14:26
Unknown
Some are calling it the best E3 in five years – others insist it's the best of all time. But whatever hyperbole gets attached to last week's gaming conference, we can all agree on the focus: Xbox One v PS4.
Amid the chaos of the LA convention centre, Microsoft and Sony pitched their stands barely feet from each other, separated only by a sliver of carpet, a no-man's land of technological rivalry. The two companies then spent three days hurling PR at each other, deafening attendees with their arsenals of mega hype. It was confusing, it was enraging, it was console war – and the first casualty of console war is sense.
So, what did it all mean? Who won, who lost? What do these machines actually do? Here is a quick guide to the next-generation as it currently stands, complete with hardware, services and game announcements. Next stop: release dates and a shift of the skirmish to a hundred thousand shop shelves. This fight has only just begun.
Hardware
Well, black is certainly back, as AC/DC once sort of nearly put it (or Public Enemy, for that matter, but we're getting off the point now). For this generation we have two rather large slabs of dark plastic, one shaped like an early eighties video recorder, the other slightly slanted to give a hint of dynamism. They are monolithic, almost architectural, and they are designed to slide in under your living room TV and then command attention from everyone in the room.
Technically, they are hugely similar: eight-core processors (both reported to be running at a frequency of 1.6GHz), custom AMD graphics processors, Blu-ray drives. But there are some fundamental differences. The two GPUs employ AMD's latest Graphics Core Next architecture, which is divided into working blocks known as Compute Units. The PS4 version has 18 CUs generating 1.84 teraflops of processing power, while the Xbox one has only 12 CUs; which, in theory , gives Sony's machine a 50% advantage in terms of raw shader performance (for example, lighting and other graphics effects). It's never quite this simple because other design and technical elements of the SoC can affect performance, but it's certainly an indication that there is more graphics grunt there for PS4.
Sony's machine also uses 8GB of GDDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 176GB/sec as opposed to the Xbox One with its 8GB of DDR3 RAM. GDDR5 memory is optimised for high bandwidth, which is perfect for use in graphics calculations, but also has higher latency than DDR3 RAM, which would be a problem for a general purpose CPU. However, because the PS4 architecture places the GPU and CPU on the same die, the latency between the two may be minimalised. In short, the adoption of a graphics-friendly form of memory may work to PS4's advantage as a games-targeted machine – even though GDDR5 is more expensive to implement. There's a thorough summing up of the system design here.
It's also worth reading the detailed overview of the technologies at AnandTech, though. The exhaustive article points out that the Xbox One architecture is designed with a variety of considerations beyond gaming – especially implementation with other MS platforms – and this shows in the tech specs.
A developer's view
We asked an experienced games coder about the differences between Xbox One and PS4's approach to system memory. He has asked to remain anonymous, but this is what he wrote...
"Memory-wise there are really deep areas you can get into on how Sony has optimised certain paths to access the RAM. Microsoft will hopefully be doing similar stuff to that, I imagine – we're only disclosed on PS4 so I don't know for sure, they're not dumb though.
"Regarding the RAM type, however, GDDR5 equals 176gb/sec, DDR3 equals 68gb/sec – I don't know the exact numbers for the Xbox One RAM but it'll be around that. GDDR5 is slightly higher latency, which means the time between requesting a piece of data and getting it to the CPU/GPU to work with can be slightly longer than with DDR3. This latency can be hidden by well-written code on CPU and normally is hidden well by GPUs due to how their pipelines work (which is why GDDR is normally found on GPU's).
"Ultimately though, that 2.5x faster bandwidth number means that a larger amount of data can be taken from RAM, processed by the CPU (or more importantly on these new architectures, the Compute Units on the GPU) and spat back out to RAM to either process again or render. At the end of the day, everything in games comes down to: 'grab information'; 'transform that data somehow'; 'spit it back out' – so being faster at this is a very good thing.
"Microsoft is winning bandwidth back for the GPU through the 32MB ESRAM (102gb/sec I believe, and assuming you're using this RAM a lot, it means that the total Microsoft bandwidth is 168gb/sec); this will even things back out a bit but require a bit of extra management by developers and it is only 32MB which limits the amount of uses.
"This kind of architecture with faster RAM for the GPU to use for framebuffers (the block of data storing the image being rendererd out or nowadays temporary graphic buffers storing lighting/material information) is something developers are used to working with, but it's more complex than the approach needed on the PS4."
Amid the chaos of the LA convention centre, Microsoft and Sony pitched their stands barely feet from each other, separated only by a sliver of carpet, a no-man's land of technological rivalry. The two companies then spent three days hurling PR at each other, deafening attendees with their arsenals of mega hype. It was confusing, it was enraging, it was console war – and the first casualty of console war is sense.
So, what did it all mean? Who won, who lost? What do these machines actually do? Here is a quick guide to the next-generation as it currently stands, complete with hardware, services and game announcements. Next stop: release dates and a shift of the skirmish to a hundred thousand shop shelves. This fight has only just begun.
UPDATES – 19 JUNE: The Second Screens section has been updated to clarify Remote Play; the Hardware section has been updated with a developer comment on system memory.
Official sites
Before you start, why not check out what the console makers want you to know about their machines? Xbox one is here; PS4 is right over there.
Hardware.Well, black is certainly back, as AC/DC once sort of nearly put it (or Public Enemy, for that matter, but we're getting off the point now). For this generation we have two rather large slabs of dark plastic, one shaped like an early eighties video recorder, the other slightly slanted to give a hint of dynamism. They are monolithic, almost architectural, and they are designed to slide in under your living room TV and then command attention from everyone in the room.
Technically, they are hugely similar: eight-core processors (both reported to be running at a frequency of 1.6GHz), custom AMD graphics processors, Blu-ray drives. But there are some fundamental differences. The two GPUs employ AMD's latest Graphics Core Next architecture, which is divided into working blocks known as Compute Units. The PS4 version has 18 CUs generating 1.84 teraflops of processing power, while the Xbox one has only 12 CUs; which, in theory , gives Sony's machine a 50% advantage in terms of raw shader performance (for example, lighting and other graphics effects). It's never quite this simple because other design and technical elements of the SoC can affect performance, but it's certainly an indication that there is more graphics grunt there for PS4.
Sony's machine also uses 8GB of GDDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 176GB/sec as opposed to the Xbox One with its 8GB of DDR3 RAM. GDDR5 memory is optimised for high bandwidth, which is perfect for use in graphics calculations, but also has higher latency than DDR3 RAM, which would be a problem for a general purpose CPU. However, because the PS4 architecture places the GPU and CPU on the same die, the latency between the two may be minimalised. In short, the adoption of a graphics-friendly form of memory may work to PS4's advantage as a games-targeted machine – even though GDDR5 is more expensive to implement. There's a thorough summing up of the system design here.
It's also worth reading the detailed overview of the technologies at AnandTech, though. The exhaustive article points out that the Xbox One architecture is designed with a variety of considerations beyond gaming – especially implementation with other MS platforms – and this shows in the tech specs.
A developer's view
We asked an experienced games coder about the differences between Xbox One and PS4's approach to system memory. He has asked to remain anonymous, but this is what he wrote...
"Memory-wise there are really deep areas you can get into on how Sony has optimised certain paths to access the RAM. Microsoft will hopefully be doing similar stuff to that, I imagine – we're only disclosed on PS4 so I don't know for sure, they're not dumb though.
"Regarding the RAM type, however, GDDR5 equals 176gb/sec, DDR3 equals 68gb/sec – I don't know the exact numbers for the Xbox One RAM but it'll be around that. GDDR5 is slightly higher latency, which means the time between requesting a piece of data and getting it to the CPU/GPU to work with can be slightly longer than with DDR3. This latency can be hidden by well-written code on CPU and normally is hidden well by GPUs due to how their pipelines work (which is why GDDR is normally found on GPU's).
"Ultimately though, that 2.5x faster bandwidth number means that a larger amount of data can be taken from RAM, processed by the CPU (or more importantly on these new architectures, the Compute Units on the GPU) and spat back out to RAM to either process again or render. At the end of the day, everything in games comes down to: 'grab information'; 'transform that data somehow'; 'spit it back out' – so being faster at this is a very good thing.
