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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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March 26th, 2011, 23:36 Posted By: wraggster
"Microsoft Research has just published a scientific paper (PDF) and showing how the Kinect body tracking algorithm works — it's almost as impressive as some of the uses the Kinect has been put to. This article summarizes how Kinect does it. Quoting: '... What the team did next was to train a type of classifier called a decision forest, i.e. a collection of decision trees. Each tree was trained on a set of features on depth images that were pre-labeled with the target body parts. That is, the decision trees were modified until they gave the correct classification for a particular body part across the test set of images. Training just three trees using 1 million test images took about a day using a 1000-core cluster.http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/0...ough-Explained
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March 25th, 2011, 23:17 Posted By: wraggster
THQ and Blitz Games' The Fantastic Pets might not be the hardcore material that Kinect owners have been waiting for but the augmented reality game is turning some heads by exploring new territory.
Blitz Games is delving deep into the Kinect hardware to provide something unique on the Xbox 360.
We sat down for a chat with Stuart Maine, design manager at Blitz Games, for a chat about The Fantastic Pets, Kinect and what where the tech could go in the future.
Obviously it's aimed at kids, there's family fun and a fair bit of exercise going on in it as well. How much do you think Kinect games like this can change the negativity towards games?
We tried to be responsible with this one; it does tell you to take a break and teaches you the right foods to feed your pet but you do have to get up and you do have to engage. You can't cheat these games because they can watch you, so they're ideal for exercise games, but also with the Kinect you have to use your body to play. So there's always going to be a tiny delay because it's not like pushing buttons so it's ideal for those games where you're up and moving around.
Kinect is very much aimed at parties and family games, having fun - that sort of casual, social audience - so it encourages you to make games like that. I think it's going to be one of those cycles where that's the sort of people that are going to buy it so that's what we're going to make.
It'll be interesting to see what comes next because we've got all the exercise games, we've got the party games so what else can you do with this thing? It's a pretty amazing piece of kit really. But generally yeah it's going to get you off your feet and get you moving around.
It will work if you're sat down, obviously, but that's not what it's good at basically. It doesn't have to be full body, it can watch your face or watch your hands if that's what you tell it to do because you can zoom in.
But certainly the games that work best in ours - because we went through a lot of games, a lot of iterations - are the ones where you got up and did stuff basically and also the ones that applied whatever you expect to happen. So when you take a ball it's exactly how you take a ball, rather than the pet just give it you and it would just magically appear.
There were some rumours that were fairly quickly debunked by Microsoft that it was going to upgrade the accuracy and sensitivity of Kinect, would that be useful to developers?
The software went through revisions, obviously, as they always do when you're working on pre-released kit, and it got more accurate and it got faster. It's the decision of the developer what their Kinect is looking at basically so we're looking at your full body in the room because we want to see where you're going. So we can't tell whether your hand's open or closed, not with any accuracy, but certainly you could tell Kinect to do that, because it has a skeleton so you could say, "Watch this bit."
So you're confident that you can get the tech to track smaller movements, of the fingers say, effectively?
Yeah basically. In our game you stand quite far back so you might have to stand a lot closer but that's up to the developer. The machine can see all the bones so it knows where your hands are, so it's perfectly capable of watching them yeah.
But it's just like when we first started on the PS2 games at the end of that life were amazing compared to the start, Kinect will be the same, the developers will get loads more out of it in terms of any delay or any accuracy. We're just starting basically.
This is a casual game with fairly simple movements, do you think that's always going to be a restriction of the Kinect? A lot of hardcore gamers are wondering what it's going to offer them.
I don't know, a part of that is possibly because, like you were saying, it's very accurate and hardcore gamers... Really? I mean when I play Gears of War I don't want to be jumping around I just want to sit on my sofa so even if you gave me a hardcore game, I don't know, is it worth it? So on the audience side, it is an active piece of kit so that's the obvious way to go.
Voice control is quite good in terms of accuracy and the longer the phrase the better it is, ironically, because it has time to narrow it down. So you could do quite a nice game where you are talking to and ordering... I know people have tried it in the past with microphones but actually I think you could do it with this.
