Develop reports that Microsoft is investing $700 million in a new Iowan data center. The data center will power both Microsoft’s online Office 365 suite and the Xbox One’s online Cloud features. According to Microsoft’s Christian Belady, the expansion “supports the growing demand for Microsoft’s cloud services.”

New College Grads Get Together To Cosplay Their Favorite Game

Summer’s here, and for Chinese college students this means two things: summer vacation and/ or graduation! To celebrate their graduation and their friendship, a group of graduating students got together to cosplay their favorite characters from the first person shooter Cross Fire This group of students, eight in number, are part of the graduating class…

Meet This Year’s “Creepy Woody”

This is Egashira 2:50. He’s a Japanese comedian, who recently got his own posable figure. And damn, it’s creepy. That’s okay, I guess, because Egashira 2:50 (who Kotaku has previously featured here and here) is pretty creepy, too! He’s also considered the “most annoying” comedian in Japan. (That, however, didn’t stop Sony from having him…

Sadly, Jak’s Plastic Counterpart Is As Quiet as the Real Thing

Collectible figures purveyor Gaming Heads announced a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to produce a line of statues themed around their crossover fighting game, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Who’s up first? That would be Jak and Daxter. The silent protagonist of Naughty Dog’s classic platformer series, Jak, along with his chatty, human-turned-ottsel friend, Daxter, will…

Chinese Professor Calls For Graduates To Give Up DOTA

Like school graduations in the US, Chinese graduations also have commencement speeches; speeches where possibly famous or respected people give a”pep” talk of sorts to inspire the new grads. In one university in China, the commencement speaker took to a slightly different route with his speech, to urge new grads to stop playing video games.…

Animal Crossing Characters Changed Sex for Western Release? [Update]

The latest Animal Crossing game seems to have changed effeminate male characters into female ones for the 3DS game’s English language release. Eds Note: This isn’t new for Nintendo or AC. As pointed out by Legends of Localization, Animal Crossing: New Leaf‘s Japanese version features two characters named male “Grace” and “Roland”. Both Grace, a…

Dark, Somber iOS Platformer Jumps to PC With a Fresh Coat of Paint

We already showed you Nihilumbra once before. Now, Beautifun Games’ Limbo– and Portal 2-esque platformer is coming to PC (specifically, Steam) bearing gifts. The PC version boasts quite a few improvements, which you can see in action in the video above. In addition to a graphical update, the game’s getting a remastered soundtrack, controls and…

Man Carrying a Knife Storms Anime Event in Tokyo

Over the weekend, an event for Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Animation ended after a man allegedly stormed the theater stage, wielding a weapon and reportedly demanding to see one of the anime’s voice actresses. The event, held on Saturday in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro, premiered the first two episodes of upcoming Hyperdimension Neptunia animated program, which is based…

Japanese Artist Wants To Make a Vagina Boat

Japanese artist Rokudenashiko has a dream. She wants to make a “pussy boat”, like an actual boat (well canoe). Oh, she also wants people to chill out about vaginas, too. Warning: This article has content some readers might find objectionable. Rokudenashiko creates dioramas with rather unique terrains: plastic molds of her vagina. Originally, the artist…

The Man Building New Games Using Antique Code

20 years ago Lance E. McDonald rescued an Amstrad CPC-464 at a market in country Victoria. He was six years old. Now, married with two young children, Lance is on a mission. He wants to make a video game like the ones he used to play, using the tools he first learned when he was…

District 9 Action Figures Are Fokkin’ Terrific

The second thing I thought after I saw District 9, right after “holy shit”, was “man, I hope they release action figures for that mech”. Sadly, we’re a few years on and that hasn’t happened, but where official merch is found wanting, custom builders can get the job done. Built to “GI Joe” scale (so…

Turning A Model Into A “Clicker” From The Last Of Us

Now that the game’s out, and it’s rather good, you can bet we’ll be up to our eyeballs in cosplay paying homage to The Last of Us. Cosplay that’s going to have to work very hard to beat this effort, which transformed a model from a regular human into a “clicker”, one of the worst…

Game Of Thrones LEGO Needs To Happen Right This Instant

It never will, of course. A show with that much blood and rude bits will never get LEGO’s stamp of commercial approval. But oh, with these custom-made pieces, we can dream. Builder Albert “miniBIGS” Hernadi is selling these Game of Thrones minifigs on his Etsy page, with five characters from the show’s first season/first book…

Ellen Page Says The Last Of Us’ Ellie “Ripped Off My Likeness”

There’s no getting around it. Even after a slight redesign, anyone who plays The Last Of Us will know that the character of Ellie has a lot in common with the actor Ellen Page, from her appearance to her voice. It’s not actually her, of course. Page had no involvement in The Last Of Us…

Zillion-Dollar Madden Lawsuit Survives Another Verdict

Despite all efforts to kill it, the lawsuit over who really made the Madden we all play today keeps chugging along. A jury ruled that a statute of limitations does not apply to the claim of Robin Antonick, credited on the cover of the first John Madden Football for PCs back in 1988. This would…

An Xbox 180 Drags Sports Back From the Future of Gaming

Until Wednesday there seemed to be very little selling the Xbox One to a sports video gamer. The questionable ability to rent, share or re-sell its games—fundamental to a culture built on annual releases and punching friends on the couch—was only the beginning. It’s a console that cost $100 more than its competitor, with no…

Ultra-Real Assault Rifle Controller Pushes Ahead Despite Uproar

We first got wind of the “Delta Six,” a super-realistic assault-rifle controller for those who like to put the FP into their FPSes, back in October. Predictably, the gun’s purpose and look didn’t play well in mainstream coverage, so it was pulled off the market. Now it’s back, after a successful $200,000 Kickstarter. Delta Six…

The Week in Games: Get Your Motor Running

Summer begins with some noteworthy names releasing on consoles this week—Ride to Hell: Retribution, a title first spoken five years ago, finally arrives. Deadpool shows up to lay waste to the fourth wall, as he usually does, and Hotline Miami at last hits consoles with a PS3 and Vita release. Today • Game & Wario…

Police Blotter: Someone Stole an Xbox 360 from the U.S. Open

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Games and consoles are currency, objects of dispute, sometimes even weapons themselves. Kotaku‘s Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. Xbox 360 Tent Finishes 1-Under for the Tournament ARDMORE,…

Dragon Quest X Coming to PC in Japan

Dragon Quest X was conspicuously absent from E3 and its Wii U version may not make it to the west. A PC version might stand a better chance, though, and Siliconera reports Japan is getting Dragon Quest X on PC at the end of September. Currently a beta for the PC version is underway (not…