Microsoft

Microsoft Officially Bans Emulators From Windows Store

Microsoft has revised Windows Store policy to remove emulators. The new rules bar any applications that emulate preexisting game systems, resulting in the removal of a popular program that supported games from Nintendo and Sega consoles. The new policies explicitly disallow emulators on “any device family.” It’s a wide reaching change that stymies emulation efforts…

Microsoft Reveals Xbox Scorpio’s Impressive Specs

Microsoft has promised that their next console, Scorpio, will be “the most powerful console ever,” and today the company delivered on that promise, revealing a set of beefy specs that, in terms of raw power, surpass any video game console on the market today. In a PR reveal with Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry, Microsoft unveiled that…

Microsoft Is Making A New Xbox Controller Inspired By The Military

Xbox just announced a new controller: the special edition Recon Tech wireless controller, to be released next month. With a stylized utilitarian look Xbox says was inspired by “military technology,” combat armor and sci-fi mechanical gear,” the controller has etched textures on the front and back, apparently for grip. Like other Xbox wireless controllers, it’s…

All Hail The Brief, Glorious Return Of The PC Demo

Demos have been gone so long there will be younger readers who never really got comfy with them in the first place, but a some news from big PC publishers this week shows that the oldest (and maybe best) way of selling a video game is making a comeback. OK, so demos never entirely disappeared—and…

No Conan Dicks For You, Xbox One

Make that, no dongs at all. Conan Exile’s Xbox One release will be sausage free, it seems. The game’s early access Windows release has a penis slider, so players can make sure their character has the weenie they want. Or he wants. Whatever.  Mods have been make even bigger dicks possible. Of course!   But…

DayZ’s Dean Hall debuted a game called Ion during Microsoft’s E3 press conference in 2015. Like a lot of other things announcedat a MicrosoftE3 press conference in recent years, it now no longer exists

Microsoft Unveils $10 Monthly Gaming Subscription Service For Xbox One [Update]

Coming this spring to the Xbox One, the Xbox Game Pass will give console owners access to over 100 Xbox One and backwards compatible games for $9.99 a month. The Xbox Game Pass is not a streaming service, like PlayStation Now, but a game download subscription along the lines of EA Access. Subscribers who pay…

Halo Wars 2: The Kotaku Review

The nice thing about Halo Wars 2 is that it works. Which is nicer than it sounds, because the biggest fear about real-time strategy games on a console, and the thing that generally keeps those games off the platforms in the first place, is that a control pad does not rank highly on the preferred…

Microsoft just announcedthat the Xbox’s E3 briefing will air Sunday, June 11th at 2PM PST, and not on Monday morning, when it usually is.

Final Fantasy XIV‘s Interface Made Futuristic Thanks To HoloLens

We’ve already seen what Microsoft’s HoloLenscan do to Portal. Now, let’s picture what it can do to Final Fantasy XIV Japanese Twitter user Tanufuku created this mock-up to see how it could handle the MMORPG’s interface.  Tanufuku thinks this actually might make the game even more immersive as well as make it possible to play…

Playing Portal In The Real World

Why play Portal on a 2D screen when you can play it all around you in the real world? This Portal demo for Microsoft’s Hololens—an “augmented reality” headset that displays digital content on glasses overlaid on your outside vision—looks incredible. It was made by developer Kenny Wang, who did something similar last year with Pokemon…

RIP Xbox One Snap Mode

Snap Mode, that gimmick on the Xbox One that let you “snap” something else onto the side of your screen while you were watching a movie or playing a game, is no more. Microsoft is ditching the feature to make the console’s dash run faster. The Xbox One’s dash has always been a tad sluggish…

The Xbox One is getting an update soon, and one of the more interesting changes is the addition of a “copilot” mode, which will let two controllers be assigned to one player. This is great news for disabled and young gamers especially, who can use the feature to assign controls or have someone help them…

Platinum Games Apologizes For Scalebound‘s Cancellation 

Earlier this week, Kotaku broke the news that Scalebound seemed to be in trouble. It was, and Microsoft confirmed it was pulling the plug. Now Platinum Games and Scalebound director Hideki Kamiya have issued comments regarding the cancellation. Here is the statement from Platinum Games President and CEO Kenichi Sato: Regarding the Cancellation of Scalebound…

The New Red Xbox One Controller Looks Like Candy And I Want To Eat It

Today Microsoft introduces two new official colors to the Xbox One Wireless Controller line. There’s green and orange, which looks like an escapee from a Halo bundle, and sweet, delicious red, with its colorful candy buttons and delicious gummi analog sticks. It makes my teeth ache. Available exclusively from the Microsoft Store and GameStop, the…

Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries, released a statement on the Halo Waypoint forums clarifying the development of Halo/Mega Bloks project Haggar and confirming its development. She noted that Haggar was “just one example of several similar projects we have evaluated throughout the years.” Ross’ statement reads as follows: “Over the past few days, footage…

Apparent Leaked Footage Reveals Cancelled Mega Bloks Halo Game [Updated]

It seems that Master Chief almost ended up blasting Covenant made of Mega Bloks. After showing the Diddy Kong racing sequel that never was and a scrapped sequel to Oni, archivist Andrew Borman is now reporting on the prototype for Mega Bloks Halo in a new video on his YouTube channel Borman reports that the…

Accidentally Released Forza Horizon 3 Developer Build Reveals Unannounced Vehicles

Players downloading yesterday’s Forza Horizon 3 update on PC got a bit more than they bargained for, in the form of a 53 GB unencrypted developer build of the game, revealing a whole slew of unannounced vehicles that also screwed up players’ save files. The Forza Horizon 3 version ending with .37.2 went live on…

Killer Instinct‘s Thunder Gets A More Culturally Accurate Outfit

Despite working with members of the Nez Percé tribe during the development of the Killer Instinct reboot, developers didn’t get the details of Native American warrior Thunder’s costume quite right. Today’s free Legends of Thunder costume fixes that. According to a post by Killer Instinct senior marketing manager Nicole Fawcette on Xbox Wire, the rush…

The Uncertain Future of Minecraft‘s Independent Servers

For most of its life, Mojang has allowed private Minecraft servers to exist with few, if any, caveats. The largest servers, like Hypixel and Mineplex, have player bases rivaling those of full independent games, as well as enough staff to create experiences that can be almost unrecognizable as Minecraft. But in June of 2014, Mojang…