As I say you can watch the player's face... It's purely a software developers time; are they happy are they unhappy? We can make the game do this. That's all doable it's just, where do you put your effort? And I suppose the initial adopters of this they're very much aimed at the social family market, so that's where we put all the games basically.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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March 25th, 2011, 00:53 Posted By: wraggster
News via :: Emurussia
XBOX 360 Controller Emulator has been updated. Changes:
- New: 'Console' setting support added.
- Update: Microsoft XNA Framework classes updated to 4.0.
- New: Preset for "Philips Wireless PC Controller".
:: Homepage
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March 25th, 2011, 00:09 Posted By: wraggster
 Microsoft is giving primary school kids in South Africa a chance at a real hands-off education. Classrooms at Lakeside Park Primary, in the Vryheid, KwaZulu-Natal district (yes, it's a Natal project) are being equipped with Kinect cameras and Xbox 360s as part of a Microsoft initiative, in order to encourage English use in the classroom.
"Shy learners, who take months to speak up in class in their mother tongue – let alone in English, were already shouting out to classmates to 'jump' and 'duck' with no inhibition," Lakeside Park Primary Deputy Principal Karen Kirsten explained. According to XboxGaming, the Kinect and its English-language games are used to reduce the affective filter involved in learning and speaking English, so it can be better used as the teaching language in the classroom.
As a bonus, it teaches valuable mime skills.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/24/ki...rimary-school/
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March 25th, 2011, 00:01 Posted By: wraggster
Where is your Windows Phone 7 "NoDo" update? That's the question Microsoft is aiming to answer with a new spreadsheet it has cobbled together to detail the software status of all WP7 handsets released so far. A February preparatory patch and the long-anticipated first proper upgrade to the OS, herein titled merely "March update," are sat side by side, with a set of delivery states under them for each WP7 phone. Things aren't looking awesome in the US, where AT&T's batch is still undergoing carrier testing and T-Mobile's pair of phones are "scheduling" (which Microsoft says takes no more than 10 days), but news is better overseas, where most have received the February OTA and are mere days away from the final NoDo goodness. Sprint's HTC Arrive and AT&T's upcoming HD7S will both have that software preloaded, so at least new buyers won't have to fret unduly.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/24/m...ndows-phone-7/
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March 23rd, 2011, 15:01 Posted By: wraggster
[Francois] over at 1024 Architecture has been working on a project we think you’ll be likely to see in a professional music video before too long. Using his Kinect sensor, ha has been tracking skeletal movements, adding special effects to the resulting wire frame with Quartz Composer. While this idea isn’t new, the next part is. He takes the QC tweaked video stream and then projects it back over the performer using MadMapper to match the video to the body movements, recording the resultant display.
The project started out with a few hiccups, including a noticeable delay between the body tracking and the display. It caused the performer to have to move more slowly than he would like, so things had to be tweaked. [Francois] first tested the latency between his computer and the projector by displaying a timecode representation on the screen as well as via the projector. He found the projector to have a latency of 1 frame at 60 fps, which wasn’t too bad. This led him to believe the culprit was his Kinect, and he was right. There was a 6 frame delay, so he locked the video output to 30 fps in hopes of cutting that delay in half.
The effect is slightly reminiscent of Tron, but with more distortion. We can’t wait to see more projects similar to this one in the future.
The resulting video embedded below is pretty cool in our opinion, but you can judge for yourself.
http://hackaday.com/2011/03/23/real-...ct/#more-38280
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March 23rd, 2011, 11:40 Posted By: wraggster
An internet snooper could have stumbled upon more domain names pointing to preparations for Grand Theft Auto V.
The GTAForums user known as "Rpg_" brought a whole host of new URLs apparently registered by Rockstar.
Just like the web addresses found towards the end of last month, many featuring on this long list of new brands have more than a GTA feel to them. Others could be related to absolutely anything.