"Microsoft is winning bandwidth back for the GPU through the 32MB ESRAM (102gb/sec I believe, and assuming you're using this RAM a lot, it means that the total Microsoft bandwidth is 168gb/sec); this will even things back out a bit but require a bit of extra management by developers and it is only 32MB which limits the amount of uses.
"This kind of architecture with faster RAM for the GPU to use for framebuffers (the block of data storing the image being rendererd out or nowadays temporary graphic buffers storing lighting/material information) is something developers are used to working with, but it's more complex than the approach needed on the PS4."
Motion peripherals
The Xbox One ships with the updated Kinect device, which now tracks six people at once and copes much better with smaller, darker rooms. Its 3D scanner can identify much subtler movements, and it can recognise voices and faces. Microsoft is also telling journalists that the device's IR camera will detect changes in blood flow beneath the skin, thereby working out your heart rate – if you're out of breath, scared or stressed, Xbox One will know. Oh and there's a 1,080p colour camera for video chatting. Meanwhile, the PlayStation Eye will come as a separate purchase, and works with the DualShock 4 controller to track the player's movement in 3D space. Sony isn't saying much else, apart from showing off a range of compatible mini-games at E3. Clearly, while Kinect is at the very epicentre of the Xbone experience, Eye is currently barely squinting.
Controllers
With its new touchpad, the DualShock 4 is the most obviously changed of the two joypads, and Sony has also added a speaker for up-close, player-specific audio. Also important is the new Share button which will let PlayStation gamers record footage of their virtual feats with which to impress/spam their friends.
The Xbox One controller, which apparently went through over 200 prototype stages and features 40 improvements, is more subtle – it has improved triggers that boast greater analogue sensitivity as well as their own dedicated rumble packs. Meanwhile, the D-pad is now a cross shape (good for fighting games) and the sticks are more comfortable to grip. Oh and there's a headphone socket, too. Both controllers look and feel really nice, and while the DualShock has more gimmicks, the Xbox equivalent features smart ergonomics and great gaming comfort.
The cloud
As we move into an era of distributed computing power, it's no wonder that the next-gen consoles want to capitalise on the power of the cloud. Microsoft has claimed that developers will be able to harness three times the power of a single Xbox One, thereby bringing extra oomph to physics and AI processing. We're also promised vast persistent online worlds that evolve as play continues.
Forza Motorsports is even offering a Drivatar, an AI bot that learns your skills and tactics then goes off and represents you in online bouts. There are doubts about the veracity of Microsoft's claims, though, with latency and bandwidth issues likely to make things difficult.
PlayStation 4 promises cloud computing too, but the technology provided by Gaikai will also allow immediate playable access to digital titles – so as soon as you select a demo or full game on the PlayStation Store, the first chunk will be accessible. In theory. It will also be possible for players to remotely gain control of a pal's game, perhaps to help them out of a difficult puzzle or boss fight. Microsoft promises a similar remote playing feature via Xbox One utilising its Skype service.
All the claims are intriguing, but we've yet to see any of it in practice. Furthermore, some worry about the longevity of cloud-supported titles: i.e. what happens to a game that relies on the cloud for computational support when that online infrastructure is withdrawn? Publishers can't support every game forever. Alongside restrictive DRM, the cloud is another indication that the game disc as self-contained functioning product is history.
Second screens
Both the Xbox One and PS4 will offer 'second screen' interaction: the former though tablets and smartphones running SmartGlass, the latter through the Vita handheld console as well as smartphones and tablets. With both machines you'll be able to use your phone or tablet as a companion display in supporting games, perhaps showing map or inventory information, for example. But through Sony's Remote Play technology, PS4 owners will be able to access and play their games via their Vita and a local Wi-Fi connection – so if you're unable to use your main TV, you can grab your handheld and play DriveClub on its lovely little 5-inch display. And unlike with PS3, Remote Play is built into the PS4 infrastructure so all games (except those requiring extra peripherals like the PS Eye) will support it. Although Vita has not sold astonishingly well so far, this is an interesting USP, and maybe a PS4/Vita bundle pack would highlight the possibilities of these intertwined systems.
Launch games
Both Xbox One and PS4 will have the following titles at launch: Assassin's Creed IV, Call of Duty Ghosts, Watch Dogs, Fifa 14, Madden 14 and Lego Marvel Super Heroes. PS4 will add DriveClub, Knack and Killzone: Shadow Fall as exclusives, as well as the free-to-play MMOFPS, PlanetSide 2.
Xbox One meanwhile, will have Forza Motorsports 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, Dead Rising 3, Killer Instinct and Kinect Sports Rivals. Arguably, Microsoft just shades it there, with some heavyweight third-party support, courtesy of Crytek and Capcom. But in general terms, this is a relatively strong opening for a new generation.
Multimedia and social features
Both consoles will have varied video-on-demand support, involving multiple content partners. Xbox One looks to have the most advanced and ambitious offering, allowing owners to feed in their cable/satellite channels and then control them via the Xbone voice and gesture controls. Microsoft's machine will also allow seamless movement between TV, video content and games, while premium TV content such as live sports will be augmented with exclusive social and gaming features – which haven't yet been properly explained (or clearly rolled out beyond US-centric deals). And of course, both machines allow you to watch Blu-ray and DVD movie discs, and both support 4K output when that becomes an issue.
Backwards compatibility, pre-owned sales and DRM
Neither machine allows straightforward backwards compatibility with previous consoles – however, it's likely that both will eventually offer retro titles via emulation and digital download. Microsoft has plans to control the sale of pre-owned titles (or at least allow publishers to charge a fee to purchasers of second-hand titles) and also wants to limit how many people you can lend your Xbox One games too. This looks to be because all Xbox One titles have to be fully installed on the hard drive before they can be played, and Microsoft doesn't want people installing the game, then giving it to all their mates.
Although the restrictions are currently unclear, it seems you'll be able to give old games to just one person, who needs to have been on your friend list for more than 30 days. However, you will be able to access your library of games from any machine you sign in on, and you will also be able to share your library of games with up to ten friends or family members – though the games won't be playable concurrently by members of your circle (more here) – and the small print of this feature is yet to be clearly explained. Furthermore, your console will need to authenticate itself online for every 24 hours of play; so in other words, you can only play a game without a net connection for a whole day, but then the machine has to skulk back online and explain itself to the servers. PlayStation 4, though, offers no such restrictions – games can be sold and exchanged freely and there's no daily online authentication.
Launch details and prices
Microsoft has committed itself to a November launch date, Sony has said nothing else except for 2013; though the smart money has to be on November too. Retailers probably won't allow a simultaneous roll-out (imagine the chaos) so expect one to go early in the month, and the other toward the end. Xbox will retail at £429 ($499), PS4 at £350 ($399). However, as noted above, the PlayStation Eye won't be bundled with the console, unlike the Kinect with Xbox One. Both systems will charge an annual subscription for multiplayer gaming access, with PS4 requiring a paid 'PS Plus' membership.
14:17
Unknown
BioWare continues to say not terribly much about Dragon Age 3: Inquisition, which has been pushed back from launch this year to release in late 2014.Speaking to CVG, general manager Aaryn Flynn has suggested that Dragon Age character save imports are a possibility, and reiterated that the developer wants to find a balance between Origins-era tactics and Dragon Age 2's more action-heavy style.
He also took a bit of time to discuss what's possible on Xbox One and PS4. "I think for us when you see the Inquisition trailer you'll see that it's such a radical leap in character fidelity. These are characters that now feel alive.
"Our goals is to get right past the uncanny valley and right to characters who you love and interact with. Morrigan for example has moved radically forward in terms of that kind of stuff.
"The computing power behind the new consoles just enables so many things," Flynn continued, not very revealingly. "And then you get in to the peripherals that they have and it's almost too much - you've got to really pick and choose what you can do cool stuff with.
"It's nice. I was telling some people that it feels like they're long overdue. It feels nice to have all of that head room again on consoles. A lot of our jobs the past few years have been to get really good at squeezing out incremental performance out of the consoles."
"Now our job is quite a bit different: now our job is to quickly fill up all of that space with really cool things. We're actually going back to the drawing board with a lot of it and asking, "what can we do now?" Even our developers are surprised with some of the things we can do.
