Late last night reports started circulating on Reddit that Borderlands: The Handsome Collection had accidentally been made free by Microsoft on the Xbox One store.
Turns out it was intentional and is a gift from our overlords. We're always down with Borderlands, especially free Borderlands. Grab yours by the end of the weekend.
That was me... High fiving myself.
Amidst the flurry of discussion after the unveiling of Nintendo's Switch. Head of the Xbox division, Phil Spencer, promises that the next Microsoft console will be "The most powerful console ever made."
Microsoft held an imaginatively-named Windows 10 Devices event in New York Oct. 6. While they showed off some impressive new phones, a new Surface and a new Surface laptop, we were most interested in seeing new Hololens stuff.
We were super-impressed with the E3 Minecraft demo and have been salivating for more mind blowingness from the augmented reality helmet.
During today's event, they introduced Project X Ray and for the first time, let us see a wearable 'hologram'.
That's when the robots started bursting through the walls.
As with the Minecraft demo, we find this type of interactivity with the surrounding environment super fascinating.
Unfortunately, it's going to come at a price.
Microsoft set a developer kit price at $3,000, shipping in the first quarter of next year.
Time to start saving pennies.
Well, Fallout fans, you're going to get a new option of how to play in the wasteland come launch day.
Microsoft announced on their newswire that a Fallout 4 bundle will come with the game's Nov. 10 release.
And today, we're thrilled to give fans the opportunity to "welcome home" the ultimate Fallout experience, with the Xbox One Fallout 4 Bundle, featuring a 1TB hard drive, the critically-acclaimed Fallout 4, and a full-game download of Fallout 3. Experience the next generation of open-world gaming from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Fallout 3 and Skyrim. Play and store more games than ever, including Fallout 3 and other Xbox 360 games, with the 1TB hard drive and Xbox One Backward Compatibility. And don't forget, Fallout 4 players will be able to play PC mods free, first on Xbox One.
The Xbox One Fallout 4 Bundle will be available in November for $399 USD. Check with your local retailer, including Microsoft stores, for details today.
Amazon is already taking preorders. So kiss them bucks goodbye.
And hurry up, Nov. 10!
All you who like to walk on the less-than-legal side of video gaming might want to think twice before you upgrade your OS.
Technology site Alphr found something in the recently-released Windows 10 user agreement that gives Microsoft license to shut down pirated software.
Section 7b – or "Updates to the Services or Software, and Changes to These Terms" – of Microsoft's Services EULA stipulates that it "may automatically check your version of the software and download software update or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorised hardware peripheral devices."
The list of services covered by the agreement doesn't explicitly include Windows 10. However, it does include your Microsoft account, which is an extensive part of the Windows 10 experience, as well as core features like Cortana – and that implies Redmond can disable any games you've pirated or devices you've "unlawfully" hacked. Enable Cortana (which pretty-much everyone using Windows 10 is going to do) and you're subject to the Services agreement.
Pirated gaming has long been a plague on the PC side of things, obvs, and many companies have tried various tactics to stop the steady drop of games leaking onto torrenting sites and resources leaking out of developer/publisher pockets. It makes sense that the company with the largest overarching control on PC gaming would be the ones to try and make a stand.
However, the whole thing is very close to the digital rights management policy that Microsoft included when it first announced the Xbox One in 2013.
This might be the most successful way of stopping pirating, but it seems a little invasive and weird.
Plus, it's pretty ironic that it'll be Cortana that rats on your illegal gaming. Who knew Master Chief's BFF was such a tattler?
Microsoft seems ready to commit to its past as it continued reviving old franchises during Gamescom 2015 Aug. 4.
After presenters gave plenty of space to a new Forza game, a new Rainbow Six game and a new Crackdown game at the Xbox One press conference, Xbox head Phil Spencer gave a 'one more thing' to the audience in the form of announcing a sequel to 2009's Halo Wars.
If you don't remember Halo Wars, we'll forgive you. It was an odd duck of a real-time strategy game, a la StarCraft or Age of Empires. In fact, the original game was developed by Ensemble Studios, creator of the Age of Empires series.