As always these are just potential clues adding to growing rumour and speculation, but they're definitely worth a look:
babehardcore.com
baitman.com
bicyclecommuter.com
boobstop.com
californiahomesbyowner.com
carolinabrokers.com
cookinganything.com
couchparty.com
drcarlton.com
edrugs.com
famouszone.com
f*ckyew.com
getamexican.com
indepthappraising.com
justcanoe.com
loadoffmymind.com
pregnantandalone.com
majorflava.com
myrtlebeachattorney.com
outrageouslife.com
sexomy.com
stacysmail.com
thebetter.com
themaniacs.com
thetangible.com
thewhitefox.com
westernescapes.com
whattheysay.com
A Tweet by actor and comedian Gilbert Gottfried outed GTA V on Monday. It could have been a hoax or mistake but the fact that it was quickly taken down raises suspicions.
[ Source: GTAForums ]
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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March 23rd, 2011, 10:44 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...ZlOjkVbEcn.php
From xcm.cc:
[QUOTE]
To some, the Xbox 360 controller is most arguably the best controller, but the button location may not be the perfect place for some games. In order to fix this, you may need to re-map some buttons that will suit your preference and gaming style. What if you're left handed and like to use the left LT as your shooting trigger and RT trigger for throwing grenades or even switching weapons? The XCM Re-Mapper allows you to re-map ANY button on a wired Xbox 360TM controller (except SELECT, START and Guide button) making gameplay that much easier, enjoyable and playable now.
*You MUST use a wired Xbox 360TM controller. XCM Re-Mapper will NOT work with wireless Xbox 360 controller Play & Charge Kit.
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March 23rd, 2011, 02:32 Posted By: wraggster
Looking for a little snappier response when jumping to and fro between apps on your WP7 device? Well, do we have just the hack for you -- a dev from Windows Phone Hacker, Jaxbot, did some poking around in the Window's Phone registry and found a way to instantly resume apps, no muss, no fuss. By setting the "DehydrateOnPause" registry key value to zero, he got rid of that pesky app dehydration / rehydration process altogether. Keep in mind there may be some "undesirable" side effects from force-feeding your device multitasking (ADD?) ahead of schedule and you'll need a developer-unlocked device to access the registry, so only advanced users need apply -- you taking notes, Mr. Ballmer? Hit up the source link for the full monty, and check out the hack in action after the break.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/21/w...-mobile-multi/
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March 23rd, 2011, 02:20 Posted By: wraggster
Don't mind that ruckus over in the corner -- that's just millions ofWindows Phone 7 users jumping around in boundless celebration. After hearing that the so-called NoDo update would be splashing down on WP7 phones in early February, it seems as if the coders at Microsoft took a few extra weeks to get things just right. Today, the company updated their Windows Phone update history to describe the new features that are rolling out in staggered fashion to phones around the globe, and the standout addition is the copy and paste functionality that AT&T's HD7Swill ship with later in the year. You'll also see your apps and games load faster, your marketplace searches refined and your WiFi performance improved. There's also a host of Outlook, messaging, Facebook, audio and camera improvements, though it remains unclear if said video camera now retains your shooting preferences even after you exit the app. Hang tight if you haven't seen your update notification just yet, and be sure to let us know how the new build is treating you down in comments below.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/22/m...olling-out-br/
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March 23rd, 2011, 02:19 Posted By: wraggster
Our man Ben Heck has done it again -- this time, he's taken modding to a new, retro level. Atari requested that Heck create a modded system as a promo for its new games, so our man teamed up with element14 and did what he does best. The master of mods has gutted an Xbox 360 and shoved it into a one-of-a-kind Atari 2600-esque case that he calls 'Xbox 360 1977 Edition.' The system's got switches from old Atari systems had that control disc-ejection and controller synchronization. Just like the classic Ataris, Heck's portable gaming laptop's got wood panels and a black finish -- and it's huge. The best part of this mod? Well, playing Street Fighter on Xbox 360 hidden inside of what would be a modern version of a classic like Atari is pretty cool, in our opinion. As cool a classic like the Virtual Boy though? We'll leave that for you to decide. Oh, and be sure to hit the source link to watch the mod get formed in 23 glorious minutes.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/22/b...ck-to-the-70s/
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March 23rd, 2011, 00:57 Posted By: wraggster
Panic ye not, for Microsoft shall make more Fable and more Halo and more Forza and more Gears of War.