Game sharing discovered in Steam beta update, Valve takes cue from Xbox One.There has been a huge debate over used games on the next-gen consoles recently, but that fight is only over physical discs. At this point, there are absolutely no expectations that games purchased through online services should be allowed to be lent to friends. Well, with the release of the latest Steam beta client, it seems that Valve is working on changing those expectations.
A member of NeoGAF recently noticed a few odd strings of text in the latest beta version of the Steam client. Specifically, a text file mentions a “shared game library” and two notifications about playing a borrowed game. Curious, I installed the beta client myself, and I can confirm that this text is found within the steam “Public” folder. This isn’t the first time new Steam features have been revealed through files included with beta releases, so we should probably expect an announcement from Valve in the coming weeks or months.
Earlier this month, Microsoft sent out a fact sheet describing features and restrictions of games on the Xbox One platform. While the reaction was mostly negative, it did have one big positive: Game sharing. With the Xbox One, up to ten family members can play any game you own even while you’re playing it. Frankly, it looks like this deal that Microsoft struck with publishers opened up the gates for Valve to implement something very similar with Steam.
The PS3, in a way, helped pioneer the sharing of digitally distributed games. Sadly, that wasn’t Sony’s intent. Until November of 2011, up to five consoles could be activated with a single account. Numerous groups of friends would then exploit this system to buy and share games using a single account. Sony finally smartened up, and restricted the number of simultaneous activations to two to thwart such behavior. While there won’t be any restrictions placed on lending physical discs, we’ve not heard much out of Sony about its policy for lending digitally distributed games with the PS4. Once bitten, twice shy.
As much as Sony has been hailed as the savior of the consumer in the last few weeks, this news leaves the PS4 as the odd man out. If both Steam and Xbox One allow online game sharing but the PS4 doesn’t, the tables might just turn against Sony’s favor. However, with the Gaikai streaming technology in its back pocket, Sony most likely has the infrastructure to respond rather quickly if this becomes a PR problem down the road. Let’s just hope that Valve pushes the issue sooner rather than later.
13:57
Unknown
Get ready for the latest salvo of updates in the story that's going to be topping the gaming headlines all the way into the winter. It's the classic, Iron Chef-like question: Which gaming system will reign supreme? Microsoft's Xbox One or Sony's PlayStation 4.
If you're just taking a gander at Amazon's recent poll, the PlayStation 4 seems to have captured gamer interest by a landslide. However, if you're looking at early Amazon preorders, both consoles appear to be selling well — no official presales figures have been released, unfortunately.
Starting with the Xbox One , Microsoft was quick to post about early sales figures for its just-revealed console shortly after the company's big E3 media briefing.
"We were thrilled by the unprecedented demand we saw for Xbox One today. In the first four hours of preorder availability, we sold through most of our Xbox One Day One Edition inventory," said John Love, Amazon's director of U.S. video games and software, as first detailed in a Microsoft blog post.
Sony, not to be outdone, hasn't taken to the airwaves to tease out any sales stats just yet. However, Amazon did have to split its listing for the PlayStation 4 into two "separate" consoles: A PlayStation 4 "Standard Edition" and a PlayStation 4 "Launch Edition," with the latter quickly selling out.
Unlike Microsoft, which is offering up a bevy of rewards for those who plunk down $499 for a day-one console, there is no actual difference between the two PlayStation 4 versions Amazon has created. They're the same gaming console – no fancy bonuses, achievements, or other unlockables will rain down upon those who preordered the console's Launch Edition instead of the Standard Edition.
The difference, in this case, is all in the shipping. Amazon is guaranteeing release-day delivery for those who plunked down for a PlayStation 4 Launch Edition. As for the Standard Edition, Amazon notes that, "Due to high demand, we cannot guarantee Release-Date Delivery on the standard version of the PlayStation 4. We will deliver the standard version of PlayStation 4 as close to its release date as possible."
If you're trying to discern which console is "better" based on sales alone, you'll be unhappy to find that you can still preorder a PlayStation 4 Launch Edition console or an Xbox One Day One Edition console on Amazon – neither has officially "sold out" just yet. Sort-of.
As of this article's writing, there doesn't appear to be a barebones version of the PlayStation 4 "Launch Edition" available for purchase. As in, you can't just buy the barebones console and expect to receive it on December 31. All that's currently offered is the "Standard Edition" PlayStation 4 for $400 and four new PlayStation 4 "launch bundles" that cost anywhere from $460 to $500, depending on the bundle you purchase.
Those preordering the PlayStation 4 on Amazon prior to the split into "Standard" and "Launch" editions received an email earlier this week alerting them to the change, letting them know that their early preorders guaranteed them a Launch Edition of the console.
Xbox One Games Remain (Mostly) Affordable
Well there's a little bit more good news for Xbox One fans -- game prices are staying the same. The industry standard of $59.99 was set at the beginning of the current cycle and so far it looks to remain there.
Talking to Gamespot, Microsoft confirmed that there won't be a price hike for the next-gen games. So there's at least that.
Conversly, the PS4 "will offer games with prices ranging from $0.99 to the more traditional $60 range," Jack Tretton SCEA CEO told CNBC. How this will shake out on Microsoft's end is anyone's guess but the way that Sony has positioned themself as the Indie friendly system, it might be a while before we see the byte-sized games for cheap on Xbox One.
08:29
Unknown
While some of the Xbox One games were clearly running on Windows 7 systems it doesn't mean Microsoft isn't focusing their attention on their latest OS. In fact, one of Microsoft's OS exclusive titles is the emergent, content-manipulation game, Project Spark from Team Dakota, which proved to be a real highlight during E3. Even though there are a lot of bad things surrounding the policies of the Xbox One, this little title is actually one of the shining beacons in the Microsoft camp at the moment.
Since a lot of the news surrounding the Xbox One at E3 wasn't very brand-friendly, Microsoft had a page dedicated to the games on their official Xbox.com website. Nothing like spreading the word by being insular.
Even though we let gamers know about Project Spark in an E3 press conference rundown, we didn't actually have time to give you more details about this little gem. Basically, imagine if Dungeon Defenders, LittleBigPlanet and VoxelFarm had one really wild night together and then got pregnant with a kid...that kid would be Project Spark.
Players can craft, sculpt, shape, manipulate and basically create the kind of game world they would like to play in, while also engaging in some real-time strategy style gameplay and action-oriented survival mechanics. It's a neat approach to what could have been considered a tired tower-defense title. There's a bit of a mix of Orcs Must Die fused with some MMO type properties, where players can completely alter the direction of the gameplay in non-linear fashion. This whole scenario opens up a lot of different gaming possibilities that reminds of Spore before the whole thing fell by the wayside due to DRM.
If you could consider it a downside, the requirement of Windows 8 for the PC rendition might turn some gamers off. Even if Microsoft doesn't like Windows 8 all that much, sadly that's just how the dice fall in this case.On the up and up, if you game on consoles you can at least look for the game to be made available on the Xbox 360. The game is set to head into a beta that you might be able to join by checking out the official beta website.
Microsoft's Xbox One games will retail for $60, the same price as Xbox 360 titles, the publisher has confirmed.This pricing will put Xbox One games level with PlayStation 4 titles, as PlayStation executive Jack Tretton said in February that PS4 titles will max out at $60.
Other publishers--like Activision, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft--have yet to disclose pricing information for their next-generation games.Industry analyst Michael Pachter in March predicted that Xbox One and PlayStation 4 titles would follow the previous generation in jumping by $10 from $60 to $70.
08:11
Unknown
Microsoft has been touting their new cloud services for the Xbox One, and the company plans to have the service available in all all markets. Microsoft plans to have all of their data centers setup around the world, and they don’t want to have a service that’s just for certain countries.
“Microsoft has data centres around the world, so Cloud Compute Services are not something that you should think about on a country-by-country basis,” Microsoft’s Jeff Henshaw told Ausgamers during a Q&A session at E3.“We have deployed our data centres geographically so that they can service the load for categories of countries all around the world. So we have some of the best reach of any other company on the planet to be able to make sure that the Cloud Services that we offer are what we consider [to be] ubiquitous and will be available [to] all markets.”
It’ll be interesting to see where Microsoft actually sets up their data centers, it’ll definitely impact the ping times in different areas. If you don’t have a strong enough internet connection, you’re probably going to be out of luck. Microsoft confirmed that you will need to have an internet connection in order to play your games, and it really hasn’t gone over very well with their consumers.
