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July 4th, 2015, 22:05 Posted By: wraggster
 Microsoft has an exorbitant $150 controller coming this year that it hopes will make up for the Xbox One's middling gamepad, but that won't make the upcoming Rare Replay feel any more authentic when you play. The folks at Hyperkin -- makers of the Retron 5 console -- know this and set forth a challenge: mod a Nintendo 64 controller to work with Microsoft's latest game console. And they succeeded. Mostly. As you'll see in the video below, the three-pronged paddle can navigate the console's dashboard and select apps, but, since there's only one analog stick, that rules out it playing nicely with a vast majority of modern games. The wiring is a bit wonky and certain inputs trigger at random, but, from the sounds of it, the project is far from over.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/03/n...-the-xbox-one/
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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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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 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 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 audienceâ€, 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 soonâ€.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/outsi...ribers/0152469
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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 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 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 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 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 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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for $399.99 at Amazon!
