Stephen Totilo

Sony’s Used Games Gag ‘Was Not Planned’

The video above was one of the biggest hits of this year’s E3. It was a sharp, smiling jab at the Xbox One’s restrictions on game-sharing from a Sony doing the Ali shuffle. Today, I got the video’s back story from one of its stars, Sony’s head of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida. Kotaku: Why did…

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker Wii U Vs. GameCube

On the left, 2013’s The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker running on the Wii U. On the right, 2002’s The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker running on GameCube. The new one looks better, but the old one is still a beauty. Shot with an iPhone 5, so the differences won’t be as noticeable as they…

Sony Corrects Themselves, Says The Last Guardian Is Not on ‘Hiatus’

Our 90-minute national nightmare is over. Sony’s PlayStation boss Jack Tretton may have said that the long-awaited The Last Guardian was on hiatus today, but Sony’s head of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, says that’s wrong. “That hiatus term—I’m not a native English-speaking person—but that’s misleading,” Yoshida told me a few minutes ago during an interview…

Killer Instinct On Xbox One Is Free, For Your First Character

Tekken isn’t the only major fighting game series with a sequel that starts off costing nothing. The Xbox One’s launch day fighting game Killer Instinct will also be free. You’ll get one character, Jago, to play against anyone. And you’ll get a rebirth of a long-dormant series. You can then pay for other characters. “We…

Find Out About the Future of Square Right Now (Updates Complete)

I’m at a press conference all about the future of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts and who knows what else. Here we go…. I’m one of about 200 people in a conference room at the Marriott near E3. They’ve got banners here for Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III. But we’re starting with Naoki…

Nintendo’s New Games Are Fun, But They’re Playing it Ridiculously Safe

I’ve played four of Nintendo’s big E3 2013 games and I’m still undecided whether to be excited or disappointed. Nintendo didn’t bring the shock of the new to E3. They brought comfort food. They brought Mario Kart 8, which is a Mario Kart like all the rest except this time you can drive on the…

Dead Rising 3 Explores A Grittier Sort Of Zombie Apocalypse

Dead Rising 3 isn’t designed to be the laugh riot of the older Dead Risings. TheXbox One exclusive from Capcom Vancouver is a grittier kind of zombie game. It’s set 10 years after Dead Rising 2, the game’s executive producer Josh Bridges told me during a demo of the game on Monday evening. New hero…

The PS4 Doesn’t Have The Xbox One’s DRM

PS4 will not put any restrictions on used games, Sony’s PlayStation boss Jack Tretton said today at the company’s big E3 press conference in a hall full of reporters and games industry folks. Gamers can buy PS4 games, trade them in, lend them to friends or keep them forever. He got loud cheers for all…

Here’s The Xbox One’s Spiffy New Headset

It’s currently PlayStation E3 press conference time, but some people need to see the new Xbox One headset right now. That someone might be you.

I Can Get Behind This Xbox One Game’s Use of the Cloud

It’s easy to be skeptical that Xbox One developer’s claims that their games will benefit from cloud computing. But, today, I talked to one and I like what he had to say. This was an impromptu chat. I was at Spike TV’s all-day All-Access E3 venue, sitting in the green room and waiting for my…

Dear Peter Moore,

The EA E3 press conference was the opposite of disappointing. Your teams did really well. Sincerely, Stephen Totilo P.S. If anyone intercepts this message and is unclear what it means, read this Tweet, from right before the start of EA’s press conference.

Awesome Titanfall Mech Guards EA’s E3 Press Conference

As seen at the venue for EA’s E3 press conference by our own Kirk Hamilton.

New Xbox Live Reputation System May Reduce ‘Troublemakers,’ ‘Cheaters’

With today’s confirmation of a new reputation system coming to Xbox Live for Xbox One, Microsoft is tacitly acknowledging how miserable it can be to play games against strangers on Xbox Live. Details are scarce, but we get this much from a letter to Xbox Live gamers by Microsoft’s Marc Whitten: Reputation: Your new Xbox…

Xbox Live Gold Price Not Going Up For Xbox One

Xbox Live Gold will cost $60 per year on Xbox One, as it does now, Microsoft confirmed today. In a letter to Xbox Live gamers, Microsoft’s Marc Whitten said: We are bringing the Xbox Live Gold membership from Xbox 360 to Xbox One starting at the same $5 per month for a one-year membership, and…

Announced in Microsoft’s E3 pre-show: Xbox 360’s Summer of Arcade this year will consist of a remake of the classic game Flashback as well as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and Charlier Murder

My E3 hotel room key is brought to me by Thief. Very reassuring. I’m sure all my valuables are safe.

Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare Outed, Is Likely a Shooter

Signage for a PopCap game called Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is sprouting up at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the site of this year’s E3. Combine that with a reliable source telling Kotaku that the long-rumored PvZ shooter—yes, shooter—is about to unveiled, and it looks like we’ve got a name to attach to the…

More Proof That the Wii U Basic Is About To Go Extinct, Via Best Buy

Earlier this week, GameStop issued a June 18 “recall” of the 8GB $300 Wii U Basic, the version of the Wii U that smart consumers knew to avoid. (Edit: Okay, okay, see the comments for reasons why some smart people did buy the 8GB version.) Now a tipster sends us an internal flyer from Best…

This Game’s Starting Concept: What If John McClane Had Died?

In an E3 that is full of sequels and the same-old, same-old Murdered: Soul Suspect, may stand out as something that’s actually new. But one look at this game—the adventure of a ghostly detective who has one night to solve his own murder—probably wouldn’t make you think of its even more unusual origins. “Square Enix…

Infinity Ward, 3 Years Later: A Call of Duty Comeback With a Caveat

The trailer for the next Call of Duty, November’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, makes it all seem so pleasantly straightforward. New Call of Duty! From the people who made the one that made this series a phenomenon. Not quite. But not completely wrong, either. Infinity Ward, the studio founded in 2002 by Jason West and…