Consider this the last straw in me never buying an Xbox One. It’s not that I feel bitter about any of these policies Microsoft has been cramming at us, but it’s just that the thing might not even work where I live. Of the 21 countries that will support the Xbox One, Japan will not be one of them, at least for quite some time.
The Xbox Support Twitter page has stated in responding to questions from posters that the Xbox One “would not have the full experience” in unsupported countries.Not to worry about traveling abroad, though, because you can still play your Xbox One when you come home, as the Xbox Support page puts it.Only problem for me is that abroad is home. If they insist I play my Xbox One only when I head home to visit the folks, I might get a week or two of playing my $500 machine once a year. The problem with a totally digital future is how easy it will become to lock out complete regions of the Earth.
What about our soldiers abroad, Will they no longer have “the full experience?” No more importing rare and fun Japanese games. Lost gems and Holy Grails will become a thing of the past.What if the Xbox One finally becomes available in Japan, but I get locked out from trying to play American games through it since my IP address won’t match the country I want to buy games from? Xbox Support says the best option is to wait for the Xbox One to become available in the region, but will playing a console abroad even be possible.
It’s totally possible Microsoft will want me to pay upwards of $90 for a video game not even in my native language, because that’s what video games cost out here. Steam already blocks me from major Japanese publishers like SEGA and Capcom, and I can’t even access the American Origin site. What’s to say Xbox Live will be any different.
Microsoft’s message to ex-pats is to simply move back home if you want to play their machine.Not that it matters. I’ll already be enjoying my Wii U and PlayStation 4 restriction free, as confirmed by Sony, by the time Japan finally gets the Xbox One. Sorry, but this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’m not dropping $500 on something that “might not work.” No way, no how.
We're doing that flat out so that any game developer can assume that there's roughly three times the resources immediately available to their game, so they can build bigger, persistent levels that are more inclusive for players. They can do that out of the game." Henshaw continued.
So, what does this mean for game developers? For one, it means that games can have a more extensive online UI, or maybe when you purchase a game, you can add the game's soundtrack to your personal cloud storage. It will most definitely allow users to store their capture gameplay video and maybe even streaming of those videos to personal web pages. All of that is speculation on my part though, and we will have to wait for more information before more is known.
07:52
Unknown
Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Microsoft president of interactive entertainment Don Mattrick attempted to defend the Xbox One’s £429 price tag, stating ”It’s a lower number than some of the analysts had forecasted.”
As CVG transcribed, “We’re over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days you look at it [and] $499 isn’t a ridiculous price point. We’re delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, so I think they’re going to love it when they use it. We’re really making the living room your centre of fun for your family,”The Xbox One is set at £429 ($499, €499), while the PlayStation 4 carries a price tag of £349 ($399, €399).
Sony's PS4 pre-orders are outnumbering Microsoft's Xbox One pre-orders by 2-to-1, according to a report by GameZone. This data comes courtesy of a GameStop rep who spoke with GameZone.
It's unclear whether the comment offered by the GameStop rep pertained merely to a single store, or whether that pre-order ratio is a company-wide trend.Either way, this news doesn't surprise us, considering that the PS4 is cheaper and more consumer friendly (no used game restrictions or online checking, unlike Xbox One).
It's still early, and we agree with Microsoft exec Phil Spencer when he said that "this isn't a sprint" and "the reaction, I think, is complete when the product is on the shelf." In fact, we take it even further than that. Like any player transaction in any sport, we can't properly determine a victory in the PS4 vs. Xbox One battle until 2-5 years after both consoles are released. Between now and then, we could see killer exclusive games, peripherals or revamped versions of the consoles themselves that may tip the scales in either the PS4's or Xbox One's favor. To this point though, the PS4 does seem to have a sizable lead on its Microsoft-branded competitor.
We've reached out to both GameStop and Amazon regarding pre-order data for both the PS4 and the Xbox One. We will update you if we receive any additional information.What do you think of PS4 pre-orders beating Xbox One pre-orders 2-to-1 at GameStop? Do you think that the data refers to a single store or the entire company and why? What do you think of the PS4 and Xbox One overall.Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Microsoft president of interactive entertainment Don Mattrick attempted to defend the Xbox One’s £429 price tag, stating ”It’s a lower number than some of the analysts had forecasted.”
As CVG transcribed, “We’re over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days you look at it [and] $499 isn’t a ridiculous price point. We’re delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, so I think they’re going to love it when they use it. We’re really making the living room your centre of fun for your family,”The Xbox One is set at £429 ($499, €499), while the PlayStation 4 carries a price tag of £349 ($399, €399).
Sony's PS4 pre-orders are outnumbering Microsoft's Xbox One pre-orders by 2-to-1, according to a report by GameZone. This data comes courtesy of a GameStop rep who spoke with GameZone.
It's unclear whether the comment offered by the GameStop rep pertained merely to a single store, or whether that pre-order ratio is a company-wide trend.Either way, this news doesn't surprise us, considering that the PS4 is cheaper and more consumer friendly (no used game restrictions or online checking, unlike Xbox One).
It's still early, and we agree with Microsoft exec Phil Spencer when he said that "this isn't a sprint" and "the reaction, I think, is complete when the product is on the shelf." In fact, we take it even further than that. Like any player transaction in any sport, we can't properly determine a victory in the PS4 vs. Xbox One battle until 2-5 years after both consoles are released. Between now and then, we could see killer exclusive games, peripherals or revamped versions of the consoles themselves that may tip the scales in either the PS4's or Xbox One's favor. To this point though, the PS4 does seem to have a sizable lead on its Microsoft-branded competitor.
We've reached out to both GameStop and Amazon regarding pre-order data for both the PS4 and the Xbox One. We will update you if we receive any additional information.What do you think of PS4 pre-orders beating Xbox One pre-orders 2-to-1 at GameStop? Do you think that the data refers to a single store or the entire company and why? What do you think of the PS4 and Xbox One overall.
07:42
Unknown
A couple of weeks ago, thanks to a hands-on session at EA's UK office, Pocket-lint played a 65 per cent finished build of the Xbox 360 version of FIFA 14. And we loved it.There are plenty of new features which yet again raise the bar for the annual footy games series and current console owners will be getting a treat when the latest hits the streets. However, the next-generation versions of FIFA 14, for Xbox One and PS4, are in a different league once again.
Powered by what EA is calling EA Sports Ignite, the next-generation versions of FIFA offer even more new features on top of the current gen - graphical enhancements aside, from some time with the Xbox One version at E3 2013 in Los Angeles, the game itself is even better to play.
It is said that the Xbox One is 10 times more powerful and while many will instantly see and understand the benefits that brings to the graphics engine, it's actually the tiniest, previously unavailable details and nuances that make the most difference.The crowd is completely different. Thanks to the processing power of the next-gen machines, every member of the crowd is a 3D model. It adds depth and scope to the stadium, making it look populated by people rather than cardboard cutouts. The crowd also has its own artificial intelligence, allowing them to react to the action on the field in either positive or negative ways. You know that thing where fans start to leave before the final whistle when their team is performing badly? Yeah, that.
Also, while the graphical presentation on the pitch is similar - a little more crisp, perhaps, but not markedly different - the animations of the footballers are smoother and have many more tiny steps than their current-gen counterparts. It makes the action easier on the eye and the control of players decisively more intuitive for the gamer.
The players also have a keener AI, allowing them to make more human-like decisions. Sometimes it makes you want to watch the action off the ball, rather than on. Plus, there are additional shot types and on-pitch behaviours.
In short, this version of FIFA14 is the best we've ever played, even from the 20 minutes or so we spent with it. That doesn't mean that the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are bad, far far from it, just that this proudly waves the flag of the next generation in a way that will attract a vast section of the games-playing audience.
The potential for ambiguity is vast, as Microsoft discovered last month when a handful of vague statements on Xbox One's game licensing policies triggered a landslide of speculation pieces and partial headlines. In what follows, we address some of the more excitable, lingering claims about the console's capabilities, Microsoft's licensing policies and Kinect. We can't answer all the questions, but we can put a few of the rumours to rest.
