the pace is accelerating, because competitive pressure means that companies like us have to constantly innovate."
"I have a genre triple-A killer title for every market in Europe." Neil Thompson, Xbox MCV spoke to Thompson shortly after Xbox’s pre-Gamescom press conference. It was an eclectic showing, flitting between console and PC, and from blockbusters like Quantum Break to indie efforts such as We Happy Few. There were eSports initiatives, DVR functionality and, erm, rain in Forza 6. That’s without mentioning the announcement of FIFA bundles and the reveal of a new Halo Wars.
It may sound scattershot, but there was a good reason for the variety. Xbox is losing Europe to an increasingly dominant PlayStation. This a fragmented market and what appeals in France doesn’t necessarily sell in Sweden. Microsoft was at Gamescom with the express intention of turning the tide on this situation.
PC is big across Europe, which is why PC hits Cities: Skylines, and Train Simulator were on stage. Many of the games on display were European-made (including Quantum Break, Crackdown 3, Cobalt, Homefront, Beyond Eyes, Just Cause 3, Worms, Halo Wars, Fable Legends and so on). Plus, doing anything with FIFA will automatically attract a large proportion of European gamers.
“Part of us being at Gamescom was to demonstrate we are supporting Europe, and we want to be successful over here,” explains Thompson. “It was a content-driven show, and Europe has a lot of great development talent”
He adds: “We absolutely want to win share in Europe. The games line-up we have got, the backwards compatibility, the DVR elements and so on... all of this will help us build more-and-more momentum.
“I have a genre triple-A killer title for every market in Europe. The general trend in Europe is that Northern Europe tends to be shooter and racing territories, in mid-Europe you tend to have fans of football and strategy games, and if you go to the south it is all about social games and soccer, too. If you look at what we are offering with FIFA, if you look at our first-party shooters and racing games, plus our strategy titles, we have it covered. What we have got to do a great job of is making sure all the fans in those markets understand what content is suited to them. That is the job that the teams have to get done.”
Xbox One’s Q4 line-up is unquestionably strong – Halo 5, Forza 6 and Rise of the Tomb Raider are amongst this year’s biggest games – and it’s imperative they deliver on their promise. But perhaps Microsoft’s biggest challenge will come in its third-party relationships. Xbox has not had much luck with its third-party partnerships, whereas PlayStation has done an impressive job of making games such as Destiny appear like exclusives.
“What is important is that we tell our fanbase – and our install base on Xbox 360 – about all of the titles that are coming this holiday on Xbox,” says Thompson. “And that is both first-party and third-party. Just look at the bundles we do and the offerings we create, like our FIFA offer. It is really about us making sure that we are working hard with the publishers – which we do – and that we explain to our fans what all of our game content is. Yes, we love our first-party titles, and we have an amazing line-up, but we will talk about all of the games coming to Xbox One.”
A major part of Microsoft’s Gamescom was Windows 10. In Germany and much of Europe, PC is the most popular games platform, and Microsoft hopes its renewed push into PC can help win over fans in this arena.
“We now have this OS platform where, if developers wish to, they can now develop an app or a game across both the Xbox and Windows platforms,” states Thompson.
“The mere fact you can now do that is game-changing for the industry. It will scale very rapidly, based on what we are currently seeing; developers will get more and more excited about the creative possibilities.”
Some of Xbox One’s upcoming games, such as Fable Legends, will be made available on PC, too. It’s a bold move, because if gamers can get these titles on PC, surely it might harm sales of the console?
“No. It is all additive,” defends Thompson. “We had 14 million downloads of Windows 10 in the first 24 hours. I don’t know how many of them are Xbox users before they downloaded Windows 10, but now we have an audience that is exposed to the Xbox features, games and apps that we have. It is all about adding to game experiences.”
EUROPEAN CHARM OFFENSIVE
Impressing at Gamescom was never going to be enough for Xbox. When asked if Xbox could be No.1 in Europe, Thompson is coy about the answer. The firm may indeed win market share, but unseating an increasingly dominant PS4 is no small feat.
Yet this was a start. Xbox will believe it had something for everyone at Gamescom, and its main aim is not to convince PS4 gamers to swap machines, but rather to encourage the millions of Xbox 360 owners that have yet to upgrade to do so.
With things like backwards compatibility and that stellar line-up, it certainly has the tools at its disposal to do just that.
