Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: One Big-Ass Xbox: the Winners

This week’s challenge: take an enormous stunt Xbox One laying in a Vancouver parking lot and turn it into something profound. A dirty dozen answered the call—they’re all inside, alongside overall No. 1 arniejolt! AboboInSloMo arniejolt docherty (a callback to this contest) Eight-Bit Generation Imp JBrr JDonneR93 r1ggs Ryan89_19 sciteach uscg_pa VaughnWhiskey Velduanga To contact…

We Know Much More About The Warcraft Movie Now

The Warcraft movie is coming in 2015, yet we barely know anything about it outside of the setting and who’s directing. At the Warcraft movie presentation at BlizzCon 2013, we learned a whole lot more, from setting to story and more. Who’s Working on the movie? When director Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) first read…

No, Call of Duty: Ghosts Did Not Make $1 Billion on Its First Day

Call of Duty: Ghosts didn’t get the usual triumphal announcement from Activision that it was the biggest entertainment launch of the year. Because, one assumes, it was not. Activision did say that $1 billion worth of Call of Duty was on retailers’ shelves. Why is that worth bragging about? Well, this video is why. Here…

If you’re a Comcast subscriber and you can’t connect to Xbox Live no, it’s not just you. A lot of people are reporting the same thing. We’ve pinged Microsoft and a Comcast rep. “Both teams are working together for a resolution,” says Xbox Live support.

If You Get an Xbox One Early, You Can’t Connect it to Xbox Live

Microsoft has acknowledged Target’s screwup, which sent out some preordered Xbox Ones two weeks before the console’s launch, and said that anyone who does get one early will be unable to connect it to Xbox Live. This is the full statement sent to Kotaku by a Microsoft spokesperson: Due to a retail partner’s system issue,…

Wild Offer of Free Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed Floods Canada Stores

So, let’s get this straight. In Canada this weekend, take any Xbox 360 or PS3 game—good, bad or ugly; GOTY or shovelware—trade it in, and get a free copy of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Call of Duty: Ghosts or Battlefield 4. Is that right? Is someone smoking crack up there? Not you, mayor ……

If you’re following the brouhaha over the guy who got an Xbox One early and was then banned by Xbox Live, Major Nelson has since reached out via Twitter, and has said “his console will not be permabanned.” See the link for the latest update.

A Jumbo Jet Crashes the City in Dead Rising 3

Dead Rising has always had a kind of joie de mort about it, but Capcom made it clear this summer that comes to an end with the Xbox One-only Dead Rising 3. Unless the pilot and everyone on board is a zombie, there’s not much dark comedy to be found in a 757 disaster. Capcom…

This Week in the Business: ‘No Game is Review-Proof’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Strong franchises like Call of Duty: Ghosts tend to benefit from a halo effect, but no game is ‘review proof.'”—Analyst Billy Pidgeon, explaining with other analysts why poor reviews might hurt Call of Duty: Ghosts and sales of the franchise long-term…

Good Lord, With Over 700 Pokémon, The Pokerap Has Become Massive

Electrode, Diglett, Nidoran, Mankey, Venusaur, Rattata, Fearow, Pidgey, Seaking, Jolteon, Dragonite, Gastly, Ponyta, Vaporeon, Poliwrath, Butterfreeeeee! …wait, there’s more than just these Pokémon at the start of the Pokerap? No way. Oh, but there are. Many, many more—while many of us have only memorized the first part of the famous Pokerap (a song featured in…

eBay Seller Claims Target Shipped Them an Xbox One, Yours For $9,995.00 [UPDATE: Auction pulled]

Somehow, someone seems to not only already have an Xbox One, but they’re also selling it for nearly $10,000 dollars. Console launches typically mean immediate eBay listings, many of which are absurdly priced, sure…but the Xbox One isn’t out for weeks. Well then! priceless228, an eBay user,claims that a Target shipping errorlanded them an Xbox…

Weekend Listening: I went on a couple of podcasts this week: GameTrailers‘ Side Mission Briefing, where host Rocco DeMaro and I talked about next-gen consoles and Gravity, and a Giant Bomb Spoilercast, where Patrick Klepek, Alex Navarro, Polygon‘s Justin McElroy and I did a post-game about Beyond: Two Souls

Valve Explains Dota 2‘s Missing Diretide Event, Will Release It Soon

Valve made a lot of people angry this year when they elected not to ship a Diretide event for Dota 2. They’ve reversed course in a new blog post today, explaining why Diretide hadn’t been planned for this year and saying that the event will be included in the game’s next update. Diretide is a…