Forza 4 and Gears of War 3 arrive this autumn - we know that. But we've not had confirmation of a new Fable or Halo game. The last we heard about Fable was Lionhead surveying fans about which of the series' features they're fondest of. Suspicious.
Halo, meanwhile, could make a comeback via a Halo 1 remake at the hands of TimeShift developer Sabre Interactive. That's one of two projects rumoured to be under way at MS internal studio 343 Industries.
"We've got such strong IP in our stable – with Forza, with Fable, with Halo, with Gears – that we're going to continue to build on and innovate on those," Kevin Unangst, senior director of PC and mobile gaming at Microsoft, told Gamasutra.
"You're going to see us do more with Forza, with Halo, with Fable; all the franchises," he reiterated. "But we're also, of course, looking to bring in new IP, looking to bring new things. As a first-party studio, our job is also to experiment, also to lead the way, set the example... things like the integration between Kinect and the phone."
"Where it makes sense we'll bring in new IP. And there's things we're talking about so far and there's things that we haven't talked about."
Unangst said that Microsoft's revealed autumn line-up is not "the sum total" of what Xbox 360 will offer in 2011.
He name-dropped Forza 4 and Kinect Star Wars as games that exist that "we're not yet talking about". "That and some other surprises I'm sure you'll see and hear from us at E3 about," said Unangst.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...lo-gears-forza
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March 23rd, 2011, 00:45 Posted By: wraggster
Market research firm EEDAR has released new statistics relating to the downloadable content and game market, which suggests that customer acceptance for the delivery system is continuing to rise.
The data is derived from a GDC session given by EEDAR president and COO Geoffrey Zatkin, entitled Alternative Business Models for Digital Games & Content. In the session he revealed that 55 per cent of Xbox 360 owners have purchased at least one downloadable game. This figure rises to 64 per cent for "core genre fans".
As part of his talk Zatkin discussed EEDAR's expectations that downloadable revenue for the traditional console market would grow in excess of 35 per cent year-over-year in 2011, rising to a total of 26 per cent of all console software sales by 2014.
EEDAR research suggests that 76 per cent of all console owners are aware of downloadable content, with 67 per cent of online console owners aware of the content - but only 44 per cent having ever purchased any.
A full 90 per cent of customers apparently prefer the release of downloadable content within three months of purchase of the original game. As Zatkin notes, publishers have increasingly begun to launch new content within just a few weeks of a new game's launch, in many cases promoting its arrival before the main game is released.
Zatkin also suggests that price is not the main barrier to increased downloadable sales and that current pricing is at the lower end of most customer expectations. However he did suggest that publishers explore incentives and the idea of using achievement and trophies as discount coupons.
Rather than price he names six factors which he believes are more of a hindrance to sales: awareness, console connectivity rates, online store front structure, releasing timing, game completion rates, and discovery and marketing.
A PDF file outlining Zatkin's session in more detail is available online. EEDAR also publishes a series of four yearly reports entitled Deconstructing DLC, which examine various aspects of the growing market.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...nloadable-game
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March 21st, 2011, 23:20 Posted By: wraggster
A leaked internal Microsoft video allegedly provides some hints as to what the company's Windows Gaming eXperience (WGX) team is attempting to do. The video, dug up by ZDnet, showcases what appears to be several concepts that could cross between Windows, Xbox and mobile platforms. The video is PC-focused, but features Microsoft's Avatars moving around screens using Kinect functionality, while interacting with social games and media, along with the Avatar Marketplace.
A now-removed LinkedIn job posting reportedly described the function of the WGX Team as creating a "new world-class gaming platform" to define "the next generation of Windows and Web gaming to 300 million potential customers."
According to ZDnet, the video was dated May 2010 -- in this world of corporate ADD and division restructuring, take nothing of what you see in the clip as the gospel of Windows future according to Microsoft. Just remember how that whole Kinect object scanning videoturned out, or didn't turn out ...