“It is an amazing line-up,” concludes Thompson. “The fascinating thing is when you start to look at 2016, that is amazing as well, because you have Gears of War 4, Quantum Break, Crackdown... so we have
an embarrassment of riches and I hope our fans will love them. Now it is down to us to make that happen.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbox-...europe/0154208
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August 9th, 2015, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster
The new DVR functionality for Xbox One comes with a major caveat – it will only work with consoles fitted out with an external hard drive.
The TV recording, pausing and streaming functionality was announced during the Xbox Gamescom 2015 press conference, but no mention was made of the additional requirements.
It has also subsequently been confirmed that the DVR tech is only compatible with over-the-air broadcasts (accessed via the console’s tuner accessory) and cannot be used in conjunction with cable or satellite TV, despite Xbox One’s in-built compatibility with such TV tech.
"You need an external hard-drive specifically for DVR because we want to keep the [storage] paths optimised between playing games and watching TV," project lead Richard Irving told GameSpot. "We don't want them to interact with each other."
Users will be able to stream any content they have recorded to compatible Windows 10 devices. Microsoft added that a “theoretical” resolution of 1080i should be supported.
The platform holder has also this week revealed a branded Seagate 2TB external hard drive for Xbox One and Xbox 360.
http://www.mcvuk.com/index.php/news/...-drive/0153945
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August 1st, 2015, 21:49 Posted By: wraggster
Having suggested several times that it was no longer enforcing its indie game release parity policy, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has more or less confirmed its demise.
The company had previously required that indie games released for Xbox One arrive either at the same time or ahead of other platforms. The scheme was so controversialthat some devs even said they wouldn’t release on Xbox One as a result.
However, having said last year that cases would be handled on a title-by-title basis and later that the policy was flexible, Spencer now seems to have signalled its end completely.
“I think so,” he answered when asked by Edge if the parity clause is dead, as reported by GamesRadar. “There’s this idea that’s been named ‘parity clause’, but there is no clause.
“We’ve come out and been very transparent in the last four or five months about exactly what we want. If there’s a developer who’s building a game and they just can’t get the game done for both platforms – cool. We’ll take a staggered release. We’ve done it before, and we’ll work with them on that.
“If another platform does a deal with you as a developer to build an exclusive version of your game for them, and you can’t ship on my platform for a year, when the game comes out in a year let’s just work together to make it special in some way.
“People complained about that, but you did a deal with somebody else and you got paid for it and I’m happy – we do those same deals, so I’m not knocking you. It’s going to be better for you, actually, because people don’t want last year’s game, they want something special and new.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbox-...o-more/0153350
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July 26th, 2015, 01:45 Posted By: wraggster
China technically lifted its longstanding ban on game consoles last year, but only for companies that registered in the Shanghai free trade zone. Needless to say, that put a damper on sales in the world's most populous country. However, the gloves just came off -- China's Ministry of Culture has approvedthe manufacture and sale of consoles anywhere in the nation. Companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony no longer have to hold back (or rely on black market sales) when doing business. They'll still have to grapple with heavy censorship of the games themselves, but that beats a lack of official options.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/25/c...e-console-ban/
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July 22nd, 2015, 22:11 Posted By: wraggster
Momentum appears to be building for the Xbox One.
Microsoft last night revealed that it sold 1.4m Xbox consoles in its fourth quarter, which is up on the 1.1m sold in the same quarter the previous year. CEO Satya Nadella described it as an “incredible” quarter for Xbox.
Furthermore, revenues at the company’s computing and gaming hardware division were up 44 per cent year-on-year at $591m, a number credited to not only improved console sales but also a jump in Xbox Live revenue and stronger first party sales – which of course now includes Minecraft.
Xbox revenues climbed ten per cent to $86m, with higher sales offsetting the console’s lower RRP. Xbox Live transactions climbed 58 per cent to $205m, with both user numbers and revenue per user up.
Surface is doing well, too, revenue up by 117 per cent on the back of the launch of Surface 3.
Overall Microsoft saw revenues of $22.2bn but suffered a $2.1bn loss thanks in no small part to charges relating to its purchase of Nokia. Total devices and consumer revenue down $1.3bn thanks to a sharp decrease in phone sales.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbox-...uarter/0152980
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July 22nd, 2015, 21:48 Posted By: wraggster
Beneath that shiny exterior, the Xbox One is, basically, a glorified gaming PC in a slightly smaller frame. As such, wouldn't it be great if you could play RTS games on the machine with your keyboard and mouse? The hardware can already support the former, and if Microsoft's Phil Spencer is to be believed, the latter is coming in the near future. The executive was asked on Twitter if it'd be possible to stream games from a Windows machine to the Xbox -- in the opposite direction to how the company has set up its game streaming system. In response, he said that it'd require keyboard and mouse support for it to work, crucially adding "those aren't far away."
