Microsoft

Microsoft Says Xbox Live Is Now Fixed

It took over five hours, but Microsoft now says that Xbox Live should be back up and running in North America. If you can’t connect, try the console reboot sequence described here first. And if that still won’t let you sign in, let us know in the comments below!

Sure, the first half of this Titanfall tips video from Microsoft is mostly just hype, but in the second half, they’ve included a few simple but worthwhile pointers. Some of the ideas are similar to the tips we’ve already shared, but three of them are small new ideas worth keeping in mind. To paraphrase the…

Xbox Live “Core Services” Are Down (Don’t Blame Titanfall)

Of all the times for Xbox Live to be experiencing “limited service”. Microsoft’s Xbox Live has been having some pretty serious issues for the past hour or so. I could sign into my account (both in a browser and on my Xbox One), but couldn’t sign into Titanfall or access stores. Your mileage may vary;…

​Meet The Assholes Ruining Online Gaming

You can hear terrible prejudices bubble up when you’re playing a Killzone, Call of Duty or Halo match online. This stuff is bad when you’re in the heat of a tense deathmatch showdown, trying to just have fun and win. It’s even worse away from the game. The Bigot Gamer collects all sorts of overheated…

Wacky Titanfall News Report Has Halo, Call of Duty Shooting Each Other

Look, we can’t say that Next Media Animation’s segment on today’s hot release actually, y’know, makes sense, as far what the moving images signify. But it’s fun to watch. And, hey, it’s Francis! Think he knows he’s in this? The best part of NMA’s take on Titanfall has to be its terrible approximation of the…

Tips For Playing Titanfall

It’s Titanfall day, people. Are you prepared for a parkour-filled, multiplayer-only, first-person shooter experience? We’ve been playing for days and have a few tips on how to best take advantage of all its neat features. We’re not ready for an official review just yet. Servers only just went live and we want to make sure…

Titanfall‘s Backstory, Summarized In One Minute

So that’s why theTitan classes are called Ogre, Stryder and Atlas! Lore‘s here to summarize Titanfall‘s background story with a huge amount of references. LORE Titanfall Lore in a Minute [YouTube] To contact the author of this post, write to: [email protected]

​Coming Soon (Maybe) to Your Xbox Dashboard: Political Ads

Video games can be great place to escape the drudgery of the real world. No need to think about tax rates, paying utility bills or contractor rates when you’re in a Halo multiplayer match. But the dirtiest competition in the real world—jockeying for elected office—might be landing up on an Xbox near you, if Microsoft…

CLD ainaveltsaC nI snruteR draculA

Lords of Shadow 2—the latest variation in Konami’s long-running Castlevania series—let you play as Dracula. Its upcoming add-on will keeps it in the family, making the alpha vampire’s albino spawn playable in the Revelations DLC. Set during the period where Dracula lay dormant for 1,000 years, Revelations will be a story-centric prequel to the events…

Gun Smuggler Uses Xbox 360s To Hide Illegal Weapons

Joseph Bunger, 34, faces up to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to smuggling firearms internationally, with the parts hidden inside Xbox 360 consoles. He was arrested last year after Australian customs authorities opened one of the consoles he’d shipped from the US to find “a 9mm pistol, gun parts and two empty magazines.”…

So That Titanfall Xbox One WAS Real. Sort Of.

Back in January, there were rumours that Microsoft would be releasing a special Titanfall-branded Xbox One console. That machine never actually appeared. At least, it never did for consumers. At least one of the consoles was made though, as it was presented to Respawn today by Microsoft. You can see in the image above that…

A New DirectX Is Coming

I hope you didn’t get too comfortable with DirectX 11, because DirectX 12 is right around the corner. Microsoft has released a teaser image, showing that more info will be revealed at GDC (on March 20). That gives you just under two weeks to get the fear, paranoia and Windows 8 jokes out of your…

The Xbox One’s Controller Now Has “Increased Sensitivity”

Last month, Titanfall developers Respawn said that, after consultation with Microsoft, some changes were going to be made to the Xbox One’s controller. Now we know exactly what those changes were. The statements, from Respawn’s design lead Justin Henry, said the original controller input “was a little overly twitchy”, and that a pending update would…

Project Spark goes into beta today and a select group of folks can start using their Xbox Ones to make games. The creation suite has already been in beta on PC for Windows 8.1 users, letting do things like recreate Minecraft inside Project Spark. If you’re already in the Windows beta, you’ll also get access…

“We don’t have any information on the Xbox One hardware,” BlazBlue producer Toshimichi Mori told Siliconera. “I’m curious if Xbox One will even come out in Japan. I’ve been asking people about it and not one person has given me a definitive answer.”

Cortana has a Different Look on the Windows Phone

Cortana, the digital consigliere coming to Windows Phone 8.1, won’t be represented by the light blue apparition of a woman. Cortana will, appropriately enough, be a halo. It, uh, she? will be represented by a blue ring that animates whenever she’s speaking or thinking, says The Verge, citing sources inside Microsoft and providing some screenshots…

Age of Mythology? It’s been too long, old friend, too long. An extended edition of the fantastic (and weirdly forgotten) strategy classic is on its way to Steam

Good news for gaming headset owners: The Xbox One March update will bring with it support for optical Dolby audio output, meaning that your Astro/Turtle Beach/other gaming headset will finally get a full surround signal. Polygon‘s tested an Astro headset and they say it works great.

Civilization Revolution and Dungeon Defenders are the March offerings from the Xbox 360 Games with Gold program. Xbox 360 owners will be able to snag these games free from March 1-15 and 16-31 respectively.

Here’s a list of some of the indie developers participating in Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program to make games for Xbox One. Bonus points if you recognize them all.