No, it doesn't, but you can only sell back your games to "participating retailers". Hopefully, these won't be limited to the bigger chains and supermarkets. Publishers have the ability to impose additional charges for and restrictions on the resale of Xbox One games via Xbox Live, however, so you might want to send your friendly neighbourhood corporate juggernaut a sternly worded letter on the benefits of free and unregulated transfer of property.
EA, Activision and co have yet to make clear their plans for this aspect of Xbox One, though there's possibly something to deduce from EA's decision to retire the unpopular Online Pass scheme.
You can only loan the disc itself to one Xbox Live friend, currently, and he or she'll need to have been your friend for 30 days. You'll also need the publisher's consent, which sounds ominous. You can, however, share your entire digital games library (which includes games you've bought on disc) with up to 10 other Xbox Live friends (they need to be "family members", technically, but Microsoft doesn't mind you bending the rules). The aforesaid friends can access the content from their own consoles, though it's not clear whether Microsoft will allow two people to play the same digital copy of a game simultaneously.
Additionally, Microsoft's Phil Spencer has suggested that Xbox One's lending schemes aren't set in stone. "We understand lending and the benefits of lending, so, funny videos aside, we get it," he told Kotaku in a recent interview. "We want to make sure we land on the right solution that fits a digital ecosystem moving forward." Later in the chat, Spencer put it a little more boldly: "we don't have a lending solution today." More to come, hopefully.
No, it isn't. For starters, you can set Kinect to be entirely unaware and unresponsive if you choose, though it'll still need to be plugged in for Xbox One to run. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, of course, so you'll need to turn the sensor back on for these. You can also set it to remain active even when the console is switched off, but it won't gather data about you while in this state - the machine listens out for a single activation phrase, "Xbox On". Finally, Kinect features can be "paused" during gameplay or movie playback.
07:41
Unknown
Need For Speed: Rivals' creative director Craig Sullivan believes that Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will deliver "pretty much the same" visual experience, telling VideoGamer.com that it's difficult to determine whether one is more powerful than the other until "you're seeing the same game running on both systems".
"To be honest, I think they're going to be pretty much the same," said Sullivan, when asked whether the differences between Xbox One and PS4's specs will lead to one offering more advanced visuals than the other. "Nobody's played the same game on finished hardware yet, so you can't make a comparison.
"We will see," he continued. "I think it's all down to how the development teams use those systems. It's not necessarily about horsepower, it's about the game experience you want to create and how you best those systems. We will push them as far as we possibly can, but until you're seeing the same game running on both systems, who's to say? "Sullivan is currently leading development at Ghost Games on Need For Speed: Rivals, the first next-gen Need For Speed and the first game in the series to be built using Frostbite 3.
"We're going into a new generation of hardware... We'd be crazy not to harness the power of that stuff," he continues. "The game looks amazing. I think it's by far the best looking Need For Speed game ever. The cars look amazing."
Frostbite 3 allows Ghost's creative team to "get to really high quality stuff... way, way quicker," Sullivan adds. "Plus, Ghost is in Sweden. There's a lot of people working there from DICE, we're in the same country as DICE where Frostbite is made, so it's the natural thing to do, to use Frostbite 3."Need For Speed: Rivals launches on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on November 19, and is expected to be available at the launch of Xbox One and PS4. I went hands-on with the game at E3, and came away stupidly excited.
Microsoft's been the industry's punching bag over the last week, but beneath the used game debate, exhorbitant price tag and archaic attitude towards self-publishing, boutique studio Capybara (of Sword & Sworcery and Clash of Heroes fame) is working on one of more intriguing indie games on the horizon. Below was one of E3's most brilliant surprises, and to find out more I caught up with Capybara president Nathan Vella to outline this mysterious upcoming project.
Simply put, Below is an action roguelike. It's portrayed from a top-down perspective and features real-time combat, permadeath, and randomly generated locales. In keeping true to the best of the genre's entries like The Binding of Isaac and Spelunky, Below will be hard. Very hard. But it'll also be fair.
"Below is our love-letter to rogue likes of yore, and to games that were about very difficult almost harsh combat that's very fair," explained Vella as we chatted about his game sitting in a carpeted hallway at E3's Los Angeles convention center. "Once you become familiar with the combat and the way that it works, anytime you die it will be be your fault, not the game's fault."
Harkening back to the old days, Below will offer new players no guidance whatsoever. "It's very much about exploration [and] aesthetics," Vella tells me. "There's no text in the game. There's no tutorials. There's no anything. There's no hand-holding. It's about learning in a lot of ways. It's about even exploring the combat system. I mean you're in the game exploring, but part of exploring is trying to figure out how to use your sword and your shield and your bow."
Microsoft apparently liked the idea so much that it supported Capybara through the development of its yet-to-be-released hardware. "That was quite early on. We'd been working on Xbox One for awhile and we've had access to some of the people putting some of the features in the system," Vella notes. "Having that kind of access is kind of awesome when you're making something that has certain components like multiplayer and some other fancy stuffs that we'll say is persistencey, but won't go into any detail on what that is. Having access to the people working on those features is a big win for developers."
07:26
Unknown
It began early Tuesday with a promise from Nintendo, that an extremely important announcement would be coming at Nintendo’s E3 booth at 11:40 a.m. Press had been gathered before the Los Angeles Convention Center doors opened at noon for early looks at some of Nintendo’s fall slate of games. Nintendo execs walking the floor ensured the media that no one should leave before 11:40 a.m.
Except by the time the announcement came and went, I wished I had missed it. The info-disguised-as-news was simply that the human avatar in Wii Fit would serve as a playable character in “Super Smash Bros.” for the Wii U and the recently unveiled 3DS editions of the game. Cute, but not worth turning off a game session of the oddly crazy superhero action title “The Wonderful 101″ to hear.
But E3 is about the corporate message first, the games second.
Companies such as Microsoft and Sony had to persuade fans that the leap to a next-gen console is a significant one, arguments that have been confusingly made by focusing on cloud computing, social networking and motion-control abilities, many of which were largely missing-in-action at E3. Nintendo’s case was a simpler one, as the company was here to promise that it’s dried-up tap of Wii U games would start flowing again.
There wasn’t necessarily a clear winner or loser in the above, but for consumers wondering if it’s worth investing between $344.99 (deluxe Wii U) and $499.00 (Xbox One) in a new console, E3 likely raised more questions than it answered.
And don’t expect those questions to be answered anytime soon. Sony tabled info on its cloud service until 2014, and even a seemingly innocuous question, such as who’s directing the live-action scenes in the Xbox One’s part show/part game “Quantum Break,” was met with a “we’re not discussing that at this time” answer.
The Xbox One console. (Microsoft)
In the tightly controlled environment of E3 — interviews are often conducted in less-than-ideal settings, with PR reps present with their own recorders running — Microsoft arguably came to Los Angeles with the most to prove. Unlike Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft has been largely keeping its slate of E3 games under wraps, and just prior to the event the company disclosed some of the details surrounding its cloud functionality.
Microsoft is pitching a console in which some of the game content will live locally on one’s home Xbox, and some of the content will live in the cloud on Microsoft’s servers. In, say, a multiplayer shooter such as “Titanfall,” the artificially intelligent (AI) enemies will live entirely on “Titanfall’s” dedicated servers.
“Offloading all that removes the boundaries a little and lets us think a little different,” Respawn Entertainment head Vince Zampella said. “We don’t have to rely on the box in front of you. We can offload and it gives us more freedom in filling up that world with tons of AI.”
In a tech demo. Xbox One’s engineering manager, Jeff Henshaw, attempted to walk journalists through the benefits the Xbox One’s largely always-online features at E3. Using data from NASA, the Xbox One was able to “calculate, map and render the exact position and orbital trajectory” of supposedly any asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.
What reporters saw displayed on a TV was data from about 40,000 asteroids living on the Xbox One. Then — stay with us — Microsoft’s cloud data started feeding the Xbox One 500,000 updates per second, Henshaw said, which brought an additional 300,000 asteroids to the display. This data lived entirely in the cloud.
They can use all of the local horsepower to ensure their game is responsive, instant, fun, intense, but for things they want to make sure are completely accurate but don’t want to burden the console itself with, they can offload to the cloud,” Henshaw said.
“Things like local foliage, blades of grass, atmospheric effects, gunfire,” he said, “those type of things can all be offloaded because they’re going to be in your immediate periphery and you want them to look hyper realistic, but not necessarily something you want to burden the console with.”