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/21/le...platform-plan/
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March 21st, 2011, 23:09 Posted By: wraggster
So here's a dilemma that some gamers may have faced: do you want a console with great processing power but coupled with some glowing lollipops, or one with futuristic controller-free motion gaming at the cost of Blu-ray playback? Well, for us mere mortals it's either one or the other, but Shantanu Goel went ahead to combine the best of both worlds: Xbox Kinect on a PS3. The video above is our man demonstrating his early software mod, which can currently recognize basic gestures like quickly pushing your hand towards the screen twice to activate the X button, as well as the usual waving around for navigation. While it's obvious that this project is still at its infancy, Goel's already working on beefing it up by adding full game profiles and skeletal tracking support, so with a bit of help from the community, hopefully it won't be long before we get to liberally throw grenades in Killzone 3 without having to worry about damaging the TV. Maybe Kevin Butler will also see the lighter side of things, too.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/21/x...are-come-true/
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March 21st, 2011, 15:57 Posted By: wraggster
Mysterious listing about a new hardware project points to unconfirmed launch date
A somewhat ambiguous posting on a web portfolio of a designer currently working for Microsoft has got tongues wagging about a potential 2015 launch date for the next Xbox console.
Posted by Ben Peterson, who was recently recruited to work at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, the art (spotted byZDNet) reads: "Confidential / Collaboration with Microsoft's IEB Design Group investigating future user experiences and hardware for 2015."
http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...ox-due-in-2015
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March 20th, 2011, 19:25 Posted By: wraggster
news via http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...FyMmVXOoCx.php
Trancy of modcontrol.com has updated two of his Xbox 360 applications:
[QUOTE]
* NAND Flasher 360 for XBOX 360 v1.2.0
What's new/fixed:
- Fixed Bad Block Handling on Small Block
- Added shutdown button
- Added some GUI modifications
- Small Bugs fixed
- Added Spain language
* NAND Flasher 360 for Windows v1.2.0
What's new/fixed:
- Fixed Bad Block Handling on small Bad Block
- Smaller GUI
- Small Bugs fixed
- Added Spain language
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March 20th, 2011, 19:22 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...VujaNHfhVZ.php
From 360lizard.com:
[QUOTE]
We are releasing today the Gecko 1.05 Firmware update for Lizard and also Lizard Toolbox B013, both with Write support for Phat Hitachi Drives. It taked longer than we expected and we apologize for the delay, in the meantime we worked ahead on some new features that we will unveil soon.
In order to start writting on Hitachi Drives make sure you get the Gecko 1.05 using the Fw Updater application. And also download the Toolbox B013 from our Downloads page.
Also we have created a Video Tutorial so you can start using the Updates right now, here you have the .
Alternatively you can get the .
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March 20th, 2011, 19:20 Posted By: wraggster
Okay, clearly we've all jumped the gun and read far too much into the article our friends at Bloomberg posted yesterday. Zune is NOT dead and is clearly alive and well, according to Dave Mclauchlan, Senior Business Development Manager for Zune Hardware. "I've had tweets, emails, PMs and phone calls. People offering condolences, checking in on me, etc... etc... Stop, stop, stop!" stated Mr. McLauchlan in a post earlier today. Sorry Zune, we didn't mean to communicate your time-of-death prior to your heart actually being stopped. Really, we didn't.
That said, I have to believe that the Zune hardware has to evolve. Its latest hardware release, the Zune HD, is an older one (18 months old) and is in desperate need of new applications. While its probably the best sounding and overall portable music and video experience on the market, its content needs to evolve or it needs to die as a hardware platform.
Microsoft is clear that the Zune hardware platform for this year is Windows Phone 7. That's the right message. The Windows Phone platform has content and thriving marketplace of over 10,000 applications and games, subscription music and video galore. If Microsoft is truly going to succeed in the portable media player market they need to evolve the Zune Media player platform to consume applications, games and content from the same marketplace. Music. Check. Video. Check. Applications. Not so much.
Hopefully over the next few months Microsoft will become more clear how the Zune hardware platform will evolve, but I'm glad to hear that I shouldn't be laying my lovely silver Zune to rest any time soon.
http://www.zunethoughts.com/news/sho...-and-well.html
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