Chris Kohler

Four Generations of Xbox Can Be System-Linked Later This Year

Hey, do you still have your original Xbox? And an Xbox 360? And an Xbox One? And are you planning on buying an Xbox One X? Also, do you have four Ethernet cables and seven friends? Well, guess the hell what While we found out during Microsoft’s press briefing that games for the original 2001…

We’re Liveblogging Bethesda’s E3 Press Conference [Update: We’re Done]

Bethesda’s about to begin its highly anticipated and extremely late E3 2017 presentation. Seriously, a 9 PM Pacific start time? You’re up late, we’re up late, let’s do this. What will the maker of Fallout and Dishonored have up its sleeves for this year’s big show?

Xbox One Will Get Compatibility With Original Xbox Games [Update]

Microsoft is expanding Xbox One’s backward compatibility program to the first Xbox, it said today at its E3 media briefing. Original Xbox games will begin appearing on the platform later this year. “OG games will look better and play better across the Xbox One family,” said head of Xbox Phil Spencer. For the time being,…

Super Lucky’s Tale, an Xbox One and Windows 10 version of the Oculus Rift VR game, is coming out on November 7, Microsoft said today. No, it’s not VR on the Xbox. It’s a non-VR version. Also that’s not Conker.

Metro: Exodus Announced, Out Next Year

The latest in the Metro series, called Metro: Exodus, is on its way to Xbox One, with Xbox One X enhancements, Microsoft said today at its E3 conference. The game, which will at the very least let you kill a giant mutant with a crossbow, will be released in 2018. Microsoft did not exactly announce…

Square Enix Gave Sweet, Fake SNES Carts To King’s Tale Staff

Square Enix gave a pretty nifty thank-you gift to the developers of A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV—a replica Super Nintendo cartridge with the game’s art and logo. It even includes the box. It’s a thematically appropriate gift, since A King’s Tale is a (free) game for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 that’s styled after…

Here’s The Latest Kingdom Hearts III Trailer

Square Enix just dropped the new trailer for Kingdom Hearts III onto YouTube, after premiering it at the “Kingdom Hearts Orchestra” concert tonight in Los Angeles. “Don’t assume your dreams are just fantasy,” the trailer begins. Hey, if this wasn’t just fantasy, maybe it would have a release date at the end? It doesn’t, of…

We’re Liveblogging EA’s E3 Press Conference [Update: We’re Done]

E3 kicks off earlier and earlier every year, and 2017 is no exception: Electronic Arts is beginning this year’s show at noon Pacific time today with its annual press briefing. Star Wars Battlefront II is a given. What else? Gita Jackson and I will lay it all out for you live, starting in a few…

Whether You Have $40 or $450, There’s an HDMI NES For You

Got a pile of old NES carts? Want to play them on your HDMI television? Recently, a number of solutions for that have come onto the market—one for every budget. Here’s our take on three major HDMI NES players. You need some sort of solution, because the Nintendo Entertainment System released in 1985 was about…

Secret of Mana Collection Proves Switch Is Awesome For Retro Gaming

I’ve been playing Super Nintendo games on my Switch all week, and it is a glorious thing. Virtual Console might be MIA on Switch thus far, possibly due to Nintendo wanting to roll out a Netflix-type catalog alongside its paid online service in 2018. But Square Enix ain’t got time for that, and has rolled…

That Time Miyamoto Played Mario On My Hacked PSP

While we’re prepping for E3 this week and reminiscing about the great moments from expos past, let me regale you of a tale of the weirdest thing that ever happened to me there. I told this story to people immediately after it happened at the 2005 E3, and then it ended up getting passed around…

Sony Exec’s Slam On Old Games Misses The Appeal Of The Classics

How much effort should today’s console makers put into keeping the classics in print and playable on modern hardware? There’s a lot of room for debate, but one PlayStation exec just weighed in with what has to be the Worst Possible Take. The Take isn’t just about backward compatibility, or about what Sony plans to…

The NES Classic was the #2 best-selling console in America in April, right behind the Nintendo Switch, the NPD Group reported today. Yes, that means the $60 mini-console outsold PS4, 3DS, and Xbox One. Good thing they discontinued it, huh?

Arms Shows That Switch Motion Controls Might Actually Be OK

With Nintendo’s motion controllers now into their second decade of life, I find myself… agnostic. I like Wii Sports and I think pointer aiming in Twilight Princess was awesome, but I don’t like gyro aiming in Splatoon and the less said about Star Fox Zero the better. So where does Arms fit in? Due June…

Nintendo showed the first glimpse of Splatoon 2‘s single-player mode, called “Hero Mode,” at the end of today’s Nintendo Direct. This is where all the “Squid Sisters Stories” stuff was leading, as you may have guessed. Since the original Splatoon’s single-player was excellent, I have high hopes.

Nintendo will hold free “Global Testpunch” online beta tests for its motion-controlled Switch brawler Arms, it said during today’s Nintendo Direct. You’ll be able to play a selection of characters and modes during the weekends of May 26-28 and June 2-4.

Collecting Sega Master System Games Is A Huge Pain In The Ass

With only 114 U.S. game releases and fairly reasonable aftermarket prices, the Sega Master System is an increasingly popular target for collectors who want to try amassing a single console’s entire library. But as soon as you start, you find out that it’s a lot more of a pain in the ass than you’d imagined.…

The Nintendo Switch version of Rime is getting a price drop, of sorts: While publisher Greybox says it can’t lower the $40 price of the Switch cart without “selling at a loss,” it’s lowering the digital version to $30 to match other versions, and including a digital code for the game’s soundtrack inside the physical…

Metal Gear Artist Draws Some Cool Art For Call of Duty

If you start to get Metal Gear Solid vibes off of the new Zombies Chronicles expansion for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, there’s a good reason: Treyarch has tapped artist Yoji Shinkawa to create portraits of the game’s characters. “To be able to work with him and have him realize our main characters in…

Hacker Makes the ‘Nintendo PlayStation’ Fully Operational

An original prototype of Sony’s PlayStation, dating back to the company’s short-lived partnership with Nintendo, has now been completely restored to life by popular console modder Ben Heckendorn. Created in the early 1990s, this machine is little more than a Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a CD-ROM drive. It would have represented Sony’s entry into…