Now here’s where things get tricky.
Those who have played massive multiplayer online games know there’s risk in a connection dropping, but someone playing a single-player campaign with in-game content augmented by cloud visuals may suddenly find their game looking rather different should a connection waver.“It’s largely up to the game developer to decide how they want their game to react in different conditions,” Henshaw said. “Sometimes you’re going to have full bandwidth [with] the cloud, sometimes your bandwidth may get constrained and at other times it may go away all together.”
So the game world may start to look downgraded. Perhaps, said Henshaw, a fog rolls in, or a field of vision gets shorter. Microsoft didn’t demo what happens when a connection drops (they’re not ready to show that, apparently). But this reporter lives down the street from the E3 site, and it’s rare that I can watch a video in HD via Hulu or Netflix, despite paying for the fastest Internet my cable company will sell me.Phil Spencer, vice president of Microsoft Studios, said I needn’t worry about games losing connections or content suddenly shifting.
What you’ll find,” he said, “is that the bandwidth … required for the kind of games that we’re talking about is not as large as streaming a full-screen, high-def video. For someone watching Netflix in their home, they’re not going to have any problem with this system.”Still, it’s a concept many consumers may need to see in someone’s home before they are willing to embrace it. No game at the Xbox One E3 booth showed it in action and even Zampella, who is fully onboard with the Xbox One, said explaining its benefits can be a bit tricky.
“It’s hard,” he said, “to one-point bullet-point it and say, ‘This is what this thing is.’ But really, this generation goes beyond the hardware that’s in front of you. It really encompasses what support you can get. You don’t even have to know it exists. That’s the power we want to harness.”
Some developers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Tetsuya Nomura is video game royalty, designer of the “Kingdom Hearts” series and numerous “Final Fantasy” games for Square Enix. He’s confident in the technical specs of each system, but when it comes to offloading parts of a game to a cloud, he has no current plans.
“I was interested in learning more about online, but so far I think they just look so complicated,” said Nomura at E3 via a translator. “Both of the consoles have an online capability, but they seem to be complicated. They mention ‘cloud’ all the time, but I want to make sure that that’s easy to understand. Then I can start thinking about it, too.”
The complexity of the topics is perhaps why Sony focused its E3 on its game slate, although many of the company’s most adventurous offerings look destined for the PS3 and Vita, whether it the patient narrative of “Beyond Two Souls,” the noir-ish lyrical dream of “Rain,” or the zany “Puppeteer.”
Sony devoted a significant portion of its booth to indie games, and the comic, anime-stylings of “Transistor” were hard to resist on the big screen. The PS4 game that had me most smitten was the one that required no lifelike renderings whatsoever, the Pixar-influenced “Knack,” and Sony dodged close-up looks at its hardware by playing up its differences with the Xbox One in regard to online requirements.
To be fair, all of the PS4 and Xbox One games shown looked spectacular. It’s impossible to judge a game during a five- or 10-minute play session, and perhaps that’s why so much attention was drawn to the visuals. During a quick demo of the PS4′s “Infamous: Second Son,” when I asked what made the game work on a next-gen console, I was told to look at the detail in the rain puddles. That wasn’t the hard sell I was looking for.
Executives know this is a hurdle.
“I don’t think a game has ever really created a huge mega franchise based on purely graphics alone,” Microsoft’s Spencer said. “There have definitely been games that have seen the light of day because of their graphic capabilities, but once gamers get their hands on a game they know if it has a soul or not. They know if there’s a game there.”
There weren’t many games there when Nintendo launched its Wii U last winter. The Wii U, it was reported, failed to meet its initial sales expectations, having sold 3.45 million units through March. Initially, the company hoped to move about 5.5 million consoles in that period.
07:12
Unknown
An impressive upgrade mentioned during last night’s Xbox One reveal concerned the Kinect sensor. If you buy an Xbox One you are going to get one of these motion controllers by default and it will be used extensively for controlling your Xbox One, your media consumption and of course, games. Wired tech magazine got an exclusive first-look and first-hand experience using a new Kinect with help from Microsoft’s Scott Evans, the Group Project Manager on R&D New User Interface. Also, in another video, Wired got a great behind-the scenes look at the prototypes and designs which show the evolution of the Xbox One and peripherals design.
Kinect first look
As mentioned above, Microsoft’s Scott Evans aided Wired in showing off the new Kinect capabilities. The new Kinect is now “high definition”, for instance the buttons of the user are visible on the 3D definition map. The sensor can also accurately see the user’s shape and position using IR light, if visible light is not available. Skeletal tracking is now also “high definition” with more joints and more accurate detection of movements including your hand joint movements and rotation.
The sensor could also detect where your muscles were being used and forces were being exerted. For instance the force of a punch toward the screen seemed to be measured by the system. Your heart rate is estimated by colour fluctuations in your skin. Additionally the sensor also attempts to judge your current mood... The video ended by showing that all this works for multiple users; up to six people at once.
Xbox One, Kinect and controller design evolution
Again here is a Wired exclusive video. This one went behind the scenes looking at the Xbox One, the Kinect and new controller design evolution, from prototypes to final products. This may be interesting to many readers as already it seems like the look of the new Xbox One has polarised opinions between; ‘Great, it will fit in with my other under-TV black boxes’ and ‘That’s a really ugly box’.
Wired talked to Microsoft Senior Industrial Designer Scott Dallmeyer who began the video by saying that having a “very different” look was Microsoft’s intention for this console from the beginning. All the parts of the Xbox One you will get in your console package were designed using a “cohesive design language” so they all look good together and part of the same family. Also Microsoft “wanted this to really fit in with the things that are already in your living room”. The new design is “very quiet, very confident but still very capable”.
Looking at the controller Dallmeyer said “getting rid of the battery pack was a huge deal”, making the controller better for different sized and shaped hands. Microsoft designers produced “a couple of hundred” versions of the controller and around half as many of the Kinect sensor designs during the process. We are told that rapid testing, development and prototyping was facilitated by the use of an in-house 3D printer.
A leaked document obtained by The Verge last year suggested that the second-generation Kinect would offer higher-fidelity cameras and microphones for better body tracking and voice recognition, respectively, including support for tracking as many as four players at once.
It has been widely reported that the original Kinect was set to have an internal processor, but that Microsoft decided to remove it and offload calculations to the Xbox 360 in order to cut costs for Kinect. According to at least one developer, the original Kinect was also hampered by the bandwidth limitations of the USB 2.0 connection between the sensor and the console: the image's resolution and frame rate had to be capped.
In February, Sony announced a new PlayStation Eye camera for PlayStation 4 that will sense motion and track the DualShock 4 controller. The Eye uses a proprietary connector to interface with the PS4, and can output a high-definition image (1280x800 pixels) at 60 frames per second.
07:12
Unknown
Now people have had some significant details of both the Sony PlayStation 4 and the Microsoft Xbox One, opinions, preferences and choices are already forming. Most things I have read show that the PlayStation 4 is now a clear early favourite. This may be something to do with Microsoft’s TV/media focus during its reveal presentation, where games seemed to come last. Or it may be something to do with the hardware; the PS4 appears to have the edge over the Xbox One with a significantly higher number of GPU cores and faster system memory with many other aspects of the systems being similar. However, on the graphics side of things, I read today about Microsoft planning to use a cloud of 300,000 servers to render the Xbox One’s “latency-insensitive” graphics.
Ars Technica talked to General Manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms, Matt Booty about this server cloud. Ars wanted to know how “laggy cloud data” could help in a fast paced game. “Things that I would call latency-sensitive would be reactions to animations in a shooter, reactions to hits and shots in a racing game, reactions to collisions,” Microsoft’s Booty told Ars. “Those things you need to have happen immediately and on frame and in sync with your controller. There are some things in a video game world, though, that don't necessarily need to be updated every frame or don't change that much in reaction to what's going on.”
Booty gave an example of the utility of a powerful cloud computer with regard to in-game lighting where “things often involve some complicated up-front calculations when you enter that world, but they don’t necessarily have to be updated every frame”. Also physics modelling, fluid dynamics, and cloth motion can be handled by the cloud without adding lag to gameplay. Booty suggested that the power available in the cloud to a single Xbox One user would be equivalent to about three Xbox One consoles working together. Developers will have to decide for themselves in how to manage what is being offloaded to the cloud.