The original Halo Wars was a cult fan favorite and remains highly regarded in certain circles, though it never reached the sales numbers of traditional FPS Halo games.
Ensemble will not develop this sequel, instead it's being handled by 343 Industries, who took over the Halo franchise after creator studio Bungie ended their exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and British game devleloper Creative Assembly, responsible for the very many Total War games.
Take this all with a grain of salt; it's purely rumor, but if it's true we'll be able to dry our collective nerd tears and replace them with delighted, terrified screams as early as next year.
An anonymous industry insider is claiming that Microsoft is trying to buy Silent Hills now that Konami has shut the project down. If true, the game would become an Xbox One exclusive, and the source claims it could be out as soon as March of next year. The logic is that the Xbox One is in desperate need of exclusive games, and Microsoft wants to secure a big title in time for E3. Konami has moved to mobile development, and thus has no need for a property like the Silent Hill series, which they are now in a position to sell for billions of dollars. Supposedly the PT demo disappeared from the Sony store as a show of good faith in Konami's commitment to the deal.
Can the source be trusted? This person apparently originally leaked information that the Xbox One would be sold without a Kinect attached during a time in which Microsoft claimed they would never seperate the two. I wouldn't get your hopes up too high though, it's entirely possible that this is all completely untrue, and even if the intent is there, the deal may not go through.
He announced the departure via Twitter and added that he's "not yet ready to say what that new thing is… But OMG is writing code very [sic] day and exploring ideas fun!" His Twitter bio states his current project is "independent secret stuff."
Could this be the future of gaming?
RoomAlive is a proof-of-concept prototype that transforms any room into an immersive, augmented entertainment experience. Our system enables new interactive projection mapping experiences that dynamically adapts content to any room. Users can touch, shoot, stomp, dodge and steer projected content that seamlessly co-exists with their existing physical environment. The basic building blocks of RoomAlive are projector-depth camera units, which can be combined through a scalable, distributed framework. The projector-depth camera units are individually auto-calibrating, self-localizing, and create a unified model of the room with no user intervention. We investigate the design space of gaming experiences that are possible with RoomAlive and explore methods for dynamically mapping content based on room layout and user position. Finally we showcase four experience prototypes that demonstrate the novel interactive experiences that are possible with RoomAlive and discuss the design challenges of adapting any game to any room.
That deal for Mojang is going through, and Notch is leaving the company. In his announcement, Persson said,
I don't see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it's fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don't make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don't try to change the world. Minecraft certainly became a huge hit, and people are telling me it's changed games. I never meant for it to do either. It's certainly flattering, and to gradually get thrust into some kind of public spotlight is interesting.
As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I'll probably abandon it immediately.
Meanwhile, Microsoft celebrates their huge acquisition in the video above.
Microsoft is buying Minecraft Mojang AB after Notch approached them a few months ago and offered to sell. Many are speculating that after the deal is done, Notch (real name: Markus Persson) will leave the company. Alongside Minecraft, Microsoft is also getting Cobalt, Scrolls, and, well, all of Mojang for $2 billion.
According to their latest reports, Microsoft has spent $2.1 billion on the Xbox division, but only made $1.7 billion, putting the department at a $400 million dollar loss, attributed to the Xbox One. Many are using this as an opportunity to call the Xbox One a failure, but there's still time; it's too early to expect a new console to be entirely profitable.
Speaking to Total Xbox, UK marketing director Harvey Eagle basically says sorry, not sorry to people who are upset over buying the Xbone at launch before it dropped to £399 with Titanfall in the UK.
Business is business, I guess.
According to an article in the Washington Post,
Two influential Microsoft shareholders have been pushing the Redmond software giant to abandon what they view as non-essential product lines so that Microsoft can focus on its core strength: selling enterprise software to businesses.
That would probably mean dropping Xbox, Bing, and hardware including the Surface. Bless anyone who gets rid of Bing, but dropping Xbox seems like a terrible idea. What do you think? Should Microsoft focus on selling software to businesses? How long until the iBox? Link to the article in the via below the image