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/22/x...mouse-support/
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July 16th, 2015, 21:34 Posted By: wraggster
You can get Philips' Hue lights to change color when you're watching movies, so it only makes sense that they should also put on a show when you're playing games, right? Frima certainly thinks so. The studio has just added Hue syncing to its Xbox One platformer Chariot, adding an extra level of atmosphere to your adventures. When enemies attack, your bulbs will turn red; when you wander by blooming plants, the living room might go green. Thisisn't the first time that we've seen Hue gaming experiences, and it's definitely not a cheap trick when a starter Hue kit typically costs $200. However, this is probably the easiest way to ramp up the atmospheric effects while you play. Here's hoping that more games experiment with lighting in the future.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/15/h...xbox-one-game/
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July 15th, 2015, 21:47 Posted By: wraggster
After the release of Mortal Kombat X, [Zachery’s] gaming group wanted to branch out into the fighter genre. They quickly learned that in order to maximize their experience, they would need a better controller than a standard gamepad. A keyboard wasn’t going to cut it either. They wanted a fight stick. These are large controllers that look very much like arcade fighting controls and include a joystick and large buttons. [Zachery’s] group decided to build their own fight stick for use with a PC.
[Zachery] based his build around the TeensyLC, which is a 32 bit development board with an ARM processor. It’s also compatible with Arduino. The original version of his project setup the controller as a HID, essentially emulating a keyboard. This worked for a while until they ran into compatibility issues with some games. [Zachery] learned that his controller was compatible with DirectInput, which has been deprecated. The new thing is Xinput, and it was going to require more work.
Using Xinput meant that [Zachery] could no longer use the generic Microsoft HID driver. Rather than write his own drivers, he decided to emulate the XBOX 360 controller. When the fight stick is plugged into the computer, it shows up as an XBOX 360 controller and Windows easily installs the pre-built driver. To perform the emulation, [Zachery] first had to set the VID and PID of the device to be identical to the XBOX controller. This is what allows the Microsoft driver to recognize the device.
Next, the device descriptor and configuration descriptor had to be added to the Teensy’s firmware. The device descriptor includes information such as USB version, device class, protocol, etc. The configuration descriptor includes additional information about the device configuration. [Zachery] used Microsoft Message Analyzer to pull the configuration descriptor from a real XBOX 360 controller, then used the same data in his own custom controller.
[Zachery] programmed the TeensyLC using the Arduino IDE. He ran into some trouble here because the IDE did not include the correct device type for an Xinput device. [Zachery] had to edit the boards.txt file and add three lines of code in order to add a new hardware device to the IDE’s menu. Several other files also had to be modified to make sure the compiler knew what an Xinput device type was. With all of that out of the way, [Zachery] was finally able to write the code for his controller.
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/14/using...60-controller/
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July 12th, 2015, 14:42 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has announced that a Gears of War Ultimate Edition and Xbox One hardware bundle is coming out.
Interestingly the package launches on week before the title hits stores. It’ll be in stores on August 21st, with the game not being available until August 28th.
Consumers will not be able to play the game ahead of launch. Microsoft suggests that gamers use this week period to pre-install the game ready for launch day. Given that the game is said to weigh in at a hefty 44GB, fans might need this time.
The bundle will set consumers back £309.99, and includes the 500GB console, alongside a digital copy of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. That’s on top of early beta access for Gears 4, and a two-week Xbox Live Gold trial.
The long-rumoured Xbox One Gears of War remake was announced on-stage by Microsoft at E3.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/an-xb...he-way/0152467
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July 12th, 2015, 14:39 Posted By: wraggster
Gamer Network’s Xbox-based video outlet Outside Xbox has surpassed one million subscribers.
The channel was launched in August 2012 2012 by Andy Farrant, Mike Channell and Jane Douglas, and is focused on Microsoft and Xbox content.
In addition to smashing one million subscribers on YouTube, the outlet has seen year-on-year growth of over 200 per cent, and has surpassed 25 million monthly views.
Across Gamer Network’s portfolio of video channels – including content from Eurogamer and Digital Foundry – the media company now reaches over two million monthly subscribers, up 175 per cent year-on-year.