Turning to the use of internet and what might happen if an Xbox One user has a disrupted connection Booty said “If there’s a fast connection and if the cloud is available and if the scene allows it, you’re obviously going to capitalize on that”. If a connection drops the game will “have to intelligently handle that” he added – however that implies that graphics would suffer in this case. This is quite a lot different to how the Sony PS4 will use cloud computing to allow ‘backwards compatibility’, or rather streaming, of previous generation PlayStation games.
Xbox One and YouView
In related news and probably only of interest to UK residents, YouView has confirmed it has no plans to support the Xbox One. The YouView service is probably the closest match for Microsoft’s console and home entertainment plans. However the wording was chosen carefully as it reflects just the “current” situation. Also Microsoft has confirmed that live TV functionality will be limited to the US at launch time but it was “anticipating global scale over time.”
Xbox One reveal precipitates Wii U sales boost.
Another interesting snippet today is revealed by games industry trade mag MCVUK. Apparently sales of the Wii U on Amazon.co.uk have skyrocketed following Microsoft’s next gen announcement. The result is that the Wii U Premium pack has shifted from 243rd in Amazon’s retail ‘Movers and Shakers’ list to 50th place. It is reported that sales have increased 386 per cent, albeit from a low starting point.
06:59
Unknown
Microsoft has launched a redesigned Xbox 360 console. The new console uses the same design language as the recently announced Xbox One console. This updated console will be available straight away to US customers but there is no price cut right now, the MSRPs remain the same as with the previous range of consoles.
The new Xbox 360 is said to be smaller and quieter than any previous version of the Xbox 360. A quick gander at the main picture below will confirm the Xbox One design similarities to you. The shiny and matt textures side by side and the simpler black shape borrow a lot from the next generation console design.
No price cuts
This latest version of the Xbox 360, originally launched in November 2005, will not bring with it a cut in MSRPs. The 4GB model is to be US$200 and the 250GB or 4GB-with-Kinect models are US$300. These redesigned Xbox 360s are available from today in the US.
Commitment to the Xbox 360
Microsoft SVP of Marketing Yusef Mehdi said the company is committed to supporting the Xbox 360 for years to come. Several big name new games were announced for the 360 including; Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Grand Theft Auto 5, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Dark Souls II, Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns, World of Tanks and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Microsoft also announced some sweeteners for Xbox Live Gold subscribers; from 1st July two free games will be available for download including titles such as Assassin's Creed II and Halo 3.
The ultimate, all-in-one entertainment system
After this introduction and first glimpse at the Xbox One and the new controller Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi took to the stage to use the console. He says “Xbox On” and it turns on, recognising his voice and logs him into his profile automatically. The interface is pretty similar to what users know from the Xbox 360. The first screen you will see is a grid of your favourite apps called “My Pins”.
E3 for Xbox One and PS4
Full details and lots more games for the Xbox One will be revealed at E3 which starts on 10th June. Also during Microsoft’s event Sony’s official PlayStation Twitter account announced the official hardware reveal of the PS4 for 10th June 6.00 Pacific time.
We will update you on any more details regarding the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as they are revealed. Particularly I think there will be some good quality videos coming out from this initial Xbox One reveal event.
06:49
Unknown
It has emerged that Microsoft used Hewlett Packard made PCs equipped with Nvidia GTX 700 series graphics cards to demonstrate Xbox One titles at E3 last week. In one case an E3 attendee played an Xbox One demo which crashed to the Windows 7 desktop. Furthermore, behind the scenes photos revealed someone maintaining these hidden PCs, with a side panel exposing various components. Meanwhile at the E3 show, many Sony PlayStation 4 games were definitely running on PS4 “dev hardware” - the same as the final shipping console but in a utilitarian box.
While using gaming PCs to show off console games at exhibitions is thought to be quite common, Microsoft previously said they were running games “on comparable dev kit specs to the actual home consoles”, reports Gaming Blend.
Whether an HP gaming PC running Windows 7 and packing an Nvidia GTX 700 series GPU is comparable to the Xbox One console is debatable. However this use of PCs suggests the Xbox One hardware/software isn’t nearly as ready as the Sony PS4. Perhaps if Microsoft used Xbox One dev kits to show off the upcoming games it may not have been a good representation of the final gameplay experience.
Further fun is poked at Microsoft in the Gaming Blend article as these PCs running Xbox One demos weren’t even using the Windows 8 OS, which is supposed to be partly what the Xbox One’s OS is based upon.
UPDATE: There have been several follow ups to the original Gaming Blend article highlighting these behind-the-scenes PCs. It should be noted that there were also several other game developers running Xbox One game demos on actual Xbox One development hardware at E3. The above photos represent just one game dev's choice to show off its upcoming Xbox One game title.
The new Xbox has just been revealed at an invitation-only event at the Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington. The next Microsoft Xbox console is not going to be called the Xbox 720, NextBox, Infinity or simply the Xbox - it will be known as the ‘Xbox One’.
The event started when Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, came on stage and said “We've spent the last four years working on the next generation Xbox”. He talked about the achievements of the Xbox 360 before asking – “Can we take what you love and make it better? Can we take a living that has become too slow and fragmented, to harmonize your experiences?” He spells out the mission, the aim of the new Xbox One; “Team Xbox is on a new mission: to design and build an all-in-one system for games, movies, and entertainment”.
Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live comes on stage. A slideshow reveals that the Xbox One hardware is roughly what had been expected; an 8 core CPU, 8GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, a Blu-ray drive, 802.11 Wireless with Wi-Fi direct, HDMI in/out, and USB 3.0. Hopefully more details will be revealed about the architecture shortly.
Also every Xbox One comes with a new 1080p Kinect sensor “processing over 2 gigabits of data per second to understand your world”. The Kinect will recognise your voice and your gestures, as demonstrated by Yusuf Mehdi. The new Kinect can sense such subtle things as the turn of a wrist, when you shift your weight from one foot to another, and even your heart beat.
Andrew Wilson, head of EA's sports franchises, came on stage and talked excitedly about the Xbox One, which will host EA’s FIFA, Madden, UFC and NCAA games. There are some videos of the games being played and of course they appear smooth, glossy and realistic in all the right places. Following the EA representative a new ‘Forza’ racing title is announced, Remedy Studios show a new game called ‘Quantum Break’ and 343 Studios talk about the new ‘Halo’ game.
Incidentally Steven Speilberg will be lending a hand in making a live-action Halo TV series. Premium Xbox One subscribers will be able to watch the TV series streamed to their consoles.
To round off the games presentation, and actually the event as a whole, Eric Hirshberg, head of Activision Publishing, takes to the stage and shows the game ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’. Hirshberg describes how the new Xbox One has facilitated far more detailed graphics in the game and we see close-ups of a game character's hands, including dirt under the fingernails. Also apparently dogs will have a prominent role in this game.
14:10
Unknown
“Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag” and “Watch Dogs.” According to a report by the NeoGAF forum on June 16, the game director teased that both titles will include several hard-to-find Easter Eggs that may tease some kind of connection between the worlds. You can check out some screenshots of the PS4 and Xbox One products.
“Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag” and “Watch Dogs” are cross-generation releases. As a result, both titles are slated to be released on the Nintendo Wii U, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in addition to the forthcoming PS4 and Xbox One next-generation systems. Ubisoft is the company responsible for the developing and publishing aspects of “Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag” and “Watch Dogs,” both of which are expected to launch later this year in the North American region.
The Xbox One was initially announced on May 21st to pretty lukewarm responses. Yes, the dawn of a new video game console generation was on the horizon, but Microsoft saw fit to primarily focus on their “All-in-one entertainment center”. This rubbed many gaming journalists and purists the wrong way. Fast forward to E3(Electronic Entertainment Expo) and Microsoft showed the gaming world that they did, in fact know what side their bread was buttered. Paired with some of high points from the initial announcement, and some pretty cool things they revealed at E3, here are 4 pretty good reasons you may want to pick up the Xbox One come the holiday season.
When Microsoft released the Xbox 360 in November of 2005, they also revealed a new meta-system that would track and score your accomplishments for every game played and put them on display. It was a new idea that had primarily been relegated to single player stat keeping in previous gaming generations, mostly giving certain games a replay value they may otherwise lacked. Now with the Achievements system, players had a public badge of honor. It was a literal game changer as rival Sony introduced their own Trophy and score system a few years later, and every game from Angry Birds to Candy Crush now has some form of achievement system.
Well after 8 years, some gamers have racked up a pretty impressive Gamerscore, with each retail title having at least 1,000 points at their release date, and sometimes adding more for online play. Knowing that your meta-score will carry over into the next generation is cause for a sigh of relief and some celebration given that both Microsoft and Sony have said that neither of their systems will be backward compatible(at launch anyway). At least when you move on to the next system, your gaming past will move with you in some way.
Staying with the Achievements theme, Microsoft also brought up one of the perks of their “always online” initiative is that developers will be able to seamlessly add achievements and Gamerscores to their games regularly to reflect how the community is playing. This may seem like a small step, but it is actually the evolution of what Achievements have already done for the replay value of games. Adding challenges in response to players play styles and integrating the community in a larger way does wonders for developers ability to keep discs in systems, and gives extra incentive for gamers to hold on to games just a little bit longer.
Yes, Microsoft may have ruffled some feathers when they announced that the Kinect will be essential for use of the Xbox One, and that owners will not be able to fully power off the device, even on games where it is not needed. What may have been missed in some of the negative press is that Microsoft has had about 2 years to respond to player concerns about the original Kinect device, and given their track record, are more than likely about to revolutionize the way gamers think about motion controls and integration.
In the past, Microsoft has tried the “Better with Kinect” marketing push, giving developers who utilize the peripheral some extra spotlight. That is why we saw marquee titles like Madden 13 and Mass Effect 3 touting their use of the motion camera. While this is more speculative, it is safe to assume that Microsoft and third party developers have learned a bit from the past and have found ways to better utilize Kinect. Some of the Minority Report-esque ways that it is being used with the multi use applications showed off at the May 21st reveal may just be the tip of the iceberg. Factoring in the exclusive games at launch that will more than likely have some heavy Kinect use and gamers may finally get the motion controls they've only dreamed of.
Xbox Live was ushered into existence on the original Xbox; a pay service that provided online multiplayer on consoles through an Ethernet connection at a time when consoles either didn’t have online capability or only used 56k dial-up. It was a bold move, and just another example of Microsoft dragging consumers into the future of technology. By 2005, Xbox Live Gold accounts were held by almost half of Xbox users, giving unrivaled stability and security to those who chose to partake in the $50 a year service. While the Xbox One has officially been revealed as an “always online” system, Xbox Live is the system by which it will be connected, and with it Microsoft is wheeling out some new, and some borrowed tricks.
Firstly, taking a page from Sony’s playbook, Microsoft will begin offering free game downloads to Gold subscribers, much like the PlayStation+ model by Sony. Microsoft also has some exclusivity with EA sports titles in terms of updates and add-on’s for games like FIFA 14’, Madden 25, and NBA Live. These exclusive rights will include real world roster updates, new gameplay modes, and integration with fantasy leagues. There is also the exclusive deal Microsoft still has with the juggernaut franchise Call of Duty, which gives the Xbox One timed exclusive content such as multiplayer maps and modes that the PlayStation 4 may not see for months. All of that and there is still the Xbox Live Arcade which has done nothing but grow into a huge hit in and of itself, offering many grade A titles at a very reasonable price for the budget gamer.
13:56
Unknown
Just the term Killer Instinct makes me remember dark, hazy arcades and the musty smell of competition. So I couldn’t help but have a Pavlovian moment when Microsoft announced the return of the beloved fighter during its pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo news conference this year. I had the chance to preview the Xbox One launch-day downloadable title from Double Helix Games and speak with key developers at the show.“(Double Helix) got it … this understanding of what was great about KI,” Ken Lobb stated, creative director at Microsoft Studios and key architect of the Killer Instinct saga.
The title didn’t immediately feel like the KI I sacrificed so many quarters to during my youth. As I tried to reacquaint myself with the hulking lycanthrope Sabrewulf, I had to grasp the rebooted brawler’s new-ish control scheme. Clearly, the series gained a few dans on its bloody black belt. The new gameplay systems contributed to my learning curve.
“Totally new is this idea … of an Instinct meter,” Lobb mentioned. “What if I had this other buff that I’m building up as a play? … [The meter] is specific to each character. … Jago [the other playable character in the demo] gets hit advantage. He also starts to heal. … Sabre buffs up, gets faster, does more damage.”
I eventually deduced a few of my combatant’s moves and pulled off some of the game’s trademark c-c-combos. These moments directly tapped into my inner 11-year-old KI fanatic. That’s when my brief hands-on experience truly clicked.
Xbox One’s next-gen capabilities will not only help Lobb and company create a more visually striking title, it’ll also help them overcome old-school hurdles to ensure a compelling and fair fight.
“One of the most important parts of a fighting game is balance. In KI1 days … we literally had to have people running around upgrading the arcade machines all over the freaking world. Now we have builds instrumented, so we know if things are broken. … And we build them in a way … that they can be adjusted hourly, daily.”
Along those lines, players can share their beatdowns through the One’s gameplay-recording functionality, which should appeal to the thriving competitive community streaming its matchups and tournaments online.
“You have a ton more people that want to watch this stuff and learn. We showed with upload and Twitch [the streaming online service] … you decide if you want to … send up a video of what you’ve just done. … Push a button, off it goes,” Lobb added.New features aside, Double Helix has a tough challenge to overcome. Fighting game fans are fickle. KI followers have demanded a sequel for nearly two decades, so expectations will run high. The development team hopes to deliver an authentic successor.
“We thought about [making a sequel] for a long time. …The fighting genre is back. Time is right. We like bringing either new IP or things that people love at the launch of a new platform,” Lobb said.This reimagined release has new mechanics, new character designs, and even a new sales model — you can purchase characters a la carte or buy all content (including future downloadable additions) at once. But I enjoyed the new Killer Instinct most when it felt like the old Killer Instinct.
I’m talking about landing that 14-hit extreme combo and hearing the familiar bloodthirsty baritone of the combat commentator.That moment made me reach for my pocket, fumbling for my next quarter. And that’s why I can’t wait to get my hands on the final product.
13:46
Unknown
The PlayStation 4 will be a hot item when it debuts later this year, and it appears Sony is already gearing up to meet the increased demand.According to a recent DigiTimes report, components for Sony's new console have already started shipping, "and volumes may reach one million units per month by September for the year-end holidays."
At the same time, Microsoft Xbox One components aren't expected to start shipping until the third quarter. The PS4 is being manufactured by Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry). The Xbox One is being produced by Pegatron Technology, with components supplied by Lite-On IT, Lite-On Technology, Foxlink, Asia Optical, Kinko Optical, Newmax, Foxconn Technology, Coxon, Nishoku, Elite Advanced Laser, Tong Hsing Electronic Industries, Adda, Delta Electronics, Chicony Electronics and Neng Tyi.
The Xbox One is like a cacophony of exotic components, or something.But anyway, none of this should really effect the launch dates (both systems are expected to launch in November). This just means that thankfully, there may be enough PS4s to go around when it arrives.
There have been lots of reports from legitimate sources about Microsoft refusing to speak to the press, canceling interviews, and paying publishers to block out the PlayStation symbol on multiplatform games shown during E3. Then MS went and made things worse by...you know, talking at the conference. Still, would they really stoop to halting a poll just to save face.
Amazon started a poll on June 13, asking gamers which console they'd choose in the next generation. This poll was supposed to run through June 20 but as noted by Cinema Blend, Amazon has prematurely ended the lopsided contest. The results were about 95% in favor of the PS4, which is pretty nuts (and boring from a competition standpoint), but why did the poll stop? What's the point of ending it four days early.
Oh, the conspiracy theorists are running around saying Microsoft put a stop to it. It was only resulting in more damaging headlines and when MS saw it, they decided to put the whammy on the poll. Then again, maybe Amazon just stopped it because the comments were getting ugly. That's possible, too; when the console wars and fanboy nonsense leaks into the mainstream, it really is pretty embarrassing. Besides, maybe Amazon just figured there wasn't any reason to keep it up; the battle was won, right.
RSS Feed
Twitter
