Microsoft

This Generation’s Best Final Fantasys Weren’t Named “Final Fantasy”

This console generation saw only a few Final Fantasy games during its time in the sun but luckily two of them were amazing. Of course, I am not talking about Final Fantasy XIV—decent as it is after its relaunch—or any of the Final Fantasy XIIIs. No, I’m talking about Lost Odyssey and The Last Story…

Xbox Live Survey: Three Percent of Users Don’t Approve of Free Games?

When it was announced back at E3, the free-games-for-paid-subscribers deal called Games With Gold was supposed to last only until the Xbox One’s launch. Well, now it is officially continued as an “ongoing benefit.” That’s not what caught my eye about the announcement, however. “According to recent surveys, 97 percent of participating members have given…

What An Xbox One Achievement Looks Like

We knew that the way achievements work has changed…but did you know that they’ve also changed in terms of how they look? Here’s what getting an achievement on the Xbox One looks like in motion; GIF courtesy of Gearnuke. Microsoft has confirmed to Kotaku that these are in fact the new achievements. Here’s some slightly-obscured…

Battlefield 4‘s Beta Ends, Glitchy GIFs Emerge

The Battlefield 4 beta is officially over, and DICE says the game is ready to launch on October 29. This limited period of time was more than enough for those who participated to capture hilarious moments and glitches and share them with us. Let’s take a look. 64 people can do a lot more than…

Xbox One: Everything We Know

The Xbox One is out on November 22, and we know almost everything there is to know about Microsoft’s new console. For your convenience, we’re rounding up all of that information and putting it right here. As we continue to learn more about the Xbox 360’s successor, we’ll keep updating this post, so check back…

Tetsuya Nomura Explains the Look of Kingdom Hearts III

It’s going to be a while before Kingdom Hearts III is completed, and a new video gave us a sneak peek. KHIII designer Tetsuya Nomura also recently provided more details about the game’s visual flair, expressing his desire for the game to look oh so Disney. As previously stated, Kingdom Hearts 3 will have a…

How Japanese Gamers Felt After Touching the PS4 and Xbox One

The PS4 and Xbox One won’t be out in Japan until next year, but many attendees to last month’s Tokyo Game Show got to try out the upcoming consoles and voice their opinions. Here’s what they thought. This week, Weekly Famitsu published the results from its TGS 2013 poll. One of the questions were on…

GOOOAAAAAL! Looks like Microsoft’s efforts to get into the original series business are ramping up. Deadline Hollywood reports that a soccer reality show called Every Street United is the first unscripted show greenlit by the Xbox Entertainment Division. The series will travel the world looking for the best amateur footballers in various countries. (That’s a…

Even Microsoft Thinks Cross-Platform Multiplayer “Makes Sense”

One of the biggest failures of Microsoft’s involvement in the PC space has been its treatment of gaming relative to the Xbox brand. Halo came late then stopped coming. Gears of War and Forza have never gone PC. [Correction: Gears of War 1 did.] So you’d be forgiven for assuming that Microsoft has given up…

Stare Longingly At This Xbox One Educational Video

This video is great. Not for the content, the parts where heads are talking. But the parts where heads are not talking. What should be a video where we all learn about the fantastic new things Microsoft is doing with Xbox Live for the Xbox One instead becomes a video that should have been called…

Thanks, Xbox 360, For Remembering That I Invert My Thumbstick

It’s human nature to want to break things down into easy-to-understand binaries: Introvert or extrovert. Gay or straight. Republican or Democrat. Autobot or Decepticon. And in video gaming, one of the greatest binaries of all is defined by how a player likes his or her right thumbstick: Regular or inverted? For those of us who…

Let The Xbox One Pranking Begin

You can turn an Xbox One on (and off) using voice commands. Handy for the home, but in the workplace? There’s room for pranks. These tweets by Andreas Fredriksson, a senior engine programmer at the freshly-multiplatform Insomniac, are hilarious, because you don’t need video to imagine exactly how it goes down. Andreas Fredriksson [Twitter, via…

Lost Planet 3 Needed More Crazy “Capcom-Style” Moments, Says Developer

Lost Planet 3 wasn’t perfect. But, despite being an overly familiar shooter, the story it told and the main character that players controlled manage to feel more meaningful than most other action-centric games out there. It felt like the cast’s relationships to each other and their own feelings were at stake. It also felt like…

Xbox One’s Top Marketer Brags to Advertisers About Kinect’s Abilities [Update]

Microsoft’s top marketer tossed a juicy hunk of red meat to his kind of people yesterday. While Xbox One isn’t selling the stuff Kinect collects from your living room to marketers right out of the box, the capacity is there, and it could be the kind of game-changer that makes ad buyers swoon. Let’s remember…

Top Microsoft Exec Says ‘Xbone’ Nickname Didn’t Even Occur To Him

It’s hard to believe they didn’t see it. And yet Microsoft’s Phil Spencer says he didn’t anticipate that their new console, the Xbox One, would immediately be dubbed the “Xbone” by fans and detractors alike. “At first, I guess the thing that bugged me the most is I didn’t see it,” Spencer told Gamespot in…

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Gamers Want Dead or Alive Bikinis

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate: Core Fighters is a free-to-play version of DoA 5 Ultimate. The game has perks and items available for purchase, including the story mode of the full game and all the other characters. But it looks like what players really want are the sexy threads. One of the Dead or Alive…

Xbox One’s Day One Patch Takes 15-20 Minutes To Download

Let’s remember this on Nov. 22: Microsoft says the Xbox One will require a day-one patch that, the console’s chief architect says, will take 15 to 20 minutes to download. [first item, via IGN]

Xbox 360 Owners Say They Were Banned For Downloading Free Games

So, for a while now, and very much on the down-low, some Xbox 360 owners have been downloading free games, taking advantage of a loophole in Microsoft’s Xbox Live marketplace. I hope they enjoyed it, because a bunch of them are now saying they’ve had their consoles banned for their troubles. Here’s the situation: for…

Leaked Dark Souls II Videos Show Co-Op, Armor and Enemies

Dark Souls 2 isn’t out until March of next year. But the network beta’s been running in Japan and other places for a little while now. You know what that means: leaked footage showing what the hotly-anticipated sequel looks and plays like. There’s about an hour’s worth of footage total here so get a snack.…

Why I’m A Little Bit Worried About Kinect

I am a little bit worried about Kinect. I’ve just spent 10 minutes being scanned into Kinect Sports Rivals. I’m not sure if it’s working correctly. The only feedback I am being given is from a Microsoft rep to my right. He’s politely giving me instructions when the Kinect (for some reason) stops the scan.…