“Outside Xbox reaching 1 million subscribers and over 25 million monthly views is a fantastic achievement. But more than that, the exceptional engagement figures and community feedback shows that they’ve managed to deliver credible, high quality and unique original video content to the YouTube audience”, said Gamer Network CEO Rupert Loman.
“Spearheaded by Outside Xbox, video has quickly become a key part of the Gamer Network business and we’re looking forward to unveiling some additional new launches and developments in this area soon”.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/outsi...ribers/0152469
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July 8th, 2015, 21:57 Posted By: wraggster
There are a host of new features coming to Plex's Xbox One app. In addition to the standard fare of navigation tweaks, added SmartGlass functionality and bug fixes, the media organizer/caster now allows users to play music throughtheir Xbone. Plex also now offers playlist support for both songs and videos. Plus, there's no longer need to convert videos either, the service can play back video in Xbox's native MKV file format. But arguably the coolest new feature is that you'll finally get real, honest-to-goodness trailers prior to watching your films. It's as close to the theater experience you can get without having to pay for IMAX and stale popcorn.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/07/p...ists-and-more/
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July 4th, 2015, 22:26 Posted By: wraggster
Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of Xbox, has admitted that the company needs to improve the European performance of the Xbox One.
"We need to do better in Europe," Spencer told Edge, as reported by Videogamer. "When I look globally, mainland Europe is definitely an area we want to focus on.
"I'm excited about going to Gamescom at the beginning of August, having another press show where we're able to show games that we didn't show [at E3]. So you're going to see brand new games, as well as obviously some repeats, but you're going to see Scalebound, Crackdown, Quantum Break from my friends at Remedy. From a product standpoint, I like where we are. I think the team's doing a great job with the games and building a platform for gamers."
The comments come after SCEE president Jim Ryan claimed earlier today that PS4 is enjoying “very significant [next-gen] market leadership” in Europe, with some territories seeing market share of as much as 90 per cent in Sony’s favour.
Microsoft will have an excellent chance to make its mark on European consumers later this month when it takes to the Gamescom stage with fresh info on some of its new titles – and free from competition from Sony.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbox-...europe/0152037
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July 4th, 2015, 22:18 Posted By: wraggster
There would have been no Xbox One had Microsoft not greenlit the $1.15bn scheme to fix and replace broken Xbox 360s hit be the Red Ring of Death.
In a detailed interview with IGN, as transcribed byEurogamer, former Xbox man and current EA exec Peter Moore recalled the tough road leading up to the moment he had to present the $1.15bn figure to his bosses.
"We were seeing failure rates and starting to get reports through customer service. This was a thing where we couldn't actually figure out what was going on. It was sickening," Moore said.
"I remember going to Robbie Bach, my boss, and saying, I think we could have a billion dollar problem here. I said to Robbie, we've got to tell Steve [Ballmer]. Here's what we have to do: we need to FedEx an empty box to a customer who had a problem - they would call us up - with a FedEx return label to send your box, and then we would FedEx it back to them and fix it.
"I calculated with my finance team – $1.15bn, right out there. I always remember $240m of that was FedEx. Their stock must have gone through the roof for the next two weeks. And, I am trembling sat in front of Steve, who I love to death, but he can be an intimidating human being. Steve said, 'okay, talk me through this.'
“I said, 'if we don't do this, this brand is dead, we've got to take them all back, and we've got to do this in a first class way,' because when you take a console away from a gamer, and you're going to spend three weeks fixing it... so we've got to FedEx this all the way. We've got to FedEx this all the way. We've got to overnight it back in two.
"He said, 'what's it going to cost?' I remember taking a deep breath, looking at Robbie, and saying, 'we think it's $1.15bn, Steve.' He said, 'do it.' There was no hesitation. I'm thinking, I'm about to crater Microsoft's stock. Actually, nothing moved."
All of which, Moore believes, means Ballmer should effectively be credited with saving the Xbox brand
“If you're an Xbox gamer, you can thank Steve Ballmer for not even hesitating,” he continued. “He didn't even think twice about spending $1.15bn to protect a brand that's probably worth three or four times that today.
“Now, we were a wealthy company who could afford to do that, but not even hesitating because the brand was more important. If we hadn't made that decision there and then, and tried to fudge over this problem, then the Xbox brand and Xbox One wouldn't exist today."
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/moore...rogram